Deck B (Spirit / Lore) (55 cards, including the 3 Heroes):

Heroes (3):

- Eowyn

- Glorfindel (core)

- Elrond

Allies (16):

- Daughter of the Nimrodel (2x)

- Gandalf (3x)

- Northern Tracker (3x)

- Haldir of Lorien (2x)

- Silvan Tracker (3x)

- Mirkwood Runner (3x)

Attachments (11):

- Unexpected Courage (2x)

- Forest Snare (3x)

- Self Preservation (3x)

- Ancient Mathom (3x)

Events (25):

- Secret paths (3x)

- Radagast's Cunning (3x)

- Lore of Imladris (2x)

- Galadrim's Greetings (3x)

- A Test of Will (3x)

- Hasty Stroke (3x)

- Dwarven Tomb (2x)

- Infighting (2x)

- Strider's Path (2x)

- Gildor's Counsel (2x)

Deck A (50 cards - ugh, question: 50 is the minumum including the Heroes, or you must have 50 + 3 heroes?):

Side note: After about a million tries, I finally beat Helm's Deep two-handed... But when I was writing down the decklists for posterity, I found that I'd accidentally fielded one 49-card deck. "49? 49?? That's, like, a shuffling rounding error from 50, isn't it??", I shouted at myself, eager to move onto the next quest. But the rules dictator in me wouldn't let me -- luckily, it only took me a thousand more tries with the corrected decks, not a million.

Deck A (50 cards - ugh, question: 50 is the minumum including the Heroes, or you must have 50 + 3 heroes?):

It's 50 + 3 heroes, I'm afraid.

Thanks. Fixed the deck by adding three Blades of Gondolin (even better, considering Legolas is in the mix).

Helm's Deep for me is still something very very very distant in time (possibly 2017)

May the thousand more tries be only a couple of dozens

Sure thing, no probs! Just help me on where to post those (here, another thread, this section, the strategy section), I don't want to mess up with the normal forum rules (I'm still more an occasional reader of this board)

I was going to suggest starting your own thread in the decks and strategy section, on my two handed decks thread or even just in this one but john beat me to it. Nice decks! You use the same two sphere combos I use, Lore and Spirit in one deck and Tactics and Leadership in the other.

If you have access to the leadership sphere then one valid option is to include We Are Not Idle. It's essentially a non-card as you can play it as soon as you get it and draw a new card. It allows you to shrink your deck to 47 cards, and is often better than including other cards because a smaller deck allows you to find the important cards quicker.

If you have access to the leadership sphere then one valid option is to include We Are Not Idle. It's essentially a non-card as you can play it as soon as you get it and draw a new card. It allows you to shrink your deck to 47 cards, and is often better than including other cards because a smaller deck allows you to find the important cards quicker.

True that, but it comes with Shadow and Flame, and these decks where meant to use cards (everything but the heroes) from the core set and the first AP cycle

Sure thing, no probs! Just help me on where to post those (here, another thread, this section, the strategy section), I don't want to mess up with the normal forum rules (I'm still more an occasional reader of this board)

I was going to suggest starting your own thread in the decks and strategy section, on my two handed decks thread or even just in this one but john beat me to it. Nice decks! You use the same two sphere combos I use, Lore and Spirit in one deck and Tactics and Leadership in the other.

Yup, I like the way those interact together

And thanks. These decks are far from being perfect (for instance, the Lore/Spirit deck is slow on resources) but they have some good stuff in it, basically staging area control and some healing / location control and a few combos for dealing damage. There are a few more options with two cores and the first AP to explore (more Dunedain attachments, or going mono-Tactics), but for now I'll play a few more with those

As for posting in the Strategy forum... The main problem is that I don't want help with my decks (unless I specifically ask for it): half of the fun of the game is learning the cards and what you can do with them, and reading comments like "you should add this or that card" kills the fun of discovery out of it. Not that I don't appreciate the knowledge, the skills and the willingness to help, but I like learning the hard way (but if anyone wants my deck, just PM me)

Played one more tonight, with Celeborn imprisoned. Opening turn seemed to be a disaster: I tried to push on progressing to stage 2 immediately, with Thalin, Eowyn, Elrond and Glorfy questing. Found Ungoliant Spawn as first revealed card, and Mountains of Mirkwood. Ugh. 0 progress markers placed on round 1, and Ungoliant Spawn arriving. Moving from stage 1 to stage 2 required some sort of eternity, and I managed to survive due to the Spawn being Forest-snared, and a couple of Feint played at the right time. Still, even with Thalin defeated during Stage 2, I passed to Stage 3 thanks to Legolas with Unexpected Courage and a double Blade of Gondolin. Last round I had the Nazgul engaged on the Lore / Spirit side, with 4 damages on him. Dawn take you all was enough to vanquish the riskier part of his attack, so that Northern Tracker took one for the group, and then Glorfy, Legolas and Horseback Archer finished off the guy, winning a game that seemed to be lost for how it had began.

So far 10 games played, 7 victories, 3 defeats at Dol-Guldur. Time to move to the next one

Using a single Core Set Spirit and Leadership 30-card starter decks, my brother and I played this tonite and won, on our first time to play as 2 players (we've played EFDG individually several times already). I was surprised to see that we did not have much difficulty. Did we get lucky, on our first attempt?