Ok, it's official, I'm taken. Totally. I just started creating a small db in excel entering all cards from core set and the adventure packs for Shadows of Mirkwood.

I know there shouldn't be any need for that, since all cards are available on-line as resources. And I know there are quite many good decks posted so that it'd be enough looking at those and just building my decks following the example of players certainly better than me.

But this is not what I'm searching in the game.

I do want to have summary tables of all the keywords and effects to see what fits better with whatelse. Filtering in and out to create thematic decks. Changing heroes to see how the balance of the decks changes. And wanna find the best solutions with my head.

Aye, I'm hopeless, but it's too much fun!

=O

I know how you feel. It's not the same thing, but I've created a huge spreadsheet/workbook documenting my deck compositions, games played, scores, etc. I started playing last March and have only played APs from Core and the first two from Shadows of Mirkwood so far (I was determined to beast Escape from Dol Guldur straight solo using only core cards, which took a long time… but I finally succeeded). Yes, one can easily get obsessed with this game. I look forward to finally trying Journey to Rhosgobel sometime this week.

Indeed, Dol Guldur is... bizarre. Curious to see if I'm able to beat it solo.

Anyway, another wonderful thing of the game: the deck you play against is always the same, so that you're actually able to understand why you failed and how to fix your deck. And you have all the time you want to play & replay each Scenario (and they still have to be bored by any of them)

If you're using only 50 Core cards to play straight solo against Escape from Dol Guldur, luck will be a large factor in your victory… The card pool is so limited in the Core set, that deck variations when using a deck size of 50 will also be quite limited. For me, while I think I constructed reasonable decks with the limited card pool, my few victories relied heavily on persistence and luck.

But you're right, in many quests you can understand why you failed and easily adjust your deck.

I was expecting Conflict at the Carrock straight solo to be very difficult (it has the same difficulty rating as Escape from Dol Guldur), but I was surprised by how easily and consistently I have been able to beat it (using only cards available at the time the adventure pack was published). With the right deck, I actually find it easier than Journey Along the Anduin and even the Hunt for Gollum (which I don't find to be particularly difficult), and much much easier than Escape from Dol Guldur. Conflict at the Carrock is one of those quests where the right deck building and questing strategy play a greater role in winning than luck does (in my opinion).

Carrock gives you quite a buffering time during stage 1 of the quest. You need to gather enough resources / cards to be able to neutralize some of the trolls, at least until you get rid of the malefic Carrock location enhancing them all.

So far I tried it only once, 2p mode, and won on the first try. Not an easy victory: I ended up with one plyer being eliminated due to threat, and I ended the quest with my threat tracker at 49 *shivers* killing the last two trolls in one very last desperate assault. But playing 2p allowed me to use Forest Snare and Feint and other good stuff to survive the first turns of combat without too many problems.

How to get rid of all 4 in solo modo... well, it's an interesting puzzle I have to think a lot more about

Solo Dol-Guldur seems another story: the quest is actually the other way round, the difficult part is the first half of the quest, and I still have to figure out what heroes to use and so on. Certainly a good quester to move quickly towards stage 2, but there are some more fastidious cards in the mix (Janitor comes immediately to mind) that should be carefully considered.

Let's see

Defeating all 4 trolls while playing Carrock solo is simple if you have a good Spirit/Lore deck. I had a starting deck with 25 threat, used Galadhrim's Greetings up to 5 times (3x Galadhrim's Greetings +2 more times using Dwarven Tomb) and often reduced my threat even further with Gandalf (on his own and with Sneak Attack, up to x3 each). Gives you a lot of time to build an army of allies before heading into stage 2. In one solo game, my threat at the end was 9!!!

If you keep your threat low, then you can engage the trolls one at a time, which can be easily defeated if you have Beorngrim the Old as an ally, and have built up a huge army of allies during stage 1. The last game I played, I think I had a dozen allies in play -- and not a single hero or ally died or was wounded during the whole quest (except for Beorngrim, who absorbed some troll damage). And like you said, Forest Snare can be very handy for dealing with the other hill trolls earlier in the game, though there have been times when I did not even need to use the snares… Beorngrim (or Gandalf) blocks one hit, then most heroes/allies attack the hill troll together and down he goes!

Solo Dol-Guldur seems another story: the quest is actually the other way round, the difficult part is the first half of the quest, and I still have to figure out what heroes to use and so on. Certainly a good quester to move quickly towards stage 2, but there are some more fastidious cards in the mix (Janitor comes immediately to mind) that should be carefully considered.

Let's see

I think you meant Jailor, not Janitor!

Yeah, you're right, keeping them at bay and engaging them one at the time seems the best solution. When we played it 2p, we had all 4 swarming on us at the same time.

Need my second core set to arrive (ordered it last friday) to have some more options (2x dwarven tomb sounds sweet to me).

And ups, yep, Jailor, not Janitor... we started calling him "the old janitor" and I guess it remained in my subconscious... sorry

Sorry for the off-topic, but hello, Julia. Long time no see

Hi, MNT. Nice meeting you here as well