I promise... Last title change

CURRENT QUEST

The Battle of Lake-Town

CHALLENGE

Use only heroes of threat 8 or under

RULES

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.

Guys, I have no idea how you could possibly do this. But here it is! Go for it! I'm not going to, as I know that my eternal list of losing in this game would only get larger. But I might try it Freestyle!

You may play in Easy, Normal, or Nightmare mode.

If you'd like to participate, just post your story after you're done!

Past challenges:

August 2015 #1 - Beat Conflict at the Carrock with a Hobbit deck

August 2015 #2 - Beat Into Ithilien without using Tactics or Leadership

What do you guys think? Too hard? Just right?

What. The. Heck.

Nice! Bring it on. I already have a few ideas...

What. The. Heck.

Could you please go back to the challenges being bi-monthly? I'd like to actually have time to get them done without needing to focus them down the instant you put them up. Only like two people asked for them to be more frequent, whereas I thought there was a decent consensus in the original thread that weekly would be too often.

Could you please go back to the challenges being bi-monthly? I'd like to actually have time to get them done without needing to focus them down the instant you put them up. Only like two people asked for them to be more frequent, whereas I thought there was a decent consensus in the original thread that weekly would be too often.

And you're just one person asking them to be not. No one forces you to perform challenges immediately. Take your time.

Can i try without have played the 1st and 2nd challenge?

No stopping ya

Note to legolas18: It would be nice to have links to previous challenges threads in the main post.

Oh...my..god. Well this is just BRUTAL challenge. Well anyways i still try to complete that challenge. I actually have won this quest only once and now i should do it again but even harder than last time. Well the two last challenges were pretty easy so i'm not complaining

I wouldn't mind seeing more challenges like the first, in that they limit the option of going mono-lore. I think one or two decks with the cheapest lore heroes would have no problem here.

You can always impose a self-restriction of not doing mono-lore

I most likely will, but the temptation is there...

Could you please go back to the challenges being bi-monthly? I'd like to actually have time to get them done without needing to focus them down the instant you put them up. Only like two people asked for them to be more frequent, whereas I thought there was a decent consensus in the original thread that weekly would be too often.

And you're just one person asking them to be not. No one forces you to perform challenges immediately. Take your time.

Then consider me a second. I can foresee burning myself out on the fast pace here. We'll see, maybe I'll start doing every other challenge or something. I'd like to try this one for sure though.

Ultimately, Legolas18, you're not likely to be able to please everyone with any schedule. Use whatever schedule keeps it fun for you, because without you none of this would be happening.

I wouldn't mind seeing more challenges like the first, in that they limit the option of going mono-lore. I think one or two decks with the cheapest lore heroes would have no problem here.

Interesting, why do you think Mono-Lore would trivialize this quest?

I already achieved this a while back (not a complaint) Since low threat heroes/decks are my most favorite. Here is a hint: I one shot the dragon with an erabor battle master. It was fun and the deck has an almost 100% win percentage. (I tend to value win percentage much more highly than score, just my preference). If I have time I will dig up the ol deck list and give it another go.

After a couple tries I was able to beat it with Glorfindel, Sam, and Pippin with a variation on this deck: https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/134482-ally-heavy-tri-sphere-secrecy/

It took quite a while and I unfortunately lost Beorn after one defense due to a +2 attack shadow card. Sam never quite had enough defense to the point that I could reliably block with him. I had two healers, but they both died off to the treachery/shadow card that does 1 damage to each character.

16 completed rounds = 160
Total combined Threat = 29
Total damage on Heroes = 5
Cost of dead Heroes = 0
Victory points = 25
TOTAL SCORE = 169

Just made 2 attempts with a Pippin, Merry, and Rossiel deck that lost. Tried focusing on ents but Smaug's attacks were just too strong and I couldnt keep enough of them in play to deal enough damage. Rossiel did well enough, put her in there soley to quest and it helps that all locations have the "lake town" trait. Might have to take a hard pass on this one. Especially since I kinda want to try the deck i made against some other scenarioes and dont want to descontruct it right away

This challenge may give me an excuse to stop by the LGS -- I haven't played any of the non-Saga/Nightmare PODs yet.

Question: Can Merry trigger his ability off of any of the Smaug manifestations being revealed?

Question: Can Merry trigger his ability off of any of the Smaug manifestations being revealed?

No, because they aren't being revealed from the encounter deck.

Okay guys, thanks for the feedback! Honestly, I'm more in favor of the bi-monthly as well, simply because it gives me a chance to think about the next challenge and because I haven't had much free time lately. Consider this the challenge that will run until September 15th. That may be a long time for some of you who get it done quickly, but in the meantime you can replay any quest you want! You don't have to wait for the challenge! Anyway, it seems that some of you are doing this challenge with no difficulty, so good for you! For the others, who may be more like me and find this nigh impossible, then just know that I did this on a whim because I thought, based on the reports of the previous two challenges, that they were too easy. I'll try to give challenges in the future that focus on more interesting strategies (that is, if I can think of any).

Once again, thanks for the feedback! I hope that these provide some fun for the community while waiting on other expansions.

Sam, Pippin Lore, Frodo - Score 8 rounds, 33 threat 2 dmg on hero's = 115

This was definitely rough, and I only won 2 out of 4 times but 50% for me is good enough with these restrictions and agianst this quest.

Sam, Pippin Lore, Frodo - Score 8 rounds, 33 threat 2 dmg on hero's = 115

This was definitely rough, and I only won 2 out of 4 times but 50% for me is good enough with these restrictions and agianst this quest.

I played those three several times yesterday, but I could never get Frodo's defense high enough quick enough, so my threat went up too fast for me to be able to put down enough allies to both quest and deal damage to Smaug. I'd love to see a decklist so I can see where I went wrong.

Allies -23

Barliman Butterburr x2

Arwen x2

Treebeard x2

Bill the Pony x2

Galadriel x3

Wandering Ent x3

Lorien Refugee x3

Gandalf Core x3

Attachments - 17

Dagger of Westerneese x3

Fast Hitch x3

Hobbit Cloak x3

Dunedian Warning x3

Elf-Stone x2

Ancient Mathom x3

Side-Quest -1

Double Back x1

Events - 12

Good Harvest x3

Test of Will x3

Hasty Stroke x3

Daeron's Rune's x3

Beat it on the 3rd try with a mono-spirit Glorfindel, Frodo, and Spirit Pippin (!). Used Resourceful + Lay of Nimrodel + Fair and Perilous (and a fortuitous Old Thrush) to kill Smaug.

15 rounds, 43 threat, 3 damage on heroes, 22 victory points, and 6 damage on Laketown. Here's the decklist:

This challenge inspired me to finally beat Battle of Lake-Town and I did so on the second attempt!!!!!

I have never beaten Battle of Lake-Town before this and when I first got my hands on it I racked up something like 15 to 20 straight losses and realised that perhaps I needed a dedicated deck to beat it. I play with the same two decks always and change them based on new player cards that come out with each expansion rather than for each quest and they are all purpose decks built in an attempt to take on everything and anything which they do pretty **** well. They can stand up to most nightmare scenarios except those that split decks up or are extra difficult. Lake-town however I never really bothered with again as my decks grew in power and I grew in experience and ability (used to really not be very good and didn't know many tricks, ins and outs of exact turn structure etc) as I thought it would still be far too hard and required dedicated decks to beat it.

I have seen people on occasion talking about some specific deck that trivialises Lake-Town and makes it a cakewalk but always decks built specifically for that quest. It was also the only non-nightmare deck I did not have a single win against on the quest log. Then this challenge popped up and I saw people beating the quest with heroes under 8 threat only! Yes you guys were still making decks specifically for the quest but still, one of if not the hardest rated quest (excluding nightmare) in the game getting beaten by decks featuring much less powerful heroes? I was very surprised and impressed and decided it was high time I finally slayed Smaug.

I did not take on the proper challenge and instead took on the easier challenge of simply beating Lake-Town.

I examined the quest deck and thought about how to go about beating it best.

I conceded one game as after a mulligan I still did not receive the defensive cards I needed at the start.

Second game I got Arwen and Cloak of Lorien in the starting hand of the lore/spirit deck and Gondorian Shield (but not Steward) in the starting hand of the tactics/leadership deck as well as Gather Information.

I slapped them all down on Elrohir and fetched Steward within a couple of turns as well (thanks to Gather Info) boosting his defense up to 7. I then got a Warden of Healing out and was pretty much set for the rest of the game. Asfaloth about halfway massively helped clear locations and I managed to draw two test of wills and two hasty strokes (all four of which were used) which were also integral. Skinbark, the old thrush (or whatever the objective card is called) and Legolas ally were all integral in killing Smaug towards the end and I had two rounds on stage 2 where I removed 9 and then 15 burn damage from Lake Town instead of placing progress. There were two cards that would smash me but I managed to cancel/avoid them both almost all game (Close to the Flame and Reckless in his Rage) except for one copy of Reckless in his Rage that almost resulted in a hero death (and 2 less damage to Smaug so he would have survived that round!) on the very final turn and one copy of Close to the Flame triggering right near the end as well killing the healers and a few naith guides but leaving everyone else intact (just a bit burnt!!).

One thing I noticed about this scenario is that the majority of the shadow effects are actually pretty **** tame or manageable. 1 damage to laketown, resolve all burn in play, if this attack destroys a character etc are all nothingness and if you are using a strong dedicated defender and not chump blocking many whiff. I never copped a shadow effect that raises attack strength (quite luckily) and was able to cancel two Close to the Flame shadow effects. The strongest version of Smaug had 8 attack and the MOST he could attack for was 10 (12 i guess if reckless appears during staging and then he gets one of the RARE shadow cards that give +2 attack but this did not happen) so at most I was taking 3 damage on Elrohir and he would survive, get fully healed by two Wardens and be ready for the next round. Often I was facing Smaug with 5 or 7 attack and he was not doing a single point of damage for the vast majority of the game. Towards the end there was a few rounds that were a little scary/touch and go but overall I have to say it was not anywhere near as hard as I thought it would be. If I'm being honest I have to say I think that certain nightmare quests such as Nightmare Shadow and Flame are probably far harder (if you aren't using Galadriel to just stay at 1 threat all game that is....) than Lake-Town now and it is definitely not the beast of a quest that I remember it being. You just REALLY have to get an uber defender set up quick fast, stay below 30/35 threat to avoid smaug attacking the first couple of turns and you are kind of set for the rest of the game.... Gather Information was super super handy as its fetching of a single card was even more amazing for this quest where you need cards and answers to Smaug quite fast.

So I think for a long time I have overestimated just how hard this quest is as well as how incapable I/my decks would be at beating it. Conceded once due to a bad mulligan then smashed it second attempt! Thanks so much for running this challenge as I really don't think I would have tried at all if it wasn't for you posting this challenge and me seeing so many people beat it with decks that are not really top tier and only built from heroes with less than 8 starting threat.

one last thing, there are many cards in both my decks that are completely useless for this quest, I actually did not remove a single one and just left them in there to see if my decks without any changes could win. I found that with the deck that ended up with the old thrush all these cards were PERFECT to discard to get more damage on Smaug and it didn't really matter that much with the other deck as I did not draw feint or other cards that would be useless and the only "dead" cards I drew from that deck was all 3 copies of Rivendell Blade which would do nothing to Smaug.