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– Welcome
– Trivia
– News
– Preview Rhosgobel
– Content
– Playing Conflict at the Carrock
– Player scaling
– Castlecon http://www.castlecon.net/
– Sign off
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Cardboard of the Rings 
Just wanted to say, I always enjoy listening to these and I really appreciate all the work you guys put in. Thanks for spending your time to help us all feed our gaming obsession!
Thanks Max, we have a good time doing it and are glad you enjoy it!
With regard to the cost of Landroval: we have to remember that the Radagast neutral Ally has been spoiled already. And he generates resources that can pay for Creature cards. So potentially, Londroval’s cost of 5 really isn’t that big of a deal.
True, I can see Radagast fueling a pretty sweet creature based deck. He should be fun to play with.
I came here for cardboard of the rings
I stayed for the double-sided jelly dongs.
Hahahaha! Who knows what that wrapped package truly contains!
As a playtester of LotR, I can confirm that anything written on a card is technically considered to be a “card effect.” Thus, only the game mechanic of questing will put tokens on the Carrock locations. Sorry for you Legolas fans. 🙂
Keep up the good work. I’ve really been enjoying the episodes!
OK, well that certainly makes that card that much more brutal. Interesting, thanks for the message and thanks for listening!
Hey guys, great show. Conflict at the Carrock is probably my favorite scenario to date; between the four massive baddies and Grimbeorn, it’s just a ton of fun. When I played through with two players, Eleanor was definitely the unsung hero. She can’t cancel Sacked!, but she saved our bacon a few times when cards like Roasted Slowly and A Frightened Beast threatened to sink us. I think she’s all but indispensable on this quest, especially since we only have one Core Set (and thus only two copies of A Test of Will).
As far as the player cards are concerned, A Burning Brand is absolutely nuts. I have to say I disagree with your take on Dunedain Warning. One or two of those puppies can turn a weenie like Bilbo into a brick wall, or allow Denethor to tank buffed trolls (especially with A Burning Brand). Eomund is solid as is, and he will only get better. Born Aloft usually just gives you copies 4-6 of Gandalf, although I did use it once to recycle a Snowbourn Scout and discard a Brown Lands. All in all, an exciting array of options for a great quest.
Keep up the good work, and I look forward to your thoughts on Journey to Rhosgobel.
Yeah the quantity of cards is starting to allow for some interesting choices. Born alot is so huge to max out on Gandalf. Do you guys EVER use him for anything other than lowering threat as his entering abilty? I think we used the 4 damage thing once for the win, but that was a rare occasion.
A Frightened Beast is such a terrible treachery card. It caused us to lose our first Conflict game in much the same way as yours. It’s such a nasty card, in fact, that we just played again but this time swapping in — (don’t laugh) — Eleanor! She only cancelled the Beast once in this last game, but it was a critical one that would have raised our threats by 15 or so. Her starting threat of 7 was also great — both of us started with 25 which gave us plenty of time to prepare.
We did have one sticky situation early that was tough to deal with. In one staging step we pulled both Goblin Snipers from the deck and hence couldn’t optionally engage either of them. Normally we have Dunhere just kill these guys without a problem but we had Eleanor instead. There were no Gandalfs in sight to break this deadlock so we eventually played and discarded 2 Beorning Beekeepers to finish them off. Fortunately Lore had 2 Daughters of the Nimrodell to heal the damage from the Snipers in the meantime.
Eleanor finally getting some love! We talked about playing her, but still didn’t think she was worth it. We are going to give her a go in our next play through. As you can imagine, Andrew is VERY excited to play with her again!!
Hi guys, another great show. I listened to it while having breakfast, so it felt like having a couple of fellow geeks over for coffee 🙂
The whole discussion about healing Wilyador felt a bit futile to me as you wont be able to heal him at all during the first phase of the quest due to Rhosgobel location (it prevents the healing as long as it’s in the staging area).
Burning Brand – a great card, almost unbelievable good as it takes out one of the core mechanics of combat in LotR LCG (shadow cards). What worries me is that it makes Dark Knowledge complete obsolete, and to a lesser degree Hasty Stroke (like Dunedain Warning replacing Protector of Lorien in many of my deck set-ups as it turns most Heros into functional copies of Denethor). Is this the beginning of a “power card spirale”? Like every AP introducing 1-2 cards that surpass and replace earlier cards? (Something that MtG is suffering from the very beginning).
Are you sure about this game is meant to be designed to fit 4 players best? I had the feeling that two-player games feel the most convenient challengewise (not too easy, not impossible either). Our four player games were very easy once we got past the first couple of turns, especially Dol Guldur was surprisingly unchallenging. I think the cards that scale with the number of players (second breakfast etc) are one shots that provided to accommodate or even encourage 3-4 player games while the main design focus stays on two player set ups. Just my two cents.
Dark Knowledge is dead. Put in your bike spokes.
As for the game, I think they design with 2 in mind, but our only concern is that particularly in solo you get punished for having fewer players.
Carrock’s not impossible solo,
I beat it with the Three Hunters (Aragorn, Legolas, Gimli)! It was epic.
Concerning “Parting Gifts”. When Bilbo split the Shire, he gave away alot of shit crowding up his hole. I’m guessing the double-ended jelly dong went to the Sackville-Bagginses.
Hahaha! I wish there was a like button on wordpress!
I think solo play is really fun. It’s harder than 2 player and a bit different but very possible. You don’t win too often but it feels great when you do. I’ve beaten all the scenarios except Escape from Dol Guldur solo (after lots of attempts in some cases!!). Spirit/Lore plus the Leadership song with a few of the top leadership cards can be pretty good.
I beat Carrock with Dunhere, Eowyn and Denethor. The threat control in the first phase is easier solo because you can know exactly what’s coming. Keep threat down and buff Dunhere with Dunedain Mark/Unexpected Courage, and have him pot-shotting two trolls a round in the second phase. Get quest allies out to deal with the insane threat buildup in round 2 as well…
Playing “two fisted” is fine, but (if you are being strict about the rules) not legal, since you’re not allowed to know the other player’s hands.
I really enjoy your podcasts. I am playing catch up due to moving this summer and had a comment about solo play.
I agree with Tancata. I have only played solo and stuck strictly to the rules (50 card deck, etc.) and I find it to be very entertaining. It becomes a lot about deck building and combos when solo. Looking at my quest log at FFG’s website, I am just over a 50% success rate which is fine by me. I should mention I have not even attempted Dol Guldur solo yet because of all the online chatter. My failure rate is sure to skyrocket if I throw that in the mix.
Question-For the 3rd quest of the Core set, we can play only 1 Ally per round. So if i play an Ally during the Planning Phase, we can,t use Sneak Attack during the Combat phase?(we usally always 4 of us playing)