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.
Too much text O_o
