Beside choosing the right heroes and spheres, a lot depends on the player's choices during the game. When I started playing I made several mistakes. The three major ones being

1. to believe that this game is about fighting. It is not, it is 90 percent about questing.

2. to think that I have to avoid a fail in the quest phase under all circumstances

3. not  to maximize the use Gandalf's abilities (lowering threat isn't always your top choice)

Some comments to each point:

1. The faster you get through a scenario, the less encounters you will have. Less enemies, less locatiosn, less nasty treacheries. Try to playe allies that help you questing ASAP. Try to play cheap allies, don't save your resources for costy allies. Faramir won't help you anymore if your party has already been screwed when you enter play. Play some Snowbourn Scouts and Dúnedain studd instead.

Rich already mentioned that the lore sphere owns this game. This is not only because of the great cards already mentioned in thsi thread, but because Dáin improves the value of each dwarven lore ally. Erebor Hammersmith became a great card because of this. Erebor Record Keeper rocks, and Erebor Mapmaker will guarantee you a quick victory. Even Miner of the Iron Hills has some use, even if it's only to block stong enemies.

2. I try to give an example: I played Passage to Mirkwood during the last week with Glóin, Dáin and Bifur as my heroes. In the beginning I used to send both Glóin and Bifur questing, mostly joined by another low cost ally. That way I got some serious progress in the first round already. I could use Dáin as a defender against the Forest Spider, and Glóin (readied by travelling the Old Forest Road) could harm the spider a bit. Then I changed my strategy and sent only Bifur questing. Most of the time I got a threat penalty and of course no progress, but in the combat phase I was able to kill the Forest Spider immediatly (I either had a Snowbourn Scout or Erebor Hammersmith as defender) as long as I didn't draw another enemy. After that I could play the next few rounds relaxed and was prepared against nasty encounters and won almost all of my games.

3. Again I will use PtM as my example. A lot of players will keep Gandalf back when they have the Sneak/Gamdalf combo in their starting hand or, when they play him immediatly, use his threat lowering ability. However, the best strategy is to play him in round 1 during the quest phase and to use his ability to kill the Forest Spider. In that case a player should quest like hell to finish the first stage in one single round. An unexperienced player might  hesitate to kill the spider, because it seems like waste to use Gandalf to kill such a relatively harmless enemy. But early enemies are the meanest, and you best get rid of them before they get company.

richsabre said:

From what I understand of your error you were making the game easier not harder. I didn't pay much attention to the thread though after you found you were playing wrong as I'm more interested in correct play. So i might be wrong.

Though as I understood it you were playing events in the planning phase and leaving them on the table like an ally allies or something, sac'n them when you needed them.

Robert McMutton said:

Thanks. I have Radagast in the deck because he helped with A Journey to Rhosgobel, he's a 2-willpower ally, and (unless I'm mistaken) he can help pay for Gandalf (hard cost, not via Sneak Attack). That said, I rarely put him into play. One of the nice things about having so much draw power from Beravor and Unexpected Courage is that you can actually afford to include situational cards in the deck. If I didn't draw so many cards, each of them would have to be useful every game. In this deck, they still are useful every game, but many of them are merely +1 bumps to Willpower via Protector of Lorien.

Thorongil said:

Sorry, but he can't pay for Gandalf, only for creatures. He might buy him a drink though.

booored said:

you are correct- this was making things easier at times and in certain situations, but it wasnt a be all and end all win/win situation id created

- but the in hindsight ive lost many games through my error- eg times when i have drawn cards after the planning phase and had test of will/hasty stroke in my hand but thought i could not play them

in correct play your hand acts as what my staging area was, in effect i was only allowing events to be opened as an option to use after theyd left my hand, whereas the correct way is that your entire hand is open to use

anyways.......point learned.....hopefully it will be my last ridiculous assmumption of the rules i make (though with me thats unlikely)

leptokurt said:

That is what I have thought. Correct that he is helpful in Rhosgobel, but apart of this, he can pay for creatures, and the only creature cards for now are the eagles. Just wanted to make you know, if it could be of use, now that we are talking in this thread a little about wrong assumptions .

Robert McMutton said:

There is also Riddermark's Finest under the Spirit sphere with the Creature trait.  Not that you'd have Radagast in just for them, but could be worth considering if it makes the difference between adding him or not if you only have a couple Eagles but 3x Riddermark's Finest.  Plus, he can heal them!  YAAAA~!

It really depends on the scenario you are playing against as well. I would tailor my deck differently to Journey down the Anduin or Conflict at the Carrock as opposed to Passage through Mirkwood or Hills of Emyn Muil. I used to be a straight Spririt/Leadership player, but then I realized that I wasn't utilizing almost half of the card pool that I had available. I was uneasy at first stepping out of my comfort zone, but now there are certain cards, like Gleowine or A Burning Brand, that I wasn't using before that now I can't imagine playing without. Take a leap, use heroes and cards you haven't used before, and experiment.

I am mostly a multiplayer guy...I like this game best with 2-3 players, mostly because of the back-and-forth between players, the feeling you get when you help out your fellow players and manage threats according to the strenghts of your deck.

However, back when I began, I tried Solo play a while, when I realized that I didn't have to wait for a buddy to test out decks. I remember making some crucial errors...

-First Sphere I ever played was Tactics, and I had a kick out of it...just LOVED to kill me some monsters and protect the other players. Sadly though, Tactics alone or even mixed (if Tactics remains majoritary) isn,t all that great for solo. Granted, it has great cards like Feint and cheap Eagles, which is why it can be included as a supporting Sphere, but Questing is vital in solo play, as well as Staging area contro (esp. locations). So yeah...it was tough.

-Expecting to win as often as in multiplayer. Truth is, this game ca be real tough. I only played the two first quests from the Core set solo, but maaaaaan even the first one (Mirkwood) could surprise me (those King Spiders are a kick in the balls...totally hate them). As for Journey on the Anduin well....it all depended on the start I got. 1 out of 4 sounds like a fair ratio for soloing quests. Skill helps, but since you don't have buddies to help and only 3 heroes and a hand of cards, luck is a big factor.

-Not adapting to the Quest. The point has been made, so I won't dwell on it. Now, I read ervery Encounter card before I start a quest, even in Multi.

As I said in another thread, figuring out your play style and what you want to get out of it will orient you more either towards Solo play or Multiplayer play. Both are fun, but Multiplayer scales better, whereas Solo is more brutal. In fact, overall I pretty much agree with booored's assessment : it's a pretty good POV on solo play.

Me, I'll still prefer to invite players over and go Multi...but the more I play and the more I am tempted to try solo again. A growing card pool and solid experience (played  A LOT in Multi) will probably make the difference this time around !

 Short time lurker, first time poster. 

I started playing a couple months ago and really love this game. I've mostly played solo, and my win ratio has been pretty good, between 33-50% for all the scenarios I've played so far. I'm still making my way through the first cycle of APs, and have all the cards through Khazad Dum. I played Hills of Emyn Muil and it was the first time I won on my first try. 

I did manage to beat Dol Goldur solo after three tries, and that was mostly lucky draws from the encounter deck. 

I'm sort of afraid of trying Massing at Osgiliath solo. My friend and I eventually beat it two player, but it was nasty!

Dead Marshes looks pretty tough. I'm going to try it later this weekend maybe.

As others have posted, I need to move out of my comfort zone because I usually find myself playing any three from among Eowyn, Legolas, Denethor, Dunhere, or Theodred. I should go back and try the earlier quests with different decks. I'm hoping to try something different for Dead Marshes. And it seems a given to use all Dwarves for the KD quests. 

Bomb said:

Aaah, I forgot completely about them... well, a new option for Radagast to consider. Thank you for pointing me that.

Glaurung said:

I'm curious why you think customizing your deck for specific scenarios seems unfair?  I can appreciate the strategy and skill in building a deck that does well against all scenarios, but I think there is an equal amount of strategy in building a deck optimized to take on a specific scenario and try to obtain the lowest possible score against that scenario.  This doesn't seem unfair to me, but just a different approach for playing and I think both approaches are valid, require skill and are fun ways of playing.

RGun said:

i think the whole point of the game is deck building for specific scenarios- but thats me

I agree with Rgun and richsabre. There are certain cards that I would use against a certain scenario and not others. Forest Snare is a perfect example. I would use that in a solo game against Confilct and Anduin, but not really in any other situation (maybe Hunt for Gollum witht he Hunters from Mordor too). Part of the fun for me is using different heroes and strategies to defeat the same quest.

RGun said:

I think that adding cards to the original card pool is even more unfair than customizing your deck.

I see the "one deck to rule them all" approach as something you use when you want to play something like the nightmare mode. Otherwise the players are supposed to create new decks, I think that's the whole sense of a LCG where you get new cards and heroes with each new scenario.

But then everyone should play after his own fashion, eh?