Challenge #4

By legolas18, in The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game

CURRENT QUEST

The Morgul Vale

CHALLENGE

Use no more than two heroes per deck

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.

Alright, so I thought that I'd tone the difficulty down a bit from last time's challenge, even though you guys seemed to be able to do that one just fine (I definitely didn't... haha). So this one is pretty straightforward.

Post reports, comments, questions, and feedback! :)

EDIT:

Links to previous challenges as requested.

https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/184355-weekly-deck-challenges/
https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/185361-bi-monthly-challenge-2/

https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/186193-challenge-3/

Edited by legolas18

Gave it a try with the only 2 hero deck I had ever previously made, which is a secrecy Outlands deck with Hirluin and Sam. It got off to a great start (even used Taking Initiative successfully on the first turn) and had a half dozen allies in play by turn 3. But then the good ol' Master's Malice showed up to kill all my allies and next turn Orc Vanguard arrived to prevent me from playing any cards, so it was a lost cause. Tried again and got 2 Orc Vanguards and 2 Master's Malices. So it clearly wasn't meant to be. I think it was karma for playing Outlands.

I threw together an actual mono sphere deck with Damrod and Pippin. Henamarth on turn 1 meant I always knew what was coming and could prepare the appropriate traps. I pulled Murzag down with Mablung and put him in a Forest Snare. Lord Alcaron got caught in Ranger Spikes and was taken down with Ranger Bows. The Nazgul arrived, but was kept in the staging area by Advance Warning. Two waves of 3x Ranger Bow took him down. I went the whole game without defending a single attack.

11 completed rounds = 110
Total combined Threat = 30
Total damage on Heroes = 0
Cost of dead Heroes = 0
Victory points = 3
TOTAL SCORE = 137

Morgul Vale is one of my most played scenarios. I love it, and that win sounds epic.

Yeah, that was a satisfying win. Master's Malice came up but did nothing against the mono-sphere. Orc Vanguard also appeared, but Damrod laid an ambush for it and Anborn and Quickbeam took it out before it could attack.

This was fun!

I decided on using Sam Gamgee and Tactics Aragorn as heroes. I spent the first few turns with low threat using Sam's built in action advantage to deal with enemies. Once Aragorn was loaded up with some readying attachments and weapons, I could do the final push:

Engage an enemy (Orc Vanguard), Sam readies and gets +1 atk. Defend with ally, kill with Aragorn+Sam. Use Aragorn's ability to pull down Murzag. Ready Sam again with another +1 atk and ready Aragorn with Cram. Aragorn and Sam attack, killing Murzag. Lord Alcaron appears and Aragorn pulls him down. Ready Aragorn with Rohan Warhorse (Edit: I originally used the Steward+Mardil combo here until I noticed Tactigorn isn't Noble! Doh... Then I just dubbed all my Mardils as Warhorses for the rest of the playthrough, and moved a resource from Aragorn to Sam to fix the payment). Aragorn attacks, killing Alcaron. Finally, the Nazgul appears and I start my next turn.

On the final turn, I deal damage to the Nazgul with 5 distinct effects, in this order:

1. Gandalf direct damage

2. Gondorian Spearman response

3. Spear of the Citadel response

4. Swift Strike response

5. A final attack from Aragorn

7 completed rounds = 70
Total combined Threat = 31
Total damage on Heroes = 5
Cost of dead Heroes = 0
Victory points = 3
TOTAL SCORE = 103

So while it was incredibly fun, I think I got very lucky in avoiding the Master's Malice!

Edited by Seastan

Sounds like fun. I wish Windows 10 hadn't destroyed my ability to use OCTGN

I just finished it, this was really fun!

I did not use a deck made for the challande, but it was only two heroes (but not made for the Morgul Vale).

The heroes was Boromir (tDM) and Eowyn.

At the beginning of the last combat phase, the Nasgül had two damage. My threat was 47 and both heroes was damaged. Boromir (with shield, Arwen boost, spear of the citadel and a gondoria dicipline) defended the nasgül (two hit points remainig). Boromir (with gondorian fire) was able to attack him and deal him another damage (one hit point remaining and 48 threat). I was angry that it was so close but not a win (several other enemies engaged and no way to defend them, Treebeard was killed by a attack boosting shadow effect, and my threat was too high for Boromir defense. Then I rememberd my last way to deal the nasgül damage. Boromir thematically sacrificed himself in a last effort to (successfully) save his brother.

Score:

7 rounds (70) +

48 threat (118) +

1 damage (119) +

1 dead Boromir (130) -

1 victory point (129)

Total: 129.

Edited by DurinVoronwe

Boromir thematically sacrificed himself in a last effort to (successfully) save his brother.

Awesome! If it were me I would have completely forgotten about Boromir's ability and taken the loss...

A question though: you said Boromir was able to make an attack, but you still had many other attacks to defend. Did you have to use quick strike for this?

I went through a lot of different deck designs for this one. My first idea was to beat it using Damrod and traps, but 1) I think I beat it the first time I played it by using traps and 2) Teamjimby already used that strategy, and I wanted to try something different.

My first several tries were to use Treebeard + Elrond, but I couldn't seem to get built up enough to be able to defend all three bosses by the time my threat hit 30. Then I tried Grima + Rossiel, but I couldn't build up enough attack power (even though amassing an army of allies wasn't difficult at all). So I scrapped Lore and went back to the drawing board.

This is what I eventually settled on:

Total Cards: (50)

Hero: (2)

1x Gimli (Core Set)

1x Beregond (Heirs of Numenor)

Ally: (19)

3x Gondorian Spearman (Core Set)

3x Galadhon Archer (The Nin-in-Eilph)

3x Vassal of the Windlord (The Dead Marshes)

3x Dunedain Hunter (The Lost Realm)

2x Bofur (Over Hill and Under Hill)

2x Knight of Minas Tirith (Assault on Osgiliath)

3x Veteran Axehand (Core Set)

Attachment: (12)

3x Spear of the Citadel (Heirs of Numenor)

3x Secret Vigil (The Lost Realm)

3x Dwarrowdelf Axe (Khazad-dum)

3x Gondorian Shield (The Steward's Fear)

Event: (18)

3x Quick Strike (Core Set)

3x Khazad! Khazad! (Khazad-dum)

3x Behind Strong Walls (Heirs of Numenor)

3x Foe-hammer (Over Hill and Under Hill)

3x Feint (Core Set)

3x Goblin-cleaver (Over Hill and Under Hill)

Side Quest: (1)

1x Delay the Enemy (Across the Ettenmoors)

Unfortunately, this deck is really dependent on Delay the Enemy showing up in the first few rounds, and it has no really reliable way to fetch it--other than playing an early Foe-Hammer and hoping for the best (not great). Without much access to card draw, deck searching, or resource acceleration for crazy combos, it's tough to be sure you'll get it soon enough. If I didn't find it by turn 3, the ship was already sinking at that point so I scooped the game and started over.
When it did show up, however, this deck did pretty well. The idea is to keep Delay the Enemy around, purposely under-questing so that I can Battle-quest my way through the entire game. Gimli starts out questing, but then that duty transitions over to the allies once I had enough of them down, and I could start to kill off the enemies one or two at a time.
The Nazgul turned out to be a piece of cake--my favourite win was when I took down the Nazgul pretty easily in one turn by defending with a Gondorian Spearman who had a Spear of the Citadel attached, then attacked with Gimli who had two Dwarrodelf Axes. Piece of cake!
Fun challenge, but I have to say, now I remember why I didn't like the Heirs + ATS quests. I feel like it's pretty easy to build "the deck" that works consistently against any given quest, but it doesn't leave much room for alternative strategies. I struggled to find a consistent solo solution for this challenge that wasn't "traps + direct damage".

Boromir thematically sacrificed himself in a last effort to (successfully) save his brother.

Awesome! If it were me I would have completely forgotten about Boromir's ability and taken the loss...

A question though: you said Boromir was able to make an attack, but you still had many other attacks to defend. Did you have to use quick strike for this?

I mean I was not able to defend next turn.

Authraw's tactics deck inspired me to try it again with tactics that doesn't rely on battle questing, so I tried a "questing" deck with Theoden and Thalin. It took me about 10 tries, but I finally beat it. There is so much variability from the encounter deck when playing this deck. Once you get a second location, you're pretty much screwed. And so many encounter cards have the potential to whiff, including the bats, thanks to Thalin. There were many games where I got Orc War Camp or another Morgul Vale on turn 1, and that's an auto-reset.

My eventual win occurred when I got a forest bat on turn 1, so I was able to clear the initial Morgul Vale and avoid the quick threat gain. I got out a Veteran Axehand with 2 Dwarrowdelf Axes to be my heavy hitter. Feinted Murzag and killed him with the Axehand and a Booming Ent. I didn't have another feint for Alcaron, so he attacked twice and killed 2 allies. The Nazgul took two rounds to kill with the double axes and one spear of the citadel. I ran out of chump blockers and had to take 3 or 4 undefended attacks over the last few turns, so Thalin died on the last turn and Theoden was down to 1 HP.

11 completed rounds = 110
Total combined Threat = 38
Total damage on Heroes = 3
Cost of dead Heroes = 9
Victory points = 0
TOTAL SCORE = 160

Any ideas for challenge #5 legolas18?

I used Fatty ans the new Dori hero and I stopped after losing 17 times. :huh:

That should be the next challenge. Legolas can pick the quest, but the only heroes you can use are Dori, Fatty, Spirit Pippin, Brand, Dwalin, Faramir, Tactics Theoden, Bombur, or Oin.

Hey guys! Sorry for the lack of posts. I've been super busy lately, and I haven't had much time to think about exciting new challenges. Or really play at all.

If somebody else would like to take over, that'd be fine by me, as I'm hardly the most "qualified"! :) But I'd like to see this continue if you guys like it.

Just curious - I assume these challenges are typically for solo play?

A good challenge could be only with woman heroes

A good challenge could be only with woman heroes

NO Brandon, this does NOT mean you can use Bonniemir.

Just curious - I assume these challenges are typically for solo play?

Well, I usually play two-handed. But I'm pretty sure that the majority of everyone else plays solo.

I finally had time to try this challenge and it turned out to be really difficult one. I used two different decks. First one was Beregond and Glorfindel but it just didnt work out so well (i wonder why) and then i tried Gloin and Loragorn. It took like 4-5 tries with that deck to win and i got pretty bad points. Also bad planning caused Aragorn die and thats why it also took another extra turn to win. But as far this challenge is my favourite because it wasn't too hard but it was still pretty challenging.

Points were:

Threat: 35

Damage: 1

Dead heroes: 12

Turns: 8

Total score: 128 (one point better than DurinWonorve :P )

Do I need to try again and win with score 127 now? :P

Or do I get extra less score becouse I beat it on my first try?