Knowing your deck well against this quest is nowhere near as powerful as stuffing it with two-cost allies.

The issue with Dungeons Deep and Caverns Dim is that if you don't build specifically for it then it's likely to be frustrating even if you can pull out a win, but if you do build specifically for it it's pretty easy to just trivialise the quest by being really good at riddles.

If you want a bit of a middle ground, rather than just memorising what's in your deck and watching what goes into hand/play/discard, since every time you answer a riddle you have to shuffle your deck first, you could just take the opportunity before shuffling to look at all the cards left in there, quickly scan for what looks most common.

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.

I don't consider it either of those things I just figured others maybe would? I agree that you sort of need this knowledge to win if you aren't building specifically for this deck.

The issue with Dungeons Deep and Caverns Dim is that if you don't build specifically for it then it's likely to be frustrating even if you can pull out a win, but if you do build specifically for it it's pretty easy to just trivialise the quest by being really good at riddles.

If you want a bit of a middle ground, rather than just memorising what's in your deck and watching what goes into hand/play/discard, since every time you answer a riddle you have to shuffle your deck first, you could just take the opportunity before shuffling to look at all the cards left in there, quickly scan for what looks most common.

Funny you mention this! This is actually exactly what I would do when playing this quest. I would look at everything remaining in my deck and try to figure out what is the most likely cost, sphere or card type to appear. Still results in some failed riddles but helps massively and doesn't require you to keep track of every card etc. Much better suggestion than mine!

So I designed some decks for this scenario specifically.

I decided to go mono-sphere and couldnt decide between Spirit and Lore so I did both. Wasnt planning two handed, simply try each and see how they went single handed.

My theory was the simple, cram the deck full of as many allies as I could. I aimed for 2 and 3 cost allies (couple of 4's). When I laid out all such cards, adding Gandalf meant I was a few cards short of 50 and so I added about 5 utility cards such as unexpected courage for spirit and healing cards for lore. (Bear in mind I am playing progression so only have so many allies "available").

Heroes:

Lore = Denethor, Aragorn, Berevor

Spirit = Eowyn, Glorfindel, Frodo

Tried the Spirit first, just now. Smashed the quest lol.

3 mono heroes meant lots of resource to get cards out compared to my usual tri-sphere.

Lots of allies out means lots of chump blockers and lots and lots of questing, so the enemies werent too bad and the questing went well.

Mono sphere mostly allies of 2 or 3 meant riddles were a doddle

Only scary moment was the last phase where I quested everyone for a total of about 21 haha but the treachery came out that gave -1 to each characters questing and so it reduced it way down to about 14 so instead of steamrolling the quest in one turn, I ended up still on the quest with all characters exhausted (apart from Glorfindel who had unexpected courage) and so the amount of damage I took from the few engaged goblins nearly killed some heroes. All heroes from this ended up 1 damage from death apart from Bilbo who was 2 from death... but they all survived.

Next round they all quested again and smashed the progress limit to bits.

So, I have to be honest here, I was playing this with a view to win once and put it firmly behind me and move on. But I really enjoyed this quest with this deck lol. Just shows how a deck that works ok with a quest turns it from a hard slog to a fun tactical challenge where you enjoy it because you have a chance to win all throughout.

So right now, I am feeling that before moving on, I want to throw my Spirit deck against it at least one more time and also, seeing as I built it, Im thinking of giving the lore deck a go too.

I dont think the lore will do as well because it isnt as strong at questing and Glorfindel was pretty useful plus Frodos defense was good and Eownys questing excelled as usual, though the healing of lore may well be very good to occupy the goblins.

Im thinking anothe go at Spirit, then trial the Lore deck (and maybe lose) then another Spirit to bring back up the do-able challenge.

I do enjoy the deck building puzzle of this game, but I also really enjoy it when you get a deck you feel is balanced for the quest, as then you can forget about deck building/tweaking and just play the game for the experience of playing the game. All that lies between defeat/victory are the random deals and your personal choices. makes the "game" aspect more fun.

So I eat my words. My post above told how I thought this quest was awful... but I thoroughly enjoyed tonight and really do want to have more plays at this quest now

Feeling really good about how fun that was

EDIT: PS my finishing threat was 41, which I think was pretty high considering the low start of 21 but there were a lot of things, including Frodo and Glorfindel, that raised threat a lot lol

Huh

So I decided to trial the Lore deck so I could get it out of the way and give Spirit another go, and also smashed the quest to pieces.

My end threat was 30, which was my starting threat as I didnt use Aragorns ability until the last turn so thought hey why not lol.

It was an ally fest, ran out of width on my mat. So many allies, strong questing, plenty of chump blockers but only needed 2 as Denethor defended every turn until the last (was a questing push all-in). Aragorn did a little fighting but so did ally Dori supported by Erebor Hammersmith. most everybody else quested every turn. Every riddle had successes, I think I only dropped one riddle success al game and that particular riddle was out of 3 cards so I was happy with it.

Gandalf did make one appearance, which killed a bothersome Goblin and then added good questing power.

Another fun game, though I cant decide which deck now worked better.

I think I enjoyed the Spirit game more as it felt more challenging, this deck seemed to steamroll the quest easier.

Mono sphere is great for resource and getting cards out

Had fun. Not sure how many times to play this scenario now that I have 2 decks for it lol. maybe another 1 per deck then move on

EDIT: I did have another one per deck and won both times

So

After a long absence due to other games, then Xmas, then breaking my hand, today I got back to LotR LCG.

First was a long job of writing up my previous two decks into my deck log, then because the last quest was a very specific deck-design, I decided to construct a generic deck from my older games and so put together a Eowyn, Gimli, Theodred. Then to decide what scenario.

So chronologically its either Heirs of Numenor of Battle of Laketown. Battle has quite a hard rep but so does Heirs. o I plumped for Heors and assembled the firs quest.

Got SMASHED!

First go stages a thug, then the taven disscard effect put up another thug and then the first questing phase pops up a brigand. So turn 1 I have 3 enemies, not enough resource yet for allies and only 3 heroes trying to hold their own.

I never managed to get ontop of the building enemy crowd and eventually simply lost to numbers, I just couldnt get up and running. Eowyn was useless for once hehe.

So did I enjoy it? Hmm, well the game itself was pretty poor as I never felt there was anything I could do, but then many times going blind through a first scenario I feel that, so it wasnt the best. The game experience of messing with the cards and decks was fun though

I feel for this one, I need to build something that due to the many enemies has a high defense as well as a high attack for defeating them as well as the battle-questing. My initial thoughts are to try out a mono-tactics but tactics with leadership may work nice too. Then again tactics with lore for healing could be good too. Not thinking about resource generation just yet. I think I will try mono tactics and see what happens. So who to pick?? Well Gimli is my go-to and I often like Legolas, so I will have a shuffe throug the cards and maybe try a brand new tactics hero I havent tried before

Hope everyone is well!

Alex

Yeah, Heirs can be very hard

Tactics definitely is much more useful at least for the box than in other quests, just due to the higher attack/defense values on their Cards. But every quest has a Twist that "can" ruin the tactics only Approach, if you aren't prepaired.

When we first played peril in pelagir we must have been super lucky as we got a first try win (just to get slaughtered by into ithilien again and again) and usually I'd say you beat the quests by "try and error" advancing quest stage for quest stage until you figure out the quest out and have a plan for it, Obviously you could just check the quest and Encounter deck, but where's the fun in that

In general we tried to bring heroes who have at least two uses, e.g. because they have the stats (like Spirit Glorfindel who is good at willpower questing and battlequesting/attacking) or other usefull abilities (like lore denethor who is great for siege questing/defending or could scry the Encounter-deck when there is no other use for him).

In retrospective I miss the "heirs days" as there are so many memorable situations/Cards/games etc. Facing an Mumakil for the first time, getting completly wrecked by power of mordor, celebrating the first win agaist into ithilien...

Interesting. I had a great fun game with my new deck. It did quite well but still failed.

A late introduction of collateral damage cause 8 threat increase and bust the 50 limit argh, it was going ok until that point I was only 5 progress away from advancing to the last stage.

I think I had too much utility in my deck and not enough allies. More allies would increase the combat and also increase questing ability. I seemed to have utility cards spare in my hand so thats the direction I will redesign the deck. I did find resource an issue but unless I introduce Leadership I done see an easy solution to that.

I did find I was over compensaated for combat. Citadel plate was just not needed and a bit of a waste of a card draw, More lower cost allies would be better.

It was a fun game though and mostly I felt I would lose BUT had a chance of winning, which was not the case in my last game against this scenario. So enjoyment has been had and progress made.

Ideas to go forward:

Less utility

More allies

Less attachments

More allies (did I say that?)

Had fun

I had another go.

Didnt have time to tweak the deck so stayed with the same.

I crashed out with 50 threat halfway through the final stage. I had 2 of the 15 progress so didnt do too badly considering it was the last stage.

Went quite well, though collateral damage REALLY damages you. I cancelled on with a card but there are just so many. Also, discarding attachments was a kicker as I lost light of valinor from Glorfindel which was handily allowing him to quest without raising threat.

Questing on the final stage was difficult as I had lost Legolas right at the end of stage 2 due to a card effect causing damage (that I cant remember) so managing to balance attack/defend/quest with just the two heroes was difficult, especially with them loading on the freebie attacks due to the quest effect which thinned out my measly defenders.

I dont think with Legolas alive I would have managed to get the extra 13 progress at the rate I was taking hits from enemies. So I still think the deck needs tweaking. Again I still feel I need more allies. More allies gives more power to attack, defence and questing and I think extra numbers of bodies would make the difference in this quest. Attachments I can thin out, I think weapons are too expensive in this quest for what you gain (though if I ever get Citadel Plate onto Gimli he will demolish questing the "battle" stages) and born aloft (intention Gandalf) isnt getting used. Similarly although Ive failed through threat busting, I think Galhadrims Greetings is too expensive for the 1 spirit hero. So I think I need to trim out things like that and add in allies. Maybe more cancellation for spirit too though I dont want to affect the consistency of the deck by going too far over 50 cards (Im always around 53-55 it seems).

It did go fun though, I felt I had a slim chance up until Legolas died and quest 3 asked for so much progress.

Definite deck tweak before a re-attempt

Ah the joys of collateral damage I think it is among the most annoying Cards in the game as it is just a horrible way to loose. Even the Designers seem to accept that the Card is just unfun or they wouldn't have removed it for the nightmare set, right?

Keep trying, you seem to be on a good way

So two games today, both losses.

Game 1 went ok bit didn't get past stage 1, still having trouble defending enough whole attacking and questing. Can't seem to get enough out early enough. The quest starts with an enemy, then Quest rules potentially adds another at first Quest stage, then first questing can add something else to staging too. So on turn one you can have three cards in staging before you've built enough resource to pay out cards of your own.

I did ok for a bit but fell to too much combat. Died.

I did feel that legolas was the weak link, he went down fast without giving much for his stats/abilities leaving me with only two heroes.

Game two, the first turn produced an extra enemy and the quest card was an enemy, so three enemies and as yet I had not enough resource to get allies out and had committed one hero to quest, so turn one legolas died as I couldn't defend enough. Sheesh this was not good. Following turns were similar and I died on turn three.

So I have decided that defending is the big weakness and so as many state, Boromir will be tried on this quest (I've never used him before). I'm a bit worried about threat but am taking three Galhadrims Greetings, and am also worried that his defense is 2 but most enemies hit for 3 and as I play progression I'm not sure what will raise his defense to 3 to combat. Maybe a dunedain card which may mean I have to swap out a character for a leadership one. I don't think I can swap glorfindel/spirit so Gimli may have to make way for a leadership hero. If so, I may need to slim down the tactics allies for leadership allies due to resource, or may include songs to redress that balance, not sure yet.

Sheesh this is a hard quest. HoN has a reputation for difficulty but I hope it's level doesn't spoil the game for me.

Onwards. I have swapped legolas for boromir but no other deck tweaks yet. The game is set up on the table for tomorrow let's see what happens.

Edited: for atrocious autocorrect word substitutions.

Peril in Pelargil is in my experience quest that you have to learn. I couldn't beat it at first, but now I can't lose it. It's a good way to understand scenarios with both battle and normal questing. But I wasn't playing progression series.

Have you unlocked Beorn already? He is great for this box, as he can either battle quest really great or tank a lot of early damage (and you see how hard beginings are in this scenario) and then swing back.

8 hours ago, koriakin97 said:

Peril in Pelargil is in my experience quest that you have to learn. I couldn't beat it at first, but now I can't lose it. It's a good way to understand scenarios with both battle and normal questing. But I wasn't playing progression series.

Have you unlocked Beorn already? He is great for this box, as he can either battle quest really great or tank a lot of early damage (and you see how hard beginings are in this scenario) and then swing back.

I do have Beorn yes great suggestion that I hasn't considered

While Gondorian Shield isn't available until Steward's Field (to make Boromir a staunch defender), Heirs of Numenor comes with an excellent defending ally in Defender of Rammas. Two-cost so you can play him first turn with double tactics, and his four defense will hold up to many enemies (five defense once Arwen is played). Boromir will still do more for you than Legolas in this cycle because he can battle-quest and attack (and once you get to Gondorian Shield, defend as well).

Tries again today with Boromir substituted.

My draw hand wasnt great and there was no Light of Valinor, which I thought would be essential for Glorfindel, so I mulliganned. Got 3 Light of Valinors in hand and a few other spirit cards despite my decks weighing on tactics.

So I didnt have much in hand really.

The game played ok and I felt that the deck worked better against the scenario but I still lost badly. Turn 1 I had 3 enemies and I kept getting more so I got swamped under enemies.

Felt like harsh draws, so Ill give the same deck another go before I think any more about tweaking

Those 3 Ramma's are sure in the deck, just dont always pop out, and Im only running a 50 card deck for consistency so its luck of the draw there.

It was Heirs that got me to start playing Spirit Glorifindel, Boromir and Lore Aragorn. I stuck with them for a long time after that.

13 minutes ago, Bullroarer Took said:

It was Heirs that got me to start playing Spirit Glorifindel, Boromir and Lore Aragorn. I stuck with them for a long time after that.

Ohhh good idea as aragorn resets threat if I remember rightly. Hmm interesting thought to add lore.

This quest is certainly making me think.

Then throw in a set of Masters of the Forge and Wardens of Healing. Arwen is a must of course along with a pair of Songs of Wisdom and Burning Brands. If you're feelng adventurous you can even add Songs of Kings and Stewards of Gondor...

Sometimes I get carried away in jank, sorry.

17 hours ago, alexbobspoons said:

Those 3 Ramma's are sure in the deck, just dont always pop out, and Im only running a 50 card deck for consistency so its luck of the draw there.

In my HoN days, my Gimli/Thalin/Eowyn deck would often mulligan for Defender of Rammas, especially if the scenario opens with an enemy -- though I'd usually take the first attack undefended with TaGimli to power him up. Eowyn wasn't much of an asset in some of those quests, as you might imagine.

6 hours ago, dalestephenson said:

In my HoN days, my Gimli/Thalin/Eowyn deck would often mulligan for Defender of Rammas, especially if the scenario opens with an enemy -- though I'd usually take the first attack undefended with TaGimli to power him up. Eowyn wasn't much of an asset in some of those quests, as you might imagine.

I often do the same with Gimli.

Eowyn has probably been my most played hero but at the moment she had made way for Glorfindel.

I'm slightly daunted by how hard I think HoN is going to be for me, especially progression style, but I think I am starting to take shape on the deck design for the first adventure so hopefully I will get there after numerous trial and errors. The bar fight is a bit of a boring premise but the trickiness of the cards is making it quite a good head scratcher. Reminds me of the repeated goes as journey down the anduin for replays, though that quest had a great fun premise.

Just wait until you smash your head against The Morgul Vale. Never cursed so much or so loudly while playing LotR LCG... but at the time, I had overlooked the Tactomir, Loragorn, Spirfindel combo. Not sure if that line-up would make the quest easier?

Hmmm, I had another go this morning. I absolutely smashed the first two stages in 2 or 3 turns. Unexpected courage on Gimli, with him damaged and questing for a high amount while still being able to attack was awesome and Defender of Rammas out early was awesome defending. Also, I got Vassal of the Windlord out early too so his 3 attack was great for questing but without actually "attacking" so no discard of him haha!

But the third stage smashed me. I did not at all have enough actual questing power with only Gimli and Glorfindel having stats. Slowly crept 2 progress on the quest but locations were hard and also the enemies that do stuff if not "optinally" engaged when the stage doesnt allow it was hard ouch.

So I lost, actually bust threat but Glorfindel was only one alive (dammned Zealous Traiter killed 4 allies just by engaging) so was losing anyway.

Need to rethink for more questing power.

Where has Gandalf been this quest???

EDIT:

I looked through my deck. For Willpower I only have Glorfindel and Gimli (Heroes) Then 3x Gandalf and 2x Lorien Guide, no wonder I had no chance in the third stage.

My deck currently smashes 1st and 2nd stage (well it did last time) so I now need to see about adding willpower without taking away from its performance in the first two stages. Tricky.

So I deck tweaked.

Sealed out some events that I realised I want playing due to conserving resource for allies. Also sealed out some tactics allies. Added in spirit questing allies.

What happened. ,,, "the defending player discards his whole hand" wtf? ???

So I had 3 heroes out and nothing else other than unexpected cottage on gimli. No hand, no cards and only one card draw per turn. Had no chance. Enemies built up faster than I could draw or play them.

Squashed me.

I'm finding this scenario very hard. I'm feeling like this one is less about playing them game and more about deck design. If my deck isn't specifically tailored then I have no chance. Doesn't feel to have as good balance as previous scenarios for balancing play against deck designing. Difficult.

Am starting to feel nervous about the rest of this cycle. If I am not good enough at deck design, will I lose the fun of the game by the end of the 9 scenarios? I'm only on scenario 1....

Don't worry, there are some "easy" quests too, and a lot of fun ones!

I wouldn't read too much into that particular loss. That shadow effect is just ridiculous, especially if it happens early on. As I recall there's only one copy of that card in the deck though, and as a treachery it's just "Search the deck for a location and add it to the staging area" so the odds of missing the ludicrous shadow are reasonable.