Just beat it second attempt but just barely. I don't find it overly easy so far, somewhat challenging in fact.

The locations pile up super quickly and without player cards that help against locations you are more or less screwed unless you can generate very high willpower quickly. Also if you don't kill the Marsh Dweller on stage 3 (I had it on 2 hitpoints....) its resource tokens remain on stage 4 and it is a much more formidable threat. I had it at 8 attack strength and also had it reveal TWO shadow cards that cause an additional attack during its forced attacks as part of quest stage 4A. I cancelled one with a Hasty Stroke and lost 3 chumps... (the exact amount of ready allies I had available). I then used a Feigned Voices on it during the combat phase to stop it attacking and killed it in one hit with Legolas (Bow of Galadhrim), Haldir (2 Dunedain Marks, Rivendell Blade, Bow of Galadrim) and Elrohir who had a combined attack of 15 (It was engaged with tactics/leadership so +2 to Haldir from the bow and +1 to Legoals from his). I may have smashed the Marsh Dweller fairly easily (and the other two enemies are fairly easy, did not have one survive the round it was revealed and no ill effects triggered on either attempt I had) and lost the first game mainly due to location lock but the Marsh Dweller is no joke and the quest overall seems difficult enough to me for an AP halfway through a cycle. It isn't the terribly last hard one or fairly hard second last one or one of the first two which are normally fairly easy.

Had a very fun time playing it and will definitely return to this one to get a better score, experience the other quest stages (some seem much harder than others) and simply because it was a well designed, challenging and fun quest. Definitely harder than Trouble in Tharbad and The Three Trials (for my decks and play style at least) but easier than the Dunland Trap, To Catch an Orc or The Fords of Isen.

Also found a pretty cool combo in my decks the second attempt I had. I attacked a Giant Swamp Adder with Haldir with his special Combat Action before enemy attacks resolved and he had an attack power of 8 (Bow of the Galadrim, Rivendell Blade and a Dunedain Mark). This left the Adder on 1 hitpoint and I then defended with a Gondorian Spearman who provided the last point of damage killing the Adder before its attack resolved.
I've taken out enemies previously wounded down to 1 hitpoint with a Gondorian Spearman's ability many times before and have also slain MANY a foe with Haldir's ability before they are able to attack but combining both abilities against an enemy with a particularly high combined defense and hitpoints (9) slaying it before it could attack was pretty **** satisfying!

6 hitpoints

combined defense and hitpoints (9) slaying it before it could attack was pretty **** satisfying!

Also found a pretty cool combo in my decks the second attempt I had. I attacked a Giant Swamp Adder with Haldir with his special Combat Action before enemy attacks resolved and he had an attack power of 8 (Bow of the Galadrim, Rivendell Blade and a Dunedain Mark). This left the Adder on 1 hitpoint and I then defended with a Gondorian Spearman who provided the last point of damage killing the Adder before its attack resolved.

I've taken out enemies previously wounded down to 1 hitpoint with a Gondorian Spearman's ability many times before and have also slain MANY a foe with Haldir's ability before they are able to attack but combining both abilities against an enemy with a particularly high combined defense and hitpoints (9) slaying it before it could attack was pretty **** satisfying!

I'd love to play more often with Haldir as a solo player, but his ability is just too unreliable to me.

I've been playing with a deck someone else made (on this forum I think) with Glorfindel, Haldir, and Merry, which is pretty epic in the current Road Darkens quests (always low threat!) and showcases Haldir pretty spectacularly. His weakness is that your threat has to be super low at all times if you're playing solo. An awesome hero though.

I beat it with a Celeborn/Haldir/Glorfindel deck . The increased willpower is really what made it work.

I really like the quest and the random stages coming out. Definitely increases replayability for me. Also liked the extra "surprise" at the last stage...

Haldir works best if you pair him with another deck that has high threat and gets benefits off engaging enemies, Mablung is a perfect example. You have that deck engage all the enemies and Haldir never has to worry about not being able to use his ability.

Yep Ive played it a few times with some decks not designed for it really, just decks that have fared well against other quests in the cycle, and have had a tough go. Only easy win was with Gandalf/Elrond/Glorf, but that deck can prob take on anything.

Silvan has trouble with WP as you basically have 2-3 turns usually to make 13-16 progress. Global WP boosts might be a must on this one, with decent attack, dont need a TON, just need to be able to must 7 a turn to be safe after a few rounds.

Tracker1 send us a deck to stomp this one! Maybe using Mablung

Lost on our first try tonight. We handled everything pretty well, as my Idraen-Glorfindel(Sp)-Denethor deck was heavy on location management. The other deck was Strider-Balin-Beravor, with Wingfoot on Beravor for extra fun. We got lost a few times on stage 2, but once we got established we had the table pretty clean. The Marsh-dweller engaged right away on stage 3 as we got the -20 engagement cost quest stage. There was another marsh snake thingy engaged with the Beravor deck, and this was the downfall: a treachery caused time counters to be removed from the quest, prompting an attack from the snake. With no ready defenders, this meant we lost a hero. The shadow effect caused an additional attack, and we lost another hero on that side. Then, the quest phase resolved and we went to stage 4, so the Marsh-dweller itself attacked (didn't see that coming!), eliminating the Beravor deck by eating its last hero. That deck had Nalir, who then went out of play and we lost...

I tried putting some tactics in, so the "Beravor" deck is now an Aragorn(Le)-Balin-Beregond deck, and we'll try it again in a few days.

Just beat it with a Gondor all ledership deck with Boromir, Sam, Balin(allies are all Gondor). Has a lot of WP with Faramir, and with all the allies when the boss comes hes not too bad to deal with. Balins Shadow Cancel helps a lot. An Ill timed low on Provisions could be costly, but Gandalf sometimes can soak up some damage as well.

Its a good, decently tough quest.

Played it in a 4 players game.

Very poor diversity in the encounter deck, it cycle super fast, location pile up, too muche treachery with surge and oher kill you if you reveal 2 in a single staging (3 with eleanor, but that's easy when all location and half the enemies are out).

Remind me too much of Emyn Muil. Boring enemies and unbeatable in 4 player if you don't have at least 3 player with location management. Also healers, but one is enough early and then you need one or two other.

As all Emyn Muil attempts, either you got your location management out, or you die helplessly. Eleanor and Test of Will are mandatory and you can still be crushed in one bad staging. Reminds that the game is not design for 4 players.

You don't need 3 player with location management, you just need one player with 3 Northern Trackers

Lorien Guide, Ride to Ruin and other stuff would be good though.

And there is a spirit guy in the same pack who lets you discard a location from top of the deck.

I used a dwarf deck that handles the scenario better than anything i tried.

I used Nori, Bifur and Dain. I have not used Dain in ages, but was getting tired of fiddling around with this quest with experimental decks and it was time to pull in the big guns.

Pretty simple deck with loads of dwarf allies to keep threat low, which Nori was key for as well as treachery cancelation. Built up classic dwarf army during stage 2, pushed through stage 3 in one go, ready dwarves with lore of Moria and finish boss off for stage 4.

This one gave me quite a bit of trouble before this, it's a bit of a frustrating quest in my opinion. This was the first scenario that I did not really enjoy the Time mechanic and found it a bit annoying, but i guess thats the point of being stuck in a swamp.

Finally had a win against this quest. I found it to be a lot more punishing than I thought from the first attempt. Initially tried with some ranger-esque decks for theme, and got close to winning but fell short of enough combat power to fell the Marsh-dweller. Then I had a series of catastrophic losses, mostly due to attrition via Low on Provisions (deal 1 damage among your characters for each character you control), early and constant combat thanks to Remnants of Elder Days (each player fetches and engages an enemy), or Neekerbreekers assassinating Nalir when there were few allies in play. Neekerbreekers plus treacheries that remove time counters just suck.

I tried including Eleanor just to combat Low on Provisions for those ally swarm decks, but it was too handicapping to use a hero slot for a hero who ended up not getting used in most rounds. My attempts at attachment superhero decks failed because I needed too many resources to pull it off, and one of the stage 2 quest card effects prevents you from collecting resources through card effects (or drawing cards through card effects, for that matter, but that was less of an issue). So those decks heated up too slowly.

Eventually won with Gimli-Ori-Bombur and Dain-Glorfindel(Sp)-Nori. Like Tracker1, I hadn't used Dain, or dwarves at all, in a dog's age. But after so many fails I needed some raw power to bull through this one. Pulled it off on my third attempt with those decks. Low on Provisions was still an awful reveal, but Hardy Leadership offset it and I had Wardens of Healing working full time.

Similar experience here. I was purposefully and stubbornly trying to beat this quest with a thematic ranger deck and got close a couple times, but failed at the last battle. I was holding out to try to get a sweet victory with a fun deck, but finally pulled out an old Dwarf standby and blasted through the quest. For an encore, I pitted the Dwarves against Nightmare Shadow and Flame and was successful!

Interesting to hear others struggled with this one too. This scenario was a surprise for me. Many of the recent scenarios I've been able to be use a diversity of different decks to beat them, but this one I tried lots of different deck themes and fell short for one reason or another. I was surprised I had to build a deck with player cards I had not used in ages to get some comfortable wins.

I had a blast playing this quest and developing a deck to beat it consistently. Here is what I came up with:

http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1266898/questing-through-nin-eilph

Some of the recent cards really show their strengths here, including Idraen and Wingfoot (to have multiple heroes available for questing and fighting) and Greyflood Wanderer (for additional progress). Really, really like the random quest stages and the additional replayability that they provide!

Existance of Horse Breeder combined with lack of any mounts (Aflaoths ) confuses me. Do you use her exclusively for blocking/soaking damage?

I've used her before, without mounts. She's a good cost-to-willpower ratio with a low "activation" fee (I mean, put 1 willpower into play for 1 resource).

There is even more 1cost-to-effectiveness gal, Silvan Refugee, who provides 1 more willpower for the same cost. And this deck seems to be not the kind of that who loses characters constantly.

Silvan Refugee is hard to rely on in this quest. You have to expect that Neekerbreekers or Low on Provisions might hit you at some point, and you'll lose an ally or allies. I like Silvan Refugee as much as anyone, but sometimes she is just too darn fragile.

But unless struck with an extremely bad luck, Silvan Refugee will do twice the amount of help.

Have you played this quest? It's a slim encounter deck. It's not so much luck as it is inevitability.

I must have been extremely lucky then

Or I was on the other end... not once but twice I got the following scenario within the first two rounds: player has no allies on the table yet, then during staging we get Remnants of Elder Days (fetch an enemy), and get a Neekerbreekers engaged since they seem less threatening than the Giant Swamp Adder. Next card to be revealed is Shifting Marshland (remove a time counter), which triggers Neekerbreekers and surges into Shifting Marshland and kills the poor little defenseless dwarf.

And let's not talk about how many times I drew Low on Provisions, ugh.. the time I won I was lucky and only drew it once.

edit: I guess that's the other thing, I never play pure solo, so I probably see these evil combos a lot more often.