Yea, it just lets us know it isn't going on retail sale before 2018.  And yea, the mats have been of varying degrees of quality - in terms of thickness - but the print themselves has always been really good for the ones I've seen.

Don't worry. I'm sure they'll be widely available on eBay at very reasonable prices...
/sarcasm

Say what you will about their lack of communication and super sparse news updates/articles, but hot **** do they deliver on their art choices for playmats.   Yes it's hard to beat Magali, but from what I can see of this card, it's pretty spectacular as well.  but I too am most excited for that playmat!

Woo! I think I'm going to prefer the original Galadriel artwork (it's hard to beat Magali) but that playmat is fantastic. 

I cannot unsee it's beauty.

Likely will still bring my Caldera deck then, paired with a pure tactics Rohan deck. 

Only to prevent threat gain due to questing unsuccessfully. The quest has an effect that discards the active location when you quest unsuccessfully, so I don't think you're really meant to be able to quest successfully for long. 

-ignore-

-ignore-

We haven't managed to beat The Black Gate / Mount Doom yet--I can't quite stay alive long enough playing solo. I can definitely see that 4 on Black Gate and 2 on Mount Doom would be the sweet spot; The Black Gate will definitely just get more epic the more players you add, and with 2 players at the other table nobody's basically left playing a game all by themselves.
 
Sure thing!
Cirith Ungol 
The Black Gate
Mount Doom
 

I would put as many players as possible on the Black Gate for sure. Each additional player makes it that much easier to weather the +1 encounter card revealed per turn. 

3 quests: The Tower of Cirith Ungol, The Black Gate, and Mount Doom. 
The last two quests can be combined and played simultaneously, with some players trying to hold out as long as they can while others try to get the ring to Mount Doom. It's pretty fun, and quite difficult!

This topic comes up all the time and it's always the same. Someone asks if they need 2 cores and someone answers truthfully that a second core expands the deckbuilding options. Then it's followed by people who cannot afford a second core trying to convince the rest of us that the game is just as good with one. It's not.

Spirit.
Hero: Pippin. 
Player Card: Renewed Friendship.
 
Tactics.
Hero: Dori.
Player Card: Keeping Count.
 
Lore.
Hero: Bombur.
Player Card: Gandalf's Search.
 
Leadership.
Hero: Send for Aid.
Player Card: Keen-eyed Took.
 
Neutral.
Hero: Saruman.
Player Card: The End Comes.

Oooh that's very helpful. Bookmarked!
I think despite the price I'm going to end up doing that Team Covenant subscription, just to avoid future anxiety :-) 

Ah, lol, not at all.   There is a very overlooked and slightly hidden "Rules Request" forum that you can find through the "Contact Us" link at the bottom of the page.  I'm betting my original question just got overlooked, they are generally really good at responding.
 
https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/more/customer-service/
Click Rules Question then find the link to the Rules Question Form.

The question is, if you look at 1.4 and 2.2, you see that "if" abilities are triggered after "when" abilities, but before "after" abilities.  Makes sense.  So the order of resolution is "when, if, after".
If you look at 1.7, it states that "if" abilities are triggered after the "when" and "after" abilities.   So the order for resolution of skill checks is "when, after, if".
 
Why is there a difference? and isn't pretty much everything a skill check - so when is the first order of resolution even used?

Well it is generally recommended to get a second core so that you have 2x of the cards and can make more reliable decks.  As for playing with the entire card pool or not, that just comes down to your preference really.  Generally, after you play a scenario you can upgrade cards from your deck to new XP cards, or swap cards out (putting in a new zero XP card still costs 1 XP in the rules). Several of my play groups decided to house-rule ignore that rule so we could more easily get to play with the new cards as they came out.   Now that there is a solid collection of cards, I'd personally suggest you play with your entire card pool of player cards and just role from there.
Having access to all your card pool from the start isn't going to enable anything game breaking because all the best cards still cost XP.  This just gives you more options on your original deck builds as well as what to spend XP on.
As for organizing, I'm not a "sleeve the entire encounter deck" kind of guy and just sleeve the Agenda/Act cards.  These (and the rules/story insert) act as the divider for each scenario in my card box.  All the "common" encounter cards that you get from the core and Dunwich that get reused in various scenarios I place at the front of the box and just search through it as needed when setting up a scenario.
I haven't played solo myself, but I hear Roland, Jenny, Ashcan Pete and Wendy are all REALLY good at solo. 

I hope that FFG don't take the same cost-cutting approach with LOTR LCG. If they switch to flimsy cardboard boxes in future then I vote that they rename "deluxe" expansions to "economy" expansions 

So far we have been spared Arkam's Horror.

It's a very good card in harder difficulties, but less so in lower difficulties. You can argue that is not worth it on standard or easy, but it is a godsend in higher difficulties where you are not only at risk of losing actions, but drawing from the chaos bag is way riskier.

Good point. Would be neat if the glyphs translate into a spell that Seeker has access too. Would also make sense considering Marie's deck building restrictions. 

Good point. Would be neat if the glyphs translate into a spell that Seeker has access too. Would also make sense considering Marie's deck building restrictions. 

I was discussing True Grit, and what it actually says (and doesn't say), not hypothetical effects.

You're conflating two separate triggering conditions, which is the source of your confusion.
The first triggering condition is determing success, which is when you trigger effects like "when you fail a skill test" or "after you succeed by 2." This is all triggering when or after ST.6 happens.
Applying the results of the test -- the "if this test is successful" stuff -- is a distinct timing trigger with its own "when" and "after" sequence. This is ST.7. For something to trigger here, it would be triggering on the result of the test, not determining success or failure. So, for example, "when you discover a clue," or "after you deal damage to an enemy."
So, overall, it looks like this:
ST.6 Determine Success
  - "when" you succeed/fail, successfully x, or similar
   - you formally succeed or fail, but don't yet apply results.
   - "after" you succeed/fail, successfully x, or similar
ST.7 Apply Results
   - "when" you discover a clue on an investigate, "when" you deal damage, "when" you draw cards, and similar effects.
   - "if successful" effects applied, per st.7
   - "after" you discover a clue on an investigate, "after" you deal damage, "after" you draw cards, and similar effects.
 
Does that clarify the process?