I've had the same story solo, things can go wrong quickly even when I felt like I had things under control i've lost on the very next turn.

If i remember i started to read in this post that this quest is easy. Well, i think it is very hard, in 2 players, me and a friend, we tried it a lot of times and finally we won, but after 4 times trying to reach the victory.

Finally got a victory with my Ranger themed deck. It might depend upon the deck you're using, but I do find that if I get the quest stage 2 that forces a random discard to quest, then things go well (as long as you have decent card draw). If I get the no resources/no card draw from card effects one or the limit 1 card played per turn, then things go much worse. So a lot of it seems to depend upon the quest stage(s) you get.

Well, if you can deal with locations, threat and some enemies, there is nothing that prevents you from staying in Quest 2 for a while. After a maximum of 3 turns, you can be sure to get a different Stage 2 due to the time effect. I never had any problem waiting to get to a different stage. But then again, I only played this quest solo so far.

I think the fact that a Ranger deck does not work at all in a swamp scenario us the only thing I dislike about this scenario.

(yeah, i also tried and failed)

One deck that worked surpisingly well is a Sam-Eleanor secrecy deck. The new event cards combinded with Leaf Brooch are awesome. You can send Samwise with 5 WP to the quest for 3-4 turns without paying anything - and you don't loose a card! You also get Bill the Pony and Rivendell Scout for free, and Celduin Traveler goes for only one resource. That gives you 4 WP for a total of only one resource plus enough HP to survive Low on Provisions. Spirit Bilbo is also nice to have, and Galadriel is great when you can grab her with Timely Aid. For Gondor solves the boss fight even with low ATT allies, Steward of Gondor and Faramir simply do their jobs.

Two hints: use Gandalfs ability to draw cards and don't use any allies with only one HP.

Started trying this yesterday, played three attempts, lost all of them. Tried a Celeborn, Haldir Glorfindel deck on first two, but Light of Valinor never came, Asfaloth too, and my threat went dead as time went on with this marsh dweller getting harder and harder. Reached last stage on both of them. Then changed to a Celeborb, Haldir Legolas which could not even get past stage two (on all three games in first stage 2 draw the one you discard cards to quest, which is a disaster). I believe i must leave out my thematic approaches (i always try to make thematic decks) and build a good deck to beat this

Managed to just barely squeak out a win on my first try (with a pair of decks: a conventional Mirlonde / Haldir / Celeborn Silvan deck and a fairly mediocre Frodo / Eowyn / Eomer deck). I never really got any synergies going at all with the player decks (didn't draw any cards to spin up any Silvan tricks and no toys for Eomer), so I basically bum rushed the quest deck to clear out stages 2 and 3 before they ran out of time and then ruthlessly sacrificed all the non combat heroes on the board to 5 attacks from the Ancient Marsh Dweller (4 right at the beginning of Stage 4 due to bad shadow card draws) then used a combination of Sneak Attack Gandalf (for direct damage) and Haldir, Eomer, and Nalir to finish off the boss monster to sloppily finish up the quest.

Managed to just barely squeak out a win on my first try (with a pair of decks: a conventional Mirlonde / Haldir / Celeborn Silvan deck and a fairly mediocre Frodo / Eowyn / Eomer deck). I never really got any synergies going at all with the player decks (didn't draw any cards to spin up any Silvan tricks and no toys for Eomer), so I basically bum rushed the quest deck to clear out stages 2 and 3 before they ran out of time and then ruthlessly sacrificed all the non combat heroes on the board to 5 attacks from the Ancient Marsh Dweller (4 right at the beginning of Stage 4 due to bad shadow card draws) then used a combination of Sneak Attack Gandalf (for direct damage) and Haldir, Eomer, and Nalir to finish off the boss monster to sloppily finish up the quest.

And these are the most exciting games!

Agreed! My next two games ended in pretty bad fashion; in the second one in particular I was hit second turn with a two Low on Provisions's which decimated the Silvan deck which had some (otherwise) good draws to start off. I think I am going to try some of the solo decks that are being posted to see how they work out next.