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Oshio

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Posts posted by Oshio

  1. Posted

    Mestrahd said:

     

    I played 2-player for the first time yesterday. In one game against Anduin, during the quest where you don't add cards to the staging area, we pulled Wolf Rider as a shadow card. He stayed on top of the deck being the shadow card for EVERY attack for like 3-4 rounds until I drew a Hasty Stroke. That was rough. I considered that very unlucky to be that specific situation and pull a card that bounced to the top of the encounter deck.

     

     

    That happened to me once as well. Remember, though, you deal all shadow cards out at once, so he's only the shadow card for one attacker per round for 3-4 rounds.

    And to OP: That can't happen. The first part of the quest setup is drawing the random encounter card. The second part is searching for the Hill Troll, if one is not already in play. So drawing a Hill Troll from the deck in setup is the best possible result, as you won't end up starting with anything else. Now, if you draw a Hill Troll during your first turn's quest phase, then you are SOL.

    I think a lot of the problems people are having are the result of missing rules or card text.

  3. Posted

    Servant:

    Can't use Galdalf 9 times unfortunately. If you Sneak Attack him he goes back to your hand. If you put him into play the 'vanilla' way he is discarded from play, thus Stand and Fight does not work.

    I think Spirit/Leadership is the best deck by far for Solo play now, but I'm not a fan of Aragorn in it due to the enormous amount of starting threat. I prefer Eowyn, Theodred and Dunhere, and have close to a 100% success rate against scenario's 1 and 2 with it. Theodred is fantastic in a 'Splashing Leadershi' deck due to his additional resource generation and low threat.

  5. Posted

    There are a few things to note here:

    First, this is a base set. There's no way around that. That alone is going to be an issue because right now, it's very hard to tell what a 'good deck' is because there really aren't many good decks due to the size of the card pool. I think, in my experience, there are 2 'decent' legal 50 card decks out there and 1 very good one, that's about it. So everyone complaining about how hard solo is now is a bit biased, because chances are they are playing a deck that just needs better cards for it to work. Play a similar deck against scenario 2 after a few sets have hit the streets and I think you'll be singing a different tune.

    In the same vein, right now it is impossible to construct a legal single-sphere deck, which is a major problem. Dual-sphere decks that don't use leadership have serious resource problems, and a dual sphere deck that does use leadership has a 1/3 chance of being auto-screwed in the third scenario. Even with a couple of packs under our belt solo sphere decks will continue to suck because you won't be able to trim out bad cards. This is probably going to take at least 5 or 6 months to remedy, but once that happens solo-play is going to get much more interesting because you'll be able to build a deck that can withstand some of the wackiness scenarios similar to 2 and 3 throw at you. Right now even the best solo deck buckles when you start to mess with the hero lineup.

    The last thing to note is that, yes, the scenarios vary widely in difficulty level based on the number of people playing. Scenario 1 is a breeze for almost everyone, though it can occasionally present a challenge against a solo deck if you draw several spiders in the first couple of turns. Scenario 2 is fairly difficult for 1, or occasionally 2 players, but is easy for 3 or more. This may be a bit of a design problem, and in hindsight I would have probably included a 'solo only' scenario to balance this out, but there you have it. Hopefully in the future they will be a bit more balanced. 

    Anyways, as someone who plays this game solo about half the time, I think it's got some kinks to work out but a very solid foundation to build on.

  6. Posted

    Malekous said:

    I have beat the first and second scenario with tactics only. Yes, it depends on the staging area and locations. However, spirit wouldn't last long if the first 5 encounters were all enemies...

    Anyway, people are counting tactics out of even dual spheres. Just saying, its not that bad.

    Not necessarily. Tactics/Leadership wouldn't be half bad, despite the high starting threat.

    And yes, Spirit could last long even if the first 5 encounters were all enemies. They have the best quester out there and the only threat reduction in the game, coupled with someone who can snipe enemies in the staging area.

  8. Posted

    ArachneJericho said:

     

    HyenaSpotz said:

     

    Leadership is hands down the best sphere in the game so far, without contest. It's a powerhouse in solo at 30 cards, and I believe it's currently impossible to build a working 50-card deck without using Leadership.

    Even so, Spirit is my favorite. I just kind of enjoy questing, and Spirit is a powerhouse at it. Now if only they had some more allies so they wouldn't suck and die during all the other parts of the turn, things might be good. Once an Adventure Pack or two hits the shelves, I suspect Spirit has a lot of potential. 

     

     

    I managed to make a deck that gets through Mirkwood, using Spirit and Tactics but it can only win consistently with three keyword/card changes (Sentinel, Ranged, and Wandering Took), so it doesn't really count. Both spheres contain cards that are useful to the decks of your teammates, and far less to themselves. Which is quite thematic, but weakens them severely in solo play.

    Spirit is my favorite sphere even in solo, even though solo is a disaster for it. I love Éowyn, she's quite the questing powerhouse, and Bereavor's ability to kill treachery cards has been a life saver more than once. And the being able to sneak through quests by massively lowering threat is neat. The Galadhrim's Greeting is one of the best event cards in the game.

     

    Right now it's really tricky to play a legal 2 sphere deck that does not involve Leadership, as you will have some serious resource problems. This is probably your biggest problem with this deck. I've got a Leadership/Knowledge deck that can beat the first scenario 90% of the time and a Leadership/Spirit deck that can beat the first 2 scenarios 90% of the time. I'm hoping that after a couple of packs this won't be the case, but a Tactics/Spirit deck is just going to be rough overall. I'm not a fan of improving a deck by changing the game rules, it seems extremely unintuitive, but hopefully you won't have to do that when the card pool grows a bit.

    That being said I'm shocked to hear you say solo is a disaster for Spirit. As it's impossible to play a tournament legal solo sphere deck now, I assume you are talking about the 'base set' Spirit deck, which, due to it's small size, can completely tear apart the first two scenario's due to it's threat reduction.

  9. Posted

    I'd have to say Spirit. Though Leadership is certainly strong (so strong, I think, that it is currently pretty much required to be one of the spheres if you are making a strong dual sphere deck), Spirit is more fun to play. It's a subtle strength at first, but once you get a feel for the cards and how it can completely control the board you can theoretically tread water infinitely via recursion (Dwarven Tomb & Will of the West are just amazing cards) and threat reduction. And, when it comes down to it, Threat is the most important 'currency' in the game. Though Sneak/Gandalf is a powerful combo, I really think that Galadrim's Greeting/Dwarven Tomb/Will of the West is far stronger, and I'm fairly sure that at some point Dwarven Tomb is going to be altered so that it removes itself from the game once used.

    So yeah, Spirit ftw.

  10. Posted

    I second Titan. The way I've been able to handily defeat this scenario very consistantly is a deck that starts with low threat and is designed to keep it low. My deck starts at at threat of 26. That alone buys you 4 turns to prepare, which is often all you need. But it also packs Sneak/Gandalf, Galadrim's Greeting & Dwarven Tomb (to recycle Galadrim's Greeting) to further lower my threat, and with the mulligan rule and those extra turns to prepare it's not too tough to draw into.

    But that's with Spirit/Leadership. Forest Snare was mentioned as a good solution for Knowledge, but that's heavily reliant on one card. Overall I'd say the best option is to approach it with a deck that starts at a fairly low threat. I attacked the thing with an awesome Leadership/Knowledge deck...that started at 30 threat. I lost almost every game.

  11. Posted

    Well I finally finished my run through nightmare mode with the Spirit of Rohan deck and ended up scoring a -18. This is assuming your threat can't go below 0, the assumption I'm operating under, otherwise I could have scored pretty much anything I wanted to.

    Regardless of whether or not the characters stay in play, this mode doesn't really work with any deck based around lowering threat. Basically they can get to the end of Scenario 1, continue to lower their threat until it gets to 0, then finish it. Both of the following scenarios are easy to breeze through when you start at 0 threat. That being said, being allowed to keep your guys is even worse, as you have your entire deck engine set up and your discard pile is nothing more than Galadrim's Greetings, Dwarven Tombs and Sneak Attacks constantly being reshuffled with Will of the West.

    Unfortunately the only way to fix this is to create a nightmare mode that not only does not allow you to keep your cards between games, BUT makes you 'reset' your threat to your starting value if it happens to be lower than it. But that is boring, so I think I'll just give this mode a pass for now. For a deck that doesn't involve spirit, it's an auto loss, which is equally boring.

  12. Posted

    Toqtamish said:

    It's not cheating if it's the rules.

    Yeah, but it's also not really a 'nightmare' mode. Though it may be difficult for some decks that start at high threat and don't have any way to reduce it, for any deck running Spirit cards it's fairly easy. The only reason I bring it up is because there have been several dissenting viewpoints on the forums so far. I'd just love an official clarification.

  15. Posted

    Has there been an official ruling yet on nightmare mode? I started to run through it solo and have finished my first game, but I'm not sure where to go next.

    It is clear your threat stays where it is. This is how I intend to finally beat the 3rd Scenario. It is clear wounds stay on your heroes. It is not clear what happens to your cards between games, as all it says is "[you do not reset] player decks". I assume this just means you have to use the same decks, but some interpret it as keeping the cards in your discard pile. But what about the cards in play? Some have also assumed you just scoop these into the discard pile, but this is such an incredibly important point that it is mind boggling that they don't mention this. What about your hand? Do you discard it and draw a new one?

    At this point I really have no idea.

    That being said I tweaked the Spirit of Rohan deck to be prepared for this, adding a couple Daughters of Nimronel and a few other cards. Even if you do keep all the cards in your discard pile between games, I made sure that Will of the West was the final action of the game so that the hit isn't too bad. I finished scenario one, managed to get out a Daughter of Nim to erase my hero wounds and finished the scenario at 8 threat. I probably could have treaded water a bit more to lower that further but I didn't want to tempt fate too much.

    So now I'm moving forward to Scenario 2 in a very strong position: most of my cards were reshuffled, I have no wounds and I have 8 threat. My intent is to very carefully work through scenario 2 so that I can start the third scenario with no wounds and 0 threat, which will actually give me a fighting chance! Ridiculous that it takes Nightmare mode to beat that last one solo, but if that's what it takes that's what it takes.

    [Note: For those that didn't follow the Spirit of Rohan thread, the deck is based around recursive threat reduction (Galadrim's Greeting, Dwarven Tomb, Sneak/Gandalf, Will of the West) and playing key out of sphere characters with Stand and Fight. So it's pretty ideal for a solo nightmare run.]

  17. Posted

    It happens in every game. A powerful deck comes along and someone says 'I can beat that easily with this and this and this," and as soon as the questions start piling up they clam up. It's not a big deal, I recognize the guy from the Warhammer forums and he's similar over there. Best we just move on and work on strategy amongst ourselves. I myself love this game to death and think there is already a lot of strategy. I'm personally looking forward to FFG dropping a few more scenarios online using the combinations of cards we've already got, in particular some difficult scenarios designed for solo play.

  18. Posted

    2? Yes. Most of the 2x cards you definitely need at 3x. 3? Matter of opinion. Honestly for me the 3rd set would be for Dwarven Tomb (so good, very necessary), Beorn, Unexpected Courage & Celebrian's Stone. All are great cards that could use 3 copies. But the set online is $27.00, so that would be almost $7.00/card and I'm not ready to start paying that for this game yet. So I printed out proxies for those. Eventually, if the game fleshes out like I think it will, I'll go ahead and get the third one.

  19. Posted

    conykchameleon said:

    Mestrahd: Yeah it is supposed to be a hero. And while I had the rule down from the beginning it took me a while to figure out how straegically poor leaving an attack undefended is. And yeah, it does make it A LOT harder. lol

     

    Everyone else: It looks like we lost the greatest LOTR LCG player there will ever be. aplauso.gif

    Apparently we did lol

    Anyways, I will say one thing before this thread dies a deserved death: I do agree that, right now, there is a lot of luck in the game. That being said the game is brand spanking new, and companies always have a few growing pains before a game hits its stride. Hell, ffgfan mentioned Warhammer: Invasion, which just has barely hit it's stride after a couple of years of major imbalance problems. I think once we see the first cycle of adventure packs they will start to balance quests better and there will be much more strategy in terms of deckbuilding.

  20. Posted

    Sadly there is no way to currently make a legal deck without going multi-sphere. I think going forward (with a better card base) single sphere decks will be much more effective in a game with 2 or more players, but when you go solo multi-sphere decks will start to shine.

    Right now I think a multi-sphere deck pretty much needs Leadership to be one of the spheres in order for it to be effective. Steward of Gondor just increases your efficiency by leaps and bounds, and Theodred is a low threat way to add even more resources and splash Leadership into your deck. Snowbourn Scout is (if I'm not mistaken) the only non-unique 1 cost guy and makes an awesome chump blocker, comboing well with another awesome 1 cost Leadership card, Valiant Sacrifice. Finally, we all know the incredible Sneak Attack/Gandalf combo, which Leadership adds to the ring as well. Combine all of these things (not to mention Celebrian's Stone) and it's just silly NOT to have Leadership, even if it isn't your primary sphere.

    So, for now, I'd say the best way to go with any dual sphere deck is your primary sphere + Theodred and the 15 staple Leadership cards. (3x Snowbourn Scout/Valiant Sacrifice/Sneak Attack/Steward of Gondor, 2xFaramir/Celebrians Stone). Add 3 Gandalf to the mix and you've only got to fill in 32 cards from your primary sphere, which allows you to cut out some of the crappier ones.

  21. Posted

    Looks interesting (I love the card draw and support cards Lore provides) but I see two problems: resources and threat. Your threat starts incredibly high, which is probably why you aren't having success with the second scenario. And without Leadership being part of your team, split/sphere decks have a really tough time with cash flow. That being said Tactics is the trickiest sphere to make work right now, so keep up the good work!

    I've found NinjaDorg's "Shadows of Mirkwood/The Old Forest" Scenario to be a great one to play solo against. It's certainly a challenge, without the immediate slap in the face that the Hill Troll scenario presents you with or the low difficulty level of the first official scenario. If you haven't checked it out yet, I definitely would.

  22. Posted

    To try to turn this thread into something slightly productive, here's a few 'common mistakes' for ffgfan to make sure he's doing everything correctly.

    * Are you adding 1 threat at the end of every turn?

    * Are you exhausting characters to defend, then exhausting different characters to attack?

    * Are you questing every turn, and if not questing adding the full threat in the staging area to your threat?

    * Are you checking monsters threat level to see if they attack you themselves?

    Anyone else know of any common mistakes they can add? I personally like the game and if you dislike it because it's too easy, I'd like to help you find the mistake you're making.

  24. Posted

    Quest 2 is very beatable solo, but it is certainly tricky and requires the right build.

    First, Legolas/Gimli/Eowyn will have a really tough time with Scenario 2, unless you are the type to just claim you beat it no problem ;). But if you actually want to beat it the issue is your threat is going to be far too high, and come turn 2 you'll have to face the Troll, who will rocket up your threat. Now, if you get really lucky Gimli can take the hit first turn and then you can turn around and get rid of him turn 2, but if his shadow card gives him even 1 more axe Gimli's dead and your game is shot.

    I've found the easiest way to deal with this scenario (without resorting to blind luck) is to play a mostly spirit deck with very low threat. My current Spirit/Leadership deck starts out at 25, buying me plenty of time before I have to face the Troll, and half the time I'll play a Galadrim's Greeting to buy myself even more time. This can allow me to set up a Sneak/Gandalf combo or something similar and take him out with no problem.

    Knowledge can also do it, as they have access to Forest Snares, but you'd have to splash something else (probably Leadership!) to give you some attacking power. Denethor/Berevor/Theodred will give you 26 threat, which buys you a few turns...but you also lack access to Spirit's powerful threat reduction.

  25. Posted

    1. I think claiming that the last scenario was easy solo almost definitely means you forgot some rules.

    2. Saying that "You play with all normal rules" does not mean that you forgot some rules, or, more likely, just overlooked some in the rulebook.

    3. It's fairly obvious that taking the objective card at the last moment is important in beating the last scenario, and destroying the Nazgul is far from simple. There are no Tactics or Spirit cards (the two spheres that you were playing) that make it so. The only cards I can think of that make it fairly simple is Forest Snare (Knowledge) and Sneak Attack (Leadership), though on this I guess I could be wrong.

    Long story short: I'd re-read the rulebook, just in case.

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