I think Duke Wellington is right, the designers purposefully adapt quest to counter specific strategies the players use. I think this quest is beatable, you just have to identify what is the main theme, or nemesis of a quest. Each quest has one, whether it's making you discard cards, lots of enemies, powerful immune to player card effects enemies, lots of locations, limits your attachments, whatever it is. This quests main thing is awful shadow effects, therefore you should adapt your play style slightly, Beregond is going to suffer poorly in this quest. Use Erkenbrand, Haldir (to stop enemy attacks), Elrond, Treebeard, Sam with Staff, all of these hero's have served me well in this quest. There are a lot of options still available without resorting to Glorfindel or Gandalf. I also play 2 handed, which makes it easier though I will admit. Solo might be harder.

yeah see thats the problem though. Not everyone wants to play a dodgy as hell draw your entire deck first go song deck, abuse the **** out of boromir and make him a 20 will, 20 attack, 20 def, sentinel, ranged one man wrecking machine deck, or dodgy outlands one hero deck. People want to use cool powerful thematic decks that aren't cheesily powerful though, most of us at least. All power to those who do want to play these decks I just don't think one should be required to play them to beat a non-nightmare quest.

Also not saying you are playing it wrong I just suggested that perhaps some people are as there are quite a few saying they are beating it easily whilst others are just banging their head against it to no avail. Also wasn't implying any sort of connection between Gandalf hero and playing the quest wrong, I just personally hate that hero and think hes mega OP and so when people are able to achieve things with him to me it doesn't really count or mean anything because of course they achieved what they wanted with the most powerful OP hero in the game. I'm definitely not playing this quest wrong(at least I really hope not), hence the non stop defeats. I am incredibly meticulous and careful when I play this game as I am a big time rules stickler and would not be able to truly call a game in which I use house rules or bend the rules a victory so always try to 100% follow the rules.

also have to say I disagree with your whole "this isn't warhammer so its pretty easy to know the rules". There are constant rulings from the developers that directly contradict earlier rulings, incredibly nitty gritty discussions about how particular cards interact that end in flame wars and people needing to ask the developers for a final ruling and even then that sometimes doesn't quench the arguments and a massive FAQ and Rules document as well as resources like this one specifically because the rules can be complex and intricate at times: http://www.kaybee.org/kirk/LoTR_LCG_QuickRef.pdf

Definitely not warhammer but saying the rules are "easy" is definitely something I disagree with. Not that they are particularly hard either but you kind of need to get used to the very unique way the game plays and the various interactions particular effects have and the order in which they resolve etc.

just wanted to add no disrespect or nastiness intended from my posts we clearly just have very different opinions and thoughts on the matter!

No disrespect taken from me. I didn't mean to say this game's rules are simplistic either, I think it's a very rich game, warhammer is just what popped to the top of my head as I'm an avid tabletop gamer, and the rules debates in that game are enough to drive most people away from it.

I see your point about Gandalf, but I honestly don't think he's more broken than Boromir, or Dwarf decks, or Outlands, or Tactics Aragorn/Merry. In fact I think Elrond is a bigger piece of the puzzle than Gandalf. I haven't seen a really good Gandalf deck without Elrond in it (not saying they don't or can't exist, I just haven't seen one). While I have seen incredibly powerful Elrond decks without Gandalf. And in multi-player I don't think I'd even put Gandalf in my top ten most powerful heroes. He robs other decks of a key card which could very well be a lynchpin for many decks. Many tactics decks rely on his ally version for threat reduction or card draw, for example.

And by the way, my one quest that gave me the most headaches is Nîn-in-Eilph. That quest took me longer than any other one. Even most nightmares. I found it to be much harder than Carn Dum. But I stand by my point that even with that quest you can tailor a deck to specifically beat it.

i appreciate hard quests as they make you think about the game and how you have to approach a certain encounter. You figure out counter strategies build your deck around those and finally you win.

Its true most People will build their decks with certain ideas in mind rather than building them to Counter a certain Encounter deck.

I, personally, really like building decks and thinking of strategies. There are few enough quests that force you to do so, hence i am glad when one pops up.

i also think that complaining too much about ONE quest being unbeatable etc. seems pretty unfair..

you could also have this discussion vice versa with People complaining just how easy Escape from Mount Gram was..

Im not reading anything about this

I feel like it is a bit of a marketing flaw on the designer's part...

If they had named "easy mode" "thematic mode" or some other such word, people would be less averse to playing it. Even though most people would easily see that it was to reduce the difficulty, it would be more thematic because you can play your thematic decks without getting completely punished.

i guess you dont have to tell anyone you are playing easy mode

therefore no punishment.

the problem evolves from within one self.

i never felt myself obliged to defeat every single quest. Up to today i have not beaten battle at lakewell and dunland trap.

I dont have that much time to play though.

...

Do you play with the broken beats-everything and does everything Gandalf hero?

...

... also not everyone wants to play with broken cheesey gandalf decks. ...

... like to use decks that are strong but not the very top tier and still quite thematic ... or like to use the same fairly powerful deck/s for every quest or even like to use decks with a fun or interesting theme (traps, noldor discard mechanic, etc there are so many!). ...

...

Also people really need to stop recommending easy mode or asking if people have tried easy mode. I get that for some players this is definitely the answer but not everyone is ok with resorting to that, especially if you have beaten pretty much every other quest the game has ever thrown at you including most nightmare quests, all POD etc without ever having to play easy mode.

...

If Carn Dum sets some sort of trend ...

I honestly do get your point about the encounter deck being extremely hard and perhaps not allowing you to use your strong/thematic/fairly powerful/fun/interesting theme decks. I have 6 decks built right now, each exploring different themes, combos, etc. I get it. But the quest is a difficulty of 8. Noted as the highest they've given before. I feel that to think that you should be able to beat this quest with mediocre decks is folly. And to think that every quest should be designed to be beaten by these types of decks is also a folly. Traps are my current favorite theme - that and Victory display stuff - but quests with "no attachments" or that include cards with printed victory values make my deck completely useless, even with cheesy Gandalf in the list. It simply cannot beat any quest with those traits - regardless of it's difficulty rating - due to it being a complete counter to what I'm trying to do. But I shouldn't expect it to either.

I find it interesting that you are opposed to "resorting" to "easy mode" (man that was a marketing mistake to name it that), which is designed to lower the difficulty of a quest to make it less stressful, more enjoyable and allow for a broader range of deck builds but also apparently think resorting to Gandalf is cheesy and that you shouldn't have to make "top-teir" decks to beat the most difficult quest to date. So it sounds like you want quests that you can beat with your decks and if they can't, it's too hard and bad design. But that exact sentiment is why the other mode was created. Just because your decks have done well up until now doesn't invalidate them somehow. It just means they don't work against what this quest is doing and you either need to redesign your deck - or modify the quest itself and likely keep your decks they way are.

I'd love it if the difficulty of quests stayed higher on a regular basis. With the option of "easy mode" it honestly gives us the most versatility and replay-ability out of a quest. If all the quests were 6+ in difficulty, I feel there would be a lot more acceptance of "easy mode" and it wouldn't have a stigma of being cheesy or somehow lesser play. Then more of us would be inclined to play "easy mode" through quests with whatever types of decks we wanted. Which can still provide a challenge without being too easy. For those that like to use the "top tier" power house cards, this type of design still gives them a challenge without having to wait for the nightmare version of the quest. It honestly is the best of both worlds. to each their own and all that.

I feel like it is a bit of a marketing flaw on the designer's part...

If they had named "easy mode" "thematic mode" or some other such word, people would be less averse to playing it. Even though most people would easily see that it was to reduce the difficulty, it would be more thematic because you can play your thematic decks without getting completely punished.

The marketeer in me knows that this is true. The idealist in me thinks people get too much 'you are a special snowflake' attitude from games. Half the gamers in the world are below average, deal with it. Not that you can hide easy mode being just that because you get the 'extra' resource. If you gave a player without knowledge the rules for easy mode as well as the cards for nightmare, they would probably name the three modes easy/normal/hard as well. If I could redesign the game I would go with easy (resource + removal of cards), normal (removal of cards), hard (original normal mode) and nightmare (nightmare packs).

I think one 'easy' quest and one 'super hard' quest per cycle is a good design choice. A little something for everyone and you can't please everybody in a coop game like this.

I'm looking foreward to getting this pack, if it's been haunting everyone, I want to see what the fuss is about! But since I just got whooped by the Siege of Cairn Androw three times in a row, I don't feel optimistic about my deck's chances.

Harder than SCA.

way harder than SCA.

Really?

Noooooooooooooooooo

My point--the one I have been trying to get across--is that the quest may be difficult FOR YOU because you play with a specific style or strategy that the quest WAS DESIGNED to counter. The Dunland quests, in similar fashion, we're designed to counter a specific style, a style I happen to utilize. All my standard decks lost to those quests, but I just tried a different style and then I beat them. It was challenging and uncomfortable. I don't particularly like those quests, but I certainly don't feel like FFG did something wrong to me personally.

That is what I don't understand. Like, if you can't beat a quest with the type of deck you want to beat it with, then clearly the game designers did something wrong. It makes no sense. The designers have specifically said that they design the quests to counter player strategies. Isn't that what they are supposed to do?

The complaining really annoys me because if I beat the quest and don't experiance your "injustice" then it must be because I cheated or because I'm using invalid strategies that should basically be considered cheating. I mean give me a break.

Many people have beaten the quest, some even beat it easily, using a variety of strategies. The complaints are empirically wrong. When faced with this evidence, the complainers just double down and act like victims? Get over yourselves. Maybe you just need to keep evolving. The designers have no moral obligation to cater to your particular tastes or idea of what counts as a valid approach to deckbuilding. I just don't feel sorrow for you.

And a lot of people are complaining that this quest is badly designed, so you better stop doing maths when you clearly have no idea of how statistics work.

Yes, it is possible to beat this quest with combos that are broken, but that's not the sense of deckbuilding. If some people prefer to play with broken decks, it's their particular taste and I don't think the designers should cater that. Get over yourself, play nightmare mode, which is designed for players like you and for those who prefer to make the game a ton easier by using more than one core set.

IMO the game is going in a totally wrong direction ATM. I already said this in another thread, but I am seriously considering to stop investing money into this.

Also great suggestions already we're posted for playing the game on easy mode.

Is there still an easy mode? I don't see any golden cards anymore in my encounter decks.

Who says the quest can only be beaten with broken combos? A plain as vanilla Aragorn Frodo Glorfindel deck does excellently. Some other trait-based decks do really well too, like Dwarves, Ents, or Dunedain.

Umm Seastan, clearly Aragorn/Frodo/Glorfindel counts as a broken combo, Glorfindel is already OP. Also Dwarves are OP and should never be played, unless you have enough self respect to not use Dain or any of the good dwarf cards. Ents are obviously OP. Have you seen Quickbeam? Only Dunedain is acceptable because they suck. But if you continue to make good decks with them then they will also be disqualified.

I apologize for the heavy use of sarcasm.

Okay, I think maybe one of the reasons people like PsychoRocka and myself are a little perturbed about this quest is because of multiplayer. Psycho and I play multiplayer almost exclusively, or when single player we do 2-handed.

Solo play is the achilles heel of the encounter deck. Whenever anybody posts a deck that is for single player, I generally sort of shrug and go "of course it's good, it's for single player". Single player is a type of Easy-mode, IMO. I shouldn't have to explain why, but I will anyway. I mean, since the core set and people figured out you could use Hannermarth Riversong to always know exactly what the encounter deck had in store for you on the upcoming turn and could always perfectly prepare for it... yeah. Revealing only 1 card per turn means it is far harder for the encounter deck to combo with itself. Carn Dum in particular is a perfect example, dishing out shadow cards via treachery encounter cards and getting a flip on thaurdir is something that happens much more frequently in multiplayer, and if you aren't prepared for that each and every time it happens, you are dead. Just the safety of only 1 encounter card per turn is a huge boon on this quest for solo players.

To me this is a game to play with friends. If me and my friends are going to beat Carn Dum, than not only do I have to bring a top tier deck, but all of my friends also have to bring top tier decks, and none of them can use the same heros (or other unique cards) as me, or as each other. And that makes this quest really, really brutal.

To me this is a game to play with friends. If me and my friends are going to beat Carn Dum, than not only do I have to bring a top tier deck, but all of my friends also have to bring top tier decks, and none of them can use the same heros (or other unique cards) as me, or as each other. And that makes this quest really, really brutal.

When you play multiplayer, you are supposed to build your decks around each to work properly. Just bringing top tier decks that have 0 synergy will rarely cut it, as the encounter deck usually has that synergy.

Umm Seastan, clearly Aragorn/Frodo/Glorfindel counts as a broken combo, Glorfindel is already OP. Also Dwarves are OP and should never be played, unless you have enough self respect to not use Dain or any of the good dwarf cards. Ents are obviously OP. Have you seen Quickbeam? Only Dunedain is acceptable because they suck. But if you continue to make good decks with them then they will also be disqualified.

I apologize for the heavy use of sarcasm.

Well, thanks for naming some of the examples. You forgot to mention Blood of Numenor and Gondorian Fire though.

As I said, I play with one core set only. It makes deckbuilding way more interesting, but it doesn't allow for stuff like three copies of Celebrian's Stone or Feint or Steward of Gondor etc. The few decks of Seastan I have seen mostly rely on combos that I am not able use, as they rely on certain cards that I have only one or two copies of. So far that hasn't (and shouldn't!) been a problem, but with the last few quests it turned out to be a pain in the ass.

But thanks anyway for ignoring the part that all of the sudden a lot of players are complaining about Carn Dum, which empirically means that there is probably something wrong woith the game design. But hey, selective perception is a great way to improve life quality.

When you play multiplayer, you are supposed to build your decks around each to work properly. Just bringing top tier decks that have 0 synergy will rarely cut it, as the encounter deck usually has that synergy.

yes! another reason solo play is much easier!

and like Leptokurt, I limit myself to 1 core as well. I certainly understand his point of view also.

But thanks anyway for ignoring the part that all of the sudden a lot of players are complaining about Carn Dum, which empirically means that there is probably something wrong with the game design. But hey, selective perception is a great way to improve life quality.

That's not how empiricism works. The majority are not always correct. And 'a lot' is a really vague sample size in any case.

Besides which, through this thread there are also a fair number of people arguing that no, it's not bad design, suggesting that over the people here, views are actually pretty balanced.

And it's not like this is the first time they've released a quest which brutally smashes pre-existing decks and left everyone feeling like they're running at a brick wall trying to beat it. They tend to become more palatable over time, so why should this one be any different?

The very basic Frodo deck I keep mentioning works fine with a single core: http://goo.gl/RoziIx. I think there are many other single core options out there, and part of the fun for me is finding them through successive failures at a quest. But I know not everyone likes that, which is why I post pretty much all my decks online. I know I've gotten a reputation for posting broken combos but most of my decks are not. The ones that are broken are just more memorable I think.

From a two player perspective I agree with John. You can't just bring two top tier decks together. They need to synergize. And I've found that in two player it is possible to synergize the decks so that their combined power is anywhere from 0 to remove-the-encounter-deck-from-the-game. Nobody likes to play at either end of that spectrum, so just build your decks to synergize to the power level you are comfortable playing at.

The very basic Frodo deck I keep mentioning works fine with a single core: http://goo.gl/RoziIx. I think there are many other single core options out there, and part of the fun for me is finding them through successive failures at a quest. But I know not everyone likes that, which is why I post pretty much all my decks online. I know I've gotten a reputation for posting broken combos but most of my decks are not. The ones that are broken are just more memorable I think.

From a two player perspective I agree with John. You can't just bring two top tier decks together. They need to synergize. And I've found that in two player it is possible to synergize the decks so that their combined power is anywhere from 0 to remove-the-encounter-deck-from-the-game. Nobody likes to play at either end of that spectrum, so just build your decks to synergize to the power level you are comfortable playing at.

I think everyone here knows that you're great at deck building, Seastan.

I hope I will be able to check out on your Frodo deck. However, atm I am too busy to build a Dunedain deck that is going to be strong enough to beat most of the quests. I think I made a huge step forwards by finally including these Valor cards together with Tactigorn.

You can try my Valour deck I posted in the strategy section for beating Carn Dum Lektopurt. It uses Tactagorn, and modified with a few Noiseless Movements and a few Feints thrown in, it works fairly well.

Just played Battle of Carn Dum and loved it! The best and most intense quest I've played so far in this game! I did do it with a Gandalf deck, but no Vilya or Elrond or allies costing more than 2 (bar a couple copies of Faramir). The power level was just right, and it felt like I was even with the encounter deck, almost like playing against a real opponent. I won on my fourth try, though the first two defeats were due to location lock (I really need to work on my shuffling ) and the third one was just enemy after enemy after [cough]Orc Grunts[cough] after enemy.

And no, it is not harder than Siege of Cair Andros.

And no, it is not harder than Siege of Cair Andros.

Yes, it is.