Great to hear some news, looking forward to any pictures and other details about the game.  

I can imagine the possibility of assigning the shadow cards point values, so that the ultimate objective would be to try and get the highest score, which would be done by making the toughest shadow deck possible.  Or perhaps different FFG designed premade shadow decks for different scenarios.  I'm certainly excited to hear more info.

Thanks for the early insights, guys.

As a MECCG player, I've got both my eyes on the internet today, desperate for more info on this game.

LotR LCG sounds less complex than MECCG (which I love, so less complexity is not a plus) but there's enough going on there that I have some hope.  Exhausting to travel, exhausting to fight combats that block the quest, exhausting to attack the quest... these are definite echoes of MECCG imho, so... so far, so good!  Hope to hear more, more, more!

(and judging by the Horn of Gondor card in the intro article, yes, there must be items that attach to the heroes)

This game has me excited.  It sounds right up my alley.  Which hero's/allies did they have in the demo decks?

The gencon day 2 video has LotR stuff at 2 min 40 seconds.

Toqtamish said:

Bummer.   Work filters won't let me watch it.  I'll have to wait till I get home.  Thanks.

I have yet to try one of the LCG's. I want to try Warhammer, but I love the idea of a game two people can enjoy and not have to battle one another, similar to Shadows Over Camelot board game. I live 30 minutes away from downtown Indianapolis, so I can't wait to check it out tomorrow.

In the video it show the card game being played on a mat or was that a game board? I wonder if that comes with it or if it was just made for the demos to help new players play at Gencon.

They have the tables wrapped in printed paper.  I would assume that does not come with the game.  The demo stuff is incomplete, so I'm not sure what does come with the game.  For instance, we used Warhammer damage tokens and generic gold tokens from Citadels during play, not the cool stuff you see in the stills they posted earlier.

Comparing it to MECCG does not work well.  Vastly different and MECCG was more complex. 

Considering the quest we were playing was some woods-I honestly do not remember if it was supposed to be Mirkwood or not-and the shadow deck had a bunch of spiders and stuff in it, I would assume that the Shadow deck is fixed.  Pure conjecture.  I'll try to remember some of these questions tomorrow and ask.  They have rulebooks lying around I could likely sit and read without anyone batting an eye.

Chevee

 There is some additional discussion the the game from other gencon participants here.  According to what is posted the game will slowly cover Middle Earth starting with Mirkwood in the core set.

Okay, I spoke to Nate French a bit about the format and also card distribution.

The base game comes with 4 "preconstructed decks" and three quests.  The quests have a Shadow pack that goes with them and so when you pick your quest cards, you use the pack for each of the 3 cards to build the shadow deck.

The preconstructed decks have singles, so 3 base sets will be required for a full playset, but the packs will be all 3 ofs, like the rest of the LCGs now.

Also, the shadow cards  have symbols that are associated with the quests like a Spider or Orc and you will be able to mix in later Spider cards to the shadow deck when facing a spider quest.

For competitive play, Nate said they were leaning towards what I assumed.  There would be a new quest you have never seen before at the event.  Build what you hope is the best deck, show up and get a quest assigned and go at it.  The quests would also be prizes to be reprinted later, but special for that event.  I like that a lot.  It is a elegant way to add story to the game. 

That's it for now.  I haven't re-demoed so it's all I've got.

Chevee

  I want to go to there. This will be great.

  So, I never made it back to take a re-run at the game, but I did snap a few overheads on my camera in passing.  Quality is horrible and glare is bad, but this may be of use to somebody.  If these bring up any more questions, I'll do my best to answer.

Just back from GenCon..preview of this was strange at first, but the co-op idea was very cool. There were a few hang ups that even the demo people

had struggled with. I liked the concept and prolly would try to see where this goes.