r/lotrlcg

Backdrop, we're (2 players) playing through the full Fellowship Campaign, using only the Core (not revised) and player cards available to us at that point in the campaign. So, for the first three scenarios we used cards from Core and The Black Riders. We now have cards from The Road Darkens. It's been rough to say the least.

We finally got to scenario 5 - Journey in the Dark - and just can't get through it. We even tried to make things easier by changing heroes without taking threat penalty, removing orange cards and starting with 2 resources for each hero. Only made it Scenario card 3 once! It was enough that by the 7th attempt and a BS shadow effect that removed shield from Gimli and effectively killed him, that I threw in the towel and packed things up. I'm very frustrated. This scenario just seems unwinnable.

We were using a hobbit deck - Mary, Sam and Pippen, and a deck with Gandolph, Eowyn and Gimli. Unfortunately, Aragorn was already dead by this scenario, so he wasn't available. We focused on allies and slow playing Doom, Doom, Doom, while rushing the first stage with heavy questing. However, either a treachery card or shadow effect would destroy our plans, time and time again.

Looking for any help before I just give up on the game completely.

Dear lotrlcg readers,

Intro

The FFG announcement of "no new reprints" recently has (understandably) changed the landscape and tone around the game and this forum.

Views and visitors to this subreddit have spiked, and buying/selling lotrlcg discussions have grown - as a general sense of FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) has appeared.

Forum/Community Purpose - History

Over the past 6 years, our forum steadily grew from 400K to 2.1M views per year, while monthly Unique visitors grew from 4K to 20K.

Our forum served as a place where new and veteran players could converse about the LOTR:LCG game. Even with no new official releases, the depth and complexity of LOTR:LCG created avenues for ongoing discussion and revisiting of all game content, which occurs even today.

90-95% of historical discussion was on game play, rules interpretation (especially for newer players), and sharing stories of adventures in game.

About 5-10% was on buying/selling collections (only one post ever, per collection), and once in a while, a new custom game play item would be announced here.

And with community help in identifying items, I have removed all other spam, non "game-related" LOTR items, etc.

This was a historically nice and consistent balance that I believe created an environment for our forum to grow. The game and community has a uniquely strong co-operative spirit, and the inclusion of occasional "marketplace" items followed that same ethos

I would like to retain roughly this same culture going forward, with additional new considerations below in light of recent events. But please comment if you feel strongly otherwise.

New Considerations:

With the official stopping of new releases, two key areas (and forum rules) are greatly impacted and need to be looked at - I would love your input as well, as this is our joint community:

1. Buying/Selling of collections.

The increase in marketplace activity adds unwanted "overhead" to the vast majority of people who want to use the forums for game play discussion. It also creates a greater chance of bad actors taking advantage of a historically high trust community.

Too much marketplace and people will stop visiting - and we enter a death spiral where the only activity is buying/selling. Even that will die as there is a dwindling audience to reach.

However - completely removing marketplace activities could be a dis-service to players as they look to "find a new home" for their beloved collection, or as they seek to fill in a collection.

Moderator Proposal:

The already published rules always left open the possibility that I could group all buying and selling activity into a mega-thread, and I feel the time has come to have one Mega-buying/selling thread per month or so as needed.

I will still NOT be doing "Marketplace Policing" on specific pricing or trust-worthiness of buyer/seller. Reasons: I retain a neutral role here, do not want to get into substantiated/unsubstantiated claims that I have no reasonable way of resolving, and most importantly, I will get it wrong on at least one instance - and that would destroy moderator credibility.

But just like before, buyer, seller and onlookers can "respectfully" comment on the thread as the community looks out for itself. Then all parties can make an "informed" decision that they feel is best for them.

A mega-thread collecting all buying/selling activity in one place will also make it more difficult for bad actors to change names and bypass the intent of this area.

If discussions get too heated, I will handle on a case-by-case basis. Hopefully not that often, or we will revisit this again.

Additional thought: I would love a community sourced "best practice" guide on reducing the chance of being scammed as either buyer or seller. If we can create this, I will find a home for it and point to it at the start of each mega-thread

Note: New, "appropriate" LOTR:LCG specific game play item announcements can still be a separate post. Appropriate = something specific to storage or physical game play manipulation - NOT mood music or ambience items.

Please comment on the above!

2. Printing of proxies, discussion of online simulators

Historically, these topics had limits as we encouraged purchase of the officially available items, and the discussion of proxies and online simulators were only for those who had already purchased said items in physical form.

With the lack of any official way to get cards, this topic has come up again and posters are now openly offering printing and usage alternatives - this is STILL against the rules, BUT read further for nuance.

First, a hard forum limit: I am not a lawyer, but try to respect copyright to best of my ability and understanding. The forum (and moderator) cannot be seen as "encouraging or promoting" replication at the expense of purchasing legitimate items (no matter how rare or out of print).

Also, the community generally respects the labor and value that FFG and all associated creators had in crafting our beloved game, and wishes to see them fairly compensated for their efforts by buying their official products. And yes, nothing will soon exist except secondary market, which the creators will not see a penny of - but that does not mean we encourage free replication of their work.

What follows is an analogy:

I and many others have created alt-art card images - which could be argued to be proxies. But these alt-art cards, to my understanding (IANAL), fall under fair use guidelines of personally generated fan-art - that I then freely shared. (And even with that - I have always removed all traces of anything an artist/owner has requested from me.)

What people do with my fan-art is their own responsibility to bear. Whether or not any copyright, etc. has been violated is unknown to me, but enforcement of such has historically been essentially zero.

I also note there are other long-standing card game communities (notably Decipher's SW:CCG) that have existed long past discontinuation of product, that use proxies, etc.

This brings us to 2026 LOTR:LCG proxies/simulators and at least two forward paths:

Path A) A hard ban on all discussion of proxies/simulators, printing of such, sourcing, etc. This keeps our forum completely "in the clear"

Path B) Allow discussions, but with caveat at the beginning of all discussions (which is the responsibility of the poster to note) that these are not meant to be substitutes for purchasing the real item. Or you can post without expressing the use of this as purchase substitution (see examples at end).

We are more or less on this path today - although I have not been diligent in enforcement lately.

Under option B, I will still react/block/remove any discussion that explicitly promotes this as a substitute for physical products. However, just as I am not the "marketplace police", I am also not the "do you have physical copies police".

In Option B, if it is obviously clear that you are discussing this topic solely for promoting physical substitute, I will have a reason to intervene. Otherwise, I will not have reason to intervene.

Examples that will draw moderator attention: "Here is where and how you can print proxies of LOTRLCG cards", "Use Dragn Cards instead of buying cards". "Where do I get official card backs to copy?"

Examples that will not draw moderator attention: "What are some of the places you have used to print ALEP cards?", "You could use Dragn cards to quickly test your decks in different scenarios instead of shuffling your cards". "I'm sharing some of my fan creation alt-cards here"

Please let me know if you prefer A or B (or an alternate C that you wish to describe)

Open discussion below. Thank you!

I know its very quest dependent.
But lets say I would like the best chance to beat every quest with only one player count?
My guess would be.

Easiest to hardest:

2 player
3 player
4 player / 1 player (true solo) as the hardest

I might be completey wrong as my main experience is with true solo.

I know that true solo, some quests can be "trolled" or can not unfold their true potential
sometime. I also know that location lock and surge trains can grow out of control the more player you get, BUT.

I think that for a lot of quests demanding to solve all the problems for 1 deck is harder to achieve than for 2 or 3.
There is so much synergy that is missing when you play by yourself.
So many more combos you can try to achieve with a second deck.

Caveat: I'm playing progression style and I'm about half of the game and the potential card pool (Land of shadow right now)

Please post all buying and selling requests here. All other threads will be deleted. Please see forum rules (copied here)

• This is not ebay. But in the spirit of our co-operative game, we connect interested buyers/sellers ONCE per collection. It also shows FFG demand exists.
• ONE new post in Mega-thread per person (ever) to sell a “collection” or a custom, new LOTRLCG game aid
• ONE new post in Mega-thread per person (ever) looking to buy something
• ONE new post in Mega-thread per person (ever) on "what is my collection worth?"
• Unlimited replies to a post, or PM the poster
• NO marketing of non LOTRLCG related items
• Creative workarounds will result in moderator action
• A note on buying/selling prices. Whatever price a buyer and a seller agree to is a “fair price” in their eyes
• While anyone is free, and welcome to express their opinion on if they think something is a “fair price” – please be respectful if doing so, and remember that people can respectfully “agree to disagree”
• The moderators are not the "pricing police" - and will stay neutral on this topic when replying as a moderator

What scenario(s) and/or decks did everyone play this past week?

What was interesting about your game(s)?

Weekly Question

Do you go to any board game conventions or in person meet ups? 

If you would like to start the WDYP post let u/mrjamesbcox, or myself know.

Thank you everybody for your comments and upvotes (which I took as an indicator of sentiment) on the prior thread.

Based on your feedback, I have made two smallish(?) changes that hopefully keep the community feeling the same it has historically been, while also taking into account the new "no reprints available" environment.

***

(1) Buying/Selling MEGA-THREAD. All buying/selling should be contained in this thread. See rules 5 and 6 for details (also reprinted on the megathread)

Intent: Move all buying selling activities to one thread, to keep the rest of the forum streamlined for its main purpose - discussion of game play and sharing of game stories.

***

(2) "No cards available to play game" MEGA-THREAD. All discussions of proxies, simulators, etc. belong here. See updated rules 2, 3, 4 for details (also reprinted on the megathread)

Intent:

- Confining all discussion here will streamline the rest of the forum.

- Community feedback generally says there should be no gatekeeping of this information. I concur - and as an unrelated bonus it will take a moderation load off me that I do not want. Thus there will be NO moderation on the topic of copyright, legality, etc.

- Everyone is free to express their views (respectfully) on the legality, ethics, etc, and everyone is individually responsible for anything they post on the thread, or any actions they take because of the thread.

- Official forum policy is still "buy the physical product". However, similar to "moderators are not the pricing police", I now add "moderators are not the copyright/legality police".

Additionally - all information will be in one spot, which hopefully helps as a reference point for readers.

****

I am hopeful this is the best possible optimization to try and address many different point of views on these topics. We can adjust later if needed.

Thank you!

Hi all, I’ve been eyeing the burgertokens for lord of the rings. They have been out of stock for quite a while now. I’ve contacted BT through mail and send them a message on reddit but they are hard to reach.

I know this is a long shot, but anyone knows if I can expect them to become available soon or will they be out of stock forever?

I know they post sometimes on various social media or maybe someone did get an email back from them.

Over the past few weeks, I've seen several profiles pop up, offer to sell revised content, and then delete their posts and disappear and seemingly make a new profile. This has been Blue-tit (and some number) and Mental_Forever8707 here on Reddit, and BigPapaTreestump and SmokenShadows on the CotR discord. There may be others.

On Reddit, I've seen these profiles actively saying they've dm'ed people to try to sell revised content, and I've also seen sales posts. On the discord, BigPapaTreestump really had a go at trying to convince people that PayPal Goods and Services isn't any good for the seller, and we should just trust people — all the while showing his lack of trust of potential buyers, who he claimed to be concerned that they would file a dispute and he wouldn't receive any money. SmokenShadows then got banned after going on a racist tirade when someone accused him of insulting them after saying no to a bank transfer and insisting on using PayPal.

Each of these profiles has also been claiming to ship from either the UK or, more commonly, Ireland. About two hours ago, Mental_Forever8707 made a selling post and I asked him why he's using multiple accounts. The result? 40 minutes later he deleted his post. Either it was too suspicious and he didn't want people to become aware of what he's doing, or he sold that set.

Now: why multiple accounts? One person told me that this person ultimately claimed (in a private message) they have multiple sets, and thus they are making multiple accounts. But why not just use one account and say "I have X sets for sale"? Would this devalue the sets? Are they stolen from some store and this person is trying to cover their tracks? Is the multiple sets a front and really this person is just asking for bank transfers and scamming people? I don't know the answer to this. I have seen neither people who've said they were scammed nor people who've reported goods delivered (and at this point, with someone so prolific in new profiles, I would be highly suspicious of such reports).

All this to say, be very wary when you post that you're looking for something. **Use a payment method that provides protection for you.** When posting that you're looking for something, you become a very good target for potential fraudsters, because they now know what you want. This goes for any hobby, not just buying Lord of the Rings card game cards.

I am slowly working my way up the game progression style.
Right now I am at the journey to the cross road. Sooo hard!!
But I always played the quests without the boons and burdens, and didn't bother to keep the same heroes.
Always kept in my mind the wish to go back one day and play it on campaign mode true solo.
But after seing/playing a lot of the quests, I am starting to wonder if this is at all feasible true solo.

Has anyone sucessfully tried it?

I'm playing through the second Hobbit expansion and dealing with what seems to be the absolute nonsense of Smaug's Shadow card mechanic during the 'Inside Information' quest, just looking for a quality check on if this is how the game is supposed to work...

I just had a board of 15 allies and heroes wiped out as he was dealt shadow card after shadow card with a burgle rule which triggered him to attack endlessly against my board for eight damage, no-one could tank the damage & survive, he effectively ended the game on the very first attack phase after questing past the last stage.

Having checked the encounter deck, only two of the thirty undiscovered cards didn't have burgles on them. Effectively, my entire board was about to be wiped twice, with a single bat in the middle. Only 2-3 cards had come before this which didn't involve a burgled option either.

Am I understanding this card correctly? Is there supposed to be a cap on this? The rare forum discussions on this say it is indeed endless. I have no cards from my current setup or sagas played that could stop this, it'd be pure blind luck that he hit one of the very few shadow cards twice in a row that wouldn't trigger him for me to escape.

I play true solo which is hard enough but even with friends, this does seem to be a ridiculous rule, unless I'm missing something?

In a blow to some of the scalpers from earlier this year, Amazon US has restocked the Ered Mithrin campaign expansion. As of now, no limited stock label has been applied.

ETA: Seriously? I just bought one half an hour ago and they’re all gone?!