Is it not uncommon for a new solo player to be defeated pretty soundly by the first adventure in Mirkwood with the leadership starter deck? I was going along fairly well, making progress and keeping the staging area manageable when I decided to engage the Dol Guldur Beastmaster before I was required to. All my heroes were defeated within 4 rounds, mostly due to the stacking shadow effects.

I'm determined to go back at it but wow, what a foe! Any tips for playing through the first adventure with the starter decks? I'd really like to avoid deck building for now until I learn the ropes. I'm spending a lot of time presently just working through the phases in my head and making sure I do everything in the right order, so I don't want to over-complicate things.

I'd like to avoid any "this is exactly what you should do and in what order" responses. I'd like to learn more about some general strategy if that makes sense.

Thanks all, what a great game!

No not uncommon at all. Quite normal in fact.

If you have Just the Core set then deck building is fairly straight forward. One option is to play two decks even though you are playing solo. (also quite common).

Spirit and Lore are the easier decks to start off with. Leadership is ok. Tactics is best to be ignored initially unless you are building a multi-sphere deck or like losing.

This is good leadership deck built for only core cards (i dont use 50 cards in this deck because i think its kind of boring rule)

Heroes: Aragorn and Theodred

Leadership

Allies

1x Brok ironfist

2x Faramir

2x Longbeard orc slayer

2x Silverlode archer

2x Son of arnor

3x Guard of the Citadel

3x Snowbourn scout

Events

1x Grim resolve

2x For Gondor!

2x Valiant sacrifice

2x Sneak attack

Attachments

2x Steward of Gondor

1x Celebrians stone

Others

3x Gandalf

Other cards what i use in this deck are: 3x Durins song and 1x Boots from Erebor

This deck is pretty simple: Get resources with steward of Gondor and buy with that lots of allies, Faramirs ability is good for doing guests, when you have lots of allies your will power can raise over 20 in best cases and for Gondor! will work those tough enemies like Ungoliants spawn.

That was all and i know that its not best deck in the world but i have beated 5/6 guests (i have only 6 guests to play) with that deck (in normal mode) so you can try it