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I moved Erestor into my Glorfindel/Elrond deck and it works a lot better. His ability plays well with Spirit. Lot of cards that interact with discard deck. Don't know what theme to do with Elladan & Elrohir now, though. Can go Dunedain, Ranger or maybe even Silvan and fit thematically. The latter both require some Lore though and I'm not sure about tri-sphere any more.
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Jan 7, 2016 13:10
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So I thought I'd try LOTR. So far I only have a single Core, Foundations of Stone and Shadow and Flame. Would an Elrond, Spirit Glorfindel and Eowyn deck be worth taking to a 2-player game in which my buddy will probably have a Leadership/Tactics deck? It seems like it'd be amazing for questing but not that great at much else, and so perhaps a little one-dimensional? The basic plan, such as it is, is to run some card draw to get Glorfindel and Elrond set up, then discard all the spares to pump Eowyn, and just quest the poo poo out of things. One other question: can I use Vilya's ability to pay for cards from Tactics or Leadership? If so, I guess I could stuff the deck with powerful allies from those spheres to shore up its poor combat? Zephro fucked around with this message at 14:14 on Jan 7, 2016 |
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Jan 7, 2016 14:05
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You won't be able to afford powerful anything with just Elrond alone. He's going to shoulder the expense of everything non-Spirit in that trio. One-dimensional is fine in multiplayer. Play Master of the Forge (to fetch attachments for the Elves) and Asfaloth (to win the game) as quickly as possible. Lorfindel might work better than his Spirit version tbh.
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Jan 7, 2016 14:26
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sassassin posted:Lorfindel might work better than his Spirit version tbh. I don't understand this statement. Why? To go from a starting threat of 34 from 27, you get a mediocre, at best, healing ability, and a lore resource icon. Even if you don't get Light of Valinor in your starting hand, Spirit Glorfindel is the superior choice.
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Jan 7, 2016 14:51
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mongol posted:I don't understand this statement. Why? To go from a starting threat of 34 from 27, you get a mediocre, at best, healing ability, and a lore resource icon. Even if you don't get Light of Valinor in your starting hand, Spirit Glorfindel is the superior choice. A lore resource every turn is more valuable than another spirit one when he's playing Eowyn & Elrond. If he's looking for Elrond to spend on other spheres he's going to have a hard time playing the great Lore cards he has access to. His healing becomes 2/resource because of Elrond. Makes Healing Herbs easier to use (Elrond has better things to do, usually). He has access to threat reduction in spirit. Can play Light of Valinor on Elrond instead without the negative ability to nullify. Quest + Defend or Ring abilty is better than Quest + Attack. I haven't played a huge number of scenarios, but -7 threat pales in comparison to actual utility imo.
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Jan 7, 2016 15:05
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sassassin posted:A lore resource every turn is more valuable than another spirit one when he's playing Eowyn & Elrond. If he's looking for Elrond to spend on other spheres he's going to have a hard time playing the great Lore cards he has access to. There is nothing in a Elrond/Glorfindel/Eowyn deck that would justify Healing Herbs. The loss of either of those heroes to heal another would be a waste of their stats. Looking at the cards available in the expansions he has, I would rather have more access to Spirit resources. Throw all unexpected courages on Elrond, and you have plenty of utility on both Elrond and Glorfindel.
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Jan 7, 2016 17:56
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There's only 1 Unexpected Courage in the core. I like Healing Herbs as its a 0 cost attachment you can just throw down in case of emergency later on (for you or teammate). But then I use it in Erestor decks so it's not as big a waste of a draw.
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Jan 7, 2016 18:15
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Am I the only one who never thought twice about proxying cards that were 1 or 2 of's in the Core Set? Who cares it is a solo/co-op game. If you want 3 UC's...do it big, have fun. ...Of course then I bought more core sets  
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Jan 7, 2016 18:25
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Making a proxy card is more work than I care about doing for a non-competitive game tbh. What's next? Making custom cards that "fix" "mistakes"?
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Jan 7, 2016 18:32
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Thanks for the advice! I don't really know what I'm planning to do, tbh - maybe it'd be better to play straight Spirit/Lore and use Elrond to pay for the Lore cards? I guess my thinking was that Imladris Stargazer and a bit of card draw seems like it'd be pretty good for ensuring that Vilya fires most turns, right? And that means I can afford to run relatively resource light. Or maybe there's too many moving parts for that to work reliably. edit: I think I'm fine with proxying 1 or 2-ofs from the Core, tbh. Zephro fucked around with this message at 19:47 on Jan 7, 2016 |
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Jan 7, 2016 19:44
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sassassin posted:Making a proxy card is more work than I care about doing for a non-competitive game tbh. Fair, but we have different thresholds for "work" then obviously. Making a proxy takes me about 5seconds tops. And come on, don't take my point to ridiculous levels. Saying "these random 2 cards are UC's" or slipping a ripped corner of paper into a sleeve aren't the same as attempting to re-balance the game myself by a long shot. Its not like the user created First Age expansion.
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Jan 7, 2016 20:04
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Zephro posted:Thanks for the advice! I don't really know what I'm planning to do, tbh - maybe it'd be better to play straight Spirit/Lore and use Elrond to pay for the Lore cards? I guess my thinking was that Imladris Stargazer and a bit of card draw seems like it'd be pretty good for ensuring that Vilya fires most turns, right? And that means I can afford to run relatively resource light. Or maybe there's too many moving parts for that to work reliably. I play 4 player and my friend was always fairly successful with an Elrond/Spirit Glorfindel/OTHER SPIRIT HERO deck(he's used Frodo, Galadriel and now Arwen). Elrond+Vilya+Imladris Stargazer works well. Elrond also gives access to Asfaloth on Glorfindel which is a must.
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Jan 7, 2016 20:51
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I don't use Unexpected Courage in any of my decks because I don't use any heroes from whom courage would be unexpected.
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Jan 7, 2016 21:20
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Can someone give me an overview about the Star Wars LCG? What it takes to get a cool deck going, how thematic it feels, how it works and is there a 3 or 4 player mode? Are there just the two factions or is it more complicated than that? I've never really looked into it because I prefer co-op to competitive games, but it's Star Wars so I am still curious about this game.
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Jan 8, 2016 17:22
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It is good. Deck building is somewhat unique, in that you basically build the deck out of 10 6-card sets, rather than picking each of the cards individually. This generally works well, retaining the core dilemmas that make deckbuilding fun on a more macro scale and gives incentive to try and make the quirkier b-tier cards work, while making it easy to slap together something decent in 5 minutes. Some folks, however, really prefer fine-tuning their resources and whatnot. It does, though, make meta move a bit slowly, then shifting rapidly when a key set drops to fully realize an archetype. As for the multiplayer, there's a 2v2 mode that feels very natural (and allows pulling out some obscene combos) and somewhat mediocre 1v2/1v3 scenario decks (they're still cool for when you want to introduce some buddies to the game but know there's too much of a skill difference for enjoyable 1v1). I really like the fact that, for the most part, the objective sets printed specifically for multiplayer are made in such a way to be still perfectly playable in the default 1v1. There are two asymmetrical sides (light side and dark side) and you'll have to build decks for both, like for Netrunner. However, unlike Netrunner, the asymmetry isn't that strong and concerns mostly asymmetrical win conditions and color wheel stuff. Within each side, there are three factions/colors (Jedi, Sith, Rebel Alliance, Imperial Navy, Smugglers & Spies, Scum & Villainy + neutrals), so you get your color wheel and poo poo. The color wheel is kind of interesting in this game, because it's like it's split into three, but each of those parts has an evil twin with its own twist on the same aspect of the game. Combat is a pretty fun puzzle with heaps of bluffs and tricks. I wrote about it in detail in the board game thread. The theme is a bit of contentious thing. One thing that is initially wierd is little differentiation between dudes/vehicles or land/space, so you can have an Ewok destroy a Star Destroyer or whatnot. However, if you can accept the somewhat zoomed-out, slightly abstracted way of how combat is presented (was the Death Star destroyed by Luke, or by an X-Wing shooting a torpedo?) it has the fast pace of an action movie (e.g. no summoning sickness) and a lot of little flavourful card interactions. For example, "Get me Solo!" is a card that does stuff regarding capturing light side dudes, but gives an additional boon if it is Han Solo in particular just because. A lot of equipment does a thing, but gains an additional effect if put on the "canon" owner (which has interesting consequences, given there's often multiple different versions of said character). My personal favourite is the original smugglin' Han Solo:  He's a cool, if a bit fragile unit, that dunks some damage as soon as he is declared to take part in combat. Why? Because Han shoots first.  Conversely, Greedo is a character that's really cool for his low price, but gets really hosed the second someone gets the jump on him (wins the Edge Battle).[edit] Rebel Leia is also amazing theme-wise:  When she would be killed off, she is taken prisoner by the Empire instead and the entirety of Rebel Alliance untaps in a mad scramble to rescue her. Lichtenstein fucked around with this message at 17:51 on Jan 8, 2016 |
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Jan 8, 2016 17:48
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2v2 sounds interesting to me, what should I consider grabbing to get me and my friends started with enough stuff to try that?
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Jan 8, 2016 18:43
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Epi Lepi posted:Can someone give me an overview about the Star Wars LCG? What it takes to get a cool deck going, how thematic it feels, how it works and is there a 3 or 4 player mode? Are there just the two factions or is it more complicated than that? We also have a thread for it located over here. Come on over and ask some questions. Epi Lepi posted:2v2 sounds interesting to me, what should I consider grabbing to get me and my friends started with enough stuff to try that? You don't really need anything special for 2v2. There aren't really enough objective sets that make use of the rules for it. If you have Balance of the Force then you have most of them. Really the only thing you need from Balance is the rules. If you like Co-Op then the Challenge decks in that deluxe box will probably be more to your liking those are designed for 2v1 or 3v1 and pretty tough last time we tried them. They might be easy to crack with the newer cards.
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Jan 8, 2016 18:50
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Yeah, it's just rules from Balance of the Force (which are available online free). The box has the scenarios and six sets geared particularly for multiplayer which will be fun if you plan to play that way a lot, so it's okay to both grab it ASAP or whenever you feel like it. All you need is just enough "normal" cards for everyone to have a deck to assemble (2x Core Set will suffice, but don't expect much deckbuilding freedom if rocking four decks at the same time). Please mind that the typical LCG distribution of 3x Core Set + 1x Everything Else is switched here for 2x Core Set + 2x Edge of Darkness (first big box) + 1x Everything Else. This is pretty great because it minimizes multiple-box waste (IIRC it's just two spare cardboard tokens and two card sets that have a "1 per deck" limit). Edge of Darkness is basically a Core Set for Smugglers and Scums, for whom there was no space in the other box (just a single token card set for each). Oh, the Balance of the Force also has the second Death Star dial (basically dark side victory point counter) that goes up to 16 for multiplayer, rather than standard 12, so I guess that's a factor if you have severe OCD.
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Jan 8, 2016 20:03
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Someone just posted some badass new Conquest spoilers on the Skype group:   Rumor has it the next pack will come out on January 18th.
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Jan 9, 2016 00:14
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Did FFG just like... run out of creatives when they put together the Conquest team? Those are the names I would type into a spreadsheet of prototype cards.
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Jan 9, 2016 00:23
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admanb posted:Did FFG just like... run out of creatives when they put together the Conquest team? Those are the names I would type into a spreadsheet of prototype cards. "Prudent Fire Warriors" is a little goofy, but the other two are pretty spot-on for the Tau background/fluff.
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Jan 9, 2016 00:44
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Auxiliary looks like a shoe in 3x in Shadowsun and the AM warlord. 2 shields are almost always solid, Shadowsun gets a slightly lesser Stealth Cadre that Earth Caste Technician doesn't whiff on, and that AM warlord gets a new command trick (that also bumps AM stuff). Exploratory Drone and Trailblazer seem like they'd share the same deck slot, and I'm not sure which is better. My instinct says the Drone, despite getting stomped on by Warlords or synapse units, but that's some dedication to kill a 1 cost unit. Also doesn't whiff on with Earth Caste. I'm glad Tau are finally getting good cards.
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Jan 9, 2016 00:58
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admanb posted:Did FFG just like... run out of creatives when they put together the Conquest team? Those are the names I would type into a spreadsheet of prototype cards. FFG is kind of bound by GW and all foot soldiers in tau have to be fire warriors. So bring out the adjectives
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Jan 9, 2016 01:28
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Can I get a quick rundown of the LOTR LCG like that guy just got for Star Wars? It caught my eye. I've been playing Netrunner and I just got Eldritch Horror and now LOTR is the next I'm looking into. I like the idea of it being co-operative instead of competitive and I like how many expansions there are because I hate money. Looking over the rules it seems a little clunky, but I guess you just gotta get a feel for it and then the pace picks up? So you gotta play 3 heroes each? Is 2 heroes at all viable, or 1? You have less starting threat I guess but less strength overall to complete quests... maybe for easier adventures? Just seems kinda intimidating, plus I have to build a deck with these 3 heroes and agree that my friend won't use those and he'll use these other ones... just kinda funny. On the other hand building a dick of different elements using like 2 heroes of one and 1 of the other sounds interesting for deckbuilding. Do people usually split or go 3 of the same? Looks like a lot of posting in this thread is about the LOTR LCG so that's a good sign for sure.
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Jan 9, 2016 02:18
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Starting with less than 3 heroes isn't really a thing, but The upcoming Grey Havens cycle will apparently support it.
Baron Porkface fucked around with this message at 05:30 on Jan 9, 2016 |
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Jan 9, 2016 04:35
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I'm coming around to the idea of playing 3 heroes. But if you're playing solo do you need to run 2 decks? Game sounds pretty hard. I guess you draw less encounter cards for fewer players but you have fewer spheres and options. Still the more I read about it the more I think I'll go ahead and grab the core set at least, see how I feel after I play that.
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Jan 9, 2016 05:48
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Zaphod42 posted:I'm coming around to the idea of playing 3 heroes. But if you're playing solo do you need to run 2 decks? Game sounds pretty hard. I guess you draw less encounter cards for fewer players but you have fewer spheres and options. You don't have to run 2 decks but it makes playing solo more fun and enjoyable. With straight one deck play some scenarios are incredibly difficult.
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Jan 9, 2016 05:50
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Baron Porkface posted:Starting with less than 3 heroes isn't really a thing, but The upcoming Grey Havens cycle will apparently support it. Unless your doing a secrecy build then it's fine.
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Jan 9, 2016 06:22
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Zaphod42 posted:I'm coming around to the idea of playing 3 heroes. But if you're playing solo do you need to run 2 decks? Game sounds pretty hard. I guess you draw less encounter cards for fewer players but you have fewer spheres and options. The Core set quests aren't the most interesting quests, but they let you get a feel for how the game plays. Remember that running less than 3 heroes means less resources each round to pay for cards. There are ways to build decks where that isn't a big deal, but it can be difficult to get through a lot of quests that way. I recommend you grab the core and check out two of the best blogs for this game Hall of Beorn and Tales from the Cards. You might want to read through this article on Hall of Beorn when you get your core: https://hallofbeorn.wordpress.com/2013/01/24/beorns-path-part-1-core-set-deck-building/ e: TftC also has a bunch of articles aimed at new players: https://talesfromthecards.wordpress.com/new-player-guides/ Both blogs are really just great resources for this game. Epi Lepi fucked around with this message at 07:31 on Jan 9, 2016 |
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Jan 9, 2016 07:28
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Epi Lepi posted:The Core set quests aren't the most interesting quests, but they let you get a feel for how the game plays. Remember that running less than 3 heroes means less resources each round to pay for cards. There are ways to build decks where that isn't a big deal, but it can be difficult to get through a lot of quests that way. Thanks, this is great.
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Jan 9, 2016 08:03
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The first quest of Lost Realm is a bitch. Especially when you draw all hard cards in the first few turns. Three orc war parties and then the treachery that makes them all attack during the quest phase. Seems fair.
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Jan 9, 2016 14:15
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sassassin posted:The first quest of Lost Realm is a bitch. Especially when you draw all hard cards in the first few turns. That whole cycle seems all over the map in terms of difficulty. Like the Lost Realm box quests are all relatively standard and therefore the balance seems tweaked for people who own a lot of cards, but Escape from Mount Gram and Across the Ettenmoors have weird new mechanics so they've accidentally set the difficulty super low. I'd honestly say Mount Gram is the third easiest quest in the whole game, after Passage through Mirkwood and Emyn Muil. Just start a 3 willpower hero and off you go.
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Jan 9, 2016 15:30
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Single Tight Female posted:That whole cycle seems all over the map in terms of difficulty. Like the Lost Realm box quests are all relatively standard and therefore the balance seems tweaked for people who own a lot of cards, but Escape from Mount Gram and Across the Ettenmoors have weird new mechanics so they've accidentally set the difficulty super low. Battle of Carn Dum is impossible. The only way my friends and I go through it was to say our threat out limit was 99 instead of 50 and we still almost lost.
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Jan 9, 2016 18:32
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Single Tight Female posted:
That's a pretty big exaggeration, the deck has lots of tricks.
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Jan 9, 2016 18:53
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Baron Porkface posted:That's a pretty big exaggeration, the deck has lots of tricks. I don't think it's an exaggeration to say it's an easy quest (although I should clarify I very much mean in solo, but the way the quest works you're largely playing solo regardless), but I'm not saying you win if you start a 3 willpower hero. It stops you getting locked up at the start though, which is the most important thing to avoid out the gate. The problem with Mount Gram is that quite a few of the encounter cards don't fire. Captives of Gornakh can simply fizzle, Feeble and Weary sometimes results in a threat increase of like 2 or 3, when you're starting with 14 at the absolute most. Sound the Alarm results in a teeny little Dungeon Guard most of the time. Prison Cell is just free stuff. If I'm counting correctly only half the Mount Gram cards even have shadow effects, and they aren't very strong either. I'm just saying that quest is arguably the most unusual overall design, and as such they didn't have a good pool of experience to pull from for balance. As such, they've undershot it. edit: Also for what it's worth, I've played it like 20 times. The design is just so cool that I ended up playing it with every hero combination I had in the 4 decks I had built for MP. It took 17 rounds to finish with Mablung apparently. Single Tight Female fucked around with this message at 19:59 on Jan 9, 2016 |
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Jan 9, 2016 19:55
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If you want something a bit lighter than the Lord of the rings, then the Warhammer quest card game removes the deck building aspect and makes it a much smoother experience. I have both and thoroughly enjoyed playing both, but WHQ is much more likely to get played
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Jan 9, 2016 20:59
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I just did my first pass of the Hills of Emyn Muil. Who the hell put together an encounter deck that throws up Rauros Falls into Rockslide?  Overall it was a bit of a slog and I can see why it's not particularly well liked but I'd say I like it more than AJtR because that one is literally 'toss all your healing cards in one deck' while this looks like it gives you a few more options to get through it.
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Jan 9, 2016 21:04
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Just played through the newbie passage through mirkwood quest using a single-hand solo newbie leadership deck. Really loved how the leadership deck performed, managed to complete the quest by the skin of my teeth. Well, at first it was the skin of my teeth, but by the end I had a small army and I rolled right over the last quest step. Got an unlucky draw of Ungoliant Spawn really early on which rocked my guys, but I hung through. I do enjoy the tactics of the game and it plays pretty well, even if some of the mechanics are a little funny if you think about it. (Like, the guy who defends against a monster does zero damage to it? huh? You always have people fighting in pairs where one attacks and one defends... yeah right) I'm a little bummed about the contents of the core set, I was expecting at least a couple starter decks with not many options for deckbuilding like netrunner, but instead its just like these four 20-ish card decks? That's kinda lame. You can toss together two spheres and double the size of it but you still would come short of a 50 card proper deck, that doesn't make sense to me. I understand needing 2 core sets to make a 4 player game, but unless you play 3 spheres you can't even make a single deck out of the core set. Well good thing I went ahead and grabbed a couple of expansion boxes that were on sale at the store huh?  Time to dig into those and think of deck possibilities.Is it just me or is Steward of Gondor like, insanely strong? +2 resources per turn? Holy crap. I guess its unique, but still. Super strong. Zaphod42 fucked around with this message at 00:27 on Jan 10, 2016 |
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Jan 10, 2016 00:25
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Resources are the one thing I never seem to be short of (beyond turn 2). Too much threat and not enough cards, but resources in abundance playing tri-sphere Glorfindel/Elladan/Elrohir.
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Jan 10, 2016 00:43
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Zaphod42 posted:I'm a little bummed about the contents of the core set, I was expecting at least a couple starter decks with not many options for deckbuilding like netrunner, but instead its just like these four 20-ish card decks? That's kinda lame. You can toss together two spheres and double the size of it but you still would come short of a 50 card proper deck, that doesn't make sense to me. I understand needing 2 core sets to make a 4 player game, but unless you play 3 spheres you can't even make a single deck out of the core set. It's 30 cards for each sphere (plus the heroes), so you can just about make a two sphere deck. But yeah, it's very limited.
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Jan 10, 2016 00:47
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