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Evil Badman
Aug 19, 2006

Skills include:
EIGHT-FOOT VERTICAL LEAP

Has anyone played Warmachine/Hordes High Command? It's like the weird child of a deckbuilder in its gameplay with an LGS (expansions are a specific allotment).

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omnibobb
Dec 3, 2005
Title text'd
Its ok. Not great, not horrible. Basically, if I want to play a Warmachine game, Ill play Warmachine and if I want a card game I will play something else.

Karnegal
Dec 24, 2005

Is it... safe?

Evil Badman posted:

Has anyone played Warmachine/Hordes High Command? It's like the weird child of a deckbuilder in its gameplay with an LGS (expansions are a specific allotment).

It's a mediocre game in a bloated genre, so I'd pass.

vulturesrow
Sep 25, 2011

Always gotta pay it forward.
For you guys on OCTGN, I'd really like to try some of these games out before I commit to buying them. I'm particularly interested in LoTR, SW:TCG, and A:NR. I'm even sort of interested in Pathfinder if anyone plays that. I don't have PMs but I'll idle on OCTGN. I'm on late Central time. If you ping you might have to wait a bit as I'm playing the hell out of Hearthstone these days.

ChiTownEddie
Mar 26, 2010

Awesome beer, no pants.
Join the Legion.
More news about the ringmaker cycle: http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_news.asp?eidn=4798
...Galadriel :stare:
What a unique hero.

That said I haven't played much recently, although this weekend is a big game-a-thon with my college friends and a bunch of them want to learn :) Hoping to get a bunch of them excited to play so its just not a solo game for me.

Taran_Wanderer
Nov 4, 2013

ChiTownEddie posted:

More news about the ringmaker cycle: http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_news.asp?eidn=4798
...Galadriel :stare:
What a unique hero.

That said I haven't played much recently, although this weekend is a big game-a-thon with my college friends and a bunch of them want to learn :) Hoping to get a bunch of them excited to play so its just not a solo game for me.

I've mostly given up on LOTR, now. Not enough other people interested in it, and with a 40k LCG coming, I don't want to be split in *too* many different directions. Still, Galadriel is pretty awesome. Nice synergies with Celeborn, too. Makes me wonder what Narya will do for Gandalf. "If Gandalf would leave play, exhaust Narya to keep him in play."?

Epi Lepi
Oct 29, 2009

You can hear the voice
Telling you to Love
It's the voice of MK Ultra
And you're doing what it wants

ChiTownEddie posted:

More news about the ringmaker cycle: http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_news.asp?eidn=4798
...Galadriel :stare:
What a unique hero.

That said I haven't played much recently, although this weekend is a big game-a-thon with my college friends and a bunch of them want to learn :) Hoping to get a bunch of them excited to play so its just not a solo game for me.

Galadriel/Celeborn secrecy deck is the first thing I'm gonna try when this cycle is over.

ChiTownEddie
Mar 26, 2010

Awesome beer, no pants.
Join the Legion.

Epi Lepi posted:

Galadriel/Celeborn secrecy deck is the first thing I'm gonna try when this cycle is over.

haha I want to try that too! I'm still behind. Once I beat Hobbit 2 I am getting Heirs. I'll catch up to these new cards some day....

Feeple
Jul 17, 2004

My favorite part of this hobby is the rules arguments.

Evil Badman posted:

Has anyone played Warmachine/Hordes High Command? It's like the weird child of a deckbuilder in its gameplay with an LGS (expansions are a specific allotment).

I like it a bunch, but the core set doesn't sell it well. The expansions really open up gameplay. It solves a ton of issues I had with the DBG genre. Have a PG demo it before you pass on it.

Taran_Wanderer
Nov 4, 2013
Apparently there will be a release tournament for Warhammer 40k: Conquest at GenCon! I'm excited.

SettingSun
Aug 10, 2013

Real talk about the LotR LCG:

I've been interested in the game for a long time, and so I've finally pulled the trigger on the Core Set. Played a solo game or two to get the hang of the rules. I think I got it, cool. The game so far is everything I've expected and more. Tense and engaging, and high thematic.

My girlfriend is willing to at least give a new game I buy a try so I invite her to play. She plays the starter tactics deck and I play the starter lore deck and we play the introductory Mirkwood quest. Through what I expect is bad shuffling, most of the encounter cards we draw were location cards. And with the Ungoliant's Spawn coming out early we couldn't quest enough to tread any water and we lose by threat. We didn't even get through the first part of the quest. The loss was so devastating I think it turned her off of the game entirely. Anyone have any deckbuilding tips with just the core set that are effective enough so that I can try a second chance with her?

I'm not about to quit it anytime soon, so I'm starting to plan my buying path for the expansions and APs. What's a good thing to buy first? To expand on this, is a second core set necessary? I'm a collector at heart and I'll feel empty if I don't have every option available for deckbuilding.

InShaneee
Aug 11, 2006

Cleanse them. Cleanse the world of their ignorance and sin. Bathe them in the crimson of ... am I on speakerphone?
Fun Shoe

Taran_Wanderer posted:

Apparently there will be a release tournament for Warhammer 40k: Conquest at GenCon! I'm excited.

There'll be a release tournament for Doomtown: Reloaded as well, I'm hoping to get into that.

SettingSun posted:

What's a good thing to buy first?

Buying the sets in release order, starting with Mirkwood, is the usual recommendation. The two Hobbit sets also have some nice Dwarf cards to add in.

mongol
Oct 11, 2005

Ronald Reagan? The actor!?

SettingSun posted:

Real talk about the LotR LCG:

I've been interested in the game for a long time, and so I've finally pulled the trigger on the Core Set. Played a solo game or two to get the hang of the rules. I think I got it, cool. The game so far is everything I've expected and more. Tense and engaging, and high thematic.

My girlfriend is willing to at least give a new game I buy a try so I invite her to play. She plays the starter tactics deck and I play the starter lore deck and we play the introductory Mirkwood quest. Through what I expect is bad shuffling, most of the encounter cards we draw were location cards. And with the Ungoliant's Spawn coming out early we couldn't quest enough to tread any water and we lose by threat. We didn't even get through the first part of the quest. The loss was so devastating I think it turned her off of the game entirely. Anyone have any deckbuilding tips with just the core set that are effective enough so that I can try a second chance with her?

I'm not about to quit it anytime soon, so I'm starting to plan my buying path for the expansions and APs. What's a good thing to buy first? To expand on this, is a second core set necessary? I'm a collector at heart and I'll feel empty if I don't have every option available for deckbuilding.

You probably picked the two worst spheres to start her with. No offense. Leadership and Spirit are much better suited for new players, at least with just the core set.

sirtommygunn
Mar 7, 2013



SettingSun posted:

Real talk about the LotR LCG:

I've been interested in the game for a long time, and so I've finally pulled the trigger on the Core Set. Played a solo game or two to get the hang of the rules. I think I got it, cool. The game so far is everything I've expected and more. Tense and engaging, and high thematic.

My girlfriend is willing to at least give a new game I buy a try so I invite her to play. She plays the starter tactics deck and I play the starter lore deck and we play the introductory Mirkwood quest. Through what I expect is bad shuffling, most of the encounter cards we draw were location cards. And with the Ungoliant's Spawn coming out early we couldn't quest enough to tread any water and we lose by threat. We didn't even get through the first part of the quest. The loss was so devastating I think it turned her off of the game entirely. Anyone have any deckbuilding tips with just the core set that are effective enough so that I can try a second chance with her?

I'm not about to quit it anytime soon, so I'm starting to plan my buying path for the expansions and APs. What's a good thing to buy first? To expand on this, is a second core set necessary? I'm a collector at heart and I'll feel empty if I don't have every option available for deckbuilding.

The big thing is that the core set's cards are absolutely not good enough to play with only one sphere per deck, especially if one of those is tactics. You absolutely got screwed over by card draw, especially since you're playing with the 2 spheres that have literally no way to target locations in the staging area. Spirit's Northern Tracker is essential when that happens, though Leadership's Snowbourn Scout does have some minor ability to do the same. Also make sure you have all four Gandalfs (two each) in your decks because he is great.

Honestly though you started with the two weakest spheres in the core set. Leadership's Steward of Gondor and Spirit's Northern Tracker/Unexpected Courage (only one copy of that, sadly) break the game with how good they are compared to other core set cards, while Lore and especially Tactics don't really have anything that good.

SettingSun
Aug 10, 2013

Both you guys are right. We tried again with the other two spheres and it was easy as pie. It really emphasizes how different the spheres are really. At least she's open to playing again in the future. Now I'm excited to pick up some more cards for some deckbuilding.

Epi Lepi
Oct 29, 2009

You can hear the voice
Telling you to Love
It's the voice of MK Ultra
And you're doing what it wants

SettingSun posted:

Both you guys are right. We tried again with the other two spheres and it was easy as pie. It really emphasizes how different the spheres are really. At least she's open to playing again in the future. Now I'm excited to pick up some more cards for some deckbuilding.

As for what to start with, I think Khazad Dum and the Dwarrodelf cycle have a lot of great cards in them (Spirit Glorfindel is broke as gently caress and amazing) but honestly it's best to just buy whatever is available cause the cards are always going out of stock and it's annoying waiting for the next printing to come in from China. The Fantasy Flight site has a cool upcoming page that lets you know what part of the process the restocks are in though.

Baron Porkface
Jan 22, 2007


Khazad Dum is a bad second purchase. It's all dwarf support but not enough to make a strong dwarf deck by itself+core. I'd buy The first Hobbit first.

Baron Porkface fucked around with this message at 20:08 on May 13, 2014

Amoeba102
Jan 22, 2010

I got around to dual decking LOTR today. I had a Tactics/Spirit deck (Legolas, Bard, Eowyn) and a Leadership/Lore deck (Aragorn, Theodred, Denethor) made up from a single Core and the two Hobbit sagas. These decks I made some time ago with my GF when I managed to convice her to give the game a second shot. That was months ago, and we finished the first Core quest only and haven't revisited.
I got through the three core quests without any problems. Probably a bit of luck.
Mirkwood: Got an Ungoliant spawn early but managed to kill it. Got the end where I stayed on the path and everything went smooth.
Anduin: Ganged up on the troll and took advantage of the -2 defense when Bard does a Ranged attack. Got through the river offing pretty much everything as I went and then just cleaned up at the landing. Easy peasy.
Dol Guldur: Theodred got captured, which was probably the best case scenario. Worked my way through the first part easy enough. Took the Map with Eowyn which seems about the best option for the first objective. Once Theodred got freed, I optionally engaged the Nazgul and killed it within two turns and then it was just a case of slowly dealing at whatever pace I felt like. Job done.

Now the Hobbit ones have always given me trouble. I have in the past used the recommended thematic decks, and have only managed to limp through Over Hill and Under Hill. I keep the same decks and started with the trolls. I got pretty much stomped. Really bad draws got my threat up above the 38 - so many doomeds and when revealed threat bonuses, then the crows bringing them back to hit me again. This was easily enough to force me to engage all three trolls when I got to the second quest card, and I didn't have the Troll Camp out so I couldn't do anything about the sacks. Game over.
I gave it a second shot, and managed to get to the Trolls without having my threat high enough to force engagement with more than one troll. I also had the Beorn ally out and a Gandalf core in hand. I opted to engage two trolls anyway - leaving William for later. Used Beorns ability to get an easy 6 damage on the troll that prevents multiple attackers, then used Gandalf to add 4 more damage the next round and then finish him off early in the combat phase leaving Bert open to being mobbed down. This got me the Troll Purse too. Now I had a net in hand too and just kept William under wraps while waiting to work to getting the troll key and exploring the Troll cave. Threat got a little dicey, and I ended up on 48 on both meters when I finally had the Cave in the victory display. Then it was just finishing up the combat phase and collecting my treasure.
Tomorrow I'll see how far I can get through the rest.

Amoeba102
Jan 22, 2010

Well I only spent a little bit of time on the next two OHUH scenarios. I had a lot of trouble with the Misty Mountains Grim due to massive chain reactions with Galloping Boulders and Suspicious Crows. I had to luck out to get past that part unscathed, and then mopped up easily.
Dungeons dark and Caverns Dim I only got one shot at. Even though I managed to pass the Riddle part, as soon as I did I got two of the "Each layer find a creature card in the deck/discard and put it into play engaged with you" treachery cards in a row, which have surge due to the quest card.

There are so many little things that just cause chain reactions in these two scenarios that it is pretty tough to deal with it sometimes.
I guess thematically - There wre uncontrollable landslides that killed the characters, or once they excaped the goblin caverns and regrouped, they got swarmed.
But as for gameplay, I don't know what I can do to mitigate these problems. I have half as much trouble with Dol Guldur than I have with any of the three OHUH quests - on average. Sometimes I seem to get a breezy run, but usually it's a lot of pain and knowing I've lost before I've started.

Epi Lepi
Oct 29, 2009

You can hear the voice
Telling you to Love
It's the voice of MK Ultra
And you're doing what it wants

Amoeba102 posted:

Well I only spent a little bit of time on the next two OHUH scenarios. I had a lot of trouble with the Misty Mountains Grim due to massive chain reactions with Galloping Boulders and Suspicious Crows. I had to luck out to get past that part unscathed, and then mopped up easily.
Dungeons dark and Caverns Dim I only got one shot at. Even though I managed to pass the Riddle part, as soon as I did I got two of the "Each layer find a creature card in the deck/discard and put it into play engaged with you" treachery cards in a row, which have surge due to the quest card.

There are so many little things that just cause chain reactions in these two scenarios that it is pretty tough to deal with it sometimes.
I guess thematically - There wre uncontrollable landslides that killed the characters, or once they excaped the goblin caverns and regrouped, they got swarmed.
But as for gameplay, I don't know what I can do to mitigate these problems. I have half as much trouble with Dol Guldur than I have with any of the three OHUH quests - on average. Sometimes I seem to get a breezy run, but usually it's a lot of pain and knowing I've lost before I've started.

That sounds rough. I haven't played those yet, so I guess I'll have to be super prepared when I get to them. I will say that there were a bunch of quests in the first cycle where it felt like you either won right away or lost right away purely due to the luck of the draw.

Taran_Wanderer
Nov 4, 2013
New preview of Warhammer 40,000: Conquest is up. Reminds me a lot of Blood Bowl: Team Manager.

Amoeba102
Jan 22, 2010

Update on my dual decking Over Hill and Under Hill.

I tried again to do Dungeons Deep and Caverns Dim scenario, or the last one with the Gollum riddles. It took a lot of attempts but I got it down without any changes to my decks. Mostly from bad riddle draws, or guesses, but not always. I had one go at it where I got the riddles down easily and then failed with the rest of my team. And one where I had the riddles finished waiting for a few more quest tokens on the main quest - but drew a "you have to do the riddle" card and failed and bilbo died.
I think I only got through to the third quest card once this time, and that was enough. Barely. It's still pretty rough once you get out because of the treachery cards having surge. I ended up with 3 enemies on each of my "players" after getting to the third quest and drawing all the required cards - up from 1 on one of the players. I had most of my characters exhausted and ended up losing Eowyn - a trade off from allowing my to double attack with a powered up Legolas to get 6 quest tokens all up. Then I had no choice to go all in for the questing - using Faramir's action on the player with lots of allies, to get over the line. I have a total willpower of 23 in for that quest vs 10 enemy threat - lucky I had the quest tokens from before to get the 16 required for the quest.
Basically we just ran for it - thematically. Or saved by Eagles. Whatever.

Some things are a bit odd to me, however. I get that as soon as a quest card's requirements are met, you interrupt the game phase to move to the next quest then continue. So for this scenario, if you've already completed the quest 1 with tokens, and you need to compelte the riddle quest card you end up switching quest cards during the staging part of the quest phase. So you go from "draw 2 quest cards per player during staging" to "When revealed draw 1 card per player, and treachery cards get surge" which could be really tough if you mess it up. Say forinstabnce you complete the riddle quest on the last card of the 4 you draw in a two player game, then you have to draw two more for Quest 3B, with the potential for a few surges. That's a minimum of 6 without any surge effects. The swap to quest 3B has killed me before, especially getting the treachery where you have to add creatures engaged to you (and it still surges). It's a big leap and you have to rely on luck to even get that far (unless you stack your deck).


This marks the second time I've managed to complete OHUH saga box. First time was with the recommended thematic decks. Now for On the Doorstep - the thematic decks could only get through Flies and Spiders only to get destroyed by Smaug end on end.

Edit: My GF got me the Black Riders box, so now I can have fun with that when I get through OtD - and I can guilt her to play with me again. Haha.

Amoeba102 fucked around with this message at 11:35 on May 25, 2014

Rhaegar
Jul 16, 2006
Could anyone recommend an online store for buying card protectors. I want to pick up some for my netrunner cards but don't want to pay a fortune.

Lawen
Aug 7, 2000

Rhaegar posted:

Could anyone recommend an online store for buying card protectors. I want to pick up some for my netrunner cards but don't want to pay a fortune.

Massdrop runs occasional deals on UltraPros and Dragon Shields, otherwise Amazon or CSI are probably your best bet. For Netrunner, I like the matte UltraPros in light blue and red so you can quickly distinguish corp or runner cards.

Amoeba102
Jan 22, 2010

While I've managed to beat Flies and Spiders with my current ad hoc decks. I did have some problems with getting overrun on the staging area. But I guess it's all about speed on the Bilbo stage.
Then it's the Lonely Mountain. Which I've never beaten - not with the thematic decks and I can't do it with the current decks I've been messing with. They probably need to be changed around but I have keep them as is just to see how far I could get through each box I have.

I was just getting wrecked. So I checked the easy mode rules to maybe make it possible. Still got wrecked. I then figured I needed to find the lower bounds on how easy I need to make it before I could win. I figured I'd work my way up from the easiest change I could think of - I skipped the staging part of the quest. This was mainly to see if I could even deal with the threat and quest requirements of the lonely mountain to get the treasure out. At worst, it was going to be 10 in this test. I managed to beat it fairly easily. And I wonder how much the staging would affect that result. Would it have been pretty much the same? Next step up I'll stage 1 card instead of 1 per player.

What tactics do you use for playing it properly? Because I can't get around this one with what I've been doing. My main problems are: achieving the required willpower to overcome the ever rising threat from the lonely mountain as you burgle - anyone questing needa a minimum of 2 to even assist because of Smaug's X threat value (X being the number of non-burglar characters questing); And then there's the need to have a lot of allies ready to die for the cause.
I've found that having Faramir around is basically vital to helping out with the first part.

One other problem is running out of cards due to burgle discards or treachery discards.

Edit: Update - I did the Battle of Five Armies on regular with an unchanged deck and beat it okay. Took two attempts and beat it and it seemed like it was about even most of the way. First attempt I got a lot of progress on the quests in the first few rounds, then but something happened (I forget what exactly) and I just coulden't make it to the 5th quest card before getting swamped by orcs. I had 2 of the quests done by then as well, but just couldn't get the the siege done. Second time The siege was the last one again, but I managed to push it over while keeping most of everything clear. The final round where I managed to kill Bolg was a a bit dicey. If I hadn't of finished it I feel like I might not have made it past the next round. Definitely much easier than the Lonely Mountain.

Amoeba102 fucked around with this message at 16:10 on May 26, 2014

Epi Lepi
Oct 29, 2009

You can hear the voice
Telling you to Love
It's the voice of MK Ultra
And you're doing what it wants
http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_news.asp?eidn=4852

Last AP for the Ringmaker cycle has been announced and the Dunland Trap now says "June" on the upcoming page instead of Q2. Glad these are finally coming out, I'm psyched for increased Silvan support and I'm hoping for more Mount cards. Last AP has a Rohan hero so it would be cool to mix up the Rohan deck I keep pre-built.

Boco_T
Mar 12, 2003

la calaca tilica y flaca
Just put in an order for Khazad-Dum and the Dwarrodelf cycle, excited to find a thread with a lot of LotR LCG talk. I have been buying the expansions slowly for about a year and a half now and I get a bug every month or two and play a bunch.

For the Core Set I went on eBay and got a parted out "get up to 3 of each" auction so it cost about the same as getting a 2nd core set but I didn't have to get a big pile of Sauron cards I wasn't going to need. I also get FFS05 sleeves for all the cards, but in general getting them from CoolStuffInc is a good deal because they sell the major expansions for $20 and the adventure packs for $10.

Does anybody have a good solution for storing sleeved cards? I have them in regular card boxes but you have to put them at an angle and so you can't store as many in a box and it looks weird and bad.

PJOmega
May 5, 2009

Boco_T posted:

Just put in an order for Khazad-Dum and the Dwarrodelf cycle, excited to find a thread with a lot of LotR LCG talk. I have been buying the expansions slowly for about a year and a half now and I get a bug every month or two and play a bunch.

For the Core Set I went on eBay and got a parted out "get up to 3 of each" auction so it cost about the same as getting a 2nd core set but I didn't have to get a big pile of Sauron cards I wasn't going to need. I also get FFS05 sleeves for all the cards, but in general getting them from CoolStuffInc is a good deal because they sell the major expansions for $20 and the adventure packs for $10.

Does anybody have a good solution for storing sleeved cards? I have them in regular card boxes but you have to put them at an angle and so you can't store as many in a box and it looks weird and bad.

Regular 200/400/600/800 count card boxes available from your FLGS or through CSI should hold sleeved cards fine. As for storing all cards sleeved, I suggest against it. Even Ultrapro Matte Perfect Fits have variance in size and color between runs.

Evil Badman
Aug 19, 2006

Skills include:
EIGHT-FOOT VERTICAL LEAP

Boco_T posted:

Just put in an order for Khazad-Dum and the Dwarrodelf cycle, excited to find a thread with a lot of LotR LCG talk. I have been buying the expansions slowly for about a year and a half now and I get a bug every month or two and play a bunch.

For the Core Set I went on eBay and got a parted out "get up to 3 of each" auction so it cost about the same as getting a 2nd core set but I didn't have to get a big pile of Sauron cards I wasn't going to need. I also get FFS05 sleeves for all the cards, but in general getting them from CoolStuffInc is a good deal because they sell the major expansions for $20 and the adventure packs for $10.

Does anybody have a good solution for storing sleeved cards? I have them in regular card boxes but you have to put them at an angle and so you can't store as many in a box and it looks weird and bad.

Unsleeve them and put them in a binder. Use the sleeves for decks when you actually need them. Doubles as an awesome way to browse cards when deckbuilding.

Evil Badman fucked around with this message at 00:49 on Jun 6, 2014

roorximadinosaur
Dec 29, 2011
A couple buddies of mine recently bought LOTR along with the Hobbit, a tons of expansions, etc. Even though we feel pretty confident after building our decks, we're regularly getting completely stomped on in any scenario difficulty 4+ along with The Hobbit expansions.

Specifically, we had some trouble with Journey Down the Anduin. We're having a lot of trouble dealing with the amount of monsters in play from the very beginning.

What I'm wondering is if anyone could share some basic insight on handling mountains of dudes whacking you in the face. Also, some general strategies to understand the game and deck building process in general. This is personally my first LCG, and I am SO bad at it, it's ridiculous.

For your curiosity, here are the sets we currently have:
One core set
Conflict at the Carrock (Did great until TROLLS!)
The Hunt for Gollum
Road to Rivendell
Return to Mirkwood
Heirs of Numenor
The Hobbit: On the Doorstep
The Hobbit: Over the Hill and Under the Hill
The voice of Isengard
Khazad-Dum
The Dead Marshes

To be fair, we haven't done of a lot of these. I think they got a little excited about deckbuilding and bought lots of packs to have more card options.

sirtommygunn
Mar 7, 2013



Some general tips for Journey Down the Anduin, depending on what specifically your obstacles with it are:

Goblin Sniper: have someone use Dunhere, so he can kill them directly in the staging area.
Eastern Crows Surging: have someone use Thalin and put him on quest duty, his killing of the crows happens before Surge activates.
Hill Troll: get Forest Snare or chump blockers depending on how much threat gain you can take. If the starting Hill Troll is giving you trouble your starting threat is probably too high and needs to be lowered so you have time to build up to facing him.
Too much threat in the staging area to quest: Get Faramir and a questing army going.
2nd Phase issues: Dunhere really shines here since there are only optional engagements.

You want mostly cheap cards in your deck with only a few expensive but powerful cards thrown in. Everyone wants as many Gandalfs as they can put into their deck. Two sphere decks are usually the best. Try to build your deck for the encounter rather than trying to have it do everything, this goes double for the hero cards. Don't overload on big heroes; it's usually best to have one really good generalized hero (ex. Aragorn, Gimli) and a couple supporting or specialized heroes with a lower starting threat (Theodred, Eyown).

Sorry I mostly gave Core set solutions to this, I don't know the cards in a lot of those expansions you got; there's a good chance there's better solutions in there.

sirtommygunn fucked around with this message at 13:31 on Jun 8, 2014

Gravy Train Robber
Sep 15, 2007

by zen death robot
I only have the core set, The Black Riders, and Khazad-Dum, but I've found the 3-sphere suggested Hobbit deck from the rulebook, built using the Core+TBR, to be really fun to play. What are some of the other sets that have decent cards for building along the Hobbit theme? LOTR is one of my favorite games, but I rarely have a chance to play it.

roorximadinosaur
Dec 29, 2011

sirtommygunn posted:

Two sphere decks are usually the best.

Thanks for all the info, that helps a lot. Do you use two sphere decks in a four player game? Other players don't feel gimped on cards?

Gravy Train: http://www.cardgamedb.com/index.php/lotr/lord-of-the-rings-deckbuilder
I've been using this to read about cards.

Epi Lepi
Oct 29, 2009

You can hear the voice
Telling you to Love
It's the voice of MK Ultra
And you're doing what it wants
My friends and I tried the Redhorn Gate last night. We started rough, then were going pretty smooth until we hit Stage 3 of the quest. We hadn't cleared Caradhras beforehand so we were hit with the -1 to hope to all chars, and stage 3 kills any characters with 0 hope. We immediately gave up as this killed all 3 of one of my friends heroes and 2 of my other friends. Ouch.

We now know enough about the quest to plan for this stuff, but it got me wondering. How many of you read the quest/encounter cards of a new quest before you do the quest? We usually just go in blind, and I think I like it better this way, even though it can lead to situations like last night where we lose horribly.

Baron Porkface
Jan 22, 2007


Usually I do easy mode first.

sirtommygunn
Mar 7, 2013



Epi Lepi posted:

My friends and I tried the Redhorn Gate last night. We started rough, then were going pretty smooth until we hit Stage 3 of the quest. We hadn't cleared Caradhras beforehand so we were hit with the -1 to hope to all chars, and stage 3 kills any characters with 0 hope. We immediately gave up as this killed all 3 of one of my friends heroes and 2 of my other friends. Ouch.

We now know enough about the quest to plan for this stuff, but it got me wondering. How many of you read the quest/encounter cards of a new quest before you do the quest? We usually just go in blind, and I think I like it better this way, even though it can lead to situations like last night where we lose horribly.

I too just played the Redhorn gate, though my group was torn to shreds by wargs looking for one of the two last victory point cards, the freezing thing killed my friend's hero just before I drew a Celebrian's stone. Besides that, we did pretty well and just got horrible luck as the last required victory point cards showed up as shadow cards. Those Snow Wargs though are absolutely brutal; having two of them returned to the top of the encounter deck certainly didn't help either.



Also played: Massing at Osgiliath (couldn't beat it in six tries, gently caress the Wainrider Captain)
Into the Pit (pretty easy, breezed through it)
The Seventh Level (Had a little trouble with this one as we got a lot of Watchful Eyes on the same player).
Flight from Moria (Cheesed the hell out of this one as we got the gamble exit first, got through it with no losses and then it was just a matter of collecting 9 progress, could have beat it in one turn, will revisit).

roorximadinosaur posted:

Thanks for all the info, that helps a lot. Do you use two sphere decks in a four player game? Other players don't feel gimped on cards?

Gravy Train: http://www.cardgamedb.com/index.php/lotr/lord-of-the-rings-deckbuilder
I've been using this to read about cards.

With all the packs you've collected, you might be able to make serviceable decks with each person. I haven't tried playing with four players though I can certainly say it'd make my decks weaker; some scenarios would feel outright impossible.

sirtommygunn fucked around with this message at 00:44 on Jun 9, 2014

Boco_T
Mar 12, 2003

la calaca tilica y flaca

Epi Lepi posted:

We now know enough about the quest to plan for this stuff, but it got me wondering. How many of you read the quest/encounter cards of a new quest before you do the quest? We usually just go in blind, and I think I like it better this way, even though it can lead to situations like last night where we lose horribly.
On the one hand, you can literally only do this once with any scenario so it seems like good value for your money to do it. On the other hand, for me, I don't think any part of the game has felt worse to me than taking the game out after having it stored for a while, building a deck from scratch, trying a new scenario, and getting crushed.

I mean I know you're only wasting what, a half hour or an hour maybe, but still. Also, maybe that was just my fault for trying to make a functioning fighting eagles deck using mono Tactics based only on Core + Mirkwood cards.

Taran_Wanderer
Nov 4, 2013
The Tales from the Cards blog has released a big fan expansion for Lord of the Rings: The Card Game called First Age. I've only given it a glance so far, but it looks pretty good!

ChiTownEddie
Mar 26, 2010

Awesome beer, no pants.
Join the Legion.

Taran_Wanderer posted:

The Tales from the Cards blog has released a big fan expansion for Lord of the Rings: The Card Game called First Age. I've only given it a glance so far, but it looks pretty good!

I am reading through the cards now myself. Obviously can't tell without playing but it looks INCREDIBLY well done. Also hard :P

Speaking of LOTR LCG, I've played once recently (still solo) but mentioned it off handedly to a friend...HE IS OBSESSED. I am super excited because he is chomping at the bit to come over and play it. This will definitely revitalize the game completely if him and I can lock down a time to play weekly or something.
Supa exciting.

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Carteret
Nov 10, 2012


The more I read about WH:40K:C the more interested I am. Consider me optimistically excited? I'm in for the core set, at a minimum.

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