The notice of the closure of the forums here on this website is quite the sad news, but I hope we will be able to carry on with these monthly leagues elsewhere...

If I were you I would simply start buying anything I can get a hold of (and you have the money to buy confortably) since reprinting and restocking for this game is very....random. As a more general advice the latest cycles usually have better crafted quest and a more solid narrative. I could recommend starting from The Lost Realm and working from there. Otherwise Wilds of Rhovanion and the Ered Mitrhin cycle are another good place to start. Maybe wait going for Shadow in the East and Vengeance of Mordor until later Springing for the LOTR saga could be good too.

I would say that the Ranger Response sets up a delayed passive effect for the end of the round, that would take precedence over Forced effects and Responses.

That's a really interesting card, I can see it work well in a generic Dunedain deck (maybe with Vigilant Dunadan and some of the other high cost Dunedain allies) with Outmatched and Followed or in a more straightforward trap deck (mabye a Gondor themed one). Another very good game design.

Is it on OCTGN? Or do you mean other groups that have the pack that want to play Epic Multiplayer?

Celebrimbor's Secret was a real breeze, I had only played it as a 4 players Fellowship before and I was expecting more problems, but since The Orc's Search basically never triggered and the only Scour Effect I saw was the mandatory one from passing from Stage 1 to Stage 2 it was all super easy, despite the fact that my deck performed slightly worse than usual. I must say this Silvan combo deck is really something, I would not use it in a Fellowship (both for the Doomed and for the extremely long Planning Phases), but against lots of solo quests it really rocks. Here is the usual Playthrough

About the new players Ships, in particular the one that allows one Hero to gain another one's traits, would you guys think that a Lothiriel - Treebeard/Skinbark deck to get around some of the ents usual limitations or a Lothiriel/Tactis Imrahil - Gwaihir deck to keep a steady supplies of Eagles be worhty a spin?

The Dunland Trap was another quest that worried me due to its particular mechanics. I rushed through Stage 1 to get ahead with my allies army's destruction so that I could rebuilt it again. This ended up having me hover over 45 Threat for a long time due to having to use again all the Doomed events but I was still able to score a first attempt victory, with Henamarth Riversong being a clear MVP. 0 Valar Tokens again. Here is the usual playthrough

So in January we will play against A Shadow in the East/ Vengeance of Mordor with the addition of cards from LOTR Saga. Thanee has selected The River Running and RNG has selected The City of Ulfast and Under the Ash Mountains, so prepare yourselves for some great hardships. The mandatory heroes list is Leadership Frodo, Smeagol, Lothiriel and Gildor Inglorion

I had my worries about how the mechanics of To Catch An Orc might broke the combo of my Silvan Deck but luckily I had one copy of Host of Galadhrim in my hand at the start of the game, and another Host of Galahdrim with 2 copies of Galadhrim Weaver in what was left of my deck. My thinned down deck thus worked on my favor and soon the combo was firing off and I steamrolled the quest even though it took quite some time to find Mugash. 0 Valar Tokens Here is the usual playthrough (quite long Planning Phases with this deck)

@dalestephenson how are things going? Is not trouble for me to keep the League going, just wanted to know if everything is okay.

Welcome to the LOTR Solo League. This month we'll be playing three quests from The Voice of Isengard and The Ringmaker. The quests are: 1) To Catch an Orc 2) The Dunland Trap 3) Celebrimbor's Secret Here are the rules: 1) Each player will construct a 50+ card deck, then use that exact deck against all three quests. You may use that deck freely against any quests (include the three quests in the league) prior to the run for testing purposes, but you may not use any trial runs for your official results. 2) At least one of the heroes must be from a box with those quests. This means that you must have at least one of Tactics Eomer, Grima, Celeborn and Galadriel 3) Your score against each quest will be how much help you need to defeat it, based on the Grace of the Valar variant invented by Seastan. It works like this: For each token you have, you can choose to draw a card or give a hero a resource. This happens one at a time, so if I use my first token to draw a card, I see the card before I decide whether to use my second token for a card or a resource. This can be done *anytime* during setup. The original variant starts at zero tokens and gains two tokens if you lose quickly (first five turns) and one if you do not -- however, for the purposes of this league I will allow you to start a quest at any number of tokens, and adjust by as many as you want. The only rules for adding/reducing tokens are these: Rule 1) If you lose a quest with X tokens, you cannot play that quest again with X or less tokens. Rule 2) If you defeat a quest with Y tokens, you cannot play that quest again with Y or more tokens. So for example, if I start with six tokens against Into the Pit and defeat it, I can play it again with 0-5 tokens. If I then try with three tokens and lose, I can play it again with 4 or 5 tokens. If I try with four and lose, I can play it again with 5 tokens. If I win, my final score for that quest is 5, and if I lose my final score for the quest is 6. (Alternatively, I could've decided that 6 was a good enough score the first time I played it, and just have my final score be 6 without playing again.) Remember that tokens do not carry over between quests. When playing Foundations of Stone it does not matter how many tokens I needed to defeat Road to Rivendell. 4) You are not required to publish your deck, but providing a ringsdb link is encouraged (otherwise I may need to ask you for your decklist at the end of the month if required for a tiebreaker). You are required to reveal which Heroes you used, and how many cards in your deck came from outside The Lost Realm/Angmar Awakened, SoH/Haradrim and a single core. Do not include outside heroes in this count, only cards in the deck itself. Note: Contracts (from the most recent cycle) are not part of the deck and should not be counted. A Loot Deck (from the Burglar's turn contract) is also not part of the deck and should not be counted. The One Ring or the Messenger of the King ally/hero should also not be counted *unless* your deck uses those cards to reach 50 -- the Master card fetched by the One Ring should be counted. You may follow contract/One Ring setup instructions at the same as hero setup, ignoring Caleb's ruling. 5) Tiebreakers have frequently mattered in this league. Here are the tiebreakers, in order: --- 1st) The number of outside cards (i.e. not from The Voice of Isengard/The Ring-Maker, HoN/Against the Shadow or a single core) used in the deck. Do not count outside heroes in this count, only cards in the deck. Less cards is better. 2nd) The number of heroes specifically from The Voice of Isengard/The Ring-Maker and HoN/Against the Shadow. More is better. 3rd) The number of heroes used from this list: Tactics Eomer, Grima, Celeborn and Galadriel. More is better. 4th) The number of cards in the deck outside The Voice of Isengard/The Ring-Maker and HoN/Against the Shadow. Less is better, and core cards are considered "outside" for this tiebreaker. 5th) The number of cards outside The Voice of Isengard, The Dunland Trap and Celebrimbor's Secret. Less is better, and core cards are considered "outside" for this tiebreaker. 6th) Performance in November's Solo League (if you didn't play or finish Novemberr's League, a median performance will be assumed). Whoever did worst wins this tiebreaker. --- 6) 1st place gets to choose the cycle for February's league, 2nd place gets to choose a quest from that cycle, and 3rd place gets to choose a quest *not* to be used from that cycle. In an effort to expand the diversity of decks used, the last place player will choose an additional cycle that may be used for deckbuilding in February's league. 7) Weekly deadlines will at 11:59pm Eastern on the 14th, 21st, and 28th. Only the final deadline really matters for scoring and cannot be extended -- the first two deadlines are only to be included in intermediate standings. To Catch an Orc: December 14th The Dunland Trap: December 21st Celebrimbor's Secret: December 28th 8 ) I've created a google spreadsheet for results here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1zCBGP_y9pGYW6YHsfSoQM749xb1CFFdvlO3cNn_NcdM/edit#gid=0 To join the league, merely add your name and information about your deck to the spreadsheet, then enter your results as you have them. Please give a link to your deck if you built or published it on ringsdb, but it is not required. If you wish you may run additional decks against the quests and record your results, but only the first entry will be considered for the competition itself.

Final standings: 0 Alonewolf87 (4) 1 Thanee (33) 2 General_Grievous (6) 27 Bobbymcbobface (0) I win the League and I will choose a cycle for January League. I will select A Shadow in The East / Vengeance of Mordor since the cycle is finally complete. @Thanee is in second place and will choose a quest to play from that cycle. @General_Grievous is in third place and will choose a quest from that cycle to exclude. @Bobbymcbobface is in last place and gets to choose a supplemental cycle for player cards. Join us in the next Solo League as we do Saruman's bidding and play To Catch an Orc, The Dunland Trap and Celebrimbor's Secret

Some encounter cards effects (like the treachery Knife in the Back or Secret Cultist or one of the quest stages of Wastes or Eriador) simply state "discard an ally" instead of "player discards an ally", so it can make a difference there. The intent of the card is clear but the wording can be interpreted as if it's the encounter deck who is making the discard. I think there are also some treacheries to that effect in the competite play quests (like where is the opposing team that chooses and discards the ally. Still a player doing the discard, but that's also a possibile point of contention.

The spoiled cards are awesome, I really like the setting of the quests and the characters involved. Can't wait to have them available.

I conferm, at any time the encounter deck is empty during the quest phase it resets.

Do you want to share some of your worst moments with that quest?

As if often the case it's the relatively high number of treacheries and their awful combinations (that you usually only see in high players count that really brought us down), like seeing Biting Wings + Freezing Blast in a Night round, possibly with Make Camp out, even better if Weight of Responsibility brought out Cold From Angmar too (yeah that happened...twice in two different games...) Sudden Darkness also wrecked our plans a couple of times during Day rounds when we ended up without Test of Will and Eleanor already exhausted from another treachery. The same can be said for Eriador Wastes (though a well timed Thror's Key can help there) The extra encounter card from the Night shift was often less of a problem since there are at least a couple of treacheries that basically do nothing (Biting Winds and Freezing Blast, doomed aside of course).

I am the only one who finds The Wastes of Eriador exceedingly difficult in 4 players? Despite having played all the quests of the game with our 4 decks we still find this quest to be one of the most difficult around, on par with stuff like Attack on Dol Guldur. Last time we played we saw a 18 threat increase over 4 rounds and a buckload of treacheries we could not respond to, due to it being Night, that really wrecked us.

The first time around was a sound defeat in 3 rounds, but we were able to defeat Thane Ulchor at the second attempt, courtesy of some very well timed player's side quests. They are really amazing against this quest. All things considered a hard, but manageable quest. The narrative part was amazing in my opinion, a truly apt ending to it all.

The Fate of Wilderland went well, once again a 0 tokens win. The Dale machine went online during the 2nd and 3rd turn and it was all downhill from there, even though the progress on The Goblins' Assault was climbing worringly Here is the usual playthrough

Galadriel ally triggers only when played from your hand, and searches only 5 cards.

If you have a Fear limit of 4 and you have 4 face up Fear cards than yes you are basically out of the game.

Well since passing a Last Stand only discards facedown Fear/Damage even if the hero passes the test you will then immediately need to make another one (at +1 difficulty) since you are still over your Fear/Damage limit and so forth until you fail. The rule basically tells you to avoid doing a lot of unnecessary tests since the end result is unavoidable.

I agree we used her in our 4 players Fellowship that we used to took on all the game's quests and she always rocked, from Mirkwood to Rhun.