I very highly recommend this game. It's very easy to pick up and easier to teach to others. Despite what it says on the box, one core set will quite happily accomodate four players. Solo play is fun enough, but the co-operative multiplayer is the real jewel of the crown. Unlike most other card games (at least that I know of), players don't compete with each other, but rather co-operate to complete quests and defeat the enemy. There are three quests and something like 120 player cards in the core set, which is plenty for four players to get stuck in. An excellent, excellent product, and a steal at its current price (44€ at our store). Also, as it's one of Fantasy Flight's "living card games" rather than a traditional collectible card game, there's none of the old nonsense of buying booster packs and hoping for good cards. Instead, there are various expansion sets, which provide the same new quests and cards for everyone.
Since my partner liked the game as well but was disappointed by the lack of Boromir, the first thing I did when we got back to civilization was head to said store and pick up the core set and a copy of the Dead Marshes adventure pack.
This game hits a pretty damn perfect spot for me right now. I've been feeling generally tired, depressed and dejected, somewhat stressed out by my master's thesis and not at all looking forward to the fall and my approaching teaching classes. Now I have something fun to do and obsess over during the summer that'll hopefully provide a nice distraction well into the semester. The value this game has added to my midsummer vacation was already worth the price of purchase on its own. It also combines nicely with my ongoing Tolkien-reading project.
I got to try all of the four different starter decks over midsummer, but obviously if I'm going to take this game seriously, I have to build my own deck. Having tried the Legolas progress machine (Legolas + Blade of Gondolin), I do have to admit I enjoyed the Tactics starter, but seeing as how my partner is obviously going to be running a Tactics deck because Boromir, and my brother was interested in a Tactics/Spirit combo, I might as well forget about it! Clearly they'll be handling the fighting, so having no particularly strong feelings of my own with regard to spheres, I was left to complement them.
What did strike me when trying out the starter decks in the core set was that there were exactly three female heroes, including the best quester of them all, Éowyn. Ordinarily I'm not crazy about games adding original characters to established fictional worlds, but as I'm finding in my Tolkien readthrough, to get female characters into a Tolkien setting they're damn well going to have to be original characters. I also like Eleanor's ability, and the controversy over whether she's any good or not makes me want to find out. Also, I've been reading some tremendously helpful posts over at the Tales from the Cards blog, and they had ended up putting together a similar deck, albeit from two core sets, but still. So here's what I came up with:
**
The Amazons
50 cards, 28 Spirit / 20 Lore / 2 neutral, 3 heroes / 21 allies / 9 attachments / 17 events
Heroes:
Éowyn
Eleanor
Beravor
Allies: 19 (9/8/2)
Northern Tracker x2
Lórien Guide x3
Wandering Took x2
Elfhelm x2
Erebor Hammersmith
Miner of the Iron Hills x2
Henamarth Riversong
Gléowine x2
Daughter of the Nimrodel x2
Silvan Tracker x2
Gandalf x2
Attachments: 9 (5/4)
Unexpected Courage
The Favor of the Lady x2
Power in the Earth x2
Forest Snare x2
Protector of Lórien x2
Events: 17 (12/5)
A Test of Will x2
The Galadhrim's Greeting x2
Hasty Stroke x2
Stand and Fight x3
A Light in the Dark x2
Dwarven Tomb
Secret Paths x2
Radagast's Cunning x2
Lore of Imladris
**
Obviously this isn't a very good deck, but it's the best I felt I could put together from one core set and the Dead Marshes pack. I mostly included the Silvan Trackers to have at least a few slightly durable allies, and, well, because they were there. I'm hoping to be able to provide questing, card draw and treachery management while the Tactics folks deal with the fighting. Combat ability is a concern, but with an initial threat of 26, I should get a moment to prepare when going solo, or have fightier decks handle it. I would absolutely love some tougher allies, but this is what I have so it'll have to do.
My first test run with this deck was Passage through Mirkwood in co-operation with my partner's Boromir-led monosphere Tactics deck, and we absolutely destroyed it. Eowyn's questing combined with extra progress from Legolas sped us through the various stages, and once Gimli was fortified with the Armor of the Citadel, he took on some Hummerhorns to reach a fairly amazing 9 attack. When Ungoliant's Spawn showed up for the final stage, the Tactics boys knocked it out in one go. I didn't even have to use my Forest Snare! We did very well indeed, but the experience did underline the combat weakness of my deck.
I'm unreasonably thrilled to report that I also managed to beat Passage through Mirkwood solo on my first attempt! Compared to the absolute breeze that was our Tactics-Amazons co-op, it was distinctly more hairy on my own. I was lucky to get Protector of Lórien on both Beravor and Eleanor, and with Gléowine helping out on card draw, I was able to junk a fair number of cards to help both questing and defense. Still, getting rid of enemies was anything but easy; on several occasions we had three enemies engaged, and it was all I could do to just defend them. Elfhelm and the Northern Tracker were worth their weight in gold here. In the end, we got Ungoliant's Spawn snared - and still took several turns to get rid of it. But get rid of it we did, and the quest was complete, with far fewer casualties than I'd expected. I like this deck!
**
Having run these games, we happened to pick up the Hunt for Gollum adventure pack; I swapped out my Silvan Trackers and a Wandering Took for a Rivendell Minstrel and three Westfold Horse-Breakers, having also handed one of my Gandalfs over to the Leadership deck. I also dropped one copy of Stand and Fight for a Strider's Path. We took a three-handed swing at PtM again with a new player on the Leadership starter, and it was quite successful. The healing abilities of my Daughter of the Nimrodel came in handy, as did Eleanor's treachery cancellation, but I still have too much Lore in my deck and too few Spirit allies. I restored my other Wandering Took in favor of a Stand and Fight, which helps the one but not the other. I should look for some expansions with more Spirit allies, but I'm not sure which ones they are. Maybe I should be trying to use Stand and Fight to get some Lore allies into play via the discard pile? So far I've never ended up using it. I'm also not quite sure which Lore cards to drop. With several players involved, healing is quite valuable, but much less so in solo play, where I try to avoid the damage being done in the first place. On the other hand, questing support cards like Radagast's Cunning and Secret Paths have seen relatively little use so far, but maybe that's just because the questing has been rather easy.
The true test for any deck, of course, is a hill troll. We tried Journey to Anduin three-handed over midsummer (Leadership, Spirit and Lore starter decks), and were completely overwhelmed. Not only were we finding it very difficult to deal with the troll, but the increased combat workload also meant that locations started piling up in the staging area and we eventually gave up when we lost a player altogether when his threat hit 50. That memory is why I'm not too keen to throw out the quest-boosting Lore cards! So next time: journeys along the Great River of Wilderland!
**
For later reference, this is the current state of my deck:
The Amazons; 50 cards, 29/20/1, 3/22/9/16
Éowyn
Eleanor
Beravor
Allies: 22 (12/9/1)
Northern Tracker x2
Lórien Guide x3
Wandering Took x2
Elfhelm x2
Westfold Horse-Breaker x3
Erebor Hammersmith
Miner of the Iron Hills x2
Henamarth Riversong
Gléowine x2
Daughter of the Nimrodel x2
Rivendell Minstrel
Gandalf
Attachments: 9 (5/4)
Unexpected Courage
The Favor of the Lady x2
Power in the Earth x2
Forest Snare x2
Protector of Lórien x2
Events: 16 (10/6)
A Test of Will x2
The Galadhrim's Greeting x2
Hasty Stroke x2
Stand and Fight
A Light in the Dark x2
Dwarven Tomb
Secret Paths x2
Radagast's Cunning x2
Lore of Imladris
Strider's Path
And my partner's, after swapping Gimli for Thalin and a consequent lower starting threat:
Team Boromir; 46 cards, 44/2, 3/17/10/16
Boromir (TDM)
Legolas
Thalin
Allies: 17 (15/2)
Beorn
Horseback Archer x2
Gondorian Spearman x3
Veteran Axehand x3
Winged Guardian x3
Vassal of the Windlord x3
Gandalf x2
Attachments: 10
Citadel Plate x2
Dwarven Axe x2
Blade of Gondolin x2
Horn of Gondor
Song of Mocking x3
Events: 16
Thicket of Spears x2
Swift Strike
Blade Mastery x3
Feint x2
Quick Strike x2
Rain of Arrows x2
Stand Together
The Eagles Are Coming! x3
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