Back to Middle Earth

I have recently been yearning for more Lord of the Rings LCG in my life, I think perhaps since I achieved the ten games of Marvel Champions last week. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still planning to play more of that game soon, as well, but I’ve kinda found myself focusing on the next game to get to ten with.

There is a lot of Lord of the Rings LCG that I actually haven’t played, with at least three full cycles that are completely new to me. I’ve had it since release, of course, I’ve just not actually played it. Having so many scenarios available for the older game, you’d think that the choice would really inspire me, but I do find myself thinking that I really ought to play some of these cycles in order. I talked about this kind of thing last year, but even though the “campaign” in Lord of the Rings is barely present, I find it difficult to even think about playing some scenarios out of the context of their cycle.

However, as I said, far too much of this game has been going unplayed, and I think I need a new approach to it. I am still invested in my efforts with the Angmar Awakened cycle, so I’m planning to finish that up before too long, and I’ve also got the Vengeance of Mordor cycle waiting for me, which I’m somewhat thinking will be treated as much of a campaign.

But when I think back to my history playing this game, I wouldn’t keep to strictly the same heroes/deck as I played the new adventure packs; I would cheerfully swap out entire decks while having my play-through. I have also really enjoyed the game by using a single deck against just two or three scenarios in a sort of mini-campaign, cherry-picking my favourites from a cycle to go up against again. I liked playing it that way, and I think that it worked really well for me at the time. Interestingly, that is kinda what I’m doing now with Marvel Champions, although I’m not exactly playing the campaign itself, I am nevertheless using any old hero combo as I go up against the villains.

I’ve had two games with Lord of the Rings LCG recently that have been sort of along these lines – I took Boromir and Faramir decks through The Long Dark, which was a lot more difficult than I remembered, and Aragorn and Faramir then went through The Fords of Isen, although I’ve since thought I might replace Aragorn in that deck with Elrohir, which should make for an interesting deck-pairing for the future.

The Ringmaker cycle was where the magic seemed to stop for me, unfortunately, and so while I’ve played up to The Dunland Trap, pretty much everything thereafter is uncharted territory. I did used to play true solo though, and so now that I’m playing two-handed I think I should fare much better. I’m therefore excited to investigate further into the cycle, and see what I’ve been missing out on for all these years, but I also think that these decks could well be swapped around as I go. I think I’ve got about 7 decks built up for the game so far, so I have plenty of variety to keep things fresh on that front, as well.

In short, I’m once more really enjoying myself in Tolkien’s land. I’m looking forward to trying out some of the “new” quests while also potentially taking these decks through some of the older scenarios, too. I’m already thinking of minor tweaks to the decks, too, which will make things even more interesting as we go. I’m really looking forward to it, anyway!