Teach me to play LoTR: TCG

Cafe Society
1

OK, looks like we’ve got KKBattousai and AudreyK off to a running start with Magic. Can anybody help me out with LoTR? I downloaded the free Aragorn and Gandalf starter decks from decipher’s website and played twice and have a few questions.

  1. Does the game text on a site card apply only when the fellowship is at that site? or does it always apply once the site is in play, no matter where you are?

  2. Is there any way to force your opponent backwards on the track? If not, is there any way to catch up, once you’ve fallen behind, or are you better off focusing on killing the opponent’s Frodo if he’s near the end?

  3. If my legolas dies, can my opponent still play his? (if so, how does this make sense? :wink: )

  4. What’s a typical size of the fellowship? The starter decks have only 4 companions. Is that normal?

  5. Has anyone come up with a variant/optional rule where you can play through both the fellowship sites and the two towers sites?

  6. Is it just us or is the gandalf deck much better than the aragorn one? It’s weird… Aragorn has all those damage +1 uruk-hai, which should really hurt. But gandalf won twice in a row, easily. Gandalf’s deck would collect a bunch of wounds, but heal up at the sanctuaries easily. Plus gandalf has those intimidate cards which prevent wounds. Meanwhile, Aragorn would be overpowered by the orcs with scimitars, and the orcs could come in swarms with the goblin runners, and the cards drawn from the scimitars. This made aragorn afraid to move more than once each turn.

  7. How does the pathfinder card work? Is the “next” site the next one that would be put down, or the next one in front of your fellowship? or the next one from your deck? Example: Aragorn’s got sites 1, 5, and 6 out and is at site 2. Gandalf has sites 2-4, and is at site 6. Aragorn plays pathfinder. does he put out site 2, replacing gandalf’s 2? (i.e, the next one in his adventure deck)or does he replace 3, (i.e. the next one he will go to) or does he put out 7 (i.e. the next one that’s not out yet)?

  8. When you play something from your discard pile, do you pay the twilight cost? (like with host of thousands, or… they are coming.) (If so, this could be why gandalf was winning. We played that you didn’t have to pay the cost.)

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Did you read the two towers full rulebook? Or the Expanded rules? That might explain some of the finer points (as well as the FAQ)

Also, there are a bunch of articles detailing some of the phases

  1. Only when the fellowship as at that site*
    2)no going backwards. If your opponent is ahead of you, force them to move only onece, and you move twice
  2. The fellowship cards are completely spearete (only the current fellowships cars are active)
  3. You can add companions as you go. Not sure of the typical size
  4. not that i know of
  5. I think the consensus is Gandalf is better
  6. I think it is the next site fior the current fellowship
  7. You have to pay the twilight cost when you play a card whether it be from your hand, the discard pile, or gandalf’s cart.

Brian
who has only played once, but has read the rules and followed deciphers board for some time

*There are allies who copy site’s text

3

Yeah, I read all that. It helped a bit, but I still had these questions. And that FAQ is the most un-faq-like FAQ I’ve ever seen. It’s errata, not a FAQ.

Got it, and got it, but what do you do if they’re at site 8 and you’re back at site 6 or so? Is there any point to doing your turn if you know they must move to site 9 next turn and you can’t get there? Or do you try not to get into that position?

ok, ok, ok.

Heck yeah. we played again, and even with the correct use of the “play from your discard pile” cards, Gandalf stomped Aragorn again. Check this out, Aragorn tried to be a sneaky as possible and give as few twilight tokens up as she could. So she didn’t play anything other than Frodo, the ring, aragorn, a hobbit sword, a great shield, and no stranger to shadows. This worked really well until site 4. I wasn’t able to play a single shadow card until then. But then, she moved to site 4, giving me only 4 tokens. But now, my roaming penalties were gone, and I dropped: Host of thousands (0) to play goblin runner (1) from the discard. Goblin runner gave me 2 more tokens. I played a Goblin scimitar (0) on the Runner which let me draw another goblin runner to play, for a total of 6 tokens. I dropped Goblin scavengers (3) which allowed me to pull a goblin scimitar from the discard and draw another card. I played a Goblin marksman (3) for my final card, and so for 4 tokens, I got 4 orcs with strength 10, 7, 7, and 5. More than enough to overwhelm Frodo easily.

What did she do wrong? How do you stop such great synergy?

All the stuff in the gandalf deck seems to work together. Meanwhile, the aragorn deck has stuff like Swordarm of the white tower, but NO defender +1 cards.

I guess the answer is to stop playing with the starter decks and add more cards. But shouldn’t the starter deck make you want to play more? not give up…

ok.

Well, that makes it a LITTLE less abusive, but still…