Tips for Beginning Players

Last modified December 2001.

Deck Building Tips

Resources

• Choose an area of the map where you will be playing your resources. No need wasting your precious turns on travelling from the upper-left-corner of the map to the lower-right corner, so you can play the Blue Mountain Dwarves and the Southrons...
• As a rule-of-thumb, roughly one third of the resource part of your deck should consist of cards worth marshalling points.
• Look at the sites you will be visiting and the regions you will be travelling through and think of the hazards that are playable there. Visiting many border-holds and free-holds? Best pack a few cards to cancel Men attacks then, 'cause these creatures are often keyable to these site types. Going through some Dark-domains? Then you'd better think of how you're going to deal with Nazgul. Planning on ransacking a few Dragon's Lairs in the north-east? Then you will need all the prowess-enhancers (and maybe a little cannon-fodder) to survive in that nasty area. Etcetera.
• Choose beforehand whether you're going to fight the creatures you'll face or if you're going to cancel them. In case of the former, use strong characters and include lots of cards like Risky Blow to help your characters survive their fights (and maybe get a kill point or two in the process), in case of the latter, you'll need lots (and I mean lots -- if you're cancelling, you should be able to cancel almost every creature your opponent plays on you) of cards like Concealment, Stealth, and Dark Quarrels. Using both approaches at the same time (fighting and cancelling) isn't very effective.
• Make sure you have something in your deck to deal with corruption. Cards that help with corruption checks (e.g., A Friend or Three) are good, cards that remove corruption cards altogether (e.g. Marvels Told) are even better.
• Don't put minor items in your deck!

Hazards

• Be careful not to shoot yourself in the foot. For example, if you play a resource strategy that's vulnerable to Men hazards, don't help your opponent by playing Men enhancers cards like Rank Upon Rank yourself! If you will be visiting many sites with orc automatic attacks, don't play an orc hazard strategy!
• Think of what resource strategies might be hard to hit by your chosen hazard strategy and add cards to deal with those resource strategies. For example, if you're playing dragons and/or drakes, you won't be hurting a so-called Gondor deck (i.e., a deck that mainly travels through Free-domains and mainly visits Free-hold) a lot, so in that case you might want to include some anti-Free-domain/Free-hold cards (e.g., Assassin, Lost in Free-domains, Knights of the Prince). 

Characters

• Look at the resources you picked when you decide what characters you will be playing with -- some of these need certain characters. (E.g., Dreams of Lore requires a sage, many cancelling cards must be played by scouts, etcetera).
• Always put at least one ranger in your starting company. There are hazards that will completely shut you down if you don't have a ranger.
• Don't put too many back-up characters in your play deck. Protect the ones you start with instead.

Sideboard

• Do yourself a favor and construct a sideboard -- this can only increase the strength of your deck.
• Put cards in it you might need "just in case..." (e.g. Lost in Free-domains, which is only useful if your opponent frequents free-domains), or cards you won't need until later in the game (e.g. The White Tree, which you don't want to draw until after you've played the Sapling of the White Tree).

Staple cards

These are cards, so useful they will probably end up in a lot of your decks. These are also the cards you will encounter time and time again when playing against (experienced) opponents. Try to obtain these cards as fast as you can; they will really improve your decks.

Hero Characters

• Beorn II - The Wizards - Uncommon
  The second strongest hero character in the game, and he's a ranger too! For a mind of 7, Beorn's a real bargain.
• Elladan/Elrohir - The Wizards - Fixed
  Both 5/8 warrior/rangers for 4 mind, a real bargain! Probably the most used characters in the game...
• Fatty Bolger - Promo card
  This card is a little hard to come by, since it is a promo card. Fatty belongs in any hobbit company, since he can cancel a strike against another hobbit by tapping, which is a very useful ability!
• Glorfindel II - The Wizards - Fixed
  The strongest hero character in the game!
• Pallando - The Wizards - Fixed
  The best "stationary" (haven squatting) wizard in the game. Your handsize increases by one when he is in play, which is extremely useful. For maximum effectiveness, play him at The Grey Havens, put Cirdan under his DI (handsize increases again!) and play the Elves of Lindon...
• Radagast - The Wizards - Fixed
  Probably the best "travelling" wizard in the game. Allows you to draw lots of extra cards, which is always good of course. His +1 on corruption checks protects him against corruption hazards like Lure of nature.
• Sam Gamgee - The Wizards - Uncommon
  Sam is the only hobbit ranger, so if you're playing with a hobbit-only company you will probably want to include him! The +3 corruption modifier is neat too...
• Thrain II - The Dragons - Rare
  A 7/8 warrior/ranger/sage (arguably the three most important skills in the game) with 5 direct influence against dwarves... Sweeet!

Hero Resources

• Concealment - The Wizards - Common
  Can cancel any attack, but you'll need a scout. Staple card for hobbit-decks.
• Cram - The Dragons - Common
  A simple but very useful minor item that allows you to untap its bearer once -- which often makes the difference between wasting a turn because you're all tapped out or being able to play a card worth marshalling points.
• Dark Quarrels - The Wizards - Common
  Can cancel Men, Orc or Troll attacks. Can be a real life saver if your opponent plays with one of these creature types, otherwise, just use it to cancel auto-attacks or something. Don't forget the extra Gates of Morning-only ability which may help you to get some kill MPs!
• Forewarned is Forearmed - Dark Minions - Common
  FiF provides protection against Assassins and Slayers.
• Glamdring - The Wizards - Uncommon
  Excellent major item. Just compare this card to a Sword of Gondolin: Glamdring gives +3 instead of +2 on prowess, it doesn't require the warrior skill and it gives its bearer one less corruption point - and it looks a lot cooler, too!
• Marvels Told - The Dragons - Common
  You'll face lots of nasty hazard long-events and permanent-events, so you'll need something to get rid of them. You need a sage to use it.
• Risky Blow - The Wizards - Common
  This is a simple card that gives a warrior character a prowess boost against a hazard creature or automatic attack. Not very useful in your hobbit deck, but nice otherwise.
• Smoke Rings - Dark Minions - Common
  Smoke Rings can help you get back some useful resources from your discard pile or allows you to access your sideboard. I usually put a few in every hero deck I build.

Minion Characters

• Lieutenant of Dol Guldur - The Lidless Eye - Rare
  This is a 7/9 warrior/sage with 5 DI against orcs and trolls.
• Lieutenant of Morgul - The Lidless Eye - Rare
  This is a 8/9 warrior/ranger with 5 DI against orcs and trolls. Probably the best minion character in the game.
• Mionid - Against the Shadow - Uncommon
  A 5/8 warrior/ranger character with a mind of 4 is always nice. This one is extra-useful, because he's a man, which means you can use him in both overt and covert companies.
• Ren the Ringwraith - The Lidless Eye - Fixed
  Ren is definitely one of the better ringwraiths. He can start at Barad-dur, to pick up Creature of an Older World and Helm of Fear (that's 3 extra mp's and a strong Ringwraith in permanent Fell Rider mode).
• The Balrog - The Balrog - Fixed
  Duh.
• Ufthak - The Lidless Eye - Rare
  A warrior/ranger/scout orc -- nice for stealthy orc companies (orc scouts only count as half a character for the purpose of determining the hazard limit).

Minion Resources

• Crept Along Cleverly - The White Hand - Common
  Can cancel Animals, Wolves, Spiders, Undead, Drakes and Dragon attacks. It requires a ranger (which you should have in your travelling companies anyway), but it doesn't tap him or her!
• Dark Tryst - Against the Shadow - Common
  Drawing three extra cards can be really useful. It also speeds up the process of cycling through your deck.
• High Helm - The Lidless Eye - Uncommon
  Only two minion major items give 2 MP's instead of just one. High Helm is one of them, and it gives bonusses to prowess, body and direct influence at the same time!
• Voices of Malice - The Lidless Eye - Common
  The minion version of Marvels Told. Even better, in a way, since the corruption check isn't much of a problem for a minion character.
• Weigh All Things to a Nicety - The Lidless Eye - Common
  The minion version of Smoke Rings. Just as useful.

Good sideboard cards

• Call of Home - The Wizards/The Lidless Eye - Common
  If your opponent hasn't got a lot of free GI, you need something to punish him for that...
• Earcaraxe Ahunt - The Dragons - Uncommon
  Great card against coastal sea decks.
• Lobelia Sackville-Baggings & Pilfer Anything Unwatched - Dark Minions & Against the Shadow - Uncommon
  If your opponent plays with hobbit characters, you can bounce them back into his hand with this combo. Since hobbits can only be brought back into play at Bag End this is pretty nasty!
• Lost at Sea - The Wizards - Rare
  Another great card against coastal sea decks.
• Lost in Free-domains - The Wizards/The Lidless Eye - Common
  Great card against Gondor decks.
• Muster Disperses - The Wizards/The Lidless Eye - Common
  If your opponent hasn't played any factions yet or if he's got 10 free GI this card is utterly useless so you won't want it in your main deck. But Muster Disperses is a very good sideboard card.

Playing

• Don't forget your wizard's special abilities! This may sound like a lame piece of advice, but I don't know how often I've seen players forget to draw Radagast's extra cards, for example.
• Don't take unnecessary risks when rolling dice. Sure, the average result of a roll is 7, but there's also ones and two's on them dice! When you're trying to get a faction and you need to roll at least a five to play it and you have a Tempering Friendship in your hand, use it!
• If you don't have any cards worth MP's in your hands, DO SOMETHING ANYWAY! Just sitting at a haven won't get you the cards you need fast enough. Travel to a site where major items are playable, for example, and just hope you'll draw one on the way there. Even if you don't, you can always try to score a kill point or two on the way there.