r/JourneysInMiddleEarth

Hey everyone!

I played through one full campaign with my own setup and few chapters with some coworkers on their setups, but those games were pretty spread out and it has been quite a while since I last played. I recently got back into it and realized I have a bunch of unrelated questions about setup, general strategy and some rules.

1. Is that green card with the three dots that you prepare the first time you play supposed to be prepared at the bottom of every chapter, or is it only prepared the first time?
2. I am a bit confused about provoking enemies and their counterattacks.

2.1 Besides moving out of a space with an enemy and interacting with something while an enemy is present, is there anything else that provokes an enemy?

2.2 If I attack an enemy and it can counterattack me, then I attack the same enemy again, can it counterattack again? And what happens if multiple heroes attack the same enemy? Can the enemy counterattack every time it is attacked, or only once?

I noticed the icon in the app sometimes becomes greyed out, which is what confused me.

2.3 I am also a bit confused about enemy movement during the Shadow Phase. For example, if the app says something like "Move 1: Attack Legolas", and you choose no target after moving one space toward Legolas, then it suddenly says "Move 3: Closes Hero". Does that mean the enemy then moves three additional spaces toward the nearest hero, for a total of four spaces? That seems extremely strong, so I am wondering if I am misunderstanding how this works.

1. Should we generally try to stay together since quite a few heroes get benefits when sharing a space with another hero? Should we actively plan around those bonuses, or is it usually better for everyone to split up and focus on different objectives?
2. Regarding the accounts, I created an Asmodee account, but I noticed that I can buy additional Journeys in Middle Earth campaigns on Steam. This confused me a little.If I buy the campaigns through Steam, are they somehow linked to my Asmodee account, so that the Asmodee app will automatically recognize the campaigns I purchased? Or how exactly does that work? It has been a long time since I played, so I am a bit lost with how the accounts and purchases work now.
3. We are also looking for some good hero combinations to try. We played Legolas and Gimli. What are some other good two player combinations? I am particularly interested in Gandalf. Is he good with two players? And for three players, what hero combination do you guys usually enjoy playing?

Thanks in advance for the answers, and sorry if some of these are really basic questions. I just haven't played in a long time and wanted to make sure I understand everything correctly before getting back into it!

I'm really bad at this game, it's just me and my wife and we took a long time just to beat the first campaign with Legolas and Gimli. We attempted with 4 characters but kept getting swarmed with way too many enemies every few turns. It took about 7 or 8 attempts only 2 of them making it to the end (we reset a lot of them from losing so much)

What are some good character combo's or strategies? I'm shocked when I see people playing as a party of 4 on hard and complaining it's too easy, what are they doing exactly that makes it so easy? I've seen suggestions of classes and cards, but I really don't get how to prepare one of those cards, they are in a deck of 14 to start with and I can only scout and choose one of those cards every turn with the rest being reshuffled at the end of it, if I have no other way to scout then the odds of finding that specific OP card is 2 in 14 every turn.

If I race to explore and take care of threats it continues the story adding more locations and enemies along with the threat meter's enemies, then every turn I have 10 odd enemies all taking turns moving in and attacking, which I then have to fight one by one or provoke them all to flee only for them to catch up on the next turn.

If I try to take out the enemies I spend my turns achieving little as the threat meter gets closer to the end, I struggle to move anywhere, and by then time I'm done with a few groups new ones are spawned in.

How do I properly prepare to handle these situations? I'm always lacking in inspiration, successes, and foresight. The last game on Ember crown I went into a cave and it spawned a boss who would move away 2 spaces after an attack, more enemies got spawned in, and every round we was taking 3 to 4 damage/fear cards each and then putting out near to no damage whilst getting counter attacked by everything.

Hi all!

I absolutely love Journeys in Middle earth. I have played it a few times with some colleagues from work and recently bought the base game for myself.

I have not even finished my first campaign yet, but Shadowed Paths is arriving in about a month. I know I probably jumped the gun buying an expansion so early, but honestly, I really wanted to play Gandalf. Hehe

I have a few questions and would really appreciate some advice from more experienced players.

1. How do you handle expansion components?

Shadowed Paths adds new cards, enemies, tiles and other components. Do you mix everything together and use the new components in every campaign, or do you keep expansion components separate?

2. What happens to the Corruption mechanic?

If I play the original base game campaign after owning Shadowed Paths, will Corruption be included? Does adding the expansion change how the original campaign plays?

3. Should I replay the base campaign first?

Would you recommend playing the base campaign several times with different hero combinations before moving on to Shadowed Paths, or is there no real reason to wait?

4. What about Spreading War?

I plan to get Spreading War eventually too. Do its new mechanics also get added to other campaigns, or are expansion mechanics generally tied to their own campaigns?

5. Why are the expansions rated so much higher?

I noticed on BoardGameGeek that the expansions seem to be rated significantly higher than the base game. What do they add that makes the game better? Is it mostly more content, or do they actually improve the gameplay systems?

6. How do you organize everything between campaigns?

How do you keep track of your decks, cards, heroes, equipment and progress when you pack everything away? Do you use an organizer, separate boxes, bags, dividers, or just take pictures and write things down?

I am especially interested in this because until now I have only played as a player with my colleagues. Now people are going to start coming over to my place to play, potentially with different groups playing different campaigns, so I will be the one responsible for setting everything up and putting it away.

Sorry for all the questions! I am just really excited about the game and want to make sure I am doing things properly before I start adding expansions.

Thanks everyone!

If I for example didnt do something or failed at something, etc. is there chances that something else will happen later in campaign or generally everything stays the same? Im not sure how to properlly describe my question but I hope you understand me

I can't find expansions to buy almost anywhere or they are with high delivery price if I find one, all the stores I use to shop from have everything sold out. Will there be more printings? Did they lose license? Will there be second edition? What is general state

bonus question, which expansion should I go for after base game?