As the challenge decks become scarce, there is a lack of a good entry point to the game. And buying the 10 challenge decks, even at the reasonable price from Gwaihir, was just never a budget option with overseas shipping. While there are many sets of beginner decks, all nicer than these ones, they are not decks that can be given freely because they include copies of F1 fixed cards and F2 characters, wizards, or even rares. Even commons from Dark Minions and Against the Shadow have become scarce. Through bad luck or random chance I only have 3 copies of Thranduil and Wellinghall myself. At least, I don't see many people offering to give away decks. So this is where I came from. I also checked buying singles the 3 decks could be bought for $40-60, plus shipping.
There are a lot of ways a beginner's guide can be done and I made revisions upon revisions. But in the end there were too many competing goals and interests for perfection. And people like this game for many different reasons anyway. There is no best solution. I like the Tolkien themes and I think many new players do as well. Or, that is how many find the game in the first place. And I think that rings are so iconic that they should be included, even if it's clunky. I should have built the ring deck first as a friend suggested. But anyway, there can be a second edition. In the end, the main goal is to get a person who is already interested in the game over the initial learning curve. To get them playing quickly and hopefully excited to start deck building on their own.
I have a scripted set of turns in the works (just a fixed opening hand), similar to the Gandalf & Saruman Starter Set Initial Adventure.
By the way, if any new player is looking for an entry point to the game, feel free to post here and I'll see if I can help. I am trying to put together a few more sets of decks.
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EDIT: updated the file as mentioned below.
EDIT: adding a Turn Summary as mentioned below.
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