I know that I have not played too many scenarios in the LOTR game, but I just had what I feel was my best result yet.

Passage Through Mirkwood.

As an aside I just received my 2nd core set this Christmas. So, what I own is 2 core sets and both Hobbit saga expansions. And I only used core cards in these decks.

I played 2 handed in this scenario. Tactics/Lore & Spirit/Leadership. My heroes were Legolas, Gimli and Beravor & Aragorn, Theodred, and Eowyn.

I managed to beat the scenario in 5 turns. And that included ending up with the Don't Leave the Path segment. I did my first point add up and came up with 70 points. No one died. and there were only 3 damage tokens on my heroes at the end. I had all of the cards in the deck. No easy mode. And I used the Shadow cards. Previously, I had only played easy mode and with no shadow cards.

In this short amount of time, I managed to have in play all 3 Stewards of Gondor (they really will let anyone be Steward), Aragorn had his Celebrian's Stone, Gimli had his dwarven axe, and I had 2 Northern Trackers in play. I swear I did not stack the decks. My tactics/Lore deck even had 3 Gandalfs in hand.

I feel that I could not possibly have another game go as well as this one did.

You can only have 1 copy of unique cards (like Steward of Gondor) in play. If there's a black circle infront of the name of the card that means it's unique and only one copy can be in play at a time.

You can only have 1 copy of unique cards (like Steward of Gondor) in play. If there's a black circle infront of the name of the card that means it's unique and only one copy can be in play at a time.

*bangs head on table rapidly*

Arrrgh. I never even thought to look for the star. I only looked for 'Restricted'.

Well, that figures. I have to cheat to do well.

Grumble.

Dont' beat yourself up on this It seems everything else worked out miraculously and there will still be these moments when you absolutely own the game...and that feels just nice

There are some easy to miss rules in the beginning, so it's a good thing to peek in the Rules & Questions forum from time to time just to see what kind of questions are being discussed.

In the meantime I hope you still keep enjoying the game!

We all make silly mistakes when we're learning a game, and anyone who says different is lying. Keep going and you'll have many triumphant moments!

A small point but each fully completed game round ads 10 points to the final score.

It would be easy to miss that as a new player since it was implemented at a later date and thus is not originally part of the core rules.

If you're having trouble finding success with this game (and most people do!) please check out the new player's guides posted at "Tales from the Cards". In particular I recommend the guide "5 Things I wish I'd known...." which helps a lot of new players by highlighting some of the quirky rules in the game. This makes a LOT of the scenarios a lot easier to deal with.

Also check out "Hall of Beorn" for some excellent advice on deck building and general info about the game. If you dig deep into these sites you'll learn a lot of strategy that will help you find success.