Now that most of us have the Wastes of Eriador what have been your experiences so far with it?

I received it yesterday and played two games last night both of which were losses.

Essentially I threated out twice (both times on Stage 2) due to just getting stuck on Stage 1 way way too long, way too many doomed cards appearing and just overall struggling to make progress. Both times I was able to clear BOTH side quests and stage 1 but just had buku threat both times I achieved this and threated out on Stage 2 twice. Now I'm running decks that start on 28 and 27 threat and have a decent amount of threat reduction so its not like I'm taking high starting threat or am using threat as a resource (Boromir tactics hero, doomed cards etc).

A few key effects and cards are I find the backbone to me losing this scenario. First off the extra 1 threat each time it becomes night on stage 1 can be horrendous because of how long you can get stuck on stage 1. It doesn't seem so bad until you have it trigger like 3 or 4 times....

Secondly Sudden Darkness is perhaps my new most hated treachery. It either raises threat by a whopping 4 or instead (and probably much worse) changes it from day to night which means all progress on quest stages this turn will not be placed. This is HORRIBLE when you are finally ready to make a big push then this card appears..... completely shuts you down and makes you wait another turn to make progress, makes you take another 1 threat per player if you are on stage 1 and also reveals another encounter card...... Also if it is night it cannot be cancelled.

This card alone can make you lose the entire game quite easily. I had it show up at very important times in both games making it night in the first game (raising threat by 1 and revealing an encounter card) then raising each players threat by 4 in the second game in which both decks threat was already quite high (was night already).

I made the mistake in the first game of using Test of Will on the treachery that makes you assign damage to questing characters equal to the number of questing characters rather than saving it for Nightfall which I feel like you almost have to do in this quest.

Thirdly the few cards with doomed in this quest seem to show up A LOT. Pressing Needs and Freezing Blast (two copies of each) both appeared at least once each in both the games I played. You can easily jump from around 27/28 to about 40 threat or more within three or four turns. Threat reduction is a big big necessity in this quest. Going to give it a few more tries tonight to see if I can beat it! Going to save test of will specifically for Nightfall and going to try get past stage 1 as fast as possible to avoid the extra +1 threat each time it becomes night. Usually I have a swarm of allies for both decks by the time I get to Stage 2 so its nasty effect is actually not as nasty as Stage 1. Especially since getting through Stage 2 should be much easier with the additional card draw each time it is day and the 15 quest points as opposed to 20 on stage 1. I also need to avoid side quests if at all possible or at the least wait until at least Stage 1 is cleared before clearing them. I think clearing the side quests first was also a big mistake I made as this would delay me putting progress on stage 1 another two turns per side quest (finishing the side quest and then the following turn of night) and sometimes four turns if the side quest is not cleared in one go. This is insanely detrimental and slows the whole game down and allows the encounter deck to recoup and raise threat like crazy while you struggle just to clear a nasty side quest. I think you have to just bite the bullet and leave them be. Then again if you don't clear side quests quickly weight of responsibility won't just replace itself like it did in both my games last night but will instead reveal 2 cards. Also rugged country goes up in threat while trying to clear side quests and if you leave Make Camp in play you cannot heal your characters!

Just a brutal brutal choice, clear the side quests and severely delay the whole quest or leave them alone and potentially make several encounter cards far more nasty/have healing shut down completely.

The other two main nasties this quest throws at you are shadow effects and direct damage from treacheries/enemies. Healing is a big time must in this quest due to cards like Cold from Angmar, White Warg, Biting Wind and Freezing Blast. Luckily I had a Warden of Healing appear fairly early during both my games so far and so this was not a problem as I was able to heal damage (only just fast enough and on a few rounds paid lore resources to be able to heal four characters at once with the Warden) off characters every turn and keep this under control.

Shadow effects in this quest are also very nasty and many can result in enemies making additional attacks often against another player (than the one engaged with originally) which is problematic if you use the whole combat deck/questing deck strategy as no matter how you engage enemies they often end up engaged to another player/deck messing with your calculations of attacking and defending. Also shadow effects get much worse when it is night and so do the enemies. I often had 6 attack strength attacks being made by the lowliest of enemies in the quest: Wolf of Angmar. Two attack normally, four during night and six if they get a copy of themselves as their shadow effect! I also had the shadow effect for Nightfall (HOW THE HELL DID THIS APPEAR SO MANY GODDAMN TIMES!) trigger once during both games randomly bringing an ADDITIONAL warg and attack into the play completely messing with combat. It is definitely not the enemies themselves but the nasty effects they can gain at night and the shadow effects that they can receive that is the danger as far as enemies go in this quest. Somehow I was able to keep this under control in both games even with all the surprise attacks and had to take a handful of undefended attacks (lowered by Honour Guard, really fantastic use for this guy, much safer taking undefended attacks if you can lower the damage by 1), had to block a bunch of attacks with Amarthiul and had to be very clever with my use of Haldir and Feints. Even though things got hairy at times and often I would go from one warg enemy in play to several in play all engaged and attacking I was able to just manage this as well.

I think I got very unlucky with encounter reveals (far too many treacheries all at the exact worst times) and side quests (had to deal with BOTH side quests during Stage 1 both games) in my two games so far and was just unable to move forward fast enough before threat became a massive issue. No matter how many Gandalfs, Greetings or Elronds Counsels I played I was not able to manage threat effectively. Had I just progressed from Stage 1 a few turns earlier in both games I would have suffered less extra threat increases from night on stage 1 and may very well have won. Stage 2 is not quite as long, you have usually explored the side quests (or at least one) and have a good board presence by then so should be able to clear it far faster and then Stage 3 can be completed the turn following the one you arrive there.

I found clearing as many enemies as possible during the day very effective as it would stop too many enemies engaging you during night and would also allow you to kill enemies like Wolf of Angmar, Bloodthirsty Warg and White Warg before it becomes night and they are able to attack for more, do more direct damage or attack multiple times. Also quite often the card revealed by the effect on Nightfall would whiff. I had at different times Biting Wind and Freezing Blast appear and do nothing (Freezing Blast still raised each players threat by 2) which were both very nice reveals but also had cards like Nightfall (yes thats right....), Pressing Needs and Predatory Wolves appear as the card revealed by Nightfall all of which were just awful.
I also found myself discarding at least one ally for one of my two players/decks for the effect on Predatory Wolves most times it appeared cutting down on the amount of wargs in play.

I also got to use Honour Guard's Valour action in the first game I used them in to stop a hero dying from an undefended attack of 6 attack strength, the honour guard jumped in the way of the Hunting Pack sacrificing himself (and probably getting torn apart by several large wargs in the process ) and reducing the damage to 1. What an epic save!

Looking foward to playing this tonight and hopefully beating it within a few attempts using my new found plan and strategies agains this quest! Really like the quest overall but to be completely honest don't really like the fact you cannot place progress at all during Night and think that it should have just been much nastier whilst night like it is but perhaps a little more so but you can place progress. It just slows the quest down SO SO much and makes this quest a more or less guaranteed very long quest each time you play. It is also just way too nasty when you see Nightfall revealed and literally cannot make any progress for two turns in a row.....

I hope they stay away from quests where you can only make progress every other turn and this one is unique in that regard.

Doomed and Surge are in abundance here. I found it weird that they give us two new toys in The Lost Realm-- Side Quests and Dunedain, and then the first quest in the cycle is one which you don't want to use either. Side Quests are a big no-no in this one, and you can't keep enemies engaged with you forever, so it thwarts the Dunedain mechanic.

I actually didn't have TOO much surge go on on any ONE turn but had at least one card surge or reveal another card (Weight of Responsibility) on almost EVERY turn. I did have a few turns where 1 card in staging would become 4 or 5 though. Also looking up exact cards to talk about on Hall of Beorn now I am insanely shocked there are only two cards with doomed in the quest, it seems I had doomed appear every few turns in my games. Either got very unlucky or only had doomed appear a few times and copped most of my threat increases from Stage 1's effect and Nightfall showing up during night in the second game and just feel like I saw too much doomed.

Oh man I drew Gather Information in one of the two games and just kept it in hand all game (I should really remove these when playing this quest.....) as I was like hmmmmm if I play this weight of responsibility gets way way worse (especially if an encounter side quest is also in play) as does rugged country and whats more even if I do choose to try and clear it that will delay me by at least two turns (and 3 threat) so I will more or less HAVE to search for threat reduction cards just to offset this.... and will be doing exactly that, more or less just offsetting the threat I just earned... definitely not worth it in this quest at all unless there is a single card that can turn the whole game around for you. Even then honestly you are probably better off without it than taking several turns just to get it and risking other elements of the quest getting out of hand in the meantime.

Yeah dunedain wouldn't work too well either with all enemies returning to staging when it becomes daybreak.

I very rarely had enemies return to staging from this effect as I would try to kill everything possible during both day and night.

Any wounded enemies that return to staging from this effect are a perfect target for Haldir or Dunhere during the day!

This quest was certainly the most difficult for me out out of the Lost Realm quests so far. I loved how many different ways I lost, it really forced me to have a well rounded deck. Lost multiple times to threat, too much damage, too many enemies (which surprised me considering how few there actually are in the encounter deck), and not being able to make any progress because of accummulated threat in the staging area. Really well done. My least favorite card was predatory wolves.

I find it too hurting if you can't place any progress each 2 rounds, in adittion, when you must explore a side quest, it is like you need 4 rounds to start to place progress on the normal quest. Too much...

Another one in the column of much more difficult with 2+ players versus solo (one deck). It would have made things a tad easier if you could have made progress on side quests during the night, even if you still couldn't make progress on the main quest. Maybe this would have made it too easy, but making camp during the night sure makes sense!

I had to do a double-take that Biting Wind will wiff if revealed as the Nightfall card, but you're right. That will make this quest easier.

Unintentionally, I happened to construct a Rohan deck right before I started on this quest. Elfhelm is just boss on this quest, if you can get him out early enough.

Yeah I was actually considering including Elfhelm in my decks just for this quest! Possibly even comboed with Song of Earendil so that the deck using Elfhelm could soak up bits of the other decks threat using Song of Earendil as well.

I beat it before needing to do this however

I too think that maybe if allowed to put progress on side quests during night this quest would be a bit less brutal. I doubt it would make it that much easier....

Anyway, played another 3 games last night and won on the third attempt! Lost the first attempt on stage 2 by threating out (surprise surprise...!) but was able to get ten progress on the stage first and had some insanely unlucky draws, at one point I think I had 2 cards in staging turn into about ten from surge and extra reveal effects. Second attempt I actually conceded right after setup as a side quest (make camp), predatory wolves (adding two wargs to staging) and nightfall were revealed..... turn one and its already night, there are three wargs in staging (nightfall revealed and added a third one) and a side quest out, just nope. Third attempt I had an INSANELY lucky setup but then managed to beat the scenario without any further luck and with many nasty encounter combos. As my setup I had two copies of Cold from Angmar revealed both attaching to stage 1. I had both Power of Orthanc and Warden of Healing in my opening hand for my lore/spirit deck so was able to heal both damaged heroes and discard both copies of Cold from Angmar during planning first turn! I was then able to cancel a copy of Predatory Wolves (Test of Will) during staging on the first turn and managed to place a whopping 12 progress first turn with a massive push against just a Wolf of Angmar and North Downs (only 2 threat against 19 willpower). I was then able to clear stage 1 on turn 3 (turn 2 was obviously night) and I was golden from then on. Threat got a little high for both decks a few times but Greeting and Elronds Counsel quickly set that straight. I was actually on stage 2 a fair while and had to discard 3 different allies to its nasty night effect but the card draw during day was extremely beneficial and set the tactics/leadership deck off at a new pace (drew Galadriel ally and Foe Hammer drawing me a handful of cards and bringing Steward of Gondor out at last). I got a small army of allies out and got ready to storm stage 3. I actually HAD to clear Make Camp (did not see Lost in the Wilderness all game which was just amazing) before finishing off stage 2 as damage was getting high and I knew I would need as little as possible on my characters for the fight with the pack on stage 3. I managed to cancel a copy of Nightfall as I advanced from Stage 2 to Stage 3 narrowly avoiding disaster and being stuck on Stage 2 for at least another turn if not more. The battle at the end was fairly easy as very few Wargs were in play so the Pack leader only exhausted two characters from his effect the first turn on stage 3 and only exhausted one character on the second and final turn at stage 3. I was easily able to place the 5 progress tokens on stage 3 and killed the Pack Leader with a concerted attack from Boromir (ally), Amarthiul, Elladan and Haldir (with about four attack boosting attachments, two marks a blade and a dagger).

Key strategies/events that lead to my victory:
-Insanely lucky setup with no threat in staging and two Cold from Angmars in play both of which were immediately discarded by Power of Orthanc

-Able to cancel Nightfall with Test of Will at a critical point and was able to cancel a copy of predatory wolves first turn as well

-Only had a side quest appear after I progressed from Stage 1. Having a side quest out hampering you during Stage 1 is extremely detrimental and can easily stall you for many turns. I then also focused almost purely on clearing Stage 2 and only went to clear the side quest Make Camp when I really needed to and damage was starting to stack up and I already had a handful of progress on Stage 2.

-Sacrificing allies to Predatory Wolves can sometimes be far better than adding wargs to staging.

-Always healing characters during planning so that when questing far less characters will be affected by Freezing Blast (this was a major concern during my games the other night)

-Damage from Cold from Angmar always placed on Glorfindel (taking away his nasty threat gain ability!!!) and Sam Gamgee (least useful or necessary hero ability for this quest).

-Using Amarthiul for defensive duties quite often when Elrohir could not defend everything. Two Honour Guards were constantly reducing damage as well.

The three allies that heroically delayed the wargs and kept them at bay during the night on Stage 2 and by doing so were pulled apart and devoured were an honour guard, envoy of pelargir and galadrim minstrel.

I finally got to try it 2 handed with some synergistic decks. Mono tactics Aragorn, Hama, Mablung paired with a questing/location control deck using Glorfindel, Idrean, and Beravor. By the way, I totally forgot how good Beravor is. That card draw is so good, especially with UC or Wingfoot.

First try got to the 2nd quest stage, but the tactics deck threated out after 7 or 8 turns despite 2 secret vigils. They aren't as strong against this quest because you get a maximum of 2 threat reduction. Also, I lost Idraen to piling treachery damage when the no healing side quest came up.

Second time went a lot better. It helped that I drew several treacheries that ended up doing nothing, or I got the quest attachment multiple times on the same quest. An early Keeping Count and Rohan Warhorse on Hama let Aragorn wreck the wargs later on. Aragorn got his own Keeping Count, Rohan Warhorse, and Rivendell Bow. After going to stage 3 I had 5 enemies in the staging area. Aragorn (via Keeping Count) was attacking for 15, so I used 2 Hands Upon the Bow to kill 2 enemies and pull down 2 more. The tactics deck engaged the 3rd enemy, dropped a thicket of spears, and cleaned up the rest. The spirit/lore deck did a great job with the questing. I think I placed 5-15 progress each day.

finally have this quest under control. Tried Dunedain for the first time and theyre stupid strong. Argorn(tactics) Halbarad and Mablung. Paired with a quest powerful rohan deck Eowyn Theodred(spirit) Beregond.

Mainly the dunedain deck can keep enemies out of the staging area so they dont clutter. Beregond blocks for the dunedain deck and Theodred only if necessary, but the dunedain deck can basically kill any wargs the first round it engages. Halbarads "dont need to exhaust to quest" is useless because during the day all enemies go back to the staging area, but his ability to additionally engage an enemy is strong as well as Aragorns ability to pull dudes from the staging area.

I had to tweak the decks because every game I had the staging area under control no problem but I threated out every single time. It was brutal. so I added all types of threat reduction cards, and that helped a lot.

Cold From Angmar was very annoying it makes you take a dmg and blanks out text boxes and i swear i got it on set up every time lol and i didnt want to Power of Orthanc it away since threat management is very important in this quest. SUDDEN DARKNESS is a table flipper. man that card makes me so angry lol mostly because it prolongs the game even when the board is under control because you cant place progress.

Overall i think its a really fun quest. very challenging which is good, but the playtime on this quest is just too long for me. when you think youre about to win Sudden Darkness happens and omg its so annoying. For me if it wasnt for the length of the quest this would be my go to quest for testing out decks.

I like how theres a lot of Doom keyword because threat has kind of gotten to the point where its too manageable IMO. I like that i have to think about it again. And there werent too many Surge keywords in this one I dont believe, its just that when it goes to Night you have to flip over an additional encounter card.

Yeah I have to agree re length. Really love the quest but **** every play is so so long. Makes me wary of playing at times because I could get in two other quests in the same time it takes to attempt this quest just once. Sudden Darkness is a bit too much of a table flipper too.... you HAVE to be able to cancel it or it just hurts you so **** bad. Even when it shows up at night Doomed 4 is nothing to laugh at. Great quest overall but looking forward to Mount Gram a little bit more simply because of how unique and different it will be starting with one hero and having to rescue all your allies, attachments and other two heroes.

Doomed and Surge are in abundance here. I found it weird that they give us two new toys in The Lost Realm-- Side Quests and Dunedain, and then the first quest in the cycle is one which you don't want to use either. Side Quests are a big no-no in this one, and you can't keep enemies engaged with you forever, so it thwarts the Dunedain mechanic.

I am actually quite skeptical about the side quests in general. This is just a hunch, maybe completely wrong, because I haven't tried them and they will get more support I am sure, but as it is, especially in the current set of quests, it seems the benefits are too low given you lose at least one round. Scout Ahead is most promising but then again, since you can only have a copy, you probably won't make much strategy around it, though it shall fit nicely with Leave No Trace, None Return, Out of the Wild, Keen as Lances, Rossiel, etc.

I play that quest maybe about 5 times and lost only ince. First game. I like rhis quest but for solo is quite simple puzzle. In 3 players game is more interesting for sure. In nmode will be amazing.

I should get Nightmare cards for Voice of Isengard today. Here im excited!!!

I'm oogling the spirit Merry. That ability is so great and, along with spirit Glorfindel, can really help against the endless doom of this quest.

I want it. Is it in Canada yet I wonder.

Doomed and Surge are in abundance here. I found it weird that they give us two new toys in The Lost Realm-- Side Quests and Dunedain, and then the first quest in the cycle is one which you don't want to use either. Side Quests are a big no-no in this one, and you can't keep enemies engaged with you forever, so it thwarts the Dunedain mechanic.

I am actually quite skeptical about the side quests in general. This is just a hunch, maybe completely wrong, because I haven't tried them and they will get more support I am sure, but as it is, especially in the current set of quests, it seems the benefits are too low given you lose at least one round. Scout Ahead is most promising but then again, since you can only have a copy, you probably won't make much strategy around it, though it shall fit nicely with Leave No Trace, None Return, Out of the Wild, Keen as Lances, Rossiel, etc.

I have to disagree. At least in regards to Gather Information.

Gather Information has completely turned my decks on their heads and has really put them at a new power level against the vast majority of quests except perhaps certain quests in this new cycle (still used it to great effect during Stage 2 of Deadman's Dike but it is next to useless in Wastes of Eriador) and some quests that feature time counters (Nin-In-Eilph and To Catch an Orc) but then some quests that have time counters have them on enemies or locations (Antlered Crown and Three Trials) and not the actual quest stages so in these quests side quests are still great.

The other side quests for each sphere I will admit I think are a lot weaker as they essentially cost you an extra turn to trigger a powerful ability which could backfire and not trigger fast enough (especially Delay the Enemy which has 8 progress points instead of 4...) or could simply trigger an ability that does not really do much considering it took you a turn of no progress on the actual quest to pull off and the staging step could simply replace or undo whatever you just did (Imagine being forced to shuffle the encounter deck after ordering the encounter cards with Scout Ahead somehow... or imagine the two enemies you remove with Delay the Enemy simply reappear during staging...). With Gather Information however because it lets each player search for ANY one card it is extremely useful to get whatever card your current situation or even the quest you are playing requires. Need healing or you are going to lose very soon? Bam you got it. Don't have nearly enough resources to play the cards in your hand and haven't drawn Steward yet? Bam you got it. Some nasty condition attachments in play that you are going to lose because of? Bam you got yourself a Power of Orthanc to remove TWO of those conditions. Need Asfaloth cause locations are starting to stack up? Bam you got him. Really need to get Sentinel set up on a hero? Bam you got Arwen or Elven Mail. Even when you don't need something specific you can simply search for your most powerful ally or whatever card is more useful the quicker you get it out (Treebeard ally for example, the earlier you get him out the earlier he starts generating his own resources and giving you amazing economy advantage).

Honestly I think Gather Information is one of the most powerful and useful cards in the game and is only not amazing in certain quests such as some of the examples I gave.

Delay the Enemy and Scout Ahead are both meh (Scout Ahead is far greater though) but in the right deck Scout Ahead could be really great (Rossiel deck, Secrecy Deck etc).

Double Back I think is really amazing as well actually. 5 threat reduction for every player (stronger with every player you add) is nothing to laugh at, hell 2 threat reduction for every player costs 3 spirit resources (Greeting). Even if it does delay you a turn of progress in MANY quests threat is one of your biggest enemies and a very easy way to lose. This card can give you an extra couple of turns to beat a quest before threating out. Many times you have an amazing board, plenty of allies and attachments, almost nothing in staging and you are only a few turns away from victory but you have no more threat reduction cards left and very high threat and it is a race to finish before you threat out. This card steps in and removes this giving you breathing room.

I think Gather Information and Double Back are at a different level to the other side quests and Scout Ahead is almost as good but more niche and Delay the Enemy is easily the weakest. Very intrigued to see what the Leadership side quest does.....

Side Quests are also handy was to stall and build your forces. Sometimes you don't want to go to the next quest stage so soon, like in the first Hobbit quest. With a side quest, you don't have to worry about over committing.

Gather Information has been really good for my decks. I play exclusively 1-core, so a Gather Information really helps you pick out rare cards from your deck, like that one Unexpected Courage you are running. As PsychoRocka said, you can also get just what you need for the situation if you need healing, or a feint for some terrible enemy, or Steward, or whatever.

Side Quests in general are also useful for much of the HoN cycle for me particularly, because it allows you to revert to willpower questing for a little while instead of Battle or Siege. Since willpower questing is what my deck is good at, this can really help clear an active location and get some threat out of the staging area for a couple of turns. Questing with willpower also allows you to hold your fighters back for combat and not worry about raising your threat too much on a lost quest.

I have used Double Back just a handful of times but I did find it to be very useful. 5 threat per player is pretty strong. Scout Ahead is a little less versatile I think. Certainly good in niche decks, maybe with Rossiel and Out of the Wild, but I generally found that exiling one encounter card didnt seem worth skipping a phase of questing to me, since I couldnt be for sure what that card was. I would use this card generally if I knew what I was going to hit all the time. I could also see Scout Ahead in an Idraen location control deck, trying to exile enemies so that the density of locations is greater.

Remember that Scout Ahead also allows you to stack the top of the encounter deck, so it's the most powerful scrying effect in the game on top of victory displaying a card.

wasn't thinking of that. Pretty good, I wonder if there is a good way to exploit that. 1/deck makes that effect a bit limited.

No it doesn't limit the effect in any way single player.

It scales nicely +1 card per player, but then more encounter cards are popping from the encounter deck, reveals & shadow cards & surge and so on.

Which will give your group control of the encounter deck a single turn most of the time.

I would say it's most effective single player.

If you play it when there are no enemies engaged you can control what's coming up for up to 3-4 rounds even.

This effect dwingles the more enemies are engaged, but then again you still get to pick their shadow cards.

It's a incredible powerful card.

More so when used wisely on the right moment.

Played it today with a Glorfindel (sp), Galadriel, Elrond deck.

Lost on first attempt cause on turn three I ended up with 6 enemies in staging area (with surges etc) and my threat already on 40 ... I dumped it to be honest. No light of Valinor or Nenya on my hand also

On my second attempt, after tweaking my deck, I was a bit lucky to have both Light of Valinor, Burning Brand and Nenya on opening hand and on turn two I had unexpected courage also. With Galadriels ability and Unexpected courage I was drawing two cards per turn (and reducing threat), had Hanneman Riversong soon and everything went quite easily. It took some 13 turns to win though, but the important was to get rid of 1st quest stage quickly

Nice quest, the treachuries can become very painfull indeed