I just played this scenario for the first time tonight, 2-player. Amazingly, we won on our first attempt, although I did look ahead at the encounter cards and build decks to combat them. I just wanted to share my experience.
The decks were Aragorn (Lore), Boromir (Tactis), and Beregond on one side, with Eowyn, Glorfindel (Spirit), and Dain on the other.
I anticipated several losses against this scenario based on its reputation, but we won quite comfortably. The strategy was simple: build up two supercharged defenders and devote the rest of the deck space to location control, with attack power filling up remaining slots. We ended up with one super defender (Beregond) and Dain as backup, who we only needed once. We were 'aggressive' in our defense of Smaug, always choosing to engage him instead of sending him to the staging area right from round 1, but we did not attempt any attacking until the final 2 rounds of play.
Beregond got set up very well early on, with Gondorian Shield in my opening hand, Arwen across the table by turn 2, Unexpected Courage, and a Song of Wisdom and Burning Brand within the first four or five rounds. Arwen left due to Dire Magnificence (discard an ally) -- and this card did slow us down in the early game -- but she returned later. Beregond took plenty of damage, and had to use a Behind Strong Walls to survive one attack. I used a very timely Waters of Nimrodel during the planning phase after that, resetting our damage and saving Beregond from death by a Close to the Flame that came out during staging on that turn. Beregond's Burning Brand was a very key card, as it canceled at least 4 Esgaroth Wharf shadow effects (+2 attack and attack again).
We did a masterful job of exploring locations, largely thanks to a turn 1 play of Asfaloth (I got that Song of Wisdom in my opening hand, so my round 1 play was Gondorian Shield and Song of Wisdom on Beregond, then Asfaloth). Boromir's readying effect came in handy for traveling to extra copies of Fisherman's Dock a couple of times. We did such a good job racking up victory points that we let Smaug attack Lake-town twice when Town-baiting came out on two separate occasions, once when he was attacking for 10.
On the penultimate round Beregond nearly bit it again: Smaug got beefed up thanks to Reckless in his Rage (Smaug gets +2 threat and attack, -2 defense), and this was Smaug the Magnificent, so he was attacking for 10. Beregond had 7 defense with Arwen's buff, but already had 1 damage on him and couldn't survive. Luckily, Dain had two Dunedain Warnings, which we paid to move to Beregond, and he only took 1 damage.
We counter-attacked, placing 19 damage tokens on Smaug, using all of my characters plus Glorfindel with a Rivendell Bow and Black Arrow. The next round we got a couple of innocuous locations during staging. Smaug the Magnificent was revealed again and he healed for 3, but we just managed it: Glorfindel, Northern Tracker, Greyflood Wanderer, Gandalf, and a new Rivendell Bow on Aragorn allowing him to participate in the attack, gave us 5 damage on Smaug and finishing the scenario. We had 31 victory points and 24 burn damage on Lake-town. We never did get The Old Thrush -- it passed as a shadow effect in an early round.
Although we won comfortably, I was not underwhelmed by the difficulty of the scenario, instead appreciating our well-constructed decks and good luck in card draws.
