Elaborating on the initial idea of core monotactics, how about a deck with 2 tactics heroes and 1 hero of any other sphere (or none at all, bonus points for that )? Like, at least 30 cards of that deck must be tactics.

Some additional ideas: no allies, only unique allies.

Just to throw another idea out there... On a whim the other day I made a mono-Leadership Highlander deck -- each card was a 1-of -- and trounced Passage to Mirkwood. But perhaps there's some more trying version of the challenge behind an all-1-ofs deck.

The ideas don't have to be too crazy either. I like the challenges that forced me to use unconventional heroes. So something as simple as defeat quest X using spirit Pippin or Fatty or Lorefindel can be a fun challenge that forces you outside your comfort zone. Or maybe defeat a certain quest where you start the game at +10 or 15 threat.

The rules could be kept simple to start with, to see how it goes.

How about: beat the watcher in the water without scying? (NM mode requires too much luck and not skill with the doors of durin imo)

The player who used fewest turns used wins?

OFFICIAL ANNOUNCEMENT

Ha. I just like saying that.

But really. Here's what I'm thinking. For this month / two weeks / time period until I feel like we need a change, the quest is going to be Conflict at the Carrock. Just for starters.

Here's my proposed system:

Freestyle: Beat the quest with no hero/deck restrictions. This is if you just want to play the scenario for fun and not have to worry about doing challenges you may or may not be able to accomplish.

Challenge: Beat the quest within the parameters of the challenge. This is if you'd like to push yourself and your deck building capabilities to accomplish harder things.

There will be a Deck Challenge associated with the current Quest Challenge. For this Quest, it will be to use a Hobbit Deck (i.e. A deck composed of three Hobbit heroes).

We don't necessarily have to have a point system. If you guys really want to, I was thinking something simple like 1 point for beating it on Freestyle and 2 points for beating it on Challenge. We can also add a bonus point(s) to the player who beat the quest with the lowest score, according to the regular scoring of the game.

Thoughts? Concerns? Complaints?

This doesn't have to be set in stone, but for now, we need something to get it started.

I'm in. Going against the trolls is always fun. Should have a chance to take it on by the end of the week.

Good call on just setting a challenge. Like you said, best to kick things off and tweak from here.

Conflict at Carrock, 3 Hobbits, got it.

How about:

Beat passage through mirkwood with tactics mono using MINIMUM additional APs of progression style. Can you do it with just core? Core plus hunt/gollum? Etc..

Just a thought, not much deckbuild scope.

Sorry, but I just don't see how this is a deck challenge. I might be wrong, but I'll assume that most of the players have just 1 core set, and this is called a "deck challenge", but in the core set there is not enough cards to build even a single monotactics deck. Now, core + first cycle pool would be fun. Going back to our roots, you know.

Simply hitting the 50 card point isnt likely to give a workable deck, so at what point does the tactics card pool become viable enough?

I one sense it may be less aboit deck building and more about card playing synergy... so would it be more a deck challenge to say you can have (for example) core plus any-three APs from the full collection?

Anyways, as the current challenge is now set, i fear my ramblings detract and get in the way of that somewhat so ill go quiet and say best of luck contestants

Different challenges will come! Not all of them will be like this. So, alexbobspoons, and anybody else, if you have more challenge ideas then keep them coming!

I think for future challenges we can have others "vote" for their favorite. So any challenges that you see that you'd like to have set as the official challenge, give the post a "like." The more likes a challenge has, the more I know that people want to do it.

P.S.

Also keep in mind that this is all just for fun and to give the LOTR LCG community something to do while waiting for more expansions. I don't really think we'll have any "winners." This is just to help keep the game and community alive and well.

I used to build a decks with one hero and no allies. That was playable only on easy level, but still fun

That troll challenge sounds fun but since i dont have the black riders pack this is going to be really hard.

Challenge: Conflict at the Carrock

Heroes: Pippin, Merry, Frodo Baggins

Threat: 21

Rounds:11!

Victory points: 3

Score: 129

Game shortly: Used Zigil miners to get resources, killed the trolls one by one mainly by using Gandalfs, treebeard and Beorn (used stand and fight to get him). Pretty easy but slow game. Actually i'm going to try to do better score and switch all Elbereth cards to something more usefull.

WOW. Really?! That's awesome! I really did not expect scores to be that low. I don't think I'd be able to do it at all!

Well good job sir. Very well done, and thank you for posting your story!

Also, sorry that you didn't have Black Riders. Some challenges won't be able to include everybody, unfortunately, but you seemed to do it just fine without it!

I really am too busy playing catch-up on standard quests but gosh this really is an awesome idea to be involved in, long may it continue!!!

Beat the challenge on my first try using my "Big Ally" Sam/Pippin/Glorfindel secrecy deck, except with Merry instead of Glorfindel. Two sacks came out, but I cancelled them both with Test of Will. I spent a few turns ramping up, but then I was slowed by the fact that I could only engage one troll per round and I happened to draw an extra hill troll to add another round. At the end of the game I had 13 allies, including 8 that cost 4 or more.

9 completed rounds = 90
Total combined Threat = 19
Total damage on Heroes = 2
Cost of dead Heroes = 0
Victory points = 4
TOTAL SCORE = 107

Edit: I accidentally cheated by cancelling sacks. I don't think it would have changed the game much because roasted slowly never appeared and my heroes didn't do a whole lot, but my score probably would have been higher.

And just for fun I played it again using Merry (T), Frodo, and Pippin in a deck with no non-Hobbit allies. So Farmer Maggot, Wandering Took, Bilbo, and a bunch of events and attachments. I got lucky enough to recruit Grimbeorn fairly early and some Peace and Thought combined with Hobbit Pipes let me draw half of my deck. Feinted the first two trolls, and Grimbeorn defended the next two. Merry (dual wielding daggers), Farmer Maggot, and Grimbeorn were able to take them out in one attack.

11 completed rounds = 110
Total combined Threat = 20
Total damage on Heroes = 0
Cost of dead Heroes = 0
Victory points = 0
TOTAL SCORE = 130

Beat the challenge on my first try using my "Big Ally" Sam/Pippin/Glorfindel secrecy deck, except with Merry instead of Glorfindel. Two sacks came out, but I cancelled them both with Test of Will. I spent a few turns ramping up, but then I was slowed by the fact that I could only engage one troll per round and I happened to draw an extra hill troll to add another round. At the end of the game I had 13 allies, including 8 that cost 4 or more.

9 completed rounds = 90

Total combined Threat = 19

Total damage on Heroes = 2

Cost of dead Heroes = 0

Victory points = 4

TOTAL SCORE = 107

Sacks cannot be canceled.

Thanks for the reports Teamjimby! That's awesome. It seems that our challenge so far has proven that trolls are no match for a group of angry Hobbits.

Sacks cannot be canceled.

You're right! I always look at the end of the text box to check for "cannot be cancelled", but they snuck that one into the middle of the text.

I used Tactics Merry/Lore Pippin/Sam to win with a final score of 140. The stupid shadow effect that removes progress from the quest stage prolonged the game for one round, so it really could have been 130, and using OHaUH Gandalf and his threat increases definitely upped the score as well. I'm interested in trying again to see if I can play more efficiently.

Short summary: Treebeard, OHaUH Gandalf, Gildor hit the board early. When combined with a couple of Sneak Attacks and Beorn, the trolls were a cakewalk.

This deck almost feels like cheating, so it would be interesting to try on a more sneaky variety of Hobbit deck.

Definitely. Maybe a Spirit Merry, Spirit Pippin, Fatty deck? It would be interesting, if nothing else.

And a suggestion: To those who played this and felt you beat it rather easily, do you think playing two-handed would change that at all?

Just finished a game with 122 total score. Some Sam, Pippin and Bilbo goodness going on, Bilbo being an ultimate defender with a lot of warnings, hitches and a brand, Sam and Pippin ruthlessly questing while raising the Ent power behind to strike down da Trolls

Definitely. Maybe a Spirit Merry, Spirit Pippin, Fatty deck? It would be interesting, if nothing else.

And a suggestion: To those who played this and felt you beat it rather easily, do you think playing two-handed would change that at all?

Hmm, not sure. For this particular quest, two-handed would probably make it even easier. I'm going to try the super-squishy all Spirit Hobbit team and see how that goes.

Alright.

Just tried the quest of Freestyle, using two Dunedain decks. It went horribly. It seems that by assigning a challenge that I thought would be challenging, I in fact assigned a challenge that it is actually a pretty good strategy against the quest.

Rather unexpected. haha.

I hope for the next "challenge" to be more challenging.

As so far the scores has been really close together. I had 129 and Teamjimby had only one score more than i had (hehee i beated you ) and the number one is now John Constantine with points of 122 so very narrow difference.

Also how long this challenge continues? I would like to start new one soon

Alright.

Just tried the quest of Freestyle, using two Dunedain decks. It went horribly. It seems that by assigning a challenge that I thought would be challenging, I in fact assigned a challenge that it is actually a pretty good strategy against the quest.

Rather unexpected. haha.

I hope for the next "challenge" to be more challenging.

Yeah, you just happened to pick a strategy that worked perfectly. Perhaps a more difficult challenge would be to have a starting threat of at least 34.