X please

X. The Antlered Crown Balin Halbarad Glorfindel (Lo) Beregond Erestor Nori

Bring on the X!

Bring on the X!

X. Across the Ettenmoors Thalin Bilbo Baggins Bifur Aragorn (Lo) Grima Theodred

Bring on the X!

X. Across the Ettenmoors Thalin Bilbo Baggins Bifur Aragorn (Lo) Grima Theodred

How about a different quest? My last Walk to Mordor was also Across the Ettenmoors.

The X is the X

Bring on the X!

X. Across the Ettenmoors Thalin Bilbo Baggins Bifur Aragorn (Lo) Grima Theodred

How about a different quest? My last Walk to Mordor was also Across the Ettenmoors.

Sure thing: A Journey to Rhosgobel

Hey, could be worse, at least you have a large number of lore heroes

The X is the X

X. The Three Trials Eowyn Dwalin Hama Boromir (Ta) Elladan Elrohir

I'll take whatever's behind door #X, please.

I'll take whatever's behind door #X, please.

X. The Weather Hills Faramir (Le) Grima Idraen Halbarad Bilbo Baggins Beregond

I'll take whatever's behind door #X, please.

X. The Weather Hills Faramir (Le) Grima Idraen Halbarad Bilbo Baggins Beregond

I don't have The Land of Shadow yet, but I can play Lore Faramir instead (which is actually probably harder).

I'll take whatever's behind door #X, please.

X. The Weather Hills Faramir (Le) Grima Idraen Halbarad Bilbo Baggins Beregond

I don't have The Land of Shadow yet, but I can play Lore Faramir instead (which is actually probably harder).

Sounds fair to me!

Working on this one: X. The Weather Hills Gandalf Erestor Bifur Thalin Faramir (Le) Merry (Sp)

Bad luck tonight. Built two decks to give this a shot, one Erestor Bifur Merry, the other Gandalf Thalin Faramir.

The lore deck has a lot of ents and healing to try and weather the damage the encounter deck puts out + Steed of Imladris to power through active locations. The other deck is a bit of a mixed Gandalf bag that could use some tuning. But Blades of Gondolin are good in a scenario with about one enemy per round where they're all Orcs.

First attempt: No healing in the first couple of rounds, and I got buried under the treacheries. Lost Thalin and Merry pretty quick, as the least useful of the heroes, and then couldn't pull out of it from there.

Second attempt: A weather treachery surges into all three sidequests, and I got buried under threat before the last one could be cleared. Healing > Hero damage > Threat was my priority order, and I think that's right, but man does the staging area fill up fast when you're actually questing for progress tokens.

I like my healing strategy, but I'm a bit surprised it hasn't been more consistent. Lembas, Self Preservation, and the Warden of Healing are all good when the character-blanking treachery is in play. And Bifur + Erestor on the same team make it easy to pay for any of them and have cards left over for standard discard effects. Steed of Imladris is also fantastic in such a location heavy quest. I think I need to add more card draw and some threat reduction.

Over the Misty Mountains Grim (option 64 from the extra list)

(Careful! Wall of text incoming J)

Deck 1 = Aragorn, Bombur, Eomer (Starting Player) Deck 2 = Prince Imrahil, Fatty Bolger, Dunhere

Note: I don’t use any treasures you could have if you get them in “We must away, ere break of day”

At first I tried to combine Aragorn with Fatty to make use of his ability, but this ultimately didn’t work out, mainly, I think, because I split up my two lore heroes resulting in me having not enough resources to pay for my healers, as the boulders were giving me a very hard time keeping my party alive and power questing was very hard as 4 of my heroes have 1 or less willpower.

So I switched it up to the line-up you can see at the top, netting me 2 duo sphere decks, what made bringing my precious healers into play much easier. With the “new” Decks I ended up having Bombur and Fatty in 2 different Decks, who are pretty much the 2 weakest heroes in the game and putting both in the same deck prohibits nearly any useful move with the deck.

My strategy with the “new “decks then was, to make use of Bombur’s high health pool and respectable 2 defence. Eomer should do the fighting (especially in stage 3) and Aragorn was my flex hero doing whatever seemed necessary in the current game state. The other deck was made for questing. Yep that’s pretty much it. I threw in nearly all of the 1 to 2 cost spirit allies, who have 2 willpower, so if the draw and starting hand would have a high chance at boosting my questpower by a least 2 per round. This was important for my strategy, as I decided, that with only 1 tactics hero it was kind of pointless to try to kill the stone-giants in stage 2 when 1 can advance with having one or more in play. Obviously I was going to face the 4 threat of the giant and its surge effect for the boulders. What may seem like a pretty straight forward strategy gets spiced up by the fact, that there are treacheries in this quest, which make the giants engage the play with the highest threat (what destroys an ally, because of the forced effect of the giant), destroy all attachments in play, remove all Baggins resources (what will make the step from stage 2 to 3 very ugly) and either reveal 2 additional encounter cards or raise your threat by 4. Also **** these boulders, which deal 3 damage and remove the character from the quest.

Besides the questpowers of deck 2, I threw in a lot of dunedain buffs (attack and defence) and the pretty common steward, Gandalf + Sneak Attack and Errand Rider to smooth out my resources.

Now to the winning attempt (I lost 3 games with my original set-up and then 1 with the new one). I got good starting hands with Arwen and a Dunedain defence buff for deck 2, what would make Bombur pretty good at taking hits from stone giants, should that happen (4 defence + 5 HP) while also getting the 2 willpower turn 1. Deck 1 has a Daughter of Nimrodel and 2 lore and 1 tactics outlander.

Quest-setup first puts one stone-giant in the staging area then reveals one card per player: Boulders (does nothing but surge), heavy rain (but there are no attachments), boulders again (surge), no campfire (doomed 1; both decks reveal another card as there wasn’t anything bad till now), Cave Entrance, Guffawing of Giants (meaning the set up giant will attack after questing!). I was quite happy with this setup as 1 copy of heavy rain passed by and 2 copies of boulders (plus I have all the tools to handle the giant).

Deck 1 does nothing (as I only play attachments when necessary as there might be another rain and the giant will kill any ally I play), while deck 2 brings out Arwen and the defence boost for Bombur. I send everyone on the quest (except Bombur) and reveal a second giant and another Guffawing of Giants (not sure on the order anymore; I choose the same giant to engage as I already did in the setup. I’m not totally sure this is a legal move as this feels pretty cheap but nothing on the card says I can’t choose the same giant twice). Not really advancing on the quest I’m still fine: I can handle the giant and have no problem travelling to the cave entrance to avoid his ugly effect.

Over the next turns I make slow progress (around 4 each turn) while dodging the second heavy rain (in form of a shadow card) but getting hit by More like a Grocer (it’s worth mentioning I have Bofur dropping in and out of play triggering Eomer and Imrahil every turn) . That way I only had 2 Baggins resources when advancing from stage 2 to 3, but I have a real army of allies out, my heroes a pretty healthy (thanks to 2 daughters since turn 3).

After shuffling all encounter cards back into the encounter deck (stage 3A tells you to do so) I have to reveal 4 encounter cards from the new encounter deck (after paying 2 Baggins resources): 3 Goblins are added to the GG (Great Goblin), who was already added to the staging area from stage 3A, and Chaos in the caverns (what would return all goblins to the staging area and then give all of them +1 threat but as I just advanced to this stage that doesn’t matter). Both Decks engage 2 enemies (deck 1 grabbing the GG). This is pretty much the last important moment for the rest of the game, because the staging area is empty quest progress will be easily achieved, so it’s just about surviving this round and getting rid of the great goblin as soon as possible, as his forced effect could drown me in enemies and I can’t win with him in play. I did the math before questing this round to make sure I would have the 10 damage needed to one-hit the GG but had hoped to get less enemies, as I am unwilling to give up my chance at killing the GG, deck 2 takes a weaker goblin undefended and deck 1 uses Orc-Cleaver to kill an other(I have 1 Hasty stroke in case of an emergency, but with 4 attacks it is still risky especially as there are shadow effects that will cause additional attacks, what is extremely bad if this ends up on the great goblin), after I defended the GG to check is shadow card first, which had no effect, and reveal one goblin by the forced effect and it to the staging area. My whole board takes a big load of damage, but everything survives AND I can clear the GG (adding it to the victory display). Two turns later I quest through for the WIN.

Score: 81/151 (lower number is without counting rounds)

Final thoughts: After struggling in my first attempts I really realised how annoying the first stage can be. With Crows, Boulders and No Campfire there are sooo many cards that can surge, resulting in the encounter deck really digging for this ugly heavy rain or more like a grocer. I think I really went lucky with the setup effectively burning two boulders and one rain. Sadly neither Bombur (who really was the game winner with the help of the dunedain buff, Arwen and the daughter heal) nor Fatty Bolger could convince me to give them a second try in any other deck, because in my winning attempt Bolger would never use his ability and there are better heroes do defend (even in the lore sphere e.g. Denethor or Elrond as they have other useful abilities when no defending is needed). In the end it was a fun challenge, even though it was a little frustrating after the first three losses, which weren’t really close (that is the reason I didn’t make a complete session report as I lost my motivation to write down every detail)

“Fun Facts”
-No Giants were harmed during this paythrough.

-No Tests of Will were possible in all 5 attempts!

-Orc-Cleaver was a really great help getting rid of 2 orcs

-Bombur got my only copy of unexpected courage (never thought this would ever happen )

-Fatty Bolger was the best defender of a deck (with a ring mail)

-Bofur combined with Imrahil and Eomer is really great

-I like Deep Knowledge much more than I thought I would

I didn’t write down the deck lists, but if someone is interested I could do it J

​

Nice write up Calvadur - sorry it caused you so much frustration! I haven't played that quest in ages, but you make me want to try it again.

Thank you!

I didn't expect a flawless homerun with the given heroes, but in my opinion that's the great thing about these random challenges. Struggle, maybe curse or go to bed to fight an other day to make something work that you most likely wouldn't do otherwise. And winning after struggling is always sweeter than a perfect storm (even though this is really fun once in a while too )​

Bring on the X!

X. Across the Ettenmoors Thalin Bilbo Baggins Bifur Aragorn (Lo) Grima Theodred

How about a different quest? My last Walk to Mordor was also Across the Ettenmoors.

Sure thing: A Journey to Rhosgobel

Hey, could be worse, at least you have a large number of lore heroes

Got a chance to give this a try today. With Thalin in the pool and lots of low hp enemies, I decided to go for a direct damage approach with Ranger Bows, Fresh Tracks, Galadhon Archers, etc. I also went with 3 Honour Guards, because they can prevent the damage to Wilyador without getting discarded.

I figured it would be too easy to beat with so many lore heroes, so I dove into nightmare mode (which I had never tried before for this quest). Big mistake! The game starts with a Goblin Eagle-Hunter in the staging area that has 5 attack, 3 defense, 6 HP, and damages Wilyador every round. With Theodred and Thalin questing (thanks to a whopping 9 combined Willpower), Aragorn was my only hero with more than 1 attack and no other heroes could survive even a single attack from the Goblin-Hunter. After a few rounds I was able to take him out with some Ranger Bows and a Gandalf, but I had only placed one progress on the quest, Wilyador was at 10 damage, and I immediately revealed another Goblin-Hunter... The healing is nice, but these heroes have too little attack power to take out nightmare enemies.

Next up I tried it on normal mode. Thankfully I got an early Warden of Healing to keep everyone healthy and an Honour Guard to keep the Warden alive and keep damage off of Wilyador. Questing was a little slow, but I was able to play Healing Herbs, two Lore of Imladris, and I found 2 Athelas in the encounter deck. Bifur got caught in two webs so he just read a book the whole time. I was never in any real peril, but that quest has some very nasty treacheries I had forgotten about, and I had no spirit heroes for Tests of Will. Final score was 111 and I had 8 extra healing to spare for Wilyador.

I also went with 3 Honour Guards, because they can prevent the damage to Wilyador without getting discarded.

Nice, I wouldn't have thought of this!

The Eagle Hunter in Nightmare mode is hard to deal with, and like you said you can't just ignore him because of the damage he's putting on Wilyador. I've had the most success by putting out a chump blocker and holding back enough attack power to kill him off in the first turn, even if it means failing the quest.

I also find the Athelas player card to be essential in nightmare to both heal Wilyador and get rid of the new Condition attachments.

I feel like trying this, gimme an X if this is still a thing. =)

I feel like trying this, gimme an X if this is still a thing. =)

Certainly!

X. Flight from Moria Frodo Baggins Boromir (Ta) Bard Aragorn (Ta) Merry (Ta) Mablung

Wow, so many tactics heroes! Looks tough...

I have participated this time, but won't be doing any writeup because I made a video! Enjoy!

Today was the official deadline... but I think there are many players who still have not gotten around to completing it. Would an extension be a good idea?

I have participated this time, but won't be doing any writeup because I made a video! Enjoy!

Today was the official deadline... but I think there are many players who still have not gotten around to completing it. Would an extension be a good idea?

I won't be needing an extension. I had planned to do it Veteran's Day but unfortunately became busy with other more mandatory (albeit less fun) things to do.

Phew, finally won! Hilarious failure games though!

Escape from Dol Guldur

Team1

Aragorn (tactics)

Mablung

Éowyn

Strategy: Mosty trying to get different tactics events to work with Aragorn. Has a sword of Gondolin and Rivendel bow going for him. Other than that some blockers in the form of Winged Guardians and Defenders of Ramas and Dúnedain hunters for attack. Éowyn and general spirit cancelation.

Team 2

Balin

Erkenbrand

Beravor

Strategy: Ingold, Celebrian Stone, Faramir and other allies for willpower boosting. Balin is the shadow guy. Athelas for healing and getting rid of conditions. Grim Resolve for the Nazgul-killing super turn.

General approach: I've never used Aragorn (tactics) before so I'm curious to see how he does in combat with event support. General plan is to have Erkenbrand block with Sentinel for team red, use Mablung to gain resources twice by making clever use of Aragorn's 'get over here' ability. Also try to get double attacks (attack with one player, then have Aragorn drag enemy over and attack with Aragorn's team) on the Nazgul. Let's go!

GAME 1

Great opening hand! Aragorn get captured and I lose all my event cards in the setup. Bah, who needs events to win anyway?

Play Silvan refugee and Celebrian stone make some progress. Also have Steward of Gondor. Feeling confident! Mablung get's caught in a web but since he's mablung AND has a horn of Gondor, that's ok.

Turn two I get Ingold to help. Never used him before either. Dol Guldur Orcs show up to damage Ingold and he lives. Then second encounter card, the Necromancers reach, kills him and the refugee anyway. Bah, who needs allies to win anyway?

I travel to the tower and get two orc guards. Shadow card on one of them forces me to discard all my attachments like Steward and Celebrian stone. Bah, who needs attachments to win anyway?

Turn three I quest with everything I have. Another Dol Guldur Orcs kills Éowyn because she's the only questing character on that team. Bah, who needs heroes to win anyway? Then the Jailor shuffles one of the objectives in the deck. Bah, who needs objectives to win anyway? Then I realised I forgot Balin's ability to cancel shadow cards last turn. Maybe I could have lived had I remembered. Also, I'm switching Éowyn and Beravor in the decks! Éowyn needs a Dol Guldur Orc meat shield!

GAME 2

Mablung is captured. Will we rescue him?

Beginning goes ok. We rescue Mablung! Aragorn requested the help from a Dúnedain Hunter. Ah, there he comes! He's running even! Wait, are those hummerhorns chasing him? In the name of the Valar please no! And is that Chieftain Ufthak RIDING Spawn of Ungoliant to backup the Nazgul?

GAME 3

Slow, uneventful and we win by the skin on our teeth because I didn't include enough threat reduction in the spirit deck. Both Mablung and Beravor got Caught in a Web (stupid amateur rangers!) but these decks didn't really have that much to spend resources on to be honest.

Conclusion

Aragorn is a cool guy, does a lot of work if you can give him some attack boost and preferably readying. Balin is awesome and underused by myself! Many of the tactics event's didn't work in these decks (the ones involving engement). Secret Vigil was meh, even in two player with too few enemies it really worked on. This perticular hero team was actually pretty stellar, so I opted for half-baked decks just to try some things and it still worked out in the end (I really should have included healing, more card draw and threat reduction). Ingold deserves some loving in a good Gondor-resources deck. 2/3 willpower for 3 is pretty boss in leadership until you get your mass willpower bonuses going. Although I mostly play solo, I feel Grim Resolve is underused in general. You can get so much value out of it in one super-turn provided you got Steward in time to build up.

Phew, finally won! Hilarious failure games though!

Escape from Dol Guldur

Team1

Aragorn (tactics)

Mablung

Éowyn

Strategy: Mosty trying to get different tactics events to work with Aragorn. Has a sword of Gondolin and Rivendel bow going for him. Other than that some blockers in the form of Winged Guardians and Defenders of Ramas and Dúnedain hunters for attack. Éowyn and general spirit cancelation.

Team 2

Balin

Erkenbrand

Beravor

Strategy: Ingold, Celebrian Stone, Faramir and other allies for willpower boosting. Balin is the shadow guy. Athelas for healing and getting rid of conditions. Grim Resolve for the Nazgul-killing super turn.

General approach: I've never used Aragorn (tactics) before so I'm curious to see how he does in combat with event support. General plan is to have Erkenbrand block with Sentinel for team red, use Mablung to gain resources twice by making clever use of Aragorn's 'get over here' ability. Also try to get double attacks (attack with one player, then have Aragorn drag enemy over and attack with Aragorn's team) on the Nazgul. Let's go!

GAME 1

Great opening hand! Aragorn get captured and I lose all my event cards in the setup. Bah, who needs events to win anyway?

Play Silvan refugee and Celebrian stone make some progress. Also have Steward of Gondor. Feeling confident! Mablung get's caught in a web but since he's mablung AND has a horn of Gondor, that's ok.

Turn two I get Ingold to help. Never used him before either. Dol Guldur Orcs show up to damage Ingold and he lives. Then second encounter card, the Necromancers reach, kills him and the refugee anyway. Bah, who needs allies to win anyway?

I travel to the tower and get two orc guards. Shadow card on one of them forces me to discard all my attachments like Steward and Celebrian stone. Bah, who needs attachments to win anyway?

Turn three I quest with everything I have. Another Dol Guldur Orcs kills Éowyn because she's the only questing character on that team. Bah, who needs heroes to win anyway? Then the Jailor shuffles one of the objectives in the deck. Bah, who needs objectives to win anyway? Then I realised I forgot Balin's ability to cancel shadow cards last turn. Maybe I could have lived had I remembered. Also, I'm switching Éowyn and Beravor in the decks! Éowyn needs a Dol Guldur Orc meat shield!

GAME 2

Mablung is captured. Will we rescue him?

Beginning goes ok. We rescue Mablung! Aragorn requested the help from a Dúnedain Hunter. Ah, there he comes! He's running even! Wait, are those hummerhorns chasing him? In the name of the Valar please no! And is that Chieftain Ufthak RIDING Spawn of Ungoliant to backup the Nazgul?

GAME 3

Slow, uneventful and we win by the skin on our teeth because I didn't include enough threat reduction in the spirit deck. Both Mablung and Beravor got Caught in a Web (stupid amateur rangers!) but these decks didn't really have that much to spend resources on to be honest.

Conclusion

Aragorn is a cool guy, does a lot of work if you can give him some attack boost and preferably readying. Balin is awesome and underused by myself! Many of the tactics event's didn't work in these decks (the ones involving engement). Secret Vigil was meh, even in two player with too few enemies it really worked on. This perticular hero team was actually pretty stellar, so I opted for half-baked decks just to try some things and it still worked out in the end (I really should have included healing, more card draw and threat reduction). Ingold deserves some loving in a good Gondor-resources deck. 2/3 willpower for 3 is pretty boss in leadership until you get your mass willpower bonuses going. Although I mostly play solo, I feel Grim Resolve is underused in general. You can get so much value out of it in one super-turn provided you got Steward in time to build up.

This report was very entertaining indeed! Who needs player cards to win?

Also hilarious that you actually got the single copy of Hummerhorns with Dunedain Hunter, that could not have gone more badly haha

Awesome report DunedainLoreKeeper! Every win against Escape from Dol Guldur is well deserved.

I played my quest a while ago and wrote some notes, I intend to write a hopefully-funny report but currently I am short of time. In any case, even with 4 heroes, Passage through Mirkwood is quite easy.