Date: 2012-06-16
Times Played: 3
Journey Down the Anduin scenario with Spirit/Leadership deck 1 loss and two wins
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[Local] Nothing really new here. I failed the first time, re-tweeked my deck and was able to win two times in a row with similar score each time. One interesting observation bellow and here I will provide example: So far I considered Dwarven Tomb card a fairly weak card … what a mistake. It is very strong as virtually increases the number of times you can play the most useful cards in your deck - with the added beauty that you only need to decide what is mots useful at the right moment.
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[Global] Cards "on paper" might look weaker/stronger then they actually are in a particular deck. Need to try several cards that I consider bad/not worthed and see if they are actually that bad or am I not seeing their full potential.

 Date:2012-06-17
Times Played: 1
Passasge through Mirkwood 2 player with my wife. Mono Spirit and Mono Tactics. Won
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[Local] My wife likes to play games with me but she is not a "gamer". I didn't have high hopes that she will like this game as she prefers economic games (euro) and she does not care about the theme so much. Add to this that she is not big on co-operative games and you get the picture. She was a good sport and gave the game a go. As far as rules go she was mostly ok but was very confused what is the difference between enemy attacking a player and a player attacking enemy. I might have chosen wrong scenario (she would enjoy the more challenging scenario more) but I went for a short one and I did not think that it would make much difference. Overal she did not like it much and was quite courious why I like it and we had a nice conversation about it (and games in general)
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[General] In general teaching rules to LOTR LCG is quite easy (as the rules are fairly straightforward) but of course the devil is in the details as there are plenty of rules on the cards them self and it can be quite hard to manage/understand them all at the same time. Now after teaching my wife the game I also understand why so many people were not impressed with this game as much as I am. Two points:
1. Without deck building you loose very fun strategic part of the game and you are left with a tactical game (that you might or might not enjoy enough to like the game as a whole)
2. If you play the game only to win each scenario once (instead of trying to build the deck that will beat it consistently) its life will be very limited

richsabre said:

Finally used that card (2 copies) last night when I switched my deck up a bit…  was able to get it out early on Bervor (and then Theodred).  That solved any card-draw/resource issues I may have had… lol.  Don't know why I was so late "getting to the party" on using that gem…  It's almost tempting to pick up a third core set cheap somewhere to try and get a third… lol

 Date: 2012-06-19
Times Played: 4
Journey down the Anduin, Spirit/Leadership deck Win, 2xLoss, Win
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[Local] I wanted to add a third victory in a row to my previous plays so I went again against the good old JdtA quest. To tell the truth I was almost sure that I will loose as soon as I saw two trolls at the beginning. I decided to go ahead any way and was amazed how well my deck was suppling me with cards at the right moment (I got Gandalf for example having threat at 49). Despite the fact that I was few step from loosing most of the game I was still able to win and I declared my deck invincible for this scenario (come on … can you get much worse start than 2 trolls?). Since I had some time left and the game was already set up I decided to play once more just for fun to see how well I will do. This time despite the fact that the encounter deck was (a bit, but still) kinder to me I never seamed to draw cards that I needed (just the opposite from the previous try). I lost to threat. I declared this play unlucky and decided to go again. This time was trounced again (encounter deck first raised my threat by 8 when I was ready to kill the troll and then slowly the trecheries killed my huge ally army) and I was doomed. That pissed me off! I tweked my deck by swapping some of the cards with those from the hunt for Gollum adventure pack (for the first time). This time I won again …
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[General] So far Journey down the Anduin is by far the best quest for solo players. Passage through Mirkwood is a bit on the easy side and it is fairly repetitive as far as quest stages go. Escape for Dul Guldur is just too hard solo (although I will try to play it again soon). I like the Hunt for Gollum but once you know how it plays it's ending seems a bit anti-climactic. JdtA starts with an earthquake (troll), it tension rises (as more and more things flood the staging area), to reach excellent finale (when you try to time going to last stage with as few enemies as possible in the staging area)

 Scenarios played:
NinjaDorg's Scenario 3 - Forgotten Ruins
NinjaDorg's Scenario 4 - The Elven Assembly
both with my regular deck (Spirit/Leadership) with Eowyn, Dunhere, Theodred. Both won on first try (in Forgotten Ruins case it was a fairly close win as far as wounds on the heroes go, The Elven Assembly was won really easily)
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[Local] Pacing of Forgotten Ruins is just ideal for new players, it gives you time to prepare before attacking you hard (with Spawn and later with Nazgul), it teaches you to time completing the stages right, shows importance of allies and lower threat. I consider it to be easier then Journey down the Anduin and would recommend it for all players that finished Passage through Mirkwood. The Elven Assembly was very easy to beat and never posed a real threat (although I was fairly lucky with my draws of the Orks that happen few times in the quest).
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[General] I played two previous custom scenarios by NinjaDorg's some time ago and I liked them quite a bit. Now I am ready to form an initial opinion on the whole series (I am still planing on trying the following scenarios as well to see how they differ). This series of scenarios should be recommended to all new players (some of them even before Passage through Mirkwood), I really think that will teach important game concepts without tossing new players into the deep water right away (I am looking at you Journey down the Anduin). There is a drawback to this namely NinjaDorg's scenarios get much easier with increased player card pool much faster then the original ones that still propose a decent challenge.

 Date: 2012-06-29
Times Played: 2
My almost standard spirit/leadership deck led by Eowyn, Dunhere and Theodred against two NinjaDorg's scenarios 5 & 6. Won both cases.
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[Local] I liked both scenarios despite the fact that I managed to win them both on first try (in the case of Ungoliant's Lair it helped that I have read the scenario and knew what to expect).
- Ungoliant's Lair - This is what I call a one trick pony scenarios. There is a certain mechanic/restriction built to the scenario and if you are surprised by it on first try it is likely that you will loose. Once you are familiar with it then it is much easier to succeed and scenario becomes much easier.
- Branching Paths - explores the concept that I find very interesting namely that your choices at the end of the scenario impact what stage you will face next. This particular quest did not fully explore the potential of this approach (as choices were quite easy) but showed that it can be done and can be very interesting.
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[Global] Again I want to reiterate that FFGs scenarios seem to handle repeat plays much better then the custom ones while the latter are much better suited for new players. I love the fact that people do create those as it greatly increases longevity of the game. Kudos to all people that develop them.

 Date: 2012-07-01
Times Played: 3
My now "standard" spirit/leadership deck led by Eowyn, Dunhere and Theodred against Conflict at the Carrock. Won three times.
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[Local] I was able to defeat Conflict at the Carrock three times in the row using my battle tested deck. At first I was a bit disappointed that I did not have to rebuild my deck times and times again before succeeding with the scenario. Now that I had some time to reflect on it all three tries required very careful play and the encounter deck did put a lot of pressure on me (be it in the danger that mass attack of trolls or enormous threat that accumulated in the staging area). This is my second favorite scenario (just bellow Journey down the Anduin) now and I hope to replay it few more times although I can see it would be much harder without any of the used spheres - spirit (threat reduction, questing) and leadership (allies, resource type)
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[Global] Unfortunately I allowed guys from the Cardboard of the Rings podcast to spoil the scenarios for me (I stated to listen just when I got the game). Despite the fact that I enjoyed listening to it I decided against doing that in order to explore scenarios on my own. This seems to be a huge problem with discussions on the game. Many of the scenarios rely on surprise factor and if it gets spoiled you loose two or three plays before gaining experience required to rebuild your deck and those first games might be really really fun as you tweak and re-tweak your deck.
One thing that starts to annoy me are difficulty levels of the scenarios. Those are really off as far as solo plays goes. How can be Escape from Dul Guldur that is famous for being almost un-beatble solo be on the same difficulty level as Conflict at the Carrock that I manged to best with my (strong but still) regular deck?

yeah the difficulty ratings really are meaningless….some quests are harder solo, some multiplayer. personally i have found the dwarrowdelf cycles all to be easier than their tag

rich

 Date:2012-07-04
Times Played: 3
Conflict at the Carrock - lost, won, lost. Again with my standard Eowyn. Dunhere, Theodred spirit/leadership deck
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[Local]I am glad that I decided to replay CatC again after my 3 successful runs against it last time. This time the scenario bared its fangs against me and showed me what it can do. First started in a pretty standard way I fielded tons of allies and was slowing down my progress on the quest as much as possible but there was one thing different - I could not draw any threat reduction cards (despite the fact that I managed to draw 4 or 6 additional cards due to valiant sacrifices). Also the threat deck attacked me in a sneaky way accelerating threat increase in few ways. Then it suddenly allowed me to go to the second stage (to tell the truth I was risking it before I was afraid of additional threat increase if I quested with not enough). Then the trolls came down. I actually would succeeded defending and slaying them in 3 rounds or so (I had so many allies after all that I was not scared of loosing some of them) … but there is one trick to the trolls attacking all at once - your threat goes up whopping 12 points. This was the end for my party.
Win was not much different then before. Third attempt was interesting again as this time encounter deck managed to kill me (not me not drawing right cards as in the first case). Dunhere was sacked on first turn, next the standard troll came up. Those two things combined meant that I was behind in resource generation. I was not able to field enough allies as I had to use resources on threat reduction. When I was finally tricked into the second stage I had only few guys on my side and the regular troll still engaged. I killed it with sneak attacking Gandalf but had to engage another troll (otherwise I would have to quest with all team just to stay equal with staging area) but this still left me with no force to kill buffed up troll and not enough quest power to take care of the Carrock. I gave up when left with two enemies (troll and snake) engaged threat at 33 and no allies (Dunhere was still sacked). FUN TIMES!
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[General] No new thoughts here just the fact that randomness inherit to all card games can trick players - someone might say after few lucky plays that the game was is too easy and never play again. Someone might be so flustered by loosing constantly an fell that even the easies scenario is HARD. I think that talking to the community (BGG/FFG) and playing each scenarios many many times will give you the right perspective (and maybe great in helping you to locate rules mistake - if you are succeeding/failing dramatically more often than others).

Date:2012-07-12
Times Played: 2
Journey to Rhosgobel -Lore/Leadership deck led by Bilbo, Beravor and Gloin
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[Local] I've had a lot of hopes for this scenario. I was looking forward to finally completely changing my deck in order to heal the eagle and for the first time I was disappointed in the scenario. Most of the lore healing cards can not be used to help the eagle, you need a decent questing power as your patient is receiving wounds very fast … and you need ton of luck to find "the cure". After my two plays I was about to say that my previous deck would deal with this scenario better than the new one despite the lack of healing cards. Luckily after some careful consideration I am convinced that I need lore to win this scenario with a decent regularity.
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[Global] I am starting to see weakness in the card pool/scenario design of this game. Namely Spirit sphere seams to be almost a must have in solo plays. I would like to see other spheres becoming more appealing (don't even get me started on Tactics and solo) or scenarios that require you to use strengths of other spheres. This is why I think Journey to Rhosgobel was a disappointment as in my mind it was promising just that and delivered it only partially. Anyway I will still play this scenario few times before writing it off.

Date: 2012-07-28 

 Date: 2012-07-23
Times Played: 5
A Journey to Rhosgobel
Win three times, lost twice. Lore/Spirit deck led by Denethor, Glorfindel and Eowyn
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[Local] Through out my plays I adjusted the deck a bit (added one lore ranged character as I was plagued with bats and crows in one of the games and added Hasty Stroke as shadow effects in this scenario tend to be brutal - those two replaced some rarely used cards). In one of the attempts I decided to try to finish step one in one turn but the actual cost of this move (or its risk in general) was to high and I finally failed. Out of all games I mostly enjoyed the one in which I got highest score (but still managed to win) - it was exciting battle on the verge of loosing (I actually lost Glorfindel) with some creative plays and risky maneuvers.
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[Global] Fantasy Flight prepared a list of players archetypes for this game at some point. They've given them some LOTR names but in short those are:
- Flavour player - builds his deck according to LOTR reality (e.g. will never use Frodo as he was not active/alive during official period of time).
- Combo player - enjoys finding synergies between the cards
- Must win player - enjoys winning and this is most important for him (or goes for the lowest score even at the risk of several losses before getting it).
I find my self in between those categories. I am not a hardcore lotr fan and I do not care if cards are in accordance to book timeline but I do enjoy the stories that this game tells. I like to find combos and synergies and I am usually quite impressed with them but I do not actively seek/invent them and test them out - I am more of one card at the time guy who is often pleasantly surprised when two cards work in concert. Finally I do construct decks to win but I am more for consistency (high percentage) of wins then about high score or 100% even success rate.

Date: 2012-09-01  

two points for you to note

1.emyn muil is the most llinear quest you will find, so do not fear, it is an idea ffg do not repeat on

and

2. these instant kill cards are rare in future packs however i warn you in dwarrowdelf there are certainly a couple that make emyn muil treacheries look like cake…..these are often complained about by players so im sure ffg will take this into account in future design

rich

 This thread is super awesome. I am tempted to try my own 100 game marathon. I'd have to trick it up somehow, so as not to simply copy the great, fun work that you are doing here. 

I could make it all two player games with my friend Zack. See if our friendship survives. Perhaps play through the quests in chronological order, only advance to the next one after beating the one before. See how far we can get before the 100 game "timer" runs out. The same quest 100 times? That's just madness. 

Perhaps put some aspect of the game to a vote: let people pick one of the heroes to play and build the deck around it? Maybe vote how many different quests I'd be allowed to run in the 100 plays (1 quest 100 times, 2 quests 50 times, 4 quests 25 times, etc). 

Anyway, keep up the great work.