Whatever you do will be interesting to read And yes Osgiliath was released in between Dead Marshes and Return to Mirkwood officially. If you were to play it now, with your current cardpool, it would be very very tough...but possibly beatable. Still though, people did beat it at that time so its not out of the question. However, you could wait a while too. Your choice.

Thats crazy you sleeved your whole collection! That would take a long timehaha

Well i still have a few packs to sleeve, but its lots of fun doing it.

Penny sleeves for encounters and deck protectors for player cards

Still thinking about what to go for now, osgiliath or kazad dum..... decisions decisions...

And yes Osgiliath was released in between Dead Marshes and Return to Mirkwood officially. If you were to play it now, with your current cardpool, it would be very very tough...but possibly beatable. Still though, people did beat it at that time so its not out of the question. However, you could wait a while too. Your choice.

Massing at Osgiliath was available at GenCon 2011, and thus released between the Core set and Hunt for Gollum (http://boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/181655/ffg-news-compilation-lord-rings-card-game), though not available to retail until some months later (likely, as you say, between Dead Marshes and Return to Mirkwood). So it was designed to be played with Core cards only.

I have a good win ratio vs. MaO using Core cards only, both straight solo and 2-handed. For what it's worth, it's definitely easier than Dol Guldur! :-)

Still thinking about what to go for now, osgiliath or kazad dum..... decisions decisions...

Ogiliath! Osgiliath!

Still one of the very best quests in the game, IMO.

And yes Osgiliath was released in between Dead Marshes and Return to Mirkwood officially. If you were to play it now, with your current cardpool, it would be very very tough...but possibly beatable. Still though, people did beat it at that time so its not out of the question. However, you could wait a while too. Your choice.

Massing at Osgiliath was available at GenCon 2011, and thus released between the Core set and Hunt for Gollum

Actually, based on what I found when I looked it up a while back, I believe they had copies of Conflict at the Carrock at GenCon as well as Massing, so people had those two APs plus the Core Set.

I had a go at Osgiliath.

Lost but fun!

I got right to the final stage before being killed by too much enemy engagement, two mounted scouts plus witch king (just killed a captain too)

I had no progress on that final stage and my threat was 48, so even if id survived its likely i couldnt quest fast enough.

Fun quest.

My deck didnt have enough offensive really. Feels like location control and offensive are key things here along with high questing. So i may have another play before i go to the deck design stage.

That witch king really hurts both in damage and threat!!

Ps: there were only two encounter cards left before needing a reshuffle too.

Pps: argh to get across the river you basically have to sacrifice a hero/objective-ally how harsh!!

Okay another 4 games at Osgiliath today.

Game one still same deck and same loss.

So i decided to deck switch and went back to my early days of gimli, eowyn and theodred to get some hard hitting into this.

So game two, I won including killing the witch king (his card doesnt say he is invulnerable or anything) . It had worked a treat.

Game three and four both losses. One had me lacking a ranger so lost a hero getting over the river and then got overwhelmed, the other had me get some bad draw and so almost no allies so when the enemies swamped i couldnt defend enough.

At least I beat it once though

Id like to beat it one more time before moving on to kazad dum, so will play it some more first

I earned three victories out of 6 games played with Eowyn, Denethor and Aragorn, when I first played this quest last fall.

I earned three victories out of 6 games played with Eowyn, Denethor and Aragorn, when I first played this quest last fall.

With the gimli,theodred,eowyn deck i mainly lose denethors scrying and aragorns readying (dont think there were any key lore cards missed) so it seemed to work well. Building gimli up to combat-monster takes time but witch king isnt until stage 4 so thats ok. Also those wolf scouts are a pain, with attack 4 they can kill most allies/heroes then dissapear back into deck, they can also take a hit from most basic heroes/allies without dying, so being able to feint, then gimli one-hit them was a useful bonus from tactics too.

Fun quest, hard but fun (dol guldur so far remains the only quest I passed on without winning)

Another two losses but one seemed really close. Other didnt get past stage one due to massess of enemies building and engaging.

I do find it a hard quest.

Another one or two games before I move on. Next will be kazad dum. Im excited for those quests but nervous about the sudden influx of player cards from my first deluxe expansion. Chosing if to include new ap player cards is hard enough, so a deluxe will be a bit card-overload from what i have been used to so far.

But very much excited about the thought of kazad dum.

Couple more pops at osgiliath first.

so i had another go at osgiliath and victory yay! Again involved Gimli being able to kill witch king, with help from gandalf.

So next will be starting on kazad dum, a whole new cycle awaits!!

Khazad Dum and the following cycle are amazing, looking forward to hearing about your experiences!

First go at kazad dum quest 1 (into the pit I think) and a win.

It took me ages to quest past the gate, locations were building and enemies gathering (no engagement possibility) and it was getting harder to quest while also cards were removing quest progress. The spirit ranger ally that adds progress to staging area locations was the only reason I got staging-threat down enough to quest through the gate and then onto the other locations and through the stage.

The other stages seemed easier, one actually including discarding enemies seemed to easy.

Gandalf dropping in to help eowyn, faramir (ally) and other allies quest through the final phase in just one turn was good.

Pretty enjoyable quest with some interesting mechanics. Looking forward to a few more goes.

another two games.

First was kazad dum 1 again (is it into the pit?)

Again a win, but again it was hard fought and the big difficulty was getting through stage 1. It seems so easy to fill up staging on that quest. This time I used the torch more to help but it was still a hard fought victory.

Second was my first go at Seventh Level. At difficulty level 3 I thought hey, cakewalk. But nope!! While I did indeed beat it, it was very hard fought, simply enemies filling up staging and engaging each turn, not big ones but too many.

I had gimli in combat monster mode and with unexpected courage so he could basically kill 2 every turn, but defending was hard. Theodred with plate took lots of hits but a daughter of nimrodel kept healing him too.

At the end I played two turns each with a gandalf to get me to victory.

it did seem a combat mess. Lots if fun though.

Also, i quite liked the book attachment. Said no exhaust to quest... but no attacking. So technically I believed you could quest without exhaust and then exhaust to defend (not an attack) so that made it quite useful (until we left it in the tomb).

Two fun wins.

Seventh level is one of my all time favorite quests. It is now a complete cakewalk for me, but still fun because of the swarming feel of the enemies.

Seventh level is one of my all time favorite quests. It is now a complete cakewalk for me, but still fun because of the swarming feel of the enemies.

Yes I can understabd that, those shadow cards that add the enemy to staging arrgh

Even with gimli squashing two full enemies per turn they seemed to stack up faster in staging. My game on it went as far as an encounter deck reshuffle too.

It was fun, though a more ally-stacked specifically designed deck would be easier I think.

Oh yes, and not sure which of my two games this was but... that shadow card that says if its an ally defender duscard it... arrrrrrghhh I had JUST saved up resource for beorn and lost him on his first action, nooooooooo.... (I think it was into the pit)

And don't forget, if the defender is discarded, the attack goes undefended...

And don't forget, if the defender is discarded, the attack goes undefended...

Oh yes , thanks I did handle that right, if it wasnt for citadel plate I would have lost Theodred that round too

Another two seventh levels.

Go one.... battered. THey just swarmed from the word go and I was overwhelmed very quickly.

Go two, a win.

Harder fought this time as Gimli didnt get unexpected courage, but still a great fight fest to the end.

Next go will be my first at flight from Moria

Two goes at flight from moria today.

Go 1 hammered. Card killed Theodred on turn two, few turns later a shadow card discarded defending faramir and then the resultant attack was undefended so Eowyn died. Few turns later with only Gimli left the threat cap bust.

Go 2 a win.

Basically managed to get the tools out, then kept bypassing quest cards until the one where you can dig out, once there, theodred with tools did nothing but exhaust tools for 4 turns while the others held ground (and Gandalf reduced the steeply climbing threat) so after four turns of tools the quest card was completed and scenario won.

My victory display was quite large by that point, so without Gandalfs threat reduction then threat would have bust before four turns of Theodred using tools.

It was fun, I very much liked the random quest deck. Victory on second go makes me feel it was easier than I expected and I dont think my deck was good for it, i think a deck with more allies would be better.

A couple more goes I think befote Dwarrowdelf

More goes.

2 at flight from moria, both close run losses.

Then I decided to deck redesign. Take out a lot of cards I didnt seem to be using and add lots of allies.

Go 1: first card out was tools, then guarded by that big troll. Ouch. Tried hard but lost.

Go 2: Another loss... close but lost. Seems my deck redesign so far isnt great.

Go 3 this morning: A win, yay (even with the big troll in staging)

My thoughts so far:

Dont complete quests unless you have to because it adds to victory display thus buffs up nameless fear.

Discard quests untill you get the fetch-tools quest and thus fetch tools.

Discard quests until you get the use tools to escape quest. Once you have that, dedicate a hero to just exhausting to use tools to escape (preferably with unexpected courage to use tools twice)

All the time, using your many allies to defend all those minions and Gimli to kill them.

Usual threat reduction via Gandalf of Galhadrims Greetings.

One more go, then win or lose I move onto Redhorn Gate (not sure which deck to use though)

So I had two more goes.

One a loss, one a win. The win was good, the loss was difficult draws. Happy wuth my resultant deck.

So moved onto Redhorn Gate.

Been really looking firward to this one as I love snow settings for RPGs.

I got HAMMERED using same deck. Theodred died on turn-1 and it all went downhill from there.

That Snow warg that can only be defended by heroes but hits really hard, wow what a difficult card. No chump blocking, killed Gimli then Eowyn. All gone.

I know I need to deck redesign for this one now, but I didnt get enough flavour to know what I am aiming at so I need another go or two with thiscdeck before thinking what I need to change or design.

Love the theme of this scenario!!

Ok

So I had another experiment go at this yesterday, and did pretty well. Got part way through Caradras during final stage, but due to its effect of reducing wp by 1 and quest effect of any heros dying if they hit wp0 i only had eowyn and arwen who could quest... then i got the snow card that reduces questing cards wp by 1 thus arwen died, game over.

So i redesigned deck.

Less armaments and such for gimli, less tactic allies. More wp and questing allies and wp based cards. Gimlis axe changed to blade of gondolin, as i dont need weapons extra hit, but progress on cards is needed.

So yesterday I played a game, went ok but a loss, some bad draws.

Today, two games.

Game 1 loss. Too many enemies too early meant overwhelmed and dead heroes.

Game two, success!!

It felt pretty hard fought, but went as per my deck plan. Lots of questing, favour of lorien, dunedain +1wp, celebrians stone, northern tracker, faramir. Citadel plate on gimli, nimrodel healing.

Lost theodred late in the game, but pushed through to victory.

Hard fought, fun and felt really deserving of victory.

I do think this scenario is tough for me but fun. So I think a few more plays with this deck before any considerations of moving onwards

The sword that was broken owns that quest.

The sword that was broken owns that quest.

But that's not until the third pack in this cycle.

Yeah I am playing progressive in order of release so havent got to that pack yet, but thanks will be looking out for it now