In this whole game, I don't think there is any enemy more annoying than Thrashing Tentacle and Striking Tentacle. Man, back in the day, those Tentacles made that quest so dang annoying and hard!

Alex,

If you want to beat tWitW without scrying, it can be hard to if you are playing progressively.

I suggest you use Boromir. Without a single attachment he hacks off most tentacles in a single blow.

Pair him with Spirit, as Galadrim's Greeting will be needed to keep readying Boromir.

Add Test of Will & Hasty Stroke, as they will come in very handy to counter any nasty effects.

The best option here is probably Frodo so you get to use Good meal on Galadrim's Greeting.

Using Frodo you can also make Frodo block and absorb the damage in threat.

The 3rd hero should be Lore if you have trouble taking too much damage.

This might sound odd, but Glorfindel is a good choice here (besisdes his high threat): he adds 3 quest, or 3 damage.

He can also heal using his resources, which is what you are looking for in the first place.

That, and he enables you to use Council of Elrond.

Furthermore, Lore gives you access to: Healing, Card Draw, Forest Snare, & Fast Hitch for Frodo.

But really, most Lore heroes aren't a bad choice here. So take your pick.

Hope that helps.

Good luck!

The point I made earlier about skry in was intended to apply even if you want to kill the watcher. If you can use skry g to see what shadow cards are coming the tentacles become far easier to deal with properly.

Well five games today.

First two on same deck, both lossess in similar fashion.

I decided i wasnt being able to quest enough as celebrians stone and faramir kept hiding in the deck, so i swapped out gloin/leadership for eowyn/spirit and swapped my song splash of spirit for leadership.

Go 3 (with new deck) the usual tentacle debacle happens and Denethor dead on turn two with nothing i could do about it.

Go 4 went ok but a real struggle all the way until threat bust.

Go 5 beat it. One of those where everything ran to deck-plan (though my discard to get through the door had to be Gandalf)

So thats it, really found this one a hard quest and now am moving on. Next game will be a new scenario.

Thanks for all the detailed advices. Cheers!

Dear alexbobspoons,

I really enjoy reading your journey through middle earth. Iam a nearly new player too and enthusiast who has not that much time to play but iam on the same level of quest advancement.

All i wanna say keep it on.

And divorce from your wife an gimme her phone number

Nuff said and keep up the good work..

Dear alexbobspoons,

I really enjoy reading your journey through middle earth. Iam a nearly new player too and enthusiast who has not that much time to play but iam on the same level of quest advancement.

All i wanna say keep it on.

And divorce from your wife an gimme her phone number

Nuff said and keep up the good work..

Lol thank you for your kind words and you keep enjoying too!!

I have got to the point that this thread is too complete for me to have any games without logging them here. Not really what the forum is for as FFG have the quest log (which I havent used) but I really like this thread being my online diary, development and journey through the game proggressively.

This weekend I will be leaving watcher in the water behind and moving on so thats quite exciting for me

Thanks again for your kind words, its always nice to know that others enjoy reading my thread and its not just me enjoying writing it Hopefully it also provides a nice journal for other newbies too.

This weekend I will be leaving watcher in the water behind and moving on so thats quite exciting for me

Beware of some grasping tentacles eventually dragging you back...

So two games of Long Dark, both wins.

Game1 with previous deck. Won but had two cave trolls engaged which was really difficult but just managed it.

Then deck tweaked (no need for forest snares and needed extra spirit cancells)

Game2 won again with new deck and it went pretty clockwork. One scary moment was a really bad locate test which would have killed so many and removed so much progress, but i passed it with two cards still in hand then quested to victory next turn.

Its an ok scenario, locate mechanic is interesting, but I havent felt anything majorly wonderful about it. Not bad but fairly run of the mill.

The trolls or bad timed locate can be really bad but most other things look quite tame.

One or two more goes before moving on I think.

It boggles my mind that The Long Dark is rated "7" in difficulty, second only to Shadow and Flame in that cycle. I always thought it was the easiest quest in the Dwarrowdelf Cycle, and possibly the least interesting.

Totally agree. Even the nightmare is easy. Like Dead Marshes the quest is a joke. Boring and easy. Don't get me wrong, I still play it and enjoy it as I love everything about this game, but compared to the rest of the game it is poor.

Maybe it is much harder for 4 players? I remember it being pretty easy for two back when we played it, but we haven't touched it again since then.

So far I agree with all three of you there on all aspects.

The quest is basically: wander through tunnells.

The key: Avoid locate-tests and big trolls.

Thats the essence really.

I didnt "not" enjoy it, but not really inspired either. So probably one more play then move on.

Authraw could be right in that with 4 players the locate/lost mechanic could kick in much more often with more to loose..maybe.

I found watcher in the water much much harder than this. No way it deserves a 7 (watch me get trounced later today now Ive said that)

Ha what did I say. Three more goes, two losses and a win.

Go1: Well I just seemed to draw every nasty enemy. 1 troll, 1 rock adder, goblin chieftam, 3 goblin sneaks all in play at once. Overwhelmed.

Go2: Was going ok, but failed a locate test with "Foul Air" and it took out two heroes and most allies, couldnt come back from it.

Go3: Won. Went pretty much to plan even though that spider cleaned my entire hand out at one point.

So, on to the next scenario.
I am feeling that Lore in this trisphere isnt performing as well as leadership did, so even with their splashes I may swap them back, though for first play on next scenario i will stick as is.

EDIT: The next scenario may be a little wait, as I usually play at weekends as we go away often. Next weekend, I am feeling the itch to take my CoC collection and build some decks then play some solo variant, so may well leave the beloved LotR collection at home for a weekend. So my thread may go quiet for a week more than usual, but WILL be back

Beware of not making confusion between the Watcher in the Water and the Sleeper Below... both got tentacles, so, it's easy to get mistaken...

(anyhoo, if you don't mind, it'd be nice if you could post somewhere your opinions on CoC solo)

Don't you at least want to complete the Dwarrowdelf cycle before delving into CoC?

Julia: Yup will post opinions up

Twicebornh: Nah dont need to, I dont think the narrative flows as well in that cycle as Mirkwood so I will have no problem going back to it. Ive already separated out the cards for Foundations of Stone ready to play

Righto

Two games at foundations of Stone today. Hmmm..

Game 1

Turn 1 I get the card that says choose a character and discard one from your deck and if the cost is equal of higher than your wounds, discard character. Only heroes out, so Gimli has 5 wounds, so I draw Gandalf, Gimli dead. Turn 2 I have a goblin swordsman, 3atk so Denethor defends and the shadow card adds 3atk so Denethor dead. Turn 3 I draw another goblin swordsman and a shadow card of a goblin swordsman so theres 1 in staging and 2 engaged and all I have up is... Eowyn. Eowyn died. 3 turns. What the heck!!!

So, Game 2

Went much better. All the way to stage 4 before dying fully through too many enemies. Watchful eyes were on all 3 characters too though unexpected courage helped with one. Weapons n armour sank in the water too eek, good job Gimli wasnt full powered.

So now I have a feel for the quest I have designed a deck. I felt that the biggest issues were treacheries and shadow cards as well as too much enemy.

So I have buffed up Eowyn with full x3s of the spirit cancells. Also dropped lore and Denethor and added Legolas (ranged for bats) and many more tactics allies. Am slightly worried about not having miner of the hills for those watchfull eyes, but I have treachery cancellation and x2 unexpected courage so hope it will cope.

Next play will see this deck have a go at Foundations of Stone. Might be tomorrow but I may play solo CoC tomorrow so not sure yet.

Was an interesting quest. Felt brutal but then I seemed to limp to quest card 4 so maybe not as brutal as I first thought. Go1 was ridiculous-brutal.

Onwards

I'm pretty sure you mean Foundations of Stone, not Long Dark...

I'm pretty sure you mean Foundations of Stone, not Long Dark...

Yep should edit that thanks

One game today, my new deck against foundations of stone. Rocked it

Deck worked just as planned.

Did get two lots of watchful eyes but one countered by an unexpected courage, the other disapeared when Legolas had to be shuffled into my deck (never to be seen again, but it was only penultimate turn).

Lots if resource, two tactics heroes did well earning resource when I am used to trisphere. Eowyn got song of kings and steward of gondor so loads of resource for spirit/leadership too.

Went really well.

I think lots of early locations did mean the latter stage encounter deck wasnt as bad as it could have been, so more goes with this deck to see if it will be consistant

My second game of the day was CoC after the joyus win at LotR

Two goes at foundations of stone today. Both losses.

1: Gimli died of a treachery turn 1 Argh and it went downhil, finally squashed me in phase2. I just didnt get my deck up and running.

2: Started better but also felt I didnt hit the ground running. Lost a lot of deck cards in stage2 then Squeezed my way into stage 4 but struggled. Managed to get myself suddenly location locked by Eowyn dying from a card reveal (lose questing character) (thus lost wp) and I had an underwater treasure location in play which then thus killed Legolas argh. I really didnt have enough allies out. Gimli on his own just didnt last, splat.

I still think this deck is ok for this scenario, just not perfect. Needs a bit of luck and careful playing to work.

Some more goes at this scenario before moving on I feel.

Argh another loss.

Went really well again, 8/11 progress in stage 4 even though early on Gimli died due to excess shadow damage when I had nothing to cancel it, then Eowyn location locked against a nameless dude while underwater treasure was active, so I lost Legolas, then Eowyn wasnt enough on her own, so she died against a second nameless one.

Hmm.. maybe my desicion to explore the underwater locations is a bad one. Possibly I should quest through them, or add another Northern Tracker instead of Lorien Guide and clear them direct from staging?

Seem to do ok (not great) against this scenario until I drown a hero.

Need a rethink..

Argh another three losses so far today.

Each time I got to stage 4 and got battered by nameless ones, twice they had Gandalf as an X card so man they have been hitting hard.

Starting to get a little tired of this adventure, seems to be really hard for me and also seems like there are so many ways to make one mistake (or card draw) that kills a hero and then two heroes just donr cut it on this adventure.

Not sure if my deck design is bad for this one, but too late in the day to redesign today.

Im also thinking that the faster I quest through early stages, the less cards go into the stage 4 deck. So maybe if I go slooooowly through stage 1 and get lots of discarded cards, this will dilute stage4s deck and let me avoid nameless things. Stage 2 has to be a fast quester due to losing player cards each turn.

So maybe I will try a slow saunter through stage 1 (just started to try it but turn 1 I have 8 threat in staging so I do not see this lasting long)

So I am finding this a difficult and unbalanced quest for me so far. Certainly the hardest of Dwarrowdelf for me so far.

Yeeeah!

I tried the above slooow method on that game with 8 starting threat. Right through until the end and the questing phase went clockwork other than losing Legolas into my deck. I just needed to draw an encounter card with less than 3 threat and I win.. but I draw Crumbling Ruin... and everybody is exhausted.. so the if-able doesnt kick in and I win!

It was quite a hairy game and did feel close at times but glad of it.

Gosh I think I will put this quest behind me and next game will be next scenario (Balrog??)

Gosh that was tough.

I think next scenario will need a big deck redesign but I will try it with this deck first just to get a feel for the quest

Hmm

So i just had my first go at shadow and flame. The cards are beautiful and thematic but i have to say i didn't enjoy the quest much (yet).

It was far too brutal.

Balrog has 4 threat, so from turn1 Eowyn cannot break any questing ground on her own, BUT other than turn 1, the balrog will attack every round (no instant threat reduction) so I needed to have feints or chump blockers every turn to take the Bs massive damage. (Not to mention he got his whip and sword in first four turns).

So spending all Gimli n Legolas resources on chumps every turn. G and L not tough enough to take B down, so im treading water really.

Eowyn isnt getting any allies to quest with, so im losing ground on threat, no progress made.

Then i run out of chump blockers and each of the next three turns B kills a hero, all dead.

Not to mention the difficulty in how many cards I lost from card effects.

Just brutal.

I seem to need masses more chumps, more resource, much more questing, all before I can hold ground. Then Im guessing later I will need to heavy damage Mr B so will need to magic up more resource/attackers etc from somewhere.

I cant see me managing to raise resource for citadel plate or many weapon buffs when I need to keep getting chumps out.

Im sure others have good ways to tackle the scenario, but here for a first go it felt brutal brutal brutal.

Not a single progress made and all dead, I felt I did nothing at all but wait to die, no impact from me at all.

Rather deflating really.

I might have a go at putting some form of different deck together but not sure if I'll have another game today yet.

Sheesh even dol guldur let me feel I had done a little.

Brutal.