don't have Stone so didn't know about that one. I do recall the part in Druadan forest but that is only stage 3 of Druadan and Stage 3 has Siege. Which means your willpower characters aren't pulling double-duty, so it's quite a bit different. Rather this is a corner-case of defenders pulling double-duty, being relied on to quest and defend, and at the expense of attacker characters rather than at the expense of Willpower characters like it usually is. I don't like siege keyword either for exactly the same reason.

Ah forgot Druadan Forest has Siege!

Boy, that Quick Ears ruling has really got us all scratching our heads, hasn't it? I say we play 'The Door is Closed' on that ruling and roll back the meta-game.

Unfortunately we'd have to have a copy of it in the victory display first, and I'm not convinced that we do...

YES!!! You both just made my night. The meta-meta-meta-meta game is meta all the way down.

I just laughed out loud, and my cats and Mrs. Beorn both looked at me like I'm crazy. They're not wrong...

It would be like if all of a sudden you had to both quest and fight at the same time with Willpower, but we haven't seen that,

One of my main problems with this quest so far is just making it through the first active location.

I think Battle is rare, it's common in the cycle that it was introduced in, but there are only a small handful of quests that use it outside of Heirs of Numenor/Against the Shadow.

It's not even that common in Against the Shadow - one stage of Blood of Gondor and one location in Assault on Osgiliath and that's it. It's just that the deluxe has it pop up in all three quests.

Boy, that Quick Ears ruling has really got us all scratching our heads, hasn't it? I say we play 'The Door is Closed' on that ruling and roll back the meta-game.

Unfortunately we'd have to have a copy of it in the victory display first, and I'm not convinced that we do...

YES!!! You both just made my night. The meta-meta-meta-meta game is meta all the way down.

I just laughed out loud, and my cats and Mrs. Beorn both looked at me like I'm crazy. They're not wrong...

How can a bear bear cats in his own house? Were they here for dinner?

Boy, that Quick Ears ruling has really got us all scratching our heads, hasn't it? I say we play 'The Door is Closed' on that ruling and roll back the meta-game.

Unfortunately we'd have to have a copy of it in the victory display first, and I'm not convinced that we do...

YES!!! You both just made my night. The meta-meta-meta-meta game is meta all the way down.

I just laughed out loud, and my cats and Mrs. Beorn both looked at me like I'm crazy. They're not wrong...

How can a bear bear cats in his own house? Were they here for dinner?

Every bear needs animal servants.

Beorn had plenty of them!

Before this thread becomes even more off-topic, I would like to add my opinion on the quest itself.

At first, I was very excited about the level of difficulty. After three quests that were not much of a challenge for solo play (in my opinion at least), it seemed like the Battle of Carn-Dum finally was a quest again that I would not complain about. After this initial impression, I banged my head against it quite a few times with a variety of decks that I usually find fun to play. Like others in this thread, I slowly got the feeling that this quest is unfair and that the encounter deck just has too many tricks up it sleeves. In the past couple of days, I eventually took the time to analyse my defeats in more detail (then became frustrated in between) and finally fine-tuned my deck, so that I can be victorious without feeling too lucky about it.

My final verdict on this quest is that it is really great. For the first time since the Nin-in-Eilph, I feel like I was challenged as a deckbuilder and solo player. I am sure the Glaurungs among us dearly appreciate quests like this.

On a final note, I did not really plan to come up with a somewhat thematic deck for this quest but I incidentally ended up with Elves and Dunedain: Elrond (solid defender with a Burning Brand, plus extra healing), Loragorn (desperately needed to cope with threat), and Glorfindel (Light of Valinor and Asfalaloth are too useful in this quest to pass on). If people are interested, I will be happy to write up the complete deck and a strategy guide within the next days/weeks. Until then, I hope others (except Seastan, who probably is done with it already) enjoy the challenge as much as I did. =)

I cant remember the last quest i didnt beat on the first or second try. But after about a dozen games with various decks, ive not managed to beat this yet. Now its getting frustrating. Had an epic rohirrim riding down the staging area moment earlier where they swept the board (bar the captain), only to lose to chained surge and multiple attacks from the champion in the next round.

I tried Rohan as well and it was a mess. I just don't think they're the right ones for this. I think the trick is serious action advantage and a beefed up defender.

I got really close with Ents but some additional-attack shadows hit me on the last round.

So far what has worked for me:

1. Boromir

2. Erestor/Bilbo

3. Gandalf/Elrond

4. Loragorn/Frodo

5. A Very Good Tale

What has not worked for me:

1. Silvan

2. Rohan

3. Gondor

4. Ents (Close)

I recommend that more people try Loragorn/Frodo/Spirfindel. It's perfect for this quest because you have high starting attack, high midgame willpower, access to Asfaloth and Brand, great threat reduction, and Frodo can defend Thaudir's attacks in both the quest stage and combat stage.

I was using two handed rohan, with hama, eomer and erkenbrand on one side, and theoden,eowyn and erestor on the other. Erestor was there to fuel eowyn and bring a constant supply of rohan allies and plenty of mounts (he even brought some steeds from imladris to help out), along with access to some healing for Erkenbrand. Erkenbrand was acting as my defender, with some attachments to beef him up. I used forth eorlingas/charge of the rohirrim/rohan to warhorse to kill loadd of enemies in the staging area while their engagement cost was boosted.

Overall, it may not have won, but it came closer than many of my other attempts.

But i might try out that hero lineup instead.

I had a deck with Halbarad / Loragorn / Mablung + Ents which got me three wins (out of 15 or so). The deck is based on Seastan's Super Bilbo deck, as it contains all these wonderful doomed cards for card draw and resource generation. However, if you draw too many sorcery cards in the beginning, you have no chancw with any deck, I suppose. I agree with those who don't like the quest design. Apparently you can only win when the encounter deck lets you. It still is very satisfying when you do win or loose closely.

Lore/leadership seems to be a good combo for this scenario. All the other decks I built afterwards failed horribly, tactics surprisingly does not work as good as one would think it would in such a combat heavy quest.

Ok, I switched Mablung with lore Glorfindel (after a massive streak of quick defeats). This deck seems to work better, at least I can get to stage 2 from while to while. Two times I got my victory snatched away just before the end (hey, what can go wrong if I defend one single attack without Burning Brand? - Ooops...), but eventually I got one victory under my belt.

And I learned to suffer. A lot.

(glad my neighbours didn't call the police when I was yelling at the encounter deck and loudly cursing the designers for not play testing their scenarios for solo play).

You know who is really cool to overcome that location at the beginning? Mirkwood Woodsman and Quickbeam.

(glad my neighbours didn't call the police when I was yelling at the encounter deck and loudly cursing the designers for not play testing their scenarios for solo play).

I think this one might be easier in solo play!

(glad my neighbours didn't call the police when I was yelling at the encounter deck and loudly cursing the designers for not play testing their scenarios for solo play).

I think this one might be easier in solo play!

Oh shiiiiiiiit!

I thought it might be easier if one player cares for combat and the other one does the heavy questing. As a solo player, I feel I am always at the short end of the stick in this scenario.

Apparently I was wrong! May god bless all of you multi players...

It has a lot of combo potential, the darn thing. It broke my mind for a little while until I finally lucked out, the cards came out in just the right order, the planets were in proper alignment, my voodoo charms took effect, and I got a win.

Since the encounter deck is literally 50% enemies, you can't really go the traditional route of one deck quests and one deck does combat. Everybody gotta fight.

I came close to beating this quest over the weekend with the Leadagorn, Boromir and Erestor deck paired with a Beregond, Hama, Bard deck. I was able to take card of questing and leave a guy or three up for healing, defending as needed. We were into the last turn, did the math and would be able to win it - after sacrificing the tactics player to the swarm of enemies on him - and I had enough guys to deal the final damage to the boss. Unfortunately, he go the shadow card that made him attack an additional time, which killed another guy, leaving the boss 2 HP away from dying. If it wasn't that one or the one that discards the defending character, we would have pulled it off.

Saw this cool video about Carn Dum lore today:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qe1xuevEvbo

Tried twice my Loragorn, Beravor, Halbarad deck ... no need to write about it, painfull

Then for the fun I decided to try a pure Tactics deck I like, Hama, Eomer, Beregond. Had only one game but did surprisingly well, managed to get through the first quest card and lost on the second out of a bad shadow card which destroyed Beregond (my enemy was getting +1 for each ally I had and I had 10 in play ) thus I decided to dump the game

If I manage to find a way to deal with shadow cards better, I might stand a chance here

My conclusion is that this is possibly one of the most awful designed quests ever. I ask myself if they still playtest their scenarios at all. Sure, it's satisying when you win, but so far I was 95 percent frustrated when I was playing. My wins were purely based on lucky card draws, but there are so many cards in the encounter deck that kill you instantly that it is almost impossible to make it through stage 1 alone.

When I play I want to have fun. I have no fun when I am playing Carn Dum. I wish I could get my money back.

I wish I could get my money back.

There are still player cards in the pack...

My conclusion is that this is possibly one of the most awful designed quests ever. I ask myself if they still playtest their scenarios at all. Sure, it's satisying when you win, but so far I was 95 percent frustrated when I was playing. My wins were purely based on lucky card draws, but there are so many cards in the encounter deck that kill you instantly that it is almost impossible to make it through stage 1 alone.

When I play I want to have fun. I have no fun when I am playing Carn Dum. I wish I could get my money back.

I have seen at least 8 or 9 (and counting) completely different solo deck archetypes that have a decent shot at beating the quest. I think once you learn what works and what doesn't, the quest becomes much less frustrating.

I don't see how it is fundamentally different from having a really bad match up in a versus game. When that happens you are basically praying that the opponent draws poorly. If he doesn't, you lose. It's a card game. I'm enjoying the challenge.

Having read your guys posts before trying this quest, my friend and I were adequately warned about the difficulty of this quest. Unlike the Wolf surge quest from earlier in the cycle - we were completely unprepared for that train wreck. I think knowing it was going to be damned difficult to start helped our opinion of the quest and have found the challenge to be great. I typically like to build a few "power" decks that I can use against anything, but this one definitely will require some more tweaking than usual. Shadow cancel seems to be more important than Treachery cancels honestly, so Balin will likely make an appearance in my next attempt.

This quest is insanely brutal. I am about 6 losses in so far (I think? Maybe more?) and do not imagine my decks will be beating it any time soon.

I think this quest is easily far harder than Lake Town, Dol Guldur, Morgul Vale or Nin-in-Eilph.

Insane amount of threat gain? Check. A Boss enemy that can easily make multiple attacks a turn and starts the game off in staging? Check. Awful Treacheries? Check. Awful enemies? Check. Some downright nightmare location cards? Check.

Some of the worst side quests ever? (Orc Ambush and Furious Charge are both horrid!) Check!

Right when you think you have things under control something awful happens and you are just screwed. The champion side of Thaurdir is just retarded, -10 engagement cost to all other enemies? Yeah great so even when you stave off his attacks, keep locations under control and have managed to control enemies fairly well by keeping half of them in staging Thaurdir is flipped and all of a sudden every enemy in play is engaging someone! Just the nasty extra attack really wasn't enough and they had to add this -10 engagement to the champion side as well? Overkill.....

Carn Dum Garrison is simply too strong... 3 armour AND five hitpoints? and you start with 2 of them and are bound to have a third appear within a few turns? Crazy. Even the weak enemy, the Orc Grunts or whatever, have surge so they usually surge into some 4 threat location, another enemy or a goddamn sorcery treachery...... they are honestly just as bad as any of the other horrible cards in this quest purely because of surge and the potential to get something so nasty from that surge effect. Oh and they have doomed 1 because there isn't already enough threat gain in this quest..

Another thing I have noticed is that literally EVERY SINGLE TREACHERY in this quest except for Daechanar's Will which goddamn it, Flips Thaurdir ANYWAY has the sorcery trait...... this is stupid.... only half of them should have this.... essentially every single treachery in the quest does whatever it does on its own AND then deals a shadow card to every single enemy in play OR allows Thaurdir to make an instant attack. Well actually to be honest they do both because even if they trigger the shadow cards effect this is just helping Thaurdir get to 3 shadow cards which then makes him flip and get an extra attack!!!
This is way too nuts...

Some of the shadow effects in this quest are crazy as well and you BETTER NOT be chump blocking or it will be game over VERY quickly but at the same time you do not have ANYWHERE near enough time to set up a super defender considering you could be facing multiple attacks of 5 or 6 attack strength on the first or second turn and the attacks only get worse as the turns go on.

Honestly most games I was not even able to make it past Accursed Battlefield.... the starting location......

the amount of threat in staging while you are battle questing on the first few turns is just stupid.

4 from Thaurdir, 4 from the two Carn dum Garrisons because a treachery was revealed and then like 2 to 4 from a location or nasty enemy so like 10 to 12 first turn (two handed/two player) which would not be so bad if you weren't battle questing and trying to keep back enough characters to at least kill one carn dum garrison considering a werewolf or some other enemy was probably revealed during staging first turn and if not one will definitely appear during the second round and you will get quickly overwhelmed.

How is this meant to be possible except with the most powerful or most tailor made decks?

One particular attempt I double sneak attacked gandalf into play first turn each time doing 4 damage to a carn dum garrison and then was able to finish BOTH off with attacks during the first combat phase. Both Carn Dum Garrisons down and a great start. I also had fantastic other cards and a great hand with the other deck. Pretty sure I conceded on the fourth turn in this game as the encounter deck just INSTANTLY turned my great start into absolutely nothing by just pumping out multiple enemies, multiple locations and multiple attacks from Thaurdir being flipped back and forth and stacking up shadow cards.

I have to say I am leaning towards agreeing with those who think this quest is too hard and badly designed. I know I am in a small minority but I do not deck build for each quest and am massively a part of the 2 decks to rule them all camp.
I know that a big part of the game is deck building for quests to find the best way to beat them easily and on a regular basis and to "solve the puzzle" but I feel like the designers have done a really good job of balancing the game to a point where you need to deck build for quests UNLESS you have a really powerful all rounder deck that might not stand as much of a chance as a deck tailor made for the quest but you still have a pretty good chance. Even quests like Dol Guldur, Morgul Vale etc can be beaten with a powerful deck that is not built specifically for the quest so long as you persevere or get lucky or have an especially skillful and combotastic game and just manage to pull it off. This is great and means people that like to deck build for quests and people that like to use the same decks consistently are both catered to and can both have fun with their playstyle.
I feel like this quest does not allow this and you have to be using a seriously mega powerful/broken deck/s or ones that are built specifically for this scenario to stand any sort of chance. I have beaten every quest to date and quite a few of the nightmare quests (up to midway through dwarrowdelf) including Dol Guldur, Morgul Vale, Five Armies and even Ruins of Belegost (with some insane luck!) with more or less the same decks but this quest just laughs at me and spits in my face

This has me worried the game is moving more in a direction (especially with powercreep and everything) where deck building for quests may become something that is not quite as optional and you might not be able to grind out a win without doing so....

If this really happens it will no longer be a game that is for me. Don't have time to build a new deck from scratch every time I want to play a new quest, just not interested whatsoever. Really hope this is not the case and we continue to see quests that can be beaten with a wide variety of decks. If they want to make quests you HAVE to deck build for they can do that in nightmare... (if they really have to haha).

I guess 6 or so games isn't really enough to make a judgement so I will stick with it and continue to try and grind out a win but I really don't see it happening.

I think the main issue is just how quickly it all happens in this quest, even shadow and flame gives you a breather round before its onslaught, deadmans dike starts off brutal but can taper off quite often if enemies slow down etc, once you rescue the captive in dol guldur it gets much easier. In this quest it is hard and fast from the first round to the last round with the potential for game ending treacheries, multiple boss attacks and chain shadow effects on lowly enemies resulting in dead heroes every single turn. Most turns in fact you will have a combination of these things. If you consistently lost on stage 2 or further into the quest it wouldn't be so bad but knowing that you've already lost just a few turns in and having to concede and re set up from scratch is mega frustrating.

Probably the second biggest issue is the diversity and amount of things the encounter deck can throw at you in this quest. It has:
-Shadow cards that give extra attacks.

-Shadow cards that make you discard player cards

-Shadow cards that can discard cards from your player deck!!!

-Shadow cards that chain together or can give like +5 attack. (+1 for each shadow card dealt, +1 for each ally defending player controls)

-A location that turns shadow cards with no effect into "raise your threat by 2"....

-Enemies that attack out of the combat phase (Thaurdir and the werewolf)

-A Location that heals enemies EVERY TIME they make an attack....

-Encounter deck direct damage (vile affliction)

-Battle keyword on accursed battlefield because there wasn't already enough horrible effects

-A location that raises your threat for every single resource you spend

-The treachery that makes you discard a random card and then search for deck for each other copy of that card and discard them too, imagine this effect making you get rid of every test of will, every hasty stroke, every burning brand, every gandalf....

-Orc Ambush because you know you weren't being overwhelmed or ambushed enough apparently.

-Heavy Curse making all your player cards cost more if there is a copy already in your discard pile

-Orc Grunts shadow effect is just awful, there are already way too many enemies in this quest and so many so quickly that getting this shadow card early on even if it does help you avoid surge is just brutal. the slowing of progress effect is also pretty nasty, especially if you have multiple copies in play...

Like honestly does the encounter deck want to have any more abilities? It feels like it has a more diverse range of abilities than we do as players!!