nOOb question: start of the game

[neopium]

Hi,

I discovered LOTR a few weeks ago with a friend (better later than never) and the rules for starting a game seem contradictory...

Let's say two players A and B start a game. Player A will go first (he won the bid).

1)The comprehensive rules, p.4, Game Setup Summary, says:

• Bid to determine who goes first.
• Each player places his adventure deck on the
table.
• First player plays a site from his adventure deck.
• Each player puts his player marker on that site.
• Each player places his starting fellowship on
the table, placing the burdens he bid on his
Ring-bearer.
• Each player shuffles his draw deck and draws 8
cards.

2) While the comprehensive rules, p.4, Playing the game > 1. Fellowship phase > moving your fellowship says:

During each of your fellowship phases, when you
are finished performing fellowship actions, your
fellowship must move forward to the next site on
the adventure path.
Place your player marker on the next site on the
adventure path. If there is no site there yet (as
is the case for the first player in the first turn),
then a new site must be played from one of the
Shadow players' adventure decks, as described
below under "playing sites."

According to 1), Player A plays a site from his adventure deck.
But according to 2), Player A is the first player player in the first turn and thus, player B (who is Shadow) has to play the first site...

What is the right way of doing it?

Second question, regarding the twilight cost when moving to the first site. Does Player A has to add one twilight token for each companion? In case 1), this number is the starting fellowship, in case 2), its the starting fellowship + the companions played during the fellowship phase.

Last problem, in case 1), player A starts on site 1. At the end of its fellowship phase, does player A have to move to site 2? In that case, does it mean that player A can move to site 3 during the regroup phase (in the case the move limit has not been increased) ?

Thanks for your answers

Ben

[hsiale]

Your (and your opponent's) fellowship starts the game on site 1, it never moves to it. First move of each fellowship is to site 2. So you ignore twilight cost of site 1 (look at sites from sets 1-10, where they had fixed site number, each site 1 had no twilight cost then) and don't pay anything when placing your marker there, as this is not "moving to a site". And standard move limit of 2 allows you to finish your first move on site 3 (moving to site 2 is compulsory).

[neopium]

Ok, thanks a lot for your quick answer.

One question remains: who plays the first site, the player that won the bid and starts playing, or the shadow player?

[hsiale]

The player who goes first (it not necessarily is the player who won the bidding, if you win the bidding you are free to choose if you go first or second).