http://legendsofnorrath.station.sony.com/
Feel free to add to this thread as necessary.
I could not learn this game at all for a number of reasons:
- I had never played non Hoyle based card games
- lack of genuine interest
- Annoyance
- impatience
I finnaly learned one night with a quick tutorial from Isenhart - where he worked thru the above and other annoying behaivioral problems I was having with this game.
The bottom line on this game is that there are several types of cards The primarly ones that affect the flow of the game:
Avatar card - this is your hero and is the focus for most of the game
Quest cards - 4 quest completions is one of 2 ways to victory - killing the opponents avatar is another
Item cards - can have a great impact on gameplay mostly affecting your avatar
Ability cards - the only way you can work on quests is thru playing Ability cards - I could not get this until I was taught by Isenhart
unit cards - These are your armys. They protect your avatar and do battle vs enemy avatar and units
The flow of the turn:
Quest phase - this is where any ability cards that were played in a previous turn but have not been used (exerted) can build towards quest completion. Bottom line if you have an unexerted quest card that has been taken out of your hand, (Excerted is a fancy way of saying that you clicked on the card in order to gain the defence, or special action from that ability in the previous round) then you will be made to choose one of the two quests - the one on right or left. you can click on the quest card to see what it will do if you complete it or play against it. Some don't do anything based on your playing abilities against them but affect units simply by being the active quest card.. after you click the quest card you will do battle with any unit cards from the enemy on that quest card - or just automatically get to choose an ability card to fill in the quest tokens. Each ability card has a differant amount of quest value.
Drawing from your deck and "raids." The word "raid" really made me think hard in LoN at first because I didn't get it. I know what a raid is. Well in LoN "raid" simply means initiating your unit combat against the enemy units or enemy avatar. This is done by clicking the green flag by the quest card that your unit cards are by.
"raids:" There are many coplexities to what makes battles good for you or a failure. You can click your units in order to deal the most damage (sword) to the enemy in order to come in "JUST" ahead of his defence rating. beating an enemy with a defence rating of 1 with an attack rating of 10 is stupid - 2 beats a 1 the same as a 10 beats a 1 so why blow extra units attack. After your sword has swung - if you have any units with an unused combat bonus (looks like a white starry thing) you can click them in order to cause more than one damage. This can be devastating to your opponent if used well.
Drawing cards: Well each new turn you get 2 new cards. you can only draw cards from your hand out onto the Tableu with power costs totalling your Avatars power. Under normal circumstances your power is 3 until the first quest is completed by either you or your opponent. Think of power as mana. it is blue after all. Your Cards each have a power rating. You might have a unit card that costs 2 to play into the unit tableu - and an ability that only costs 1 to put in the ability tableu - this is a great couple cards to have available in your first draw - so lucky you. Once you have drawn cards with power ratings (top left corner of the card) = the power rating in your blue bar you can't really draw more cards that round unless you have special cards or quests that result in freakky extra draws. For example a very common quest is one where you finish the quest card (Fill up 2 tokens on a level 2 quest) and it gives you the right to draw an Item card from your deck. This is great in early rounds when you might be low on cards.
Each card based on its type will have differant characteristics and numbers based on its job.
Unit cards: in general have an attack rating and a defence ratiing. Some unit cards have only one or niether of the above but they have special utility. They have that damage bonus on some cards as well. Each card also has a power rating - and this is what your power bar/mana bar is charged to pull them out of your "hand."
Ability cards can have all sorts of special effects - with differant impact on the game - you will have to read each to see how to use it. For a quester the most important part is that there is a quest rating. This is a golden number that says how many quest tokens will apply to a quest card during the quest phase if you play this ability. The abilty cards also have a power rating - some also have defence ratings as well - with plenty of variations. For starters - focus on the written specials that the card does, the quest rating and the power rating.
Item cards. These have just as large diversity as the ability cards - but do not have direct impact on quests. These are mostly played in order to reap benifits during combat or regenerating cards or units. Some are one time use - some last for a long time.
Tactics cards. These have various uses - some charge power points so must be used with care - others are "free" and just get expended. These ussually affect defence ratings, damage to enemy avatars or units or affect enemy abilities or items
After you have "raided" any units you wanted to have combat your opponents units or avatar, and have no more cards to draw - or exert (use) - there is a "PASS" button to press and your opponent gets to do everything against you now.
This is in no way a comprehensive guide - but should give an idiot, brand new to tabletop RPG/Strategy card gaming, some concepts that were very foreign to me as I tried to step up and figure out this game peeps gave me essentially for free. You simply can not learn until you played - However, I played 4 games and didn't learn anything at all and was very frustrated - because I didn't understand ANY of the above information while I was playing. I didn't know what the hell was going on and got more and more pissed off.
There is something missing from the tutorial - and it is hard to put my finger on it - but I missed a lot of it by going thru the tutorial because I didn't know how to play at the end of it until Isenhart took me by the hand and showed me what the Tutorial tried to teach but I couldn't grasp.
I only had to pay $2.99 in order to trade cards - but everything else about the game is free - providing everyone gets the starter decks that they say are going to ALL EQ players at the end of beta.