Oh it definitely does prohibit it. But the game is very clearly balanced for two players, so often it is extremely hard to get the ball rolling in SP, especially in the harder quests.
Ah. Say, have you tried playing two sides at once?
Not yet. I’m not crazy about the idea of having two hands to deal with. There is a varient with one hand and 5 heros up on BGG that sounds pretty balanced. I might give that a go.
Vesper
4764
That was me. I’m going to pass for now. Thanks!
Speaking of Watch It Played, which we totally were … a while back … anyway.
Rodney Smith is doing an IndieGoGo thing, which is sort of a more international-friendly version of Kickstarter, to raise enough money so Watch It Played can be his job for three months to a full year. If you’ve enjoyed watching him play, kick in a buck or two. If nothing else, he was pretty instrumental in convincing me to get LotR, and damn if Dungeon Run doesn’t look pretty good. Ashardalon, on the other hand, seems pretty awful! So thanks, Rodney!
Daagar
4766
Good for him! I don’t watch many things on youtube, but his LOTR videos were excellent. His presentation style is superb.
And thanks for the earlier tip about engaging with the right hero. I know I’ve been stomped in 2 player a time or two because I forget I can engage first… and anyone that is getting stomped solo in the first scenario, just use the spirit deck to raise your self-esteem a bit :)
I only recently discovered Rodney and he does absolutely superb work! You can really tell he has a passion for board games and teaching them to others seems so natural for him. Hell, I’d enjoy seeing him play more LOTR: LCG scenarios. Definitely entertaining to watch and I’ll chip in something when I have the extra money.
I played vs the Anduin River campaign, solo, using Eowyn to push the quest forward and Gimli and Legolas to kill the Hill Troll. And I finally killed the blighter!
So then I flip over the second quest card and see it requires 16 progress tokens, AND every time I flip encounter cards, I flip TWO of them. Holy suck. Threat counter whizzes to 50. Dead.
I tried 4 or 5 times to beat that quest with a solo deck and always got stomped on (not from threat, but my heroes dying) around that point. I think I’d pretty much have to design a really good 3 sphere deck to beat it.
apost8
4770
I’ve done it solo with a 30 card Leadership / Lore deck, using only the cards in the base set.
Decklist
Heroes: Denethor, Theodred, Gloin
Allies: 1x Henamarth Riversong, 1x Snowbourn Scout, 3x Guard of the Citadel, 2x Erebor Hammersmith, 2x Gleowine, 2x Miner of the Iron Hills, 2x Son of Arnor, 2x Faramir, 3x Gandalf
Events / Attachments: 2x Sneak Attack, 2x For Gondor!, 2x Steward of Gondor, 1x Celebrian’s Stone, 2x Lorien’s Weath, 2x Forest Snare, 1x Grim Resolve
Notice that the starting threat is only 25. This is key. It has been a while, but I recall Sneak Attacking Gandalf into play at key moments and wisely using Forest Snare were important, as well as using Faramir’s ability with many low cost allies in play.
You’re allowed one Gandalf card per deck, I thought.
apost8
4772
You may only have one Gandalf card in play, given that he has the unique symbol, and each preconstructed deck is built with only one Gandalf card, but I believe you may have three copies of the Gandalf card in your deck.
serling
4774
Rodney Smith is fantastic. I was surprised the quality of the show was so superb right out of the gate when he started the thing. If this could be his full time job I would definitely support that – with cash. And, man, no offense to anyone involved, but it’s damn good to see first hand that I’m not the only one struggling with keeping all the rules straight.
Any idea what he does for a living, by the way? The only thing I’m missing from him is an introductory video about himself. He’s a cool guy! :)
If nothing else, he was pretty instrumental in convincing me to get LotR, and damn if Dungeon Run doesn’t look pretty good. Ashardalon, on the other hand, seems pretty awful! So thanks, Rodney!
Haha, I’m actually having problems telling them apart from memory. Both looked pretty straight forward and shallow in my opinion. Fun videos as usual, of course, but each to their own, I guess. I don’t think these dungeon crawlers are for me at all, really. So thanks, Rodney! :)
I can’t imagine how a youtube series designed to teach you how to play niche games could possibly bring in enough money for it to be a full or even part time job. It is a non-profit hobby for fun.
We cracked my copy of Risk: Legacy the other night. Everyone was excited about it after pawing through the box and learning to play while I was fininshing a 2-player Blitz game of MK (still took us 2 hours!).
The first game went a little long, as we figured that the first game shouldn’t use the ‘everyone who hasn’t signed the board gets a red star’ rule, and then realized we probaably should have. The first couple of games are about setting up the geography, I think. Anyway, we’re excited about the next one.
Tom Vasel just reviewed Mage Knight and declared it as one of the best games of 2011. Wasn’t expecting that much praise, so now I’m even more excited about getting my copy. :D
We just gave that BG of the year.
After all the LotR talk here I finally broke it out and tried it, stupidly picking the tactics deck to try the Mirkwood adventure. The first attempt was mercifully short–all heroes were dead by in a few turns after I made zero quest progress. Just brutal.
So I set up again with the same deck, just to see if I got a raw deal that time. Beorn turned up in my starter hand and he was a miracle worker who gave me some breathing room while I pumped up all my heroes and got some cannon fodder down on the board. It was a slog thanks to lots of locations turning up, but at the end I picked the path that lets you dig the big spider out of the deck and a gravely wounded and incredibly pissed off armored Gimli one-shotted the bastard. A very satisfying victory that will likely never happen again.
I can’t wait to try out a different deck, and am amazed at all the gameplay options in the core box. It isn’t like FFG to provide so many permutations without forcing people to buy expansions, but they did fans of LotR and fans of LCGs a great service with this release.
I also tried to play The Ares Project with a friend last night and we decided to ignore the advice to play the basic game first. Hell, we’re veterans who have played hundreds of different games. Going straight to advanced shouldn’t be a problem, right? We were so lost and had inadvertently cheated so many times during just the first turn that we gave up in disgust (more with ourselves than with the game, as the game actually looks like it’ll be pretty neat once we get our heads wrapped around it). The designers were not messing around when they decided to make all the factions completely different from one another, so it’s like trying to learn a bunch of different games at once (literally, since there’s a set of core rules and then separate rule books for each faction).
Anyone have any good resources for learning this? We looked for gameplay videos and didn’t find any that walked you through a turn.
Just bought this a couple of days ago…and WOW. This is possibly my favorite game of 2011, and very possibly my favorite game out of my entire collection.
