Very cool quest, probably my favorite since The Steward's Fear. We played 2-player twice. Played blind the first time and lost, shifted the decks around and won on the second try.

Winning decks were Glorfindel(Sp)/Beorn/Beregond with heavy attachments and defense allies, paired with Aragorn(Lo)/Balin/Sam with global +willpower effects and a criminal amount of card draw and resource gain. Trial of Strength first since we were so combat ready right out of the gate (Glorfindel with a Rivendell Blade, Beorn, Beregond with his shield and spear). Trial of Perseverance after, then Intuition. Had some good luck with Barrow+Guardian pairings (Stone Barrow + Boar's Guardian is the luckiest combination here).

All the Guardians ended up engaged with my deck, the Beorn deck on stage 3. Went ahead and suffered 5 attacks on the seventh round as soon as stage 3 was revealed (3 attacks from travel, minus one in the Combat phase due to Feint), then took out the Raven's Guardian in retaliation. They wiped out all my allies and Beorn had 9 damage on him, but we very easily quested to victory on round 8. Fun quest.

Try to put Stewart of Gondor and Gondorian shield on Elrohir (suppose you use Elladan also), haven't playedt his quest yet but have tried it on others and works fine. Not thematic offcourse

Try to put Stewart of Gondor and Gondorian shield on Elrohir (suppose you use Elladan also), haven't playedt his quest yet but have tried it on others and works fine. Not thematic offcourse

Try to put Stewart of Gondor and Gondorian shield on Elrohir (suppose you use Elladan also), haven't playedt his quest yet but have tried it on others and works fine. Not thematic offcourse

Try him with steward and shield as well as 1/2 dundedain warnings, elven mail and Arwens buff. Nothing gets through. Played the lonely mountain the other night and Elrohir defended every attack Smaug made in my playthrough and only ever took 1 damage.

out of curiosity how many times have you guys been on the trial of intuition and perseverance (aka the two not required to actually kill the guardian) where you HAVE killed the guardian then the following turn reveal the treachery that puts an out of play guardian back in play? happened both games for me and was definitely one of those "you've got to be kidding me" moments.

It's happened in 3 of my 4 games, I was lucky to have test of will to stop it once. But the first time i saw the Treachery I was crushed and all sense of accomplishment for defeating the guardian in stage 1 intuition trial was sapped, just when I thought I could relax a bit I got to deal it again the trial was not over yet.

Eleanor for multiplayer confirmed.

out of curiosity how many times have you guys been on the trial of intuition and perseverance (aka the two not required to actually kill the guardian) where you HAVE killed the guardian then the following turn reveal the treachery that puts an out of play guardian back in play? happened both games for me and was definitely one of those "you've got to be kidding me" moments.

I need to go back at it this week with some different decks since i feel like Elrohir/Elladan is the premier deck for this quest and try some other strategies for fun. In so far as creativeness goes this has go to be near the top if not the pinnacle of FFG's quest design.

Well Guardians are indestructible in the trial of perserverance so if you do that trial after another stage and have a second guardian you already beat in another trial in the victory display it would come back and you'd be facing two!

out of curiosity how many times have you guys been on the trial of intuition and perseverance (aka the two not required to actually kill the guardian) where you HAVE killed the guardian then the following turn reveal the treachery that puts an out of play guardian back in play? happened both games for me and was definitely one of those "you've got to be kidding me" moments.

I need to go back at it this week with some different decks since i feel like Elrohir/Elladan is the premier deck for this quest and try some other strategies for fun. In so far as creativeness goes this has go to be near the top if not the pinnacle of FFG's quest design.

Not once. I played with Eleanor! But that would suck if it got replaced with the same card. lol

This scenario may be one of the best designed yet. I don't see any lope hole in it that makes easy and simplified, or anything that makes it so challenging that there is not much chance for success.

I've only played it solo now numerous times, and it's hard, period! Every time I have won it's taken between 14 to 16 rounds, and even when/ / if I make it that far things can go drastically wrong. Each card off the encounter deck, every shadow revealed can ruin well laid plans.

The developers did a great job! Thematically the trials are awesome and the quest design fits it perfectly with the story line. There are so many meaningful decisions to make, mixed with the randomness of the barrows locations and Guardians keeping things unpredictable, it all adds up to a very tense and fun experience where I feel like I'm battling tooth and nail to survive. It's such a satisfactory feeling to win that type of game.

I'm really getting into the story of the ring-maker cycle, and it's cool to feel like I'm actually playing out parts of the story. The scenarios and stories are fitting together perfectly. Really like the direction things are headed. It's definetly shaping up to be one of the best cycles yet.

This might be one of the best packs we've ever been sold when you consider how good the quest is with the player cards.

yeah some dude was bitching about the Khaz cycle having the best cards and quests and then BANG... player card / quest gold in the new pack!!

After having five defeats, yesterday I managed to win the quest. I was always using Glorfidnel, Idraen and Beregond, but i finally came with the opinion that in the way I was playing, I should include Thrors Key on my deck (i kept loosing on third stage out of threat cause of the location that adds +1 on each forest on staging area). The first play I included it , I won. It took many round (23) mainly because on the stage 2 quest that has the key shuffled on the 10 last cards, it came to be the last card while I had to give two shadows. Thus I gave this as first shadow but had to reshuffle the whole discarded encounter deck in order to give the second. Then the key should be shuffled (as it has as a shadow) with the WHOLE encounter deck .... it took a while for it to appear again

Both Dunland trap and three trials where very unusuall quests which I really enjoyed

This is indeed a very lovely quest. After four times beat it solo with a Splorfindel, Denethor, Loragorn Deck with heavy encounterdeck manipulation and readying effects. It goes in my list of favourite playtest quests. The guys 'n gals at FFG are on a winning streak. Just got my NM hobbit decks this afternoon. There goes the weekend

Splorfindel,

That was the first time I have read this particular portmanteau. Usually I see 'Spirfindel,' and for just a second I thought you were combining SPirit + LORe and coming up with a 5 threat hero who can heal for the cost of 1 resource.

****, now I wish I could change my username to Splorfindel. It sounds hilarious.

He also does a good amount of 'splorin locations on his horse, so it kind of fits.

I had Splorfindel once, but the veterinarian gave me a shot and it went away after a few days. It hurt like hell every time I peed in the woods, though.

TACTIGORN

TACTIGORN

Sounds good!

Loppin and Spippin.

I always thought Tactgolas, Leadoromir & Learagorn were pretty lolworthy names, haven't seen them used around here though.

You hear that low hum? That's our fine J.R.R. spinnin' around in his grave. 3019 RPM

I had Splorfindel once, but the veterinarian gave me a shot and it went away after a few days. It hurt like hell every time I peed in the woods, though.

I found my splorfindel much more bear.able when i bought a saddle for that galloping steed of his.

Just finished the quest playing two-handed after 3 losses with solo decks. Took me about 10 turns and almost reached max threat, but Gandalf saved me once again. Decks were Beregond/Eowyn/Idraen and mono lore Bifur/Haldir/Faramir with a splash of tactics to turn Faramir to a secondary defender, which didn't pan out in play. Beregond was buffed with a shiny shield, x2 UC and x2 of the new green silvan meals that saved his life. I experimented with Gothlaf, Warden of Arnor and Haldir for the first time, and I found them all up to notch. Warden with Asfaloth seems like it would trivialise all those pesky 3 point locations.

Except for a buffed up Haldir, the decks lacked attacking power, so I had to defend 6 attacks in stage three. However, my questing power allowed me to finish the game next turn. Looking back, mono lore wasn't the best choice for this quest (so few enemies that traps are near useless) but I like rangers so there

Difficult, unpredictable and fun. Two thubs up!

I am really curious how you guys managed to beat it solo, it seems really hard if you get unlucky with barrows/guardians...Getting the 5 attack one ruins all but the best opening hands. If someone could post a deck I'd really appreciate it.

I am really curious how you guys managed to beat it solo, it seems really hard if you get unlucky with barrows/guardians...Getting the 5 attack one ruins all but the best opening hands. If someone could post a deck I'd really appreciate it.

This is the deck I used.

http://community.fantasyflightgames.com/index.php?/topic/111863-my-three-trials-solo-deck-idraen-glorfindel-beregond/

There are 2 versions of it one with allies and the 2nd without.

I found Beregond to be essential for the scenario if your not going to try and use chump blockers to win You can only hope he gets Gondorian Shield opening hand or that you don't get the 5 attack Guardian. Ways to ready him are also essential. In the last stage I'll just take 1 Guardian at a time before traveling to the last location. Overall this is an awesome scenario, and I always felt like I was right on the edge of losing right up to the very last encounter card drawn.

Thanks, I'll give it a try tomorrow. I've never played a deck with so few allies before, so it will be very interesting indeed.

I like the quest too. Pretty hard but not unfairly so (*cough* into Ithilien *cough*). My lore deck clocked at 49 threat before the timely intervention of Gandalf and won next turn.

By the way what do you think of Idraen so far? I personally like her a lot and she combos well with Glori. Her trigger also activates almost every turn in multiplayer games.