My theory is that Nori will be a good substitute for Eowyn once buffed up by Dain, who will be "ready" during the quest phase, then I will have both Gimli and Dain available during combat and if Dain isnt needed, he can stay ready to buff Gimli due to the one-attacker rule.

Add in the usual combat cards from tactics (axes, armour, feints), usual leadership (celebrians, steward of gondor, sneak attack) usual spirit (Galhadrims greetings, treachery/shadow cancels etc) then I think core Gandalf for his damage when played ability. Then a sprinkle of allies as cannon fodder, dwarves if possible because of Dain, but evenly spread due to resources.

Seems like a plan

The Hobbit Saga is definitely do-able solo. It was the first thing I jumped into after playing the core set, and I was able to beat all six quests with the same three heroes with a thematic deck, though I did have to tweak a few cards for the last two quests, a base deck succeeded at the first four without modification, and the final deck I think would have worked for all six). The final deck configuration:

Total Cards: (50)

Hero: (4)

1x Bilbo Baggins

1x Bombur

1x Ori

1x Thorin Oakenshield

Ally: (23)

3x Gandalf (OHaUH)

2x Gloin

3x Longbeard Orc Slayer

3x Fili

2x Bifur

2x Dori

3x Erebor Hammersmith

3x Miner of the Iron Hills

2x Kili

Attachment: (9)

3x Cram

2x Self Preservation

2x King Under the Mountain

2x Forest Snare

Event: (18)

3x Expecting Mischief

2x Lore of Imladris

3x To Me! O My Kinsfolk!

3x Sneak Attack

3x Burglar Baggins

2x The Lucky Number

2x Secret Paths

hmmm so I played a game tonight with my new deck. I still got smashed though my devk design worked better.

I still quested through stage 1 too fast.

I added celebrians stone to Nori, so with Dains buff he was questing for 5 and I thought this good to keep other characters free, but he quested a bit too fast for me to build up a force.

Though coming up to stage 2 I had citadel plate on Gimli and Steward of Gondor on Dain... then disaster, a card removed ALL of my attachments on the very turn I got to stage 2 (and Id just used my Test of Will)... so they all dissapeared.. argh Gimli suddenly weakened.

So I tried as best I could against the trolls but I didnt have enough troops to counter, 2 engaged straightaway and sacked 2 heroes eeek.

My threat soared as there was suddenly +11 threat in staging from trolls and troll-cave and I hadnt soent threat to keep 2 trolls engaged (idiot).

A poor combat round killed my shielding troops and things werent looking good.

Next round, because I had let the trolls back into staging, all 3 engaged and sacked the rest of my team, thus game over at threat 48.

Not a good result.

I think I quested too hard too early and didnt build up enough forces and attachments. I also should havevsaved Test if Will for that terrible attach-destroy card.

I need to be slower through stage 1, get many troops out, get Gimli armoured and weaponed up, draw some sneak attacks for Gandalf, get some resource generated. I think my current devk does do this I just played it wrong. So will try harder next time.

10, 11 and 12 hit points on those trolls is some damage to get down when taken with their card effects.

Try again next time At least I didnt feel the deck was poor thus time

And another go today. Hmmm. I think I have too many unecessary cards in my deck. I quested slowly and got threat up to about 40 without getting my favourite cards out. Then I completed stage 1 and the trolls came in, immediately 2 heroes sacked.

Following turn, not enough defenders so the two sacked heroes took undefended damage and died (they werent defending so didnt break sack rules, I guess they got eaten).

Threat rocketed but Gandalf dialed it back a bit while alliesvdefended/died and Gimli got a hit in. Using khazad khazad followed by heavy stroke he did 8 damage to a troll yay, but all in vein as next go, threat bust at 50.

So my thoughts... need to trim unecessary cards out of the deck. Maybe replace with more cheap ally blockers to round out at 50 cards. Quest even slower if I can. I need to be entering stage 2 with a powered up Gimli, many chump blockers and also a high quester (celebrians on Nori) to discard encounter cards.

Im finding this again another hard quest. The trolls just hit hard while ramping up threat.

Games getting harder for me I think lol.

Ok so I tweaked my deck with more cheap allies and got it to bang on 50, havent tried it yet (may do later today) but if/when it fails I think I will try another tactic.

Even if Gimli is powered to the max (damage plus armour plus weapon, and it isnt easy getting damage on him in this adventure without killing him by overdoing it) and using unexpected courage, it would still take 2 rounds to kill the trolls while threat whooshes.. so after the next game Im thinking design a deck to high quest (Eowyn, Ally Faramir, lotsa cheap allies) to try and discard through the encounter deck.

Unsure on the other two heroes. Leadership is needed for steward of gondor and celebrians stone as well as cheap allies and faramir. So a leadership hero. Maybe Theodred for resources.

Third not sure. Spiritfindel? Or a tactics hero just for access to feint? Maybe a lore hero to get Henemarth Riversong for accurate stage 1 questing? Not sure yet. Will play my above offensive deck once before this rebuild.

I'm not sure what you mean about trying to "discard through the encounter deck".

Running out of encounter deck cards only matters if you're dealing shadow cards and run out. In all other cases where you need to draw from the encounter deck, an empty deck just means you reshuffle the discards.

But maybe I'm misunderstanding your meaning.

I'm not sure what you mean about trying to "discard through the encounter deck".

Running out of encounter deck cards only matters if you're dealing shadow cards and run out. In all other cases where you need to draw from the encounter deck, an empty deck just means you reshuffle the discards.

But maybe I'm misunderstanding your meaning.

So youre right generally but not for this specific quest. Killing the trolls has proven difficult so I plan to power through the encounter deck (in this scenario, instead of successful questing adding progress tokens it discards encounter cards instead).

Hope that explains a bit more.

If I recall correctly, wouldn't questing through the entire quest deck without exploring the Troll Cave and confronting the trolls mean you couldn't claim the treasures (Glamdring and Orcrist) for use in subsequent scenarios?

Don't have time to double check.

Yes, you have to explore the Troll Cave in order to claim Glamdring, Orcrist and Sting; however you can travel to the Troll Cave with just the Troll Key which you obtain simply by damaging the troll it's attached to, you don't have to kill it outright. The Troll Purse makes it cheaper of course, but that does require a kill. Alternatively you can just not get the treasures, though obviously it's preferable if you can.

Also bear in mind that the troll key is hidden within the encounter deck, so powering through the encounter deck will bring it out. Once its out and attached to a troll, one damage on the troll will drop it and then Bilbo scoops it (providing hes not in a sack, in which case things are looking bad). Whooshing through the encounter deck does seem to kinda recreate the events and outcome of the book. Quite well designed there.

Im going to have a go with my redesigned offensuve deck first, then will redesign for encounter-whoosh.

so a game tonight and a loss.

But I gave it a good shot and now more convinced I need to redesign for high questing.

Gimli got ptetty powered up and I had 6 allies out just before entering stage 2.... then disaster. Treachery of "roast em or boil em" killed 4 allies... argh my blockers.

So into stage 2, sacking happens and it thins my party. Then Gimli takes a hit to get fully powered and 2 feints avoid the other 2 trolls. Gimli with unexpected courage takes one troll to only 1hp remaining and another to only 2hp remaining. Bilbo gets the troll key, yeah! Next round, Gandalf plays in and I realise I forgot to keep trolls engaged, they are back in staging ooooooops!!! Do Gandalfs arrival kills one of the damaged trolls, leaving one healthy and one clinging to life, but then as the trolls engage, sacking happens and everybody ends up in a sack eek.. then in combat sacked heroes die.. next round, with sacked heroes about to die, threat busts anyway.

Well at least I killed one, nearly two trolls.

Now to redesign for the questing method

I find that it is ok to build a 50 card deck for solo with just one Core but if you want to toy with harder quests or with play with friends who do not have their own cards, smaller decks can let others have fun as well. I notice after building a 50 card deck with a single core, there isn't much left to make anything worth playing, not even for support.

Success!!!

So I redesigned the deck to go for strong strong questing in order to discard through the encounter deck (wait for sunrise) and it worked.

I had Dain standing ready with Eowyn (with favour of the lady) and Nori (with favour of the lady card2 and Dains buff) and bilbo questing, supported by sneak attacked gandalfs (and a standard gandalf) and Arwen questing. Arwens ability gave Dain an extra defense to raise it to 4. All then buffed further by Faramir. So I had massive questing!

2 lots of Galadrhims greetings plus gandalfs appearances kept threat low so I only had one troll engaged and then in combat, Dains 4 defence meant he only took one damage er turn (and I lost a chump blocker too). Though the first sack went on Faramir (argh) until Troll Camp appeared and Bilbo got rid of the sack.

So Dain took damage while I quested massively through the deck and it seemed to work well. Gandalfs appearances for threat lowering and questing bonus really helped. Arwen buffing Dain was good too.

I didnt get the treasure, was concentrating on winning, so Im happy with the result and can now either replay with my winning deck or comfortably move onto adventure 2.

Yay the strategy worked No heroes died.

Happy I got this one beat, it stumped me for a bit and wasnt massively varied and fun compared to other quests.

So my first game for a while.

Over the Misty Mountains Grim

I stuck with the same deck as last game until i get a feel for this adventure, so questing was heavy and combat low.

Phase 1 heavy questing helped but i did have to engage a giant, Gandalf was on hand to help beat him though.

Phase 2 wasva problem, too much combat, i lost, but i did kill the great goblin and had 9/20 progress on the quest at death.

Foolishly i got Bilbo killed, but i wouldnt have lasted much longervanyway, too many engaged monsters

So do i deck tweak or just try again? Im trying not to just go Gimli for combat yet again because nothing seems to come close. I already rely on Eowyn for questing. Too much reliance on my staple heroes.

Good game though!

I Approach this quest most of the time by taking the first stage slow (I like to Keep the giants in the staging area, at least in the beginning), what means I tech for much healing/damage reduction. As there isn't much ally hate except the giants (should they attack) iirc, I use this stage to fill the board with them. In the best case you finish this stage with lots of baggins ressources and make sure you can kill the great goblin as soon as he appears. Be careful with the use of attachments as Long as heavy rain can destroy them all.

I'd suggest tweaking the deck for a Little more combat. If you have the enemies under Control nothing should stop you from slowly but surely winning the Long game.

I Approach this quest most of the time by taking the first stage slow (I like to Keep the giants in the staging area, at least in the beginning), what means I tech for much healing/damage reduction. As there isn't much ally hate except the giants (should they attack) iirc, I use this stage to fill the board with them. In the best case you finish this stage with lots of baggins ressources and make sure you can kill the great goblin as soon as he appears. Be careful with the use of attachments as Long as heavy rain can destroy them all.

I'd suggest tweaking the deck for a Little more combat. If you have the enemies under Control nothing should stop you from slowly but surely winning the Long game.

I like the idea of flooding the board with allies in stage 1 thanks, may well try that ☺

So today I played Over the Misty Mountains Grim.

I won

I had redesigned deck to be Eowyn spirit, Gimli tactics and Dain Leadership.

First stage went well gathering forces though not many, Arwen ally really helped. Did lose Steward of Gondor and Celebrians Stone to nasty treacheries.

Kept the Giant (Giants, one joined late on) in the staging area until quested through.

Second stage, Great Goblin and two other goblins attacked, took damage, following turn, quested to gain 4 progress, then quick strike from veteran axehand got one goblin, sneak attack Gandalf got another goblin with his play damage, feinted great goblin.

Then threw Gimli plus damage plus axe plus Dain-buff plus gandalf all at great goblin and killed in one go. Was 11 attack plus 1 extra Dwarowdelf axe damage.

Next turn, Bilbo paid full cost for Gandalf and pretty much everyone quested (eowyn even discarded a card) to get the remaining 16 points i needed to quest through and win.

Went really well

Did not even lose an ally, no deaths (not counting eowyn discarding two allies from hand at points)

Enjoyed that.

May well play this scenario-to-deck again before going on to next quest

And so I played again, same deck, same scenario.

This started out harder, I didnt get as many allies out, though the lovely Arwen did come running. I got Steward of Gondor onto Eowyn but was saving Celebrians Stone for in case of treachery.

Then disaster, not only did a card force a stone giant to engage, but in 2 turns I gained 2 more giants... three in play argh.

Gimli gained unexpected courage.

Dain Ironfoot fell to a giant..

Gimli then took a big hit but it angered him and he hit back well. Celebrians stone was played and everybody but Gimli quested as hard as they could to defeat the stage and thus discard all 3 giants... but then Great Goblin appears and engages...

Gimli feints him, then hits twice with unexpected courage, just enough to kill the goblin in that turn.

So now its just questing for the goal..

Many goblins spawn and surge and almost overwhelm but gimli with courage keeps most at bay while a couple of allies perish. Everyone else quests to the max, eowyn discarding useless leadership cards to buff and bilbo playing his burglar baggins cards.

Just as too many enemies were engaged to be able to defend, we hit the last quest progress and win.

Yay.

It was a lot closer and harder than last game and Gandalf never appeared, but with still a win I felt pretty good about that.

Seems a nicely balanced deck against the adventure, always hard to move on when I hit that as its fun to play the cards for a while without having to think about deck building. I may replay this another time before moving on

Gimli feints him, then hits twice with unexpected courage, just enough to kill the goblin in that turn.

Did you attack the goblin twice with Gimli during the same phase? Without something like quick-strike?

I am pretty sure that's impossible as you can only declare one attack without specific Cards and there is no Action window to ready Gimli before the declaring attackers step Ends. After that step you can't declare an attack against the goblin, again.

From the rule-book:

In order to declare an attack, a player must exhaust at least 1 ready character. A character must exhaust to be declared as an attacker. When declaring an attack, a player must also declare which enemy is the target of the attack. A player may declare multiple characters as attackers against a single enemy, pooling their attack strength into a single value. A player has the opportunity to declare 1 attack against each enemy with which he is engaged.

To resolve an attack against an enemy, a player follows these 3 steps, in order. Players may play event cards and take actions at the end of each step.

1. Declare target of attack, and declare attackers. A player does this by choosing 1 enemy with whom he is currently engaged, and exhausting any number of characters as attackers.

2. Determine attack strength. Add up the total attack strength (Û) of the attacking characters that have been declared against that target.

3. Determine combat damage. This is done by subtracting the target enemy’s defense strength (Ú) from the combined Û of all the attacking characters. The remaining value is the amount of damage that is immediately dealt to the target. If the Ú is equal to or higher than the Û, no damage is dealt.

Characters that are declared as attackers are only considered to be attacking through the resolution of the attack. Once an attack has resolved, the characters are no longer considered “attackers,” but they do remain exhausted.

After a player’s first attack has resolved, he can declare another attack against any eligible enemy target that he has not yet attacked this round. Each player can declare an attack (with any number of eligible attackers he controls) against each enemy with which he is engaged once each round. Once all of a player’s attacks resolve, play proceeds clockwise from the first player until all players have resolved all of their attacks.

Good Job anyway staying in the game after Dain died so early on and facing 3 giants!

**** I missed that, I was going by the page 21 diagram play where you can fully resolve an attack, then afterwards declare a new attack/target and resolve that... combined with the play summary diagram showing the steps as green thus ok to play cards/abilities between steps of a phase.

So Gimli is fine to attack the goblin fully, Then ready with unexpected courage, then declare and carry out a second attack.... however what I missed was the "not yet attacked this round" so while Gimli could have hit another goblin, he couldnt have hit the same goblin.

Oops.

Thinking on it, this would have left the great goblin in play for another round, so fili would have most likely chump blocked and died before Gimli finished the great goblin. I think I had enough other allies and final questing amount that it wouldnt have affected the outcome, but you never know

Thanks for the heads up.

Ok so a game of Dungeons Deep and Caverns Dim

About to lose but havent lost yet, but I will do.

I can see why the Hobbit boxes dont have a good rep, this isnt particularly an enjoyable game.

Firstly the deck is kicking 2 cards at me each time in staging, so its hard to quest against at first, but also a few of those cards are surging, so I am getting overwhelmed by enemies, while other cards are having me search the decks for extra creatures and have them engage me, so I am burried under a ridiculous amount of enemies.

At the same time, I am not getting any progress on the quest as the repeated Goblin Caves location keeps tying me up.

To top all that, the riddles so far have been ridiculously hard, matching a sphere and a cost AND a type!!? Just couldnt do it.

Everybody is about to die, Ive gotten nowhere.

True this deck wasnt designed for this scenario, I just carried on with last scenarios winning deck, but still this is overwhelming.

My initial thoughts on a deck for this are to go very different and chose Lore for a change to get some healing in there. There is so much damage going on that healing would be good. Then Spirit to try and quest hard. Flashing out the deck for those two spheres with lots of allies for attack and defend and a few utility cards. Thats only my first thoughts though. I do tend to rely on my Tactics and Leadership so it would be a big change.

Not the most fun of quests so far really (and the next one chronologically is Battle of Laketown, sheesh a known hard quest, maybe a need a break and replay some earlier scenarios just to get some leisurely wins under my belt)

Alex

EDIT: All dead, managed to get 5 progress on the quest at the end but it still never went my way.

Will not be able to play this quest again without a full deck redesign so I need to think about it and come back later. Never feel great when a quest seems to require this extent of full deck design straight out of the box maybe its just my bad playing.

It definitely isn't your bad playing. This quest can be a walk in the park with a deck designed for it but if you aren't building your deck specifically with this quest in mind it can actually be really punishing.

Some will find this sort of cheating or at least somewhat dodgy but it massively helps to know your deck/s forwards and backwards when playing this quest (know exactly how many attachments, allies and events there are, know how many 1 cost, 2 cost, 3 cost etc cards there are and know the sphere breakdown so like 35 lore cards 15 spirit cards or whatever).

This way any time you have to do the riddles you have a slight advantage of knowing what cards will most likely be revealed.

It's a little bit like counting cards in poker

Yeah the hobbit boxes are really average. There are some that absolutely love them and while I can sort of see why they do I personally can't stand them and pretty much never play them.

Most of the quests require you to deck build around them or you will suffer (especially Caverns, We Must Away and the Lonely Mountain). Most of them are too swingy and luck dependant and have tons of surge as well. In The Lonely Mountain Smaug can make like ten consecutive attacks which is just crazy. All that being said though I do really love Over the Misty Mountains Grim and The Battle of Five Armies. Those two quests are great.

I must be one of the few who likes the Hobbit Saga quests, and Over the Misty Mountains Grim, The Lonely Mountain and The Battle of Five Armies in particular. I actually liked the way riddles were handled in Dungeons Deep and Caverns Dim... even though at times the mechanics really did piss me off!

Not the most fun of quests so far really (and the next one chronologically is Battle of Laketown, sheesh a known hard quest, maybe a need a break and replay some earlier scenarios just to get some leisurely wins under my belt)

Alex

If you're playing chronologically, Flies and Spiders and The Lonely Mountain come before The Battle of Lake-Town... which is another favourite of mine. That was the first quest I encountered that really required outside the box thinking/deck building to win (even more so than Dungeons Deep)... but the design of the quest is, IMO, awesome (just recently found out that a similar approach was required to take on The Three Trials solo). And once you figure out a viable approach, the quest becomes really enjoyable.

I sympathize with you regarding time and effort spent redesigning decks after each quest, which can be annoying/discouraging... but don't lose heart! I think you'll feel tremendous achievement when you finally succeed!

I must be one of the few who likes the Hobbit Saga quests, and Over the Misty Mountains Grim, The Lonely Mountain and The Battle of Five Armies in particular. I actually liked the way riddles were handled in Dungeons Deep and Caverns Dim... even though at times the mechanics really did piss me off!

Not the most fun of quests so far really (and the next one chronologically is Battle of Laketown, sheesh a known hard quest, maybe a need a break and replay some earlier scenarios just to get some leisurely wins under my belt)

Alex

If you're playing chronologically, Flies and Spiders and The Lonely Mountain come before The Battle of Lake-Town... which is another favourite of mine. That was the first quest I encountered that really required outside the box thinking/deck building to win (even more so than Dungeons Deep)... but the design of the quest is, IMO, awesome (just recently found out that a similar approach was required to take on The Three Trials solo). And once you figure out a viable approach, the quest becomes really enjoyable.

I sympathize with you regarding time and effort spent redesigning decks after each quest, which can be annoying/discouraging... but don't lose heart! I think you'll feel tremendous achievement when you finally succeed!

Not playing chronologically, playing in release order, so as I understand it, Laketown is next and then afterwards Id have to check, its either Hobbit-2 or Heirs of Numenor

I must admit, while I had the thought of card counting, its not something I would enjoy putting my mind through, so a big part of me cant be bothered as it wouldnt be fun for me. I think I will be going Lore/Spirit for this one, or maybe even mono. So I plan to lay out all my Lore and Spirit cards, choose ones I feel will work well, which will likely be allies as so-far the focus has been questing and combat, which scores of allies will do nicely, and then decide on the split. Would be nice too if I could tailor it to similar cost cards but I dont think I would get the best deck from one made entirely of lore-allies-3cost or similar lol.

Need to set aside a game session just to play about with my collection to come up with a deck as a basis for another go before I start fine tuning it on subsequent goes

Nice to know my old thread still gets reads when I update it I have bought into so many games now that I dont play any as often as I used to just due to playing different ones, but the LotR love is still 100% there

Some will find this sort of cheating or at least somewhat dodgy but it massively helps to know your deck/s forwards and backwards when playing this quest (know exactly how many attachments, allies and events there are, know how many 1 cost, 2 cost, 3 cost etc cards there are and know the sphere breakdown so like 35 lore cards 15 spirit cards or whatever).

This way any time you have to do the riddles you have a slight advantage of knowing what cards will most likely be revealed.

It's a little bit like counting cards in poker

Well, I don't how how can it be considered cheating / dodgy. Counting / remembering cards you played while knowing by heart your deck is the needed skill to beat this quest with a "normal" deck (say, not a mono sphere deck without attachments or events and with only 2 and 3 cost cards). It is just one important skill to master to play that kind of game.