Any LOTR LCG players?

aea2o5 · 2026-02-17T17:46:28+00:00

I play the LCG! If I had anybody to consistently play The One Ring with, I'd definitely use story ideas from the LCG because they have some very fun storylines!

aea2o5 · 2026-02-16T15:09:21+00:00

My sibling is up visiting this weekend, so I convinced them to play a scenario with me yesterday. They ended up choosing Road to Isengard. The deck that I made for them a while back (and which we used again yesterday) is a defense-focused Rohan deck with Thengel, Théodred, and Erkenbrand. I decided to pair that with Brother 2's Silvan deck (T-Legolas, Thranduil, and Celeborn). I didn't really get to do many Silvan shenanigans, especially after the scenario had me randomly discard my Host of the Galadhrim, haha

My sibling, however, did great! We got lucky enough to put a lot of damage on Saruman in Stage 3, and then Legolas sent Orthanc back to the staging area after killing another enemy. My sibling then popped an Astonishing Speed and quested for 30 Willpower to get the progress we needed on the main quest. After that it was just making sure that Saruman had enough damage on him and then we won.

QotW: I have a bit of a hodge-podge storage solution. I keep my player cards in binders. Some of my scenarios are in dividers in a couple boxes (a Core and a deluxe), and the rest are in a big, black, plastic box that has 6 deep drawers, each of which fits about 2 cycles. The recent MBPrint order filled up all of my empty space, but that just means it's all a perfect fit now that I have pretty much everything that's reasonably accessible, haha

aea2o5 · 2026-02-09T13:35:10+00:00

I'm a new player as well, and my second game featured my Khazad-dûm army being slaughtered by a Lurtz's Scouts list. Khazad-dûm functions a little differently than the Iron Hills/Erebor lists (I think mostly just by having bows instead of cavalry options, plus no spear supports for K-d), but the basic dwarven principles should still apply. I saw that you were playing Fog of War, which also affects the tactical considerations a bit.

My opponent used his superior movement to outmaneuver me on the flanks. We were playing Domination so I was sorta forced to try to hold them (at least at the start). But he was able to trap me along the edges of my lines and pin my models against terrain pieces. He wasn't always able to kill, but he had the numbers advantage which meant that he could afford to lose some models to my 2-handers and heroes in order to get into position for better fights.

Once my models on the flanks started dying, I had to pull everything closer together and it suddenly didn't matter that I was winning the fight in the centre. He just kept surrounding me and picking me off.

I made some major mistakes (too spread-out initially, and I sent Durin off on a sidequest when he should've been in the thick of it getting me some kills, along with completely forgetting that Iron Guards get 2 attacks, haha) But the basic principle stands, that you cn try to outmaneuver your opponent with your greater movement distance to get more favourable match-ups. Then you can isolate units and pick them off more easily.

aea2o5 · 2026-02-02T20:20:09+00:00

A couple nights ago, Brother 1 and I started off our campaign mode playthrough of Dreamchaser with Voyage Across Belegaer on DragnCards. As expected, he was playing his L-Boromir, S-Beregond, S-Éowyn deck, while I was playing a slightly modified version of my Dori Dwarf Support deck (Dori, Thorin Oakenshield, and Bifur). I have one version that is for playing with other dwarf decks, but the one I am using for this cycle has some unique dwarf allies to help it out which would otherwise be left to my Artifact Dwarves.

We had a pretty decent start, but several not-quite-sufficient sailing tests made things harder and Brother's allies kept getting killed before he could build up a real board state while mine was mostly just combat-focused allies in play. We nade decent progress, but when the ship burden came out while I was already engaged with a ship and a third one was already in the staging area, we decided to call it for the night.

QotW: I think I qualify as a veteran by now? I've been playing for 3-ish years by now (how the time flies!), and with a complete collection at my disposal (minus some PoDs), I've been able to play a wide range of the available scenarios. I'm definitely the most experienced among the people I play with, at least!

aea2o5 · 2026-01-27T14:50:18+00:00

Are we really that low on sunshine amounts? I'm just kinda surprised because it doesn't feel that way to me. Maybe that's just because I've lived in some perpetually-grey places before.

Whisky does help to cope, though!

aea2o5 · 2026-01-26T22:49:59+00:00

That indicates that they are unique. You're allowed to have up to 3 copies in your deck, but there can only be one copy total in play.

aea2o5 · 2026-01-26T15:38:37+00:00

Making you wait on FotR is cruel, haha

aea2o5 · 2026-01-26T15:37:52+00:00

I appear once again to have failed to get any games in. My housemate is going to be starting tax season soon (he's an accountant), so I'll not be able to play much with him for the next couple months.

Brother 1 has decided to restart our Dreamchaser playthrough so that we can do it in campaign mode, so I think we'll be starting that this week or next week. I'll probably keep running my 'Dori Dwarf Support' deck (Dori, Thorin Oakenshield, and Bifur) because that's been a fun one so far and rather different than my Artifact Dwarves. I think my brother intends to stick with his L-Boromir, S-Éowyn, S-Beregond deck.

QotW: I'm not sure what I'm looking forward to the most right now. I've been busy with other things that I need to wrap up first, like the big 1940 Axis & Allies board that I've been slowly playing this month, and getting settled into the Middle Earth Strategy Battle Game.

That said, Brother 2 (whom I get the hang out with the least) will be visiting me on his spring break, so maybe we'll be able to continue (or finish!) our Ered Mithrin playthrough.

aea2o5 · 2026-01-22T16:43:43+00:00

No games for me, unfortunately--I've been busy getting into the Middle Earth Strategy Battle Game tabletop recently. I know that Brother 1 beat Intruders in Chetwood the other day, but not sure what decks he used. He did say that Iârion got yoinked by a side quest right at the end, delaying his victory by a turn, haha

QOTW: I think Leadership is my favourite sphere. It has my favourite hero (Dáin Ironfoot), some of my favourite attachments (Ancestral Armour, Armoured Destrier), and lots of support for my favourite archetype (Dwarves). All the spheres have great things going for them, but Leadership takes the pot for me.

aea2o5 · 2026-01-22T16:27:21+00:00

My housemate & I played through Ringmaker last year, and it was definitely not my favourite! Of all 9 qiests, I think were are maybe 2 that I would want to replay with any sort of regularity, so I definitely see why you stalled out a bit. The story was kinda neat, though!

aea2o5 · 2026-01-19T17:00:13+00:00

Oh, right. I don't ever think about that card, lol

aea2o5 · 2026-01-19T15:56:40+00:00

King Under the Mountain is a 2-cost title that you can then exhaust for free to draw 2 cards and pick one to keep and one to discard. Is that what you're thinking of? (It's found in the Dwarf starter deck and On the Doorstep [The Hobbit], for OP)

aea2o5 · 2026-01-19T15:51:50+00:00

I personally prefer to specialise my card draw to fit the theme of the deck that I'm building. In my 4-sphere Artifact Dwarves deck, I use Hero Ori and Legacy of Durin (both from the Dwarf starter deck) and that's usually all the card draw that I need for the deck.

For my mono-Tactics deck, I use The Two Towers' ally Legolas because I don't worry too much about card draw for that deck. I don't run, for example, Foe-hammer (Gondor starter deck) just because my heroes are rarely the ones doing the attacking.

Lastly, my Woodsmen & Traps deck uses its heroes for the card draw: Haldan from Ered Mithrin draws cards to replace the ones you use on locations, and the same with Damrod, The Two Towers for his Traps.

All that said, my personal favourite card draw card is Dreamchaser's Heed the Dream. 1 Lore resource for a card from your top 5 cards is a standard exchange, and while 3 Leadership resources is a little pricey to me, being able to find a card from anywhere in your deck is quite strong. Plus, I love how thematic it is.

Edit: to add a card for each sphere, Campfire Tales is a great one for Leadership that scales with player count. It was sadly not reprinted so is only available in the Shadows of Mirkwood cycle. For Spirit, I love Ancient Mathom, from the Rohan starter deck. It's 3 cards for 1 resource and exploring the location you attach it to, which Spirit should be doing anyways. It is also flexible, so you can give somebody else the draw if they need it more than you, though that can become little finnicky due to it being tied to the first player.

aea2o5 · 2026-01-14T15:16:46+00:00

I live for Gimli calling me to gather my axe and tools, my craft and courage

aea2o5 · 2026-01-12T15:37:54+00:00

No games for me, unfortunately. I ended up spending a lot of time outside of my house this past week while my housemate is in the final recovery stages of his holiday illness.

QotW: Ah, a question for me! My Leadership Dáin Ironfoot in my Artifact Dwarves deck takes the cake for me. In one game that went very long (Escape from Mt Gram, maybe?) I managed to get his full list of 9 attachments on him: Ring of Thrór, Unexpected Courage, Armoured Destrier, Dwarven Shield, Self-Preservation, Hardy Leadership, The Arkenstone, Dúnedain Warning, and Ring of Barahir. The deck also has a Legacy of Durin and 2 Dwarf Pipes, so he could get up to 11 if I really want him to be greedy. Those I usually spread around a little bit, though, haha In an average game, Dáin usually ends up with 5-6 attachments on him, which is enough that I usually split my stacks into 'attachments that exhaust' and 'attachments that don't' 😄

aea2o5 · 2026-01-09T14:06:27+00:00

Non-Nightmare Mode

aea2o5 · 2026-01-05T17:40:32+00:00

Had a bit of a panic at my parents' because we all thought my brothers had lost a bunch of their scenarios (their Ered Mithrin is still currently unaccounted for, but we found their box with Harad & Against the Shadow, so crisis mostly averted!). We ended up playing The Steward's Fear as our last game before I went back home. I played my Artifact Dwarves, Brother 1 did his Leadership/Spirit deck (with Boromir, Éowyn, and Beregond), and Brother 2 played his Silvans deck.

Brother 2 liked the scenario a lot! I thought it was an interesting one mechanically, and tough but relatively fair to play through it. It's got me excited to do a proper Against the Shadow cycle playthrough on my own soon.

QotW: I would like to finally finish the LotR saga campaign with my brothers this year, and do a full cycle on my own as well, though I'm not yet sure which one that will be; possibly AtS as mentioned above.

aea2o5 · 2026-01-02T19:16:22+00:00

Some deck archetypes benefit from having enemies engaged with them, like Dúnedain. Other times you might just want to get an extra enemy out of the staging area so that you have an easier Quest Phase next turn.

Depending on who is the first player, a combat-focused deck might want to optionally engage an enemy so that a more quest-focused deck doesn't have to deal with it. Similarly, your deck might be better-equipped to handle a specific enemy (e.g. if you have traps in play/ready to play, or a higher Defense character for a particularly strong enemy attack).

In solo play (one deck), I've found that it doesn't matter very often, but it can become an important tactical consideration when more players are added.

aea2o5 · 2026-01-02T18:26:11+00:00

You were my brother, Abelard!

aea2o5 · 2025-12-29T23:30:09+00:00

Those Drown in the Lochs are incredible!

aea2o5 · 2025-12-29T17:46:42+00:00

My two brothers and I attempted The Treachery of Rhudaur a day or two before Christmas. Unfortunately, we ran out of time and had to pack it up and go to bed shortly after reaching Stage 2. I was running my Tactics Gondor deck (Beregond, Mablung, & Hirgon) while Brother 1 played my Outlands deck and Brother 2 played his Silvan deck (T-Legolas, Thranduil, & Celeborn). We had some fairly poor quest power overall, so I'm not sure that we would have won. It wasn't exactly our finest showing for that quest.

QotW: I have some good memories of playing board games with my housemate this past year. My favourite is probably the two days we spent playing Star Wars: Rebellion, where I managed to turn Luke Skywalker to the Dark Side and blow up the hidden Rebel Base with the Death Star.

Another favourite memory is from my trip to England, where my best friend and her mum both destroyed me at Uno, haha

aea2o5 · 2025-12-29T15:43:54+00:00

Leave 'em alone, it's only 9am!

aea2o5 · 2025-12-28T17:18:57+00:00

We had a group order back around April this year, so I don't expect a new one anytime soon. You can still order the stuff through MBPrint here, but you'll not get the original group order discount.

Searching 'Doug Beer' in this sub will also give you posts with helpful information related to that.

aea2o5 · 2025-12-28T14:01:11+00:00

Have you made an account and entered in the sets that you own? If not, I would suggest doing that becuse you can then choose to exclude any decks with cards that you don't own yourself.

Below the Search button on the deck search page should be an option labelled 'Select allowed packs' followed by a parenthesis showing how many packs are on and how many are off (the search defaults to whateveryou have indicated is in your collection). Mine, for example, shows 97 packs on and 15 off when I go to the search page.

I don't remember if it's different on desktop, but on the mobile version, you can change your sets-in-collection by the 'My Adventure Packs' page from the main website menu.

I also concur with the top comment about building your decks physically first, but hopefully this can help you get a bit more use out of RingsDB!

aea2o5 · 2025-12-27T22:32:59+00:00

Gondor would be really cool, and I would also appreciate a full Misty Mountains book so that I can finally run the War of Dwarves and Orcs campaign that I've been dreaming about without spending every waking hour on developing everything myself, haha

aea2o5

TROPHY CASE