Hi All,

I have recently decided to try and beat every quest that has been produced by using the same decks. I decided that I would play 3-handed, with one deck built around questing, one around defending with lots of sentinel characters and one around attacking with a lot of ranged characters. So far it has munched its way though the core set and the first cycle without being defeated once (with the exception of Rhosgobel - beaten on third attempt - **** those Athelas cards!). It has happily destroyed Khazad-Dum without tasting defeat and made it's way through the Dwarrowdelf cycle losing only on the Road to Rivendell (second attempt) and Foundations of Stone (third attempt - it didn't like being split up). I then headed off to Gondor to stem the flow of evil from Mordor. Peril in Pelagir was dispatched on the second attempt.

Into Ithilien however..... not good. I am on attempt 23 with no victories and only once making it to the last quest card. The setup is to have the three Southron Company enemies in the staging area (combined threat of 9 and each hitting with 5 as the quest card has battle). I have Ithilien Road as the active location reducing the engagement cost of each enemy in the staging area to 0. I set up, play cards and reveal my three cards from the encounter deck. So a typical draw is to have either Southron Support pop up or Lost Companion (sometimes if I am lucky both). Usually I end up failing to quest successfully, having 6 or 7 enemies in the staging area and the lowest attack of an enemy is 5 (usually). Then as the engagement cost of each enemy is 0, they all attack. Either I threat out by the end of round 2 or 3, or I am destroyed by round 2 or 3.

My hero's are: Elenor, Glorfindel (spirit) and Eowyn as one deck, Beorn, Beregond and Theodred as the second deck and Bard, Brand and Legolas as the third deck.

As I have said, the hero's have made it fairly comfortably up to this point. But to lose 23 times without feeling like I am going to succeed is very frustrating. I made deck changes around attempts 10 and again on 15, but these have not improved my chances. I am losing the enjoyment of playing this quest and I am close to giving up. However, before I do I thought I would ask if anyone has any suggestions, or whether it is not possible 3 handed or just with the idea of a separate deck for separate actions (questing, defending and attacking). My thoughts are that the willpower deck has now become irrelevant as the quest cards are mainly siege or battle, and that this could be holding it back. But I would love to know your thoughts / suggestions.

Cheers, Lee.

23 attempts? And my 3/4-player group is frustrated after having failed just half a dozen times. I'll be monitoring this thread for suggestions. We usually play something like Eowyn/Eomer/Theoden, Boromir/Imrahil/Beregond, Dain/Thorin/Gimli, Elrond/Aragorn/Glorfindel so they're not exactly squishy line-ups.

It is doable 3 players. Easy? No. Doable? Yes.

We play with 3 players and beat the quest several times.

Also when it was newly released.

So that was with a smaller card pool, thus it must be more doable now even.

But are you willing to change heroes?

As I am missing lore.

There's nothing wrong with a mono spirit line up.

And I guess the deck will be a quest monster.

That, and your amount of tactics heroes, and the line up, would not be my first of choices.

If you want a 'trinity' set up: tank - quest - dps, this is a good team of heroes:

Quest: Eowyn - Galadriel - Eleanor

Tank: Beregond - Erkenbrand - Boromir (T)

Dps: Legolas - Haldir - Glorfindel (S)

I have no more time now, but if you like I can write down the tactics we use at a later point.

You could try Boromir (TDM), 3x Gondorian shield, and 3x Dunedain warning in your tank deck, and 3x Arwen in your quest deck. It shouldn't be too hard to have Boromir at 5-7 defense and sentinel on turn 1.

Thanks for your responses. I was hoping to use the same hero's throughout all of the quests. However, in hindsight I don't think that this is do-able. It seems that some of the quests really force you to tailor the deck you play with to suit the scenario. It's not necessarily a bad thing as it improves a player's deck-building skills. Personally it is disappointing as I was hoping to at least get further with the Heirs cycle, particularly as I had so many tactic hero's in play.

Nevertheless, change is progress! I will try swapping in Boromir and Haldir and see if that can make a difference.

The last hero line-up in my post is the one I have played the most, and that deck crushed every single scenario up to and including Shadow and Flame with barely any modification. But when we started Heirs of Númenor, I eventually realised it didn't work anymore. There is supposedly a recipe for a "One Deck to Rule Them All" (usually includes Dain), but unless you really want to play the meta it's not very likely you're going to beat all scenarios with the same heroes.

So I changed my decks and hero line up and beat it at the third attempt.

The hero's I used were: Prince Imrahil, Erkenbrand & Beregond as one set. Eowyn, Glorfindel & Theoden (spirit) as the second. And Legolas, Haldir & Faramir as the third.

It felt a lot more achievable right from the start, and had it not been for 3 Blocking Warg treachery cards in a row (yes... 3!!!) wiping out the majority of my questing characters, then I would have completed it first time. But I guess that is the beauty of this game. Sometimes, the odds and luck is just dead against you!!

Now I need to go back and see if it can beat Peril in Pelagir as it is a new set-up.

Just for anyone else finding this thread, these days, side quests really help out with Into Ithilien since you can reduce the threat in the staging area quite considerably by making the current quest one without a key word. and can often clear the starting location as a result preventing you from having to engage all the Southron Company's.

Although, I suspect they intended for Southron Company's to say "main quest".

Although, I suspect they intended for Southron Company's to say "main quest".

Since sidequests hadn't been introduced, there wasn't a need to differentiate. That might be another card in need of errata.