by mjd83
Jay did a fine job of laying out the options for a beginner and I concur. I'd like to piggyback off of his post and add a few more insights.1x Core set -
This is really only great for "getting your feet wet". The advantages are the decks are made for you, it's ready to open up and play with minimal setup. Prepare to get beat down, as this game has a learning curve and it's depth is not immediately apparent, atleast it wasn't for me. Don't get frustrated... experiment with playstyle and come to these forums for help... LOTR:LCG has a GREAT BGG following and this is a really useful community for developing your game. I found 1x core set actually gets stale pretty fast.. if you like this game I guarantee you will be wanting expansion packs.
Mirkwood Cycle -
You will be amazed how much buying a few packs in this cycle will open up the flood gates. The scenarios are more thematic, have a different (slightly more polished feel), and it is a lot of fun to start experimenting with the additional heros/player cards a pack at a time. That's how I got started.You'll likely be hungering for more.
I DO NOT recommend buying 2 core sets as a beginning player... not much bang for the buck. The only advantage is to have multiples of some really great cards. I have been playing this game for 100s of hours and have never purchased a second core set.
Khazad Dum/Dwarrowdelf-
KD is necessary to play the Dwarrowdelf packs. These scenarios up the difficulty and are far more polished/thematic/and fun in design than the predecessors. These also open up the dwarf deck option.. which is currently the most powerful deck design in the game.
Hobbit Sagas -
These require the core set and nothing else. However, the difficulty is a bit higher than KD/DD (IMHO) and it introduces a lot of more "advanced" thematic gameplay options. It is a lot of fun but I would not recommend until you have a decent card pool built up and have been playing for a while and know the ropes. This set has the potential of confusing new players.
Heirs of Numenor (Against the Shadow packs not out yet)-
As is implied from my other posts recently on this subject, I would only recommend this set for the most advanced players who are very comfortable with the game and deckbuilding, and have an expansive card pool to draw from. This expansion has completely turned deckbuilding and gameplay upside down, and have force a lot of us "advance" players to re-evaluate how we play. These are the most difficult scenarios to date, and will probably only drive a new LOTR LCG player completely mad.
Print on Demand scenarios (Massing at Osgiliath and Battle for Laketown)-
These are additional scenario packs that you will not see on the shelves and have to be ordered directly from fantasyflightgames.com. They have no new player cards, so you are only getting a scenario. They are a lot of fun to play, very well designed, well produced, and thematic but can be quite difficult. I wouldn't recommend these until you get into the game a bit.