Questions before playing for the first time

[dukla]

I'm going to be playing this game for the first time this weekend, and I have a few rules questions I wasn't understanding from the rules book. I think I know the answers to these, but I want to be sure.

This is all for rules for the Fellowship Block
1. If the Fellowship player moves again in the regroup phase, the rules say to return tot he Shadow phase. Does that mean repeat ONLY the Shadow phase, or all the phases until regroup?
2. If a card says to make something "Damage +1", if used on a character that is already damage +1, does that character become damage +2 or remain damage +1?
3. Are cards cumulative? If I play 4 copies of Battle Fury, is that dwarf strength +12 or only strength +3?
4. If the Fellowship player reconciles in his/her regroup phase, are his/her minions also discarded, or only opponent's minions?

[TheNinthPlayer]

1. All phases from Shadow to Regroup, just no Fellowship
2. Damage +2, you can have unlimited damage +'s
3. Events are cumulative (said dwarf would indeed have a total of (original strength+12)), though you would have to have all four copies in your hand. Conditions are mostly cumulative, excepting, of course, those that are unique.
4. The fellowship player cannot have minions in, as only the shadow player(S) are able to play them during the shadow phase, against the fellowship's companions and free peoples cards.  Any shadow conditions/support area cards the current free people's player had played on previous sites are not active, and are therefore, not discarded.  The shadow player(S) would lose all their active minions.

Best of luck on your first game!!!
 

[macheteman]

just to clarify on question 4: the fellowship player's "companions" DO stay even after their opponent's minions are discarded.

[bibfortuna25]

The fellowship player's minions won't even be in play, since they would have been discarded on the previous turn when his opponent was the fellowship player.

[dukla]

Yeah, I was wrong about that one. I didn't get that minions would be discarded every turn.

Some more questions came up that I couldn't find anything about. First, who picks the order skirmishes resolve in?

We were playing that if the shadows player had unassigned minions, he could assign them to the ringbearer. Was this correct? If so, doesn't it mean that playing more minions than there are companions is usually an auto-win due to overwhelm? All of the games we played ended with overwhelm.

[bibfortuna25]

The Free Peoples player chooses the order of skirmishes.

Yes, if there are more minions than companions, the Shadow player can assign leftover ones wherever he likes. Playing a large number of minions like this is a staple of the "swarm" strategy, very common in decks.

As a Free Peoples player, you can combat this swarm strategy in a number of ways:

1) Directed archery, such as Greenleaf or Aragorn's Bow.
2) Defender bonuses, such as Aragorn ROTN.
3) Support for your Ring-bearer, such as Bounder, Boromir SOD, or Hobbit Intuition.

[macheteman]

also PATHS

[dukla]

Another couple of questions have come up:

With cards that say "do ____ to play from discard pile" like The Balrog, Flame of Udun, do you still need to pay the normal cost for the card from the discard pile in addition to the cost? eg, with The Balrog, Flame of Udun, do you pay 2 for any moria orc from discard or 2 plus their normal cost? We've been playing it as the latter.

With Orc Scouting Band, does he reduce his own roaming cost by 1? We've been playing as no.

If a card says someone "must exert" and they are exhausted, what happens? For example, at Moria Lake, what if all companions are exhausted?

It's a good game and I'm a fan, but it's a little tough to figure out the rules from a starter deck rulebook. I used to play SWCCG though, so I have some experience with incredibly arcane rules  I just don't know where to look.

[bibfortuna25]

1) Yes, you always pay the costs associated with the card unless it says differently.
2) No, he doesn't affect his own roaming penalty. A card's text can only be used while it is in play, unless it says "When you play this card..."
3) Nothing happens.
4) Thankfully, this game is much less complicated than Star Wars, rules-wise. Decipher learned from their mistakes and this game has a much clearer set of rules, especially when it comes to the timing of different actions.

[dukla]

I've gotta ask about: http://lotrtcgwiki.com/wiki/lotr01231

If I can spot 5 burdens, can I exert Ulaire Enquea three times to wound three companions?
In combination with cards like Not Easily Destroyed, wouldn't it basically allow the Shadows player to kill every companion?

This seems incredibly powerful to me, but I don't really know.

[bibfortuna25]

Yes, Enquea can put 3 wounds on companions, more if you use NED.

And just so we're clear, Enquea doesn't have to wound 3 different companions; he can wound the same companion multiple times if you wish. It is very common to use Enquea to pick off whichever companion is most annoying to your Shadow.

[Legion]

NED does combo quite well with Enquea, but removing 3 twilight for every extra wound is a lot, especially in Fellowship Block where you often aren't given more than, say, 11 twilight in any given shadow phase (5 companions and 6 for a site).  That would only give 4 wounds (though that is still very nice to kill Aragorn or Gandalf).  That's what stops it from being totally overpowered.

You may be able to get it to work with The Ring Draws Them, though you won't appreciate the exertion every shadow costing you essentially 3 twilight before you can start wounding.  I might give it a go and see what happens.