I'm playing through each quest in order with a 2nd player and mastering one at a time. Flies and Spiders is really trying my patience. Next I will try attachment heavy decks that focus on buffing Bilbo as there is no attachment discarding effects in the encounter deck. Does anyone have any recommendations? As a veteran lotr lcg player this encounter has annoyed me more than any just from the poison and finiky rules.

I haven't played that one in a while, but I remember buffing up Bilbo and having him running around like a boss.

i personally don't even bother with busting up bilbo. The first round I get into quest stage 3 I exhaust the ring and get a resource. next round, get another 2 and ready my best hero (usually dain) the send bilbo questing and defend against any crap that comes out of the encounter deck with dain. next turn I get an attack out through bilbo's 2 resources, and soon I'm able to start putting stuff into play with the resources from my newly readied hero. I'll give it to you, this doesn't work 10 times out of 10, but it is so much better then spending large amounts of time building up the stats of bilbo.

I recently played this quest 2-player and had a pretty easy time of it, even though I made a stupid mistake: I sent Bilbo questing all by himself (with option to be bolstered by Galadriel). Of course, Caught in Webs came out and Bilbo went unconscious. That is an auto-game over if you're on stage 3, or if Bilbo is unconscious when you transition to stage 3. So I had to wait for a copy of Giant Web to come out so I could ready him before moving on. I won in the end with little difficulty, it just took a darn long time.

Here is what worked for me:

Legolas/Beregond/Gloin with Galadriel/Glorfindel(Sp)/Haldir. I delayed purposefully on stage 1 to build up an attachment array. There is no attachment hate (none at all, I think?) in this quest. I relied more on attachments than allies, as stage 3 your allies get boinked and it is much more efficient to ready one hero and have them be super efficient, than it is to ready a dozen characters. To that end, I also included readying effects such as Cram to get multiple uses out of those precious heroes, once they have been readied on stage 3. Haldir was very useful with some weapons on him. I had some Straight Shots in the deck to take care of Lazy Lob without costing a character action, or to similarly remove another spider if you fall short of attack power but have a Rivendell Blade equipped. I had Unexpected Courage and Behind Strong Walls to get multiple defenses out of Beregond as needed. Glorfindel ended up as the defender on the other side of the table, and by the time I went to stage 3/4 he had 5 defense (1 Gondorian Shield and 3 Dunedain Warnings). I didn't own the Cloak of Lorien at the time, or I would have included that in the deck as well. I made sure that Bilbo was with the Galadriel deck before they split up, as the Beregond deck could handle stage 4 a lot better. To that effect, I purposefully committed 0 characters to the quest phase at least once, to prevent goiig to stage 3/4 too early.

Other times that I have played the quest, I have indeed used a bunch of allies (with dwarves, for example), but intentionally *not* played them until getting to stage 3. Just had Thorin and put Steward of Gondor on him, and ready him first once you get to stage 3. Then he can collect resources fast and start playing allies.

Oh I should add I'm only using cards that were out at time of release. First two cycles and 2 hobbit boxes. Excluding Numenor for thematic reasons. (I believe it may have been released in between the hobbit boxes but I will jump into Numenor after both hobbit boxes)

Oh I should add I'm only using cards that were out at time of release. First two cycles and 2 hobbit boxes. Excluding Numenor for thematic reasons. (I believe it may have been released in between the hobbit boxes but I will jump into Numenor after both hobbit boxes)

I'll just add a copy/paste of the narrative from a quest log entry, then. We beat this on the first try in a thematic playthrough with the following:

Deck 1: Oin, Ori, and Bombur.

Deck 2: Thorin, Balin, and Nori.

Score: 74 (old scoring system)

A long, 2 hour game, but we were pretty safe the whole time. Nori went unconscious on turn 1 or 2 and remained that way the rest of the game. The Thorin deck got Narvi's Belt in its setup draw, and Steward of Gondor on turn 1. With those, we were pretty set as long as we flipped to the 2nd quest card while the Thorin deck controlled Bilbo. We managed to do this after a long period of preparation. After, Bilbo freed Thorin. Thorin, with Unexpected Courage, Glamdring, and a number of other attachments, was a steam engine. Oin, on the other side, had a Dagger of Westernesse and Orcrist. The two were unstoppable and cleared spiders left and right. Bilbo put an end to 2 or 3 on his own with Sting's Response, as well. The only time we felt threatened was when a shadow effect delivered 2 poison to Bilbo. In the end, Bofur carried us to victory with 1 willpower more than we needed to win the game.

Sounds like attachments are the way to go. Just fyi I don't believe you can use orcrist and sting officially as they were not treasures from the OTD treasure set

Yeah, you can use them. It's in the manual, but not on the quest card itself. The On the Doorstep manual says you can use treasure if you have 1) discovered it in a previous scenario and 2)

"2. The specific treasure card belongs to a treasure set that is listed in the setup instructions for the scenario currently being played. The treasure set icon appears in place of a sphere icon on treasure cards, and can also be used to identify which scenario it can be discovered in."

The part I bolded is the relevant part.. Now, look at the On the Doorstep manual's instructions for Flies and Spider's and you will see the icon for We Must Away Ere Break of Day just after the text:

"A player may add any previously discovered treasure cards with the following icons to his deck when setting up this scenario: "

...voila.

I have beaten almost every quest released to date (only a few nightmares and lake town left), have beaten Journey in the Dark two handed before the Balrog could appear and have pulled off many other things considered difficult or hard to pull off in this game but have NEVER gotten my hands on the treasures in we must away. Once I had both the key and purse and had travelled to Troll Cave but then killed the last troll (had I not I would have threated out the next turn) and won the game with Troll Cave as the active location rather than in the victory display...

Then again I don't make decks specifically for quests and also don't really use low starting threat/secrecy type decks so it isn't all that surprising but still pretty frustrating... one day I will do it!

Aight ya'll I'm starting to get my hands around this quest finally, playing two handed and play testing these decks I made. I got 2-3 wins in a row using cards from the first 2 cycles and 2 hobbit boxes. One deck is Dain, Gloin, Thalin. The other is Eowyn, Eleanor, and Bifur. They are both attachment heavy and are the lightest in allies of any decks I've made. I feel like the hobbit boxes are really based on luck more than cycle 2. The thing I loved about Kazadum and at least most of the cycle 2 quests is with the spearman/Thalin combo and using Denathor to search for those 2 HP goblins it was really fun to plan and manage. Your day could get messed up by occasional bad luck but I think it is definately more a factor in saga boxes.

One thing I will say about flies and spiders is I try to have my quest 1b take as long as possible before making sure the lore/spirit deck has Bilbo. I try to get through that 3b quest as fast as possible. If I play everything correctly and get lucky draws, Bilbo and Eowyn with 2 Protector of Lorien can quest for 12 plus any other attachments they may have. Then if Bilbo has a readying effect it is imperative to travel to spiders glade immediately on the same turn. After that I usually make a run for it with everyone on the last turn because spiders are overwhelming the area. In order to get enough cards for this I use Eleanor (if she has not cancelled a treachery) and Bilbo to exhaust for the lore refresh action event to draw five cards. Every game has been a "push to victory or die" situation.

Every game has been a "push to victory or die" situation.

Isn't that the best kind? =) Congrats on getting some wins!

I have designed a deck using Dain, oin and Ori, and even though I don't even have all the Dwarrowdelf cycle, I can beat this quest 90% or the time. with these heroes I have access to all 4 spheres and ALL the dwarves.

I finally beat it with a Pseudo Silvan deck. It uses Celeborn, Galadriel, and (Lo)Aragorn. Sword that was Broken kept me questing hard even when I only had a couple characters conscious. Aragorn's reset is crucial for this deck as well because it has OHaUH Gandalf, Deep Knowledge, and Legacy of Numenor.

I made sure my heroes would have plenty of readying attachments before I went to stage 2, specifically Aragorn with Wingfoot and Unexpected Courage. That way he could be really useful the moment he is made conscious. It worked out... after trying so many decks that failed.

I realized later that it probably would be amazing to put Steward of Gondor on Bilbo so he can ready 2 characters per round... too bad I didn't realize it sooner.

I realized later that it probably would be amazing to put Steward of Gondor on Bilbo so he can ready 2 characters per round... too bad I didn't realize it sooner.

They thought of that and preempted it. Bilbo can't get resources from card effects except Treasures (that includes Legacy of Numenor...). It's in his card text.

Thanks. Kinda glossed over that and assumed that text was just saying the standard 0 threat and first player control stuff. I'm glad I didn't put SoG on him then And for whatever reason, I don't think I ever gave him any resources with Legacy of Numenor. It's like my subconscious knew all about it.

This really is the most sickening scenario I've ever encountered so far playing LOTR LCG. The designer(s) really should be ashamed of themselves for putting such a grossly imbalanced scenario. I actually had to send them a curse-laden email berating them over their foolish design.

I'll counter by saying it's one of my favorite 'separate staging areas' quests, and had a nice time with it, if only to demonstrate that "imbalanced" is not defined by your personal play experience alone. Maybe the community can help. Mind posting your decks?

3 hours ago, gpd924 said:

This really is the most sickening scenario I've ever encountered so far playing LOTR LCG. The designer(s) really should be ashamed of themselves for putting such a grossly imbalanced scenario. I actually had to send them a curse-laden email berating them over their foolish design.

You didn't *have* to do anything. You *chose* to curse out the designers because you had a bad experience with a quest. That is not to my mind an appropriate or productive response, let alone an imperative.

Personally I don't really like the design of any of the Hobbit saga quests, and have complained about them at some lengths, but I never felt the need to curse out the devs. And for the record I consider Flies and Spiders to be one of the better ones of them.

Now that I've played this quest myself, I can say from personal experience that Flies and Spiders is a well-balanced quest. Not that you should have sent such an email even if hadn't been.

Great it sounds like hard work and I'll be attempting this after I'm done wit the Core quests...

4 hours ago, Stewart777 said:

Great it sounds like hard work and I'll be attempting this after I'm done wit the Core quests...

It's not that bad at all. I'd say the second and third core set quests are harder.