LotR LCG Solo Assistant

Middle-earth Rules Reference & Game State Tracker
📜 Open Rulebook
🗺️ Adventurer's Quick-Start Summary & Setup Guide ▼

Welcome back! Here is your quick-start roadmap and physical table setup guide:

1. Table Setup & Decks

  • Choose Heroes: Select 1 to 3 Heroes to form your fellowship. Place them face up in front of you.
  • Initial Threat: Sum up the Threat costs of your chosen heroes and set your Threat Tracker to that number.
  • Player Deck: Build a legal player deck of at least 50 cards (matching your heroes' spheres of influence). Shuffle it well.
  • Encounter Deck: Choose your scenario, take its specific encounter cards, and shuffle them into a separate Encounter Deck.
  • Quest Deck: Find the scenario's quest cards, sort them sequentially (Stage 1A on top, followed by 2A, etc.), read side 1A, and flip it to 1B.
  • Token Banks: Set aside pools for Damage, Progress, and Resource tokens.

2. Starting Hand & Golden Rules

  • Draw Opening Hand: Draw 6 cards from your player deck. Mulligan Rule: You may shuffle your opening hand back into your deck once and draw a fresh set of 6 if you don't like your cards.
  • The Golden Objective: Clear active locations and progress through quest stages by generating more Willpower than Threat during the Quest Phase.
  • True Solo Exception: Remember to skip the card draw during the very first Resource Phase of Round 1!
  • Defeat Conditions: You lose immediately if all your heroes die OR your threat tracker hits 50.

3. Resource Spheres & Action Windows

  • Sphere Matching: To play an Ally, Attachment, or Event, you must spend resources from a Hero belonging to that same matching Sphere (Leadership ⚜️, Tactics ⚔️, Spirit 🕊️, or Lore 📚). Neutral cards can be paid for by any hero.
  • Action Windows (⚡): These are open windows marked throughout the phases where you can play Events or trigger card abilities. Remember: **Actions can be chained**, and the active player goes first.
1
20
0
0
0
1. Resource Phase p. 7
Phase 1
  • Add 1 resource token to each hero's resource pool.
  • Draw 1 card from your player deck into your hand. (Note: In true solo, skip card draw on turn 1 setup, draw normally starting round 2).
⚡ Action Window: Play cards from hand, trigger character or card abilities.
2. Planning Phase p. 9
Phase 2
  • Play Allies and Attachments from hand by paying exact resource costs.
  • Restriction check: Max 2 Restricted attachments per character. Only 1 copy of a Unique card (♦) allowed in play per player.
⚡ Action Window: Trigger abilities before moving on to questing.
3. Quest Phase p. 11
Phase 3
  • Step 1: Commit Characters — Exhaust characters to send them on the quest. (Track total Willpower using the dashboard!)
  • Step 2: Staging — Reveal 1 card from the Encounter deck. Resolve *When Revealed*, *Doomed*, and *Surge* keywords immediately.
  • Step 3: Quest Resolution — Compare total Willpower vs. total Threat in staging.
    • If Willpower > Threat: Place progress tokens on active location first, then quest card.
    • If Willpower = Threat: Nothing happens.
    • If Threat > Willpower: Raise your threat by the difference.
⚡ Action Window: Play event cards or trigger abilities in response.
4. Travel Phase p. 12
Phase 4
  • You may move at most 1 location from the staging area to the active location slot.
  • Rule check: You can only travel if there is currently no active location. Clear active locations to stop them from adding threat during questing!
⚡ Action Window: Last chance for actions before enemies activate.
5. Encounter Phase p. 12
Phase 5
  • Step 1: Optional Engagement — You may choose to engage any 1 enemy in the staging area.
  • Step 2: Engagement Checks — Compare each remaining enemy's Engagement Cost to your Threat level. If Threat ≥ Cost, that enemy automatically engages you.
⚡ Action Window: Play combat-prep actions (e.g., Feint).
6. Combat Phase p. 13
Phase 6
  • 6A. Deal Shadow Cards: Deal 1 face-down shadow card to each engaged enemy.
  • 6B. Enemy Attacks:
    1. Choose an engaged enemy.
    2. Declare a defender (exhaust an eligible character). If no defender is declared, the attack is Undefended and hits a hero directly!
    3. Flip and resolve Shadow Card effects.
    4. Determine damage: Attack minus Defense (excess goes to character/hero HP).
  • 6C. Player Attacks: Exhaust an eligible attacking character to attack an engaged enemy. Compare Attack vs. Enemy Defense.
⚡ Action Window: Post-combat cleanup actions.
7. Refresh Phase p. 14
Phase 7
  • Ready all exhausted cards (characters, heroes, attachments, locations).
  • Increase your Threat tracker by 1.
  • Optional cleanup: Reset your Willpower counter back to 0 for the next round.
💡 Solo Reminder: Unique cards (♦) are limited to 1 in play per player. Characters can hold max 2 Restricted attachments. Shadow card text only applies during Step 6B!