What books do you actually need to play this game?

[farinal]

Agreed with Falenthal. Start with obviously the Corebook and the Tales from Wilderland. This should get you covered for some time. If you prefer more sandboxy games and to create your own adventures then you might get the Heart of the Wild instead of the Tales. But they all compliment each other pretty well. And Darkening of Mirkwood is just a really big campaign book which is lovely.

And an unrelated note: I would rank Rivendell up more than the Adventurer's Companion or Erebor for it's new mechanics and rules about magical treasures and two new races.

[Kurt]

Hi OrbitalAxolotl,

I am in the same position, funds are pretty tight for me too. Although I have most of these books, I prioritised them in order of importance and picked them up as I could afford them. I'll get the newer releases too at some stage. The books I consider a "must have" are in bold.

1. The Core Rulebook
2. Heart of the Wild
3. Darkening of Mirkwood
4. Tales of the Wilderland
5. Rivendell
6. Horse-Lords of Rohan
7. Erebor (yet to be purchased)
8. Adventurer's Companion (yet to be purchased)

Cheers,
Kurt

[Zulgolra]

I would rank Rivendell up more than the Adventurer's Companion or Erebor for it's new mechanics and rules about magical treasures and two new races.

That is at least half wrong: There are no other cultures/races at the moment if you have the Adventurerers Companion. Rangers and Highelfs are in there too. So the only thing you get from `Rivendell´ (exept the discription of Rivendell and the lands around it), is rules for magical treasures...

[Vuriche]

I'll throw my suggestions into the ring as well and I'll try to motivate my choices out of my experience of collecting all of the books released thus far. My apologies if I happen to repeat what others already may have stated, I read the thread itself last night.

Your first option after The Core Rulebook is one of preference I would say. If you want a collection of ready-to-play adventures, go with Tales from Wilderland. If you want a campaign-supplement that really fills out the world with more inhabitants and features and enables you to build your own campaign more readily, I'd recommend Heart of the Wild. I found the campaign description in the core rules, though thoroughly captivating, a bit devoid of people actually residing in the world described and that is something the campaign supplements work wonders to amend.

A pertinent bit of information here is that Heart of the Wild, while an excellent supplement, does not cover the entirety of Wilderland. It covers the western and central part of Wilderland, but not the eastern regions surrounding Dale, Lake-Town and Erebor. This means that if your players express interest in creating a group mostly consisting of these heroic cultures, or you wish to play in these areas, you might find that the Erebor supplement becomes a higher priority for you, as it details the lands of eastern Wilderland, as well as some regions to the east, as far away as the Iron Hills. The Lake-Town Sourcebook, is on the other hand very short and really only necessary if either you want to centre your campaign in and around Lake-Town, or your group absolutely demands to play Men of that culture and have access to rules distinguishing them from Men of Dale. The kick-ass screen might steal your cash out from under you regardless of course.

The Darkening of Mirkwood then is your grand campaign supplement spanning decades of in-game time and which is infinitely expandable, either with adventures and twists of your own, or by weaving in the ones from the Tales supplement.

The supplements listed above offers up a complete campaign description of Wilderland and the cultures therein. From this point, your choices become a matter of which region you might desire to expand your campaign into, or specific rules and cultures you might desire to add to your play, most of which is information easy to discern from reading the product descriptions.

I would however specifically recommend Rivendell for its rules, not its regional description, since I found that area to be mostly devoid of inhabitants even after reading the book and that made me lose interest for the region. However, the magical items, powerful adversaries, rules for the Eye and fascinating heroic cultures make it a very good book to acquire as I think it enriches any campaign it is added to.

[Otaku-sempai]

That is at least half wrong: There are no other cultures/races at the moment if you have the Adventurerers Companion. Rangers and Highelfs are in there too. So the only thing you get from `Rivendell´ (exept the discription of Rivendell and the lands around it), is rules for magical treasueres...

If there is one glaring deficiency in Rivendell it is that it almost completely ignores the region of The Angle and makes no effort to explore the small communities of Dúnedain that would have dwelt there. Might all of the males have been called to serve as Rangers for at least a short time upon reaching maturity? Did women among the Dúnedain of the North take up some of the traditional male roles when the men-folk were away?

[Rich H]

That is at least half wrong: There are no other cultures/races at the moment if you have the Adventurerers Companion. Rangers and Highelfs are in there too. So the only thing you get from `Rivendell´ (exept the discription of Rivendell and the lands around it), is rules for magical treasueres...

... That isn't accurate either. You also get the Eye of Mordor rules and the rules for enhancing adversaries with greater abilities (which has been vital for my campaign).

[Vuriche]

That is at least half wrong: There are no other cultures/races at the moment if you have the Adventurerers Companion. Rangers and Highelfs are in there too. So the only thing you get from `Rivendell´ (exept the discription of Rivendell and the lands around it), is rules for magical treasueres...

If there is one glaring deficiency in Rivendell it is that it almost completely ignores the region of The Angle and makes no effort to explore the small communities of Dúnedain that would have dwelt there. Might all of the males have been called to serve as Rangers for at least a short time upon reaching maturity? Did women among the Dúnedain of the North take up some of the traditional male roles when the men-folk were away?

I certainly agree and I would hope the coming Bree supplement might seek to amend this.

[Otaku-sempai]

I certainly agree and I would hope the coming Bree supplement might seek to amend this.

Maybe, but I doubt that. My impression is that the Bree book is solely concerned with Western Eriador and perhaps the Blue Mountains. I'm not even sure that it will cover either the Shire or the Tower Hills. And I'm not expecting much, if anything, about the Grey Havens.

[Zulgolra]

... That isn't accurate either. You also get the Eye of Mordor rules and the rules for enhancing adversaries with greater abilities (which has been vital for my campaign).

... granted, but I still don't think a new player absolutely needs 'Rivendell' (you don't really qualify as the newby type here ) the other supplements are more vital and support each other more ... (just my opinion)

[Vuriche]

I certainly agree and I would hope the coming Bree supplement might seek to amend this.

Maybe, but I doubt that. My impression is that the Bree book is solely concerned with Western Eriador and perhaps the Blue Mountains. I'm not even sure that it will cover either the Shire or the Tower Hills. And I'm not expecting much, if anything, about the Grey Havens.

I certainly agree with your sentiment there Otaku-sempai, regarding the communities you mention. However my comment was upon the hope that we might see more material regarding the actual abodes and communities of the hidden Dúnedain, which ought to be either centred in The Angle, or scattered around western Eriador.