We are having a hard time with these two quests. A really hard time. The last 6 plays we have gotten into positions that we have deemed to be unrecoverable after the first Staging phase.

Into Ithilien we just draw Southron Support (4 games in a row, first turn) and rack up about 15 threat in the staging area with all enemies at an engagement cost of 0. My strategy has been to attempt to quest hard on turn 1 in order to clear the Ilithien Road, but unfortunately if you fail (due to Southron Support or other card) then all the enemies will immediately kill everyone. This is primarily how we have lost this quest. Keeping heroes back seems equally dubious, as you raise your threat high and still have to face 5 attack Southron Companies which can easily one-shot many heroes, especially with a bad shadow card.

Siege of Cair Andros is not going any better, we're unable to commit enough defense to questing to make any progress and are quickly overwhelmed by SA threat. Enemies that engage us are difficult to kill and undefended attacks rapidly destroy our objectives. Should we bother trying to save objectives? Should we simply allow them to die? If we're going to try to save one, which should we go for?

Typically I run a Lore/Leadership Gondor deck with lots of allies and Ld Boromir. My ally is Spirit/Tactics Rohan or tri-color dwarf (lore/ld/tactics). These decks are generalists in nature and do supremely well against every other quest we've been up against. But these two, we can't ever seem to get off the ground. help!

General purpose decks tend to struggle against these quests. You need to redesign your decks, focusing on avoding treachery/shadow effects, obvious need to quest for around 14 on turn one and being able to survive multiple brutal attackers, but still keeping in mind that killing anyone would actually be nice. So if you're not into swarming the table with tons of dwarven allies, you might consider heroes like Balin (shadow management), Spirit Glorfindel (access to spirit cancelation, questing), Beregond (with some action management like Behind Strong Walls or Miruvor) and Legolas, for obvious reasons.

In the end, take into consideration that both of these quests are ridicolously incomparable to other ones in difficulty terms, therefore you might call yourself successful against them when hovering around 4/10 win rate (or even 3/10).

Good luck!

I managed to pass easily the 3 quests (adding Pelagir) with this deck :

http://imagik.fr/uploads/106685

Mainly having Boromir super equiped and managing threat with Aragorn and Gandalf.

I must have been lucky as I do not have any treachery cancellation and shadow cancellation ...

thanks for the replies, Courchevel, I can't follow your link though, I'd be interested to see what sort of deck you're using.

Boromir - Aragorn Lo - Theodred

Only 3 events (3 of each) : sneak attack, close call (use gondorian discipline if no proxy), Deep knowledge

Allies :

3 master of the forge (you need it in opening hand)

3 warden of healing

3 Gandalf (core)

2 Elrond (use miner of the iron hill if no proxy)

1 Gleowyne

1 Gildor Inglorion

Attachments :

Boromir stuff

3 dunedain's mark + 3 dunedain's warning

2 gondorian shield

1 captain of Gondor (use another westernesse or rohan warhorse if no proxy)

1 Dagger of Westernesse

1 Gondorian fire

2 burning brands (i can manage shadow ... )

Other stuff

1 Celebrian stone

1 Sword that was broken

1 steward of Gondor

3 healing herbs

3 born aloft

3 song of wisdom

3 ranger spikes

It is just difficult when you are questing with will. In battle or siege, you are ok due to Boromir equipment.

We've failed Into Ithlien at least five times in 3- and 4-player mode. Locations keep piling up and it's difficult to quest for enough while still managing the southrons.

Haven't yet looked at Cair Andros.

Into Ithillien is probably my favourite quest, because it serves as a whetstone for my deckbuilding skills. I have a win ratio of infinity minus one/1, but I really learn alot from losing from Into Ithillien. It forces you to really ponder your deck. It's quite fun to build decks that are built against it and really handy to strengthen your all purpose decks. Just dont expect to win though (except with drawves, outlands, splorfindel/loragorn/frodo) Good luck!

I passed cair andros easily with this deck

Heroes

• Beregond Heirs of Númenor 1
• Boromir The Dead Marshes 95
• Legolas Core Set 5

Deck

2x Behind Strong Walls (Heirs of Númenor 8)
3x Blade of Gondolin (Core Set 39)
2x • Book of Eldacar (Encounter at Amon Dîn 59)
2x Citadel Plate (Core Set 40)
3x Descendant of Thorondor (The Hills of Emyn Muil 75)
3x Eagles of the Misty Mountains (Return to Mirkwood 119)
2x Feint (Core Set 34)
3x • Gandalf (Core Set 73)
2x Gondorian Discipline (Encounter at Amon Dîn 60)
3x Gondorian Shield (The Steward's Fear 5)
2x Hail of Stones (Road to Rivendell 32)
2x Hands Upon the Bow (Shadow and Flame 131)
2x • Landroval (A Journey to Rhosgobel 53)
2x Spear of the Citadel (Heirs of Númenor 9)
3x Support of the Eagles (Return to Mirkwood 120)
2x Swift Strike (Core Set 37)
3x Thicket of Spears (Core Set 36)
3x Vassal of the Windlord (The Dead Marshes 98)
3x Winged Guardian (The Hunt for Gollum 4)
3x Defender of Rammas (Heirs of Númenor 7)

Total 50

If you manage to have Gondorian shield on Beregond in the first couple of turns the siege becomes surprisingly easy! Defender of Rammas and Winged Guardian are so strong too.

Quest the battlefields one by one (starting from the one with less threat) and if you're lucky you can go directly to the "Last Battle".

The siege of Cair Andros is a good example for a quest, in which mono-tactic-decks rule. In my group we managed to win in a 2-player-game (with Hama/Brand/Beregond + Boromir/Legolas/Thalin) and in a 3-player-game (with Theoden/Hama/Legolas + Gimli/Thalin/Bard + Boromir/BRand/Beregond). We played with a cardpool up to "Against the Shadows" including the 2 Hobbitexpansions. Each player has tons of eagles in his deck and some support of the eagles (for Thalin!, he got chainmail and a dwarfenaxe, so he could quest very flexible).

Questing battle .. no Problem! .. questing siege .. no Problem! .. questing Willpower .. play Trained for War .. no Problem!

It was fantastic to see mono-tactic be able to win a quest!

Mono Tactics is mandatory for Cair Adros. It's a gimmick but it makes sense to focus on tactics and siege/battle questing during an actual siege, so I actually like this quest a lot! One of the few very difficult quests I actually enjoy, unlike say Into Ithilien. Fine tuning your deck is absolutely required and generalist decks are terrible here (which is why I dont play these quests often).

For Into Ithilien, a Dunhere/Thalin/Glorfindel or Frodo deck is bonkers. It breaks the quest (which is broken on its own right).

This is the solo deck I used for Siege of Cair Andros. I used something very similar for Into Ithlien too (mostly swapping in Trained for War to handle the Willpower questing in that scenario. The two quests basically scream for mono Tactics (or at least a heavy emphasis on so) , especially for Siege of Cair Andros. The scenarios are not all that hard at all, they just require proper deckbuilding to handle them.

Heroes:
Beregond
Thalin
Boromir (Tactics)

Allies:
Veteran Axehand x3
Gandalf (Core) x3
Winged Guardian x3
White Tower Watchman x3
Vassal of the Windlord x3
Gondorian Spearman x3
Defender of Ramnas x3

Attachments / Events:
Swift Strike x2
Quick Strike x2
Born Aloft x2
Feint x3
Gondorian Discipline x3
Blade Mastery x3
Support of the Eagles x3
Spear of the Citadel x2
Behind Strong Walls x3
Thicket of Spears x3
Gondorian Shield x3