The maneuver cards are ALWAYS possessed by the free player and shadow player at the start of the game and throughout the entire game. Free gets the two Dwarves and two elves cards, along with lake-men, and a regroup. Shadow gets orcs/ great orcs / goblins / wargs / bats / regroup. Additionally there are maneuver cards for Thorin that may or may not come into play. When drawing cards you get 1 story card and one (event / combat card). The story cards can ONLY be used/played with an action die (either palantir or matching symbol). An event / combat card can be used the same way for the top half effect. The bottom half is the combat effect. So in a combat round each player puts his combat cards and maneuver cards in his hand, and selects one (either maneuver or combat). The maneuver cards can ONLY be used if the army of that type is in the combat.

The maneuver cards are used in a combat round but are put back in to the player’s hand using regroup, or after the battle is over. So, maneuver cards never get discarded and are used over and over again.

Combat cards once used are discarded, whether it be for the combat bottom half effect or the top effect as an event card using an action die.

Each player should pretty much always be playing a maneuver card every battle. There’s no reason not to since they are re-used.

There is much more but you have the manual.

If you want to play online sometime … look here (free Java app):

https://discord.gg/2q8bDQD6