Hi there. Can't remember if I have posted before but it has been a long time since if I have. I am posting here to find out what people's experiences are of Battle of Cairn Dum and whether any of you have ideas for dealing with it.

The main issues seem to be as follows:

i. the opening setup has a location which requires battle to be used in place of questing. However, once this has been defeated, we go back to good old questing as questing. Having the right balance of both is not easy. This is compounded by the fact that...

ii. the best ways of cancelling stuff are almost all spirit cards, and spirit is low on battle. It is further compounded by the fact that...

iii. even once you have moved onto using questing rather than battle, there are a fair few monsters which need to be fought. You've probably exhausted most of your guys just trying to get enough to burn through the first location, something which you will probably only achieve if you don't see any sorcery ( as this doubly screws you by bringing in additional shadow cards which up the threat of some of the enemies in the staging area ) and if you don't see too many surge cards ( of which there are many ). They also throw in an 8 threat guy so even if the other bods are still 40 or more ( and they won't be if the main guy flips ) you will probably still have to deal with something.

Added to all of this is the fact that most of the monsters have an attack which far outweighs the defence of most heroes. If one of you has a fighting deck to deal with that side of things, even then you are only likely to be able to deal with stuff if the main guy does not flip, as your starting threat is likely to be over thirty and will thus ensure you end up with everyone going for you in the engagement phase if the big guy has been flipped by sorcery.

You can probably tell that I think this quest is particularly daft. I found myself laughing on many an occasion the other night as we tried it. There are times where, even if the encounter deck had been played by a player drawing cards similarly to the players of heroes, it could not have screwed us over more thoroughly. We've tried with two, three and four decks, each with the same result.

For solo, a combo of Tactics and Spirit can be good. Think Boromir, spirit Glorfindel that can quest in battle and in willpower for 3, combined with another spirit or tactics hero (Beregond the defending god).

I think that this quest needs a solid deck, also like a fully fleshed Dunedain deck with a combo like :

I beat this quest with a mono-spirit Caldara deck. An amazing card for it is Shadows give away

I very rarely play solo. I will look at those suggestions though as they might slot into a 2-4 player game.

Good luck and don't flip the table (you might lose some cards).

I've been close to table flipping but in all honestly I laugh most of the time.

I beat this quest with a mono-spirit Caldara deck. An amazing card for it is Shadows give away

Yeah, we know about that card. It's useful in any quest but comes into its own on this one. There is still however the problem of the encounter deck having monsters with ridiculously high attack. They also have decent defence stats and plenty of hit points so they tend to stick around. Quite often, I feel that if I had had an extra turn to set up, things would be fine ( and likewise with my fellow players ) but it is indeed nightmare hard from the outset.

I beat this quest with a mono-spirit Caldara deck. An amazing card for it is Shadows give away

Yes, I love that card. In a multiplayer game you could have a deck where the sole purpose is to play Shadows Give Way every time Thaurdir gets to 2 shadow cards, and it would be worth its weight in gold. Along with Test of Will, you can pretty much stop Thaurdir from ever flipping (Apart from the forced flip at stage 2).

Arwen makes it a lot easier to pull off, although she wasn't available at the time of release.

One way to easily beat this quest (although it might feel cheap to some), especially in multiplayer, is to include a bunch of traps. Mainly Forest Snare and Ranger Spikes. The reason being is that shadow cards to not get discarded at the end of the round, so if there are 4-5 Forest Snares in play, you eliminate 4-5 shadow cards from the encounter deck every combat phase. You also lock up shadow cards with Ranger-spiked enemies in the staging area every time Thaurdir flips. Within a few rounds the Encounter deck will be empty and you will have nothing to fear during questing, no attacks to defend, and Thaurdir will never flip.

Just make sure each player has Favor of the Valar before going to stage 2 or you will be ended by a very nasty threat raise!

^{i used a mono leadership reinforcements deck plus a tactics-lore archery deck with traps.}

^{Took me 3 tries to beat the Scenario(with this deck!)}

I've beaten it with the 'cheap' trap strategy. Eventually the entire encounter deck was trapped save one location that kept coming back! Traps highly recommended!

I've gotten close with my Leadership Tactics Dúnedain deck as well. Having insane attack power in your starting heroes and some willpower buff to follow up afterwards works for me. Favor of the Valar is a godssend so you can ignore questing every once in a while to deal with enemies.

A dedicated Thaurdir-blocker would also do wonders. It needs to be Lore so they can wield Burning Brand.

I haven't tried it, but I'm going to be packing None Return the next time I face the Cursed Undead.

One way to easily beat this quest (although it might feel cheap to some), especially in multiplayer, is to include a bunch of traps.

It's not cheating, it's a strategy.

One way to easily beat this quest (although it might feel cheap to some), especially in multiplayer, is to include a bunch of traps.

It's not cheating, it's a strategy.

It feels like cheating if you use more than one complete Card set when playing multiplayer(every Player running 3 test of will and so on;)

6 forest traps for 2 Players is heavy as you will only trap enemies that mean a threat. Imagine 12 forest traps for 4 Players. Some decks might run out of enemies. Now pack 12 Ranger Spikes. Every deck will run out of enemies... and so on =D

If you play according to the rules (3 cards per deck per player) and play cards you can play, the you follow the rules.

Cheating is when you don't follow the rules.

And cheating is when an encounter says ''This effect cannot be canceled'' which prevents you from playing legal cards that you paid for .

One way to easily beat this quest (although it might feel cheap to some), especially in multiplayer, is to include a bunch of traps. Mainly Forest Snare and Ranger Spikes. The reason being is that shadow cards to not get discarded at the end of the round, so if there are 4-5 Forest Snares in play, you eliminate 4-5 shadow cards from the encounter deck every combat phase. You also lock up shadow cards with Ranger-spiked enemies in the staging area every time Thaurdir flips. Within a few rounds the Encounter deck will be empty and you will have nothing to fear during questing, no attacks to defend, and Thaurdir will never flip.

Just make sure each player has Favor of the Valar before going to stage 2 or you will be ended by a very nasty threat raise!

So if an enemy is the target of feint, the shadow card would stay there for the next round? (assuming the enemy survived that long). I've always just discarded shadow cards from guys that were engaged but unable to attack from an effect like Feint or Forest Snare... my whole world is a lie. Wonder what else I've been doing wrong now...

No. If you feint an enemy you discard the shadow card (in normal rules). The reason shadow cards are not discarded in this case is because of scenario specific rules (so in this particular scenario you would not discard the shadow card from a feinted enemy). You have not been living a lie.

One way to easily beat this quest (although it might feel cheap to some), especially in multiplayer, is to include a bunch of traps. Mainly Forest Snare and Ranger Spikes. The reason being is that shadow cards to not get discarded at the end of the round, so if there are 4-5 Forest Snares in play, you eliminate 4-5 shadow cards from the encounter deck every combat phase. You also lock up shadow cards with Ranger-spiked enemies in the staging area every time Thaurdir flips. Within a few rounds the Encounter deck will be empty and you will have nothing to fear during questing, no attacks to defend, and Thaurdir will never flip.

Just make sure each player has Favor of the Valar before going to stage 2 or you will be ended by a very nasty threat raise!

So if an enemy is the target of feint, the shadow card would stay there for the next round? (assuming the enemy survived that long). I've always just discarded shadow cards from guys that were engaged but unable to attack from an effect like Feint or Forest Snare... my whole world is a lie. Wonder what else I've been doing wrong now...

One way to easily beat this quest (although it might feel cheap to some), especially in multiplayer, is to include a bunch of traps.

It's not cheating, it's a strategy.

It feels like cheating if you use more than one complete Card set when playing multiplayer(every Player running 3 test of will and so on;)

6 forest traps for 2 Players is heavy as you will only trap enemies that mean a threat. Imagine 12 forest traps for 4 Players. Some decks might run out of enemies. Now pack 12 Ranger Spikes. Every deck will run out of enemies... and so on =D

To be fair, if you build completely synergistic decks, you can probably break the game with many different combinations. And since Ranger spikes can only be used one at a time, and there is only 1 damrod hero in play, I don't think 4 players going full traps would be the best strategy.