Hello guys!

Tonight we tried the Shadow and Flame quest for the first time and it was a nightmare. It´s just insane! Our decks, we use a duo build with two Dwarf decks, one Spirit-Tactics and one Leadership-Lore, got utterly crushed. (a first staging with two Cave Trolls didn't help either).

So, what Dwarf decks did you use back then? I have all APs and DE up to Under Hill and Over Hill (pretty sure it's actually the other way around).

I am the controller of the Leadership Lore deck and it features Dain, Gloin and Bifur. When the reduce to 0 thing came up I actually swapped Gloin for Thorin, but it didn't make a real winning change.

Does anyone have some good strategy tips or something?

On the sidenote, if Dwalin kills an Orc and thus you can reduce your threat with 2, can I reduce below 0?

You cannot reduce below zero no. Yeah shadow and Flame is a gnarly quest, the nightmare version is truly horrifying though....

As soon as your threat is 1 or more, you'll need someone to block with. My strategy with this scenario (I usually play support decks) really is to stay low. The Galadriel hero is game-changing in this regard - I haven't tried her against Durin's Bane yet, but she could potentially keep one of the players safe for the duration of the game. Other than that, stock up on healers and/or chump blockers and hope for some luck!

One deck sylvan with Galadriel, one deck dwarf with Nori ... Shadow and flame become easy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4g7bI-dzbk

Glaurung takes down a Balrog with a bunch of dwarves.

Sadly, my physical player card pool has not yet reached Galadriel, so no option there, but it seems fun.

Thanks Bullroarer, I'll watch his vid!

In the meantime, does anyone maybe have his old Dwarf decklist he used back then? Or sone tips on 'must-include' cards? Would it be helpfull if I posted both decklists here?

I just beat this quest for the first time last night, playing two-handed and using only cards available at the time the scenario was originally released… what a rush! I think I had 4-5 losses prior to that win, and had to alter my deck composition quite a few times. Ended up winning with Aragorn (Leadership), Eleanor and Legolas in one hand, and Elrond, Bilbo Baggins and Frodo Baggins in the other.

Have yet to try with dwarf decks.

Assuming you're not going for uber threat-control, then there's a couple of things you need.

1) Treachery control. If you can stomach a non-dwarf I'd try and get Eleanor in there if possible, otherwise 3x Test of Will (or as many as you own). The Balrog's weapons in particular cause big problems.

2) A serious defender coupled with allies to throw under the bus. If you have heroes capable of defending then healing and shadow cancellation would also be handy. We had Beregond on the table when we did it, but I'm not sure who'd be the best shout with an earlier card pool/dwarves. Ideally a Sentinel whose defence you can bump and with something like Unexpected Courage so he can defend two players.

What point in the quest did you get to?

And yes posting your deck lists might help

Thanks for the advice!

1. Well, I'd like to try with full Dwarves, but we'll have to see. The Spirit-Tactics deck has currently 2 copies, but I will proxy one.

2. Dain could be viable for defending, but he needs to be ready. There's Gimli on the other team, so he'll probably do the trick.

Well, we tried 5 times and barely made it to stage 2 the last time. The first three times we didn't really understand what was going on and got stomped.

I will post the deck lists then and proxy 1 copy of A Test of Will.

An interesting trick that I used for 2-player was to give one deck Song of Earendil. That way, only one deck ever gets above 0 threat. If you give that deck some serious threat reduction, you can keep both decks at 0 for most turns. After that, you can load up on chump blockers or build up a super defender. Beregond was my main man most of the time, but sometimes I used Frodo. If you use Frodo though, you probably won't be able to keep both decks' threat low, but as long as you can cut the Balrog's attacks in half, it should make a significant difference.

Hmmm, that might do the trick!

Beregrond wasn't available back then and so I don't have him either, but I'll make things work with maybe Dain or Gimli.

Thanks for the tips!

Thing is, whether playing solo or 2-player, you need to pump out chump blockers fast (in addition to being able to cancel nasty treacheries and shadow effects) if you're going to survive. IMO, Elrond with Vilya, Steward of Gondor (hence my inclusion of Leadership Aragorn), and either Unexpected Courage or Light of Valinor is critical to success when limiting yourself to cards available up to the release of Shadow and Flame. If you're ever short on blockers, Frodo Baggins (Conflict at the Carrock) is the only hero who can take repeated lashings from Durin's Bane without dying (sometimes, the threat gain is worth it… and he can be a pretty decent blocker against the various goblins/orcs once buffed up by ally Arwen). Imladris Stargazer synergizes really well with Elrond/Vilya. This is the one quest where I now include 3 copies of ally Beorn in the "Elrond deck" (awesome with Sneak Attack triggered by a Leadership hero, or can be put into play by Elrond, at no cost when using Vilya if you used the Imladris Stargazer to "set things up"). And once Beorn has gone berserk, you reshuffle him in your deck, so he hopefully will end up making several appearances in quick succession (ideally at the same time that you also attack with Core Gandalf).

It's not the dwarf deck you're looking for, but… to be honest, I'm not convinced that dwarf decks built only from Core/Mirkwood/Kazad-Dum/Dwarrowdelf have what it takes to beat Shadow and Flame. I could be wrong (and hope I am). And I agree with GKZubhov that in a 2-player game, Eleanor is very helpful (like Frodo, she can be a pretty solid defender when buffed up by Arwen Undomiel… stick Unexpected Courage on her for better Treachery control).

I've come very close to winning in 3/4 of my straight solo games using Elrond, Aragorn (Core), and Frodo Baggins… but still working on it.

Hmmm.

We might have to change strategy then, but I just hoped to beat Durin's Bane with Dwarves for thematic reasons.

I also have the Over Hill and Under Hill Hobbit Saga box, which gives me Thorin and some other strong Dwarf cards.

I will post the deck list Tuesday night, so maybe we'll have a better view of certain things then.

Hmmm.

We might have to change strategy then, but I just hoped to beat Durin's Bane with Dwarves for thematic reasons.

I also have the Over Hill and Under Hill Hobbit Saga box, which gives me Thorin and some other strong Dwarf cards.

I will post the deck list Tuesday night, so maybe we'll have a better view of certain things then.

I totally get where you're coming from. I also prefer thematic decks, but have come to accept that they're not very practical in the early cycles. I built one straight solo dwarf deck that was able to defeat Kazad-Dum, but the solo and 2-handed dwarf decks I built struggled and ultimately failed at The Redhorn Gate. I suspect they might do okay at Watcher in the Water through Foundations of Stone (haven't tried dwarves in those quests yet), but yeah… not likely to do well at Shadow and Flame.

Another way of looking at it, though, is that even a dwarf deck is not entirely thematic for the Dwarrowdelf cycle. Would Celeborn have called on a bunch of dwarves to escort Arwen back to Rivendell? Would Elrond have recruited dwarves to investigate Moria (or would the dwarves have accepted to undertake a mission at the request of an elf lord?)? Maybe… but doubtful. And unfortunately, at this stage in the development of the game (up to Shadow and Flame), no other theme decks are viable. So my priority now is to beat quests with whatever cards were in the pool at the time an AP/deluxe expansion were released (trying to go as far as I can using the same heroes and making as few changes to the decks as I can), and to return later with fully thematic decks when the card pool permits it. I was able to play through The Redhorn Gate to Foundations of Stone with the same 3 (solo)/6 (2-handed) heroes… but had to make major changes to beat Shadow and Flame.

On a related note… I just beat Shadow and Flame straight solo for the first time today using Elrond/Aragorn (Core)/Frodo Baggins. I'm elated! Funny thing is, I never even got Vilya, the Imladris Stargazer, Unexpected Courage or Celebrian's Stone in play. But two consecutive rounds of full on attacks/Sneak Attacks with both Gandalf and Beorn each round goes a long way… if the game had gone one more round, I would have lost (Two additional enemies popped up in staging at the end of combat due to Watchful Eyes being attached to Aragorn and Frodo, and I was already engaged with a Goblin Swordsman… they would have overwhelmed me next round). I'll admit that although I think I played well every step of the way, I was also veeeerrry lucky… I only drew A Test of Will once, but somehow avoided drawing the worst Treacheries like Counterspell, Whiplash and Many Tongued Whip (they mostly turned up as Shadow cards without effect)… and the encounter deck never revealed any Great Cave-Trolls.

Let me know if you want me to post any decks, gandalfDK… I appreciate that you might find it rewarding to build your own without.

By the way… does "DK" mean you are in Denmark?

Just a quick reply for now:

Yeah, I know theme decks struggle a lot during these quests, but Dwarves killing the Balrg sure as hell is cool!

The two deck we're using haven't had these kinds of problems and beat all quests except this one. So, the WitW and the Trolls from the Hobbit eventually fell to the axe (with treasures! ) So, hoping this will eventually work.

Second game we played, setup got us two Great Cave-Trolls..

Thanks, I'll let you know. First I'll tweak them with my buddy, with the ideas I got here and I'll post the deck lists after that. Then I could change strategy completely and see what we're up too.

No, I got that question before, but it's just a nickname from my old BattleField 3 days. I needed some cool name and since I like LoTR a lot someone just came up with the idea of putting the first letters of my first and sur name behind gandalf -> gandalfDK. I'm from the Netherlands.

Yeah, I agree that having a bunch of dwarves defeat the balrog would be very satisfying.

In hindsight, I think my dwarf deck struggled with the Redhorn Gate because I had only used cards up to Kazad-Dum… now that I look again at the whole pool from the Dwarrowdelf cycle, I can see how much better a straight dwarf deck I could make now (and can only imagine how much better they would be using cards from The Hobbit sagas -- like you, I have them both, but haven't even taken them out of the shrink-wrap yet).

Off to build some new decks to start the cycle again. And I'm going to do the same for Aragorn/Elf decks to see how they fare against both Mirkwood and Dwarrowdelf.

Well, Time is scarce these days!

Quick post:

A- we did manage to play aome games

B- Victory! Second playthrough the Tactics deck pulls out wverything takes a swing at the Balrog to guve me a start and dies shortly after reaching Stage 2. I questes through like hell with aid of the Dwarf ready cards and ultimatly defeat the Balrog two turns later.

I will piat deck lists!

I look forward to seeing these winning decks. The only Dwarf decks I was able to build using only Core/Mirkwood/Khazad-Dum/Dwarrowdelf left me short in the Dwarf ally department… so I added Wandering Tooks and Keen-Eyed Tooks (which unfortunately diluted the Dwarf theme), and even then, the decks felt a little low in the ally department for my taste.

Aside from Gandalf, did you end up using a lot of non-Dwarf, non-Hobbit allies?

And if the Tactics player/deck went down on stage 2, then I'm guessing you must have relied on a rapid sequence of Sneak Attacks with Gandalf and/or Beorn in order to defeat the Balrog?

I as far as I recall, only Gandalf ally is included and the rrest is all Dwarves. The Spirit Tactics has Imladris Stargazer and Vassal of the Windlord.

Yeah, I had my Two Sneak Attacks and Gandalf ready, but I used Lure of Moria to great effect for a massive swing.

The Spirit Tactics has Imladris Stargazer and Vassal of the Windlord.

Vassal of the Windlord? Dude, that's soooo unthematic in Moria!

Well, never really said that I wanted to be thematic, but Tolkien likes his fair bit of eucatastrophy (if I spell it correctly) and at least I won't be suprised if in first instance he wanted an Eagle to catch Gandalf when he fell from the bridge.

Vassal of the Windlord is also known als Vassal of Erebor and has this art

Well, finally found the time to post the decks.

If anyone has some questions, please do ask! I won't elaborate on the tactics of these decks right now, but if you do have questions, I will answer them then.

Note that these decks have been built from the same Core Set. Some cards have been proxied (A Test of Will and Unexpected Courage) so if you do have multiple copies of the Core Set, I would add more of those cards in, like Horn of Gondor, Hasty Stroke and an extra ally Gandalf.

Dual Dwarf Deck Leadership-Lore

Heroes:

Dain Ironfoot

Thorin Oakenshield/ Gloin. Gloin is preferred, but if threat ain't an issue use Thorin because his is just stronger.

Bifur

Allies: 24

Gandalf (Core) 2x

Dori 2x

Healer of Ered Luin 3x

Longbeard Map-Maker 3x

Erebor Record Keeper 3x

Fili 1x

Kili 1x

Erebor Hammersmith 2x

Longbeard Elder 3x

Longbeard Orc-Slayer 2x

Miner of the Iron Hills 2x

Attachments:

Legacy of Durin 3x

King of Erebor 2x (the one the designers called Steward of Gondor....)

Dwarven Chest 2x (aka Dunedain Cache)

Thrors Map 2x

Cram 3x

Hardy Leadership 2x

Events:

Sneak Attack 2x

Daerons Runes 3x

We Are Not Idle 3x

Lure of Moria 2x

Durin's Song 2x

Dual Dwarf Deck Tactics-Spirit

Heroes: starting threath: 30

Gimli

Thalin

Dwalin

Allies: 19

Bofur Spirit 2x

Veteran Axehand 3x

Zigil Miner 3x

Erebor Battle Master 3x

Longbeard Starmapper 2x (Imladris Stargazer)

Axethrower from the Blue Mountains 3x (Vassal of the Windlord)

Gandalf (Core) 2x

Veteran of Nanduihirion 1x

Attachments: 14

Dwarven Axe 2x

Unexpected Courage 3x

Dwarrowdelf Axe 2x

Horn of Moria 1x (Horn of Gondor)

Ever My Heart Rises 2x

Ring Mail 2x

Mithril Plate 2x (Citadel Plate)

Events:17

A Test of Will 3x

Foe-Hammer 3x

Quick Strike 2x (Haldir in an event, which let's Gimli swing some baddies down to their graves)

Hasty Stroke 2x

Feint 2x

The Galadhrims Greeting 2x

Khazad-Khazad 3x

These are the decks we used to slay the Balrog.

Especially the Tactics-Spirit deck could use some tweaking imo, but the other player insists on including certain cards, like Ever My Heart Rises, because he thinks it's a great card, but usually they play out fine!

Ah, that explains how you did it. I thought you had limited your player card pool to Dwarrowdelf/KD/Mirkwood and Core, but now I see that you also used a few cards from the 2 Hobbit saga expansions. Must admit that I'm surprised that you pulled it off with so few allies, but… good for you! Congrats! And thanks again for sharing!

EDIT: Just finished playing the whole Dwarrowdelf cycle 2-handed again with a different set of decks (using only cards available up to the end of the cycle, so no Hobbit saga cards). Was able to beat The Redhorn Gate through Foundations of Stone with Bifur/Thalin/Gimli in the first deck, and Gloin/Dain/Dwalin in the other (using the same cards throughout, except for swapping in ally Arwen x1 after Road to Rivendell).

Changed the decks for Shadow and Flame, first going with Thalin/Gimli/Frodo Baggins and Gloin/Dain/Bifur… but they went 0/2. Swapped out Bifur for Bilbo Baggins in game 3, and had an epic, edge of your seat victory on first try. Dain died due to a Shadow effect while fighting a Goblin Swordsman during round 10… just after he had used Sneak Attack x2 to bring in Gandalf and Beorn at the beginning of the combat phase; Bifur died from an undefended attack from another Goblin Swordsman during the same round (Erebor Hammersmith was killed while defending against Durin's Bane, while Bombur was exhausted from blocking the threat of one of two copies of Second Deep in staging), giving Beorn and Gandalf the opportunity they needed to dish out 9 damage after deducting for DB's defence (+ another 4 for the direct damage Gandalf dealt when coming into play, for a total of 13).

I had more allies on the other side of the table, but the encounter deck ran out of cards while I was dealing Shadow cards to the enemies. Winged Guardian defended against a Goblin Swordsman, Veteran Axehand was killed by Durin's Bane, and a Stray Goblin dealt 2 undefended damage to Gimli, giving the badly wounded dwarf (down to his last hit point) equipped with Dwarrowdelf Axe and Heavy Stroke the opportunity to dish out 14 points of damage in one blow, + another 6 from Vassal of the Windlord x2, for a total of 20 - 3 defence +1 Dwarrowdelf Axe response = 18. 18 + 13 = 31; Durin's Bane regenerates three hit points to be at 28 wounds, and during the Refresh phase I draw the cards required to banish him back to the shadow from whence he came… Bilbo was the only hero left in deck 2, and if the game had gone one round longer, the 2 Great Cave-Trolls that had lingered in staging for most of the game would have engaged and slaughtered my remaining characters (only other ally left in play was Bombur!). I was also location locked by Second Deep x2 (really hate that location!) and Goblin Tunnels.

Final score = 180.

Shadow and Flame is always a toughy, but I get the same rush every time I beat it! And it's always an epic, "won by a thread" kind of victory!

No, I didn´t limit myself indeed. I included several cards from the Hobbit Saga expansion Over Hill and Under Hill.

No problem for the sharing.

Ahh, that sounds neat! Shadow and Flame is indeed though, but I couldn´t agree more with your description; it's never gonna be a cakewalk no matter what your encounter draw is.