Hi Guys,

I bought LotR LCG a few weeks back and have really enjoyed some cooperative games with friends. However, what really attracted me to the game was the solo play option. However, it is absolutely ridiculously difficult to complete even the introductory scenario. In fact, I am yet to complete it! I’ve tried all four pre-made decks, read tons of deck building, tried combining different spheres, yet nearly every time my characters get overwhelmed or the staging area fills up to the point that questing becomes impossible. Surely someone out there must have discovered a ‘recommended starting desk’ for solo play if you only have the core set. They must be deck design that most would agree gives you the best chance. Hopefully someone on here can help me because after a dozen or so failed attempts at the very first scenario, I honestly feel like burning all the cards!

firstly do not burn your cards.....every solo player has felt like this. when the game first came out some did even leave the game, but if they had stuck with it they would see just how great solo play turns into

secondly....this game does get a lot of great cards for solo play in later packs, especially cycle 2. i will not say this is a 'buy to win' game because it isnt, but its worth remembering you only have the core set.

thirdly....the quests are indeed hard, infact core quest 3 is still considered unbeatable solo by all but the best decks.

now the decks...as you say you have tried deck building, and i would say keep doing this- the mono sphere decks arent developed enough to be strong in core set card pool.

i am never much good at recommending full deck lists, especially with a limited card pool, but there are a few good decks you can make..instead of trying to list a deck i will give the follow recommendations on cards/ combos

-test of will is still a must have in all decks. perhaps a weakness of the game, but it makes spirit an almost must have in solo play. so whatever spheres you chose, try spirit and test of will and hasty stroke. that way treacheries wont affect you so much

-hero choice is key, before card choice. i would say a good group is aragorn who gives you an extra quester for 1 resource, eowyn who is a power quester (but useless everywhere else) and perhaps beravor who is great all round. this is 3 spheres so waters down your deck a lot, so you may want to take one out to make 2 spheres. my favourite is lore/spirit, so instead of aragorn try perhaps denethor, and put unexpected courage on him to take away really bad cards from the top of the deck.

-try to get some good combos going, such as beravor or gleowine + protector of lorien. this is basically card draw + a way to use excess cards to boost defense or willpower. remember that protector of lorien and beravor have been errated.

tactics is powerful but in solo less so in core set. legolas is one of the best heroes though, as he gives progress as well as killing enemies. get two copies of the blade of gondolin on him for 4 progress per enemy killed.

hope this helps

rich

Thanks Rich, that does actually help! I'll try out a few more combinations and hopefully have a bit more success.

It seems odd though that FFG don’t recommend a good starting desk, even if just as an example of how deck building could be done.

yes, i agree, and in later packs this does happen (saga packs). i think that the idea was for the starter decks to give people enough experience, but i dont think the idea works well for solo players.

here is another decent combo:

gloin + damage + he gains resources + self preservation healing.

this way you get resources for a hero getting damage which can then get healed. he doesnt even have to be defending, every time an 'evil storm' or 'dol guldur orcs' come up, you know you are going to get a few resources. you just have to make sure he doesnt die!!

another great cheap card is riversong (lore ally). he can peak at the encouter deck. less useful in multiplay as you have two cards coming, but in solo he is great.

also the most powerful card (if you ask just about any player) is considered to be steward of gondor. if you are running leadership you need it in.

in general i would say that try to ignore fighting as much as possible. questing is always going to be the first thing you need to do to win, so even if you have to sacrifice someone (snowbourne scout is good for this) or give some damage (if its not too much you can run gloin combo) it is better if it means you can quest more

richSabre has a lot of good suggestions and it sounds like his suggests are helping you (glad that you cards are safe from fire - for the mean time at least).

There are some really some good blogs with great articles on deck building that you might find helpful too - a couple of links below:

http://hallofbeorn.wordpress.com/2013/01/24/beorns-path-part-1-core-set-deck-building/

http://talesfromthecards.wordpress.com/deck-building-101/

Personally, I found playing solo with two decks/hands helped me quite a lot whilst learning the game mechanics. It meant that I got to enjoy the game more because I survived for longer and had more chances of trying different combos ...and even won occasionally.

oh yes- Chuckles is right, two handed play is great in this game. at first i didnt try it becuase other games felt like 'playing the other person' but in this game it just feels like you have more cards in your hand

rich

oh yes- Chuckles is right, two handed play is great in this game. at first i didnt try it becuase other games felt like 'playing the other person' but in this game it just feels like you have more cards in your hand

rich

Exactly! ...I thought I might be cheating until I discovered that lots of people did and it was really helpful and fun. Its likely that it was one of your posts that encouraged me to to so richsabre

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_news.asp?eidn=2968

This is part 1 of a three part series from early on in the game. While it isn't restricted to just talking about the core set, I found it helped get me in the right mindset for deck building. Personally, in the early days, I liked Aragorn, Theodred, and Eowyn; tons of questing, and Aragorn is still there to get some fighting done.

While I know a lot of people recommend two-handed, I don't like it. Not that it's cheating or anything, but that it is WAY too much for me to feel like managing for a quick game when I'm not going after it multiplayer. Most quests do have some nice scaling to accommodate solo play. Some that are nearly impossible solo, like the Tower or the Return to Mirkwood, but were made more useful when easy mode was introduced. Might be worth checking out easy mode while getting a feel for a deck that works.

in addition i would like to add that most, if not all, quests have a certain 'key' to winning them, with passage through mirkwood being the exception....however this key idea can probably be applied to it

for example some quests either need you to

1. rush through the early parts before you get overwhelmed by enemies/locations

2. crawl through the early parts until you have enough forces for the finale, which is usually very quick

an example of this is journey down the anduin where you need to figure out how to deal with the troll. once that is done you usually have a good idea by then if you are going to win or not.

passage through mirkwood is a very balanced quest however one thing you do know is that you have a 50% chance of dealing with a very formidable enemy on the last stage. so you need to prepare for that. this is quite difficult as 2b has only 2 progress needed, so it is very easy to overspill here. this is where riversong comes into use. he allows you to check what is coming in solo and so you can only commit enough willpower and no more that round. you can keep doing this until you are ready to face the Spawn

rich

You can beat Passage through Mirkwood with the stock Spirit, Leadership and Lore decks. Winning with Tactics is really hard and for masocists only. I would learn to beat Passage with those first three decks in that order. You will learn a lot about how those spheres work and how to beat the game solo.

Then move on to Journey, but stay away from solo Tactics. The core set really should contain a warning about that. Now try deck building. By this time you will have learned how great Eowyn is at questing among other things, so you might want to include her in your first multi-sphere deck.

Above all, don't quit the game. It is hard initially, but after you get the hang of it and a few more expansion sets to deepen your card pool, you'll be asking for harder quests. I've been where you are - most of us have - and I like the game better today than I did when it first came out.

Dunhere, Eowyn, Denethor for starting heroes. Put Faramir in the deck and Stand and Fight. Discard Faramir to Eowyn and S&f him back into play. Block with Denethor as needed. Put Unexpected Courage on him too.

Thanks for all the advice guys! I tried again, this time mixing the Tactics and Spirit decks. The main reasoning was to get Legolas (with The Blade of Gondolin(s)) and his progress bonus along with Eowin for questing. I thought that Thalin can be an awesome fighter with the axes or quester thanks to his skill of damaging enemies as they are revealed.

Amazingly this deck smashed through the first scenario! Thank goodness for that, I won't burn all the cards just yet.

I very nearly made it through the Anduin, having killed the Troll but then couldn't get rid of Chief Uthak before his damage became devastating.

When a listed out the deck (as below) I can clearly see now why multiple core sets are useful, as I have a lot of single cards. For example, clearly more Dwarven Tomb cards could be used to bring back The Galadhrim's Greeting again and again, lowering the threat right down.

I have the first two adventure packs, but unless I'm missing something, I didn't really find that many useful cards in them.

Anyway, thanks again for all your help!

-- Heros --


Legolas


Thalin


Eowin



-- Attachment --


2 x Blade of Gondolin
2 x Citadel Plate


2 x The Favour of the Lady
2 x Dwarven Axe
Horn of Gondor


Unexpected Courage


Power in the Earth



-- Ally --
3 x Gondorian Spearman


3 x Veteran Axehand
2 x Gandalf


2 x Horseback Archer


2 x Wandering Took


2 x Westfold Horse-Breaker


2 x Winged Guardian


Beorning Beekeeper


Lorien Guide


Beorn


Eomund


-- Event --


3 x Blade Mastery
2 x Hasty Stroke
2 x Feint


2 x The Galadhrim's Greeting
2 x A Test of Will
2 x A Light in the Dark
Will of the west


Swift Strike


Dwarven Tomb


Quick Strike


Rain of Arrows


Stand and Fight

that is excellent

the deck looks great as well. i would say as for the two pack's cards usefulness.....the main cards you want (and will have some of) are the song cards. these are very important for multipshere deck building as they allow you to give sphere icons to heroes.

overall the first cycle doesnt have as many power cards as dwarrowdelf cycle but there are some very useful ones. also just thinking from memory you should now have some of the dunedain attatchments which are very useful and cheap.

one thing about your deck i would change, is that i would put at least 1 northern tracker in. he is incredibly powerful as everytime he commits he places 1 progress on any location in the staging area. get two in play and its even better. with only 1 spirit hero he is expensive at 4 cost (where song cards are useful but you wont have spirit song yet) but i would do so all the same

rich

I've always included westfold horse breaker in every deck with spirit that I've made.

Not having any Lore or Leadership hero's in your deck is probably not be helping your love of the cards from first two adventure packs.

Burning brand is one of my all time favorites (lots of poor experiences with shadow cards) and when Burning Brand is combined with Dunedain Warning this makes for a very good defender ie Denethor becomes an absolute wall.

Song of wisdom allows you to put Burning Brand on non lore characters. (oh and pay for lore cards )

Dunedain Mark is a good cheap attack boost, that isn't 'Restricted' like 'Dwarven Axe' or 'Blade of Gondolin' - so there isn't any limit to how many you have attached to a character... ie Legolas could have 2 Blades and 3 Marks.

Rivendell Minstrel is a good way to increase your chances of getting songs into play for mutli-sphere decks.

Frodo's low threat & ability to convert damage into increased threat can be very useful in certain decks too

(I do realise that none of these work particularly well with your current Spirit/Tactics deck)

I only have the core and the first hobbit box and Ive had the most solo success with Eowyn, Berevor, and Legolas, and all the best cards from each of those factions. Another thing you can try if you dont want to buy 2 cores to get 3 copies of most cards is to build 34 card, 2 card max decks

Thanks for all the advice guys! I tried again, this time mixing the Tactics and Spirit decks. The main reasoning was to get Legolas (with The Blade of Gondolin(s)) and his progress bonus along with Eowin for questing. I thought that Thalin can be an awesome fighter with the axes or quester thanks to his skill of damaging enemies as they are revealed.

Amazingly this deck smashed through the first scenario! Thank goodness for that, I won't burn all the cards just yet.

I very nearly made it through the Anduin, having killed the Troll but then couldn't get rid of Chief Uthak before his damage became devastating.

When a listed out the deck (as below) I can clearly see now why multiple core sets are useful, as I have a lot of single cards. For example, clearly more Dwarven Tomb cards could be used to bring back The Galadhrim's Greeting again and again, lowering the threat right down.

I have the first two adventure packs, but unless I'm missing something, I didn't really find that many useful cards in them.

Anyway, thanks again for all your help!

-- Heros --


Legolas


Thalin


Eowin



-- Attachment --


2 x Blade of Gondolin

2 x Citadel Plate


2 x The Favour of the Lady

2 x Dwarven Axe

Horn of Gondor


Unexpected Courage


Power in the Earth



-- Ally --

3 x Gondorian Spearman


3 x Veteran Axehand

2 x Gandalf


2 x Horseback Archer


2 x Wandering Took


2 x Westfold Horse-Breaker


2 x Winged Guardian


Beorning Beekeeper


Lorien Guide


Beorn


Eomund


-- Event --


3 x Blade Mastery

2 x Hasty Stroke

2 x Feint


2 x The Galadhrim's Greeting

2 x A Test of Will

2 x A Light in the Dark

Will of the west


Swift Strike


Dwarven Tomb


Quick Strike


Rain of Arrows


Stand and Fight

Its kind of fun because i have used almost same deck when i started to play, only big difference is that, i use Gimli instead of thalin XD