I was wondering how people were getting on with this quest (I'm playing catchup a little)? It's rated DL 8, and I've been using it to test a pair of Gondor decks based on Ld Denethor, Ld Boromir and T Imrahil paired with Ld Faramir, Sp Eowyn and Damrod. It's proving quite challenging.

What I find tough about the quest (apart from my inability to draw either Thror's Map or A Test of Will successfully) is that the treacheries and locations jointly attack allies, threat, and actions in a variety of ways. I've made it to the 3rd stage a few times and generally get overwhelmed by enemies in the last phases because (inevitably) I'll be hit by one too many treacheries that discard allies or threat me out. How are people coping with this quest in 2 players? It also has a pretty consistent addition of extra reveals each round (first phase it's at least 3 extra reveals for the rescues; second phase it's one per round; third phase it's a new enemy per round), and the locations are all featuring nasty travel effects bar the Cell. It is kicking me hard!

It's also an odd quest because many standard defender allies are useless in it, since their willpower is too low and so they either can't defend or die when doing so. I've found the new Defender of Cair Andros to be pretty handy, since his willpower is effectively 2 once you have the willpower boosts going.

I'll try to put the current versions of the decks into RingsDB and post them up, but perhaps I'm just attempting this quest with the wrong decks? Or is it really a proper DL 8?

I think the most successful strategy is to stall as long as possible on stage one (keeping your threat reasonably low), then quickly steamroll over stages two and three before you get swarmed. I haven't played this one yet, but from what I've heard it's not quite an eight.

Yes that's what I did. I avoided rescuing cards on stage 1 as well, so I didn't have to reveal more cards, until I was good and ready for it. I used all hero defenders, so my defense couldn't be wrecked by a card that steals my allies. I actually didn't clear stage 2 as quickly as possible-- there were just way too many enemies in play. I got it a little bit more under control before advancing, but you do get the extra card every round on stage 2, so you can't hang out forever. I still ended up having 6 or 7 enemies to deal with once on stage 3.

I got the distinct feeling that DCG would be much harder multiplayer. I agree that solo it's not an 8.

5 minutes ago, Bullroarer Took said:

I got the distinct feeling that DCG would be much harder multiplayer. I agree that solo it's not an 8.

I wondered about this in particular. I think that I hamstring myself in a couple of ways with the decks that I'm using, since neither can really reduce threat regularly (in fact only one deck can do so at all) and that they rely on allies a fair bit. The first deck does use the old Denethor tank, and that works pretty well. In solo play the first stage would be much easier to handle, since another tricky aspect is that you can easily in multiplayer have a string of treacheries that add up threat and/or surge alongside a collection of inhibiting locations. I should perhaps bring more location control, but the decks are nicely thematic at the moment

The problem I have at the moment is that I'm so behind on things that I'm testing decks against these new scenarios, and that isn't always the best idea! Thanks for the ideas though! I need to do some thinking - and I'll try to get the decklists online soon, although they are, I think, fairly generic. I *am* liking Tactics Imrahil a lot!

Finally beat it! Had a long stage 1 and a single Test of Will saved my bacon when the treachery that forced allies to become captured was blocked, but finally I got board control via a lucky Very Long Tale getting out crucial high willpower allies. Then just as I hit stage 2 I finally got out Thror's Map, and locations became no problem. Got held up a little with enemy encounters in stage 2, but stage 3 took 1 turn. Even losing two heroes on that last stage wasn't a problem. Got a lot of love out of Damrod and Anborn recycling Entangling Nets to get card draw after chopping down weakened enemies!

A tough nut, but it seems like solid location control is important. Some of the 'in staging area' effects are awful!

For those interested, I finally put the two decks into RingsDB in a fellowship. The fellowship is here:

http://ringsdb.com/fellowship/view/4261

The decks are:

http://ringsdb.com/deck/view/92248

http://ringsdb.com/deck/view/92250

Apologies for not putting full lists up. Will try to soon! Any thoughts are most welcome!

On 2/6/2018 at 8:34 AM, Bullroarer Took said:

I got the distinct feeling that DCG would be much harder multiplayer. I agree that solo it's not an 8.

We're playing it with 4, and have found it to be brutal. The location lock is especially bad, as there are a lot of locations with really nasty effects while they're in play. We've found that they stack up, and when you're paying +2 for all your allies, losing them regularly, and can't reduce your threat it's nasty.

10 hours ago, Buhallin said:

We're playing it with 4, and have found it to be brutal. The location lock is especially bad, as there are a lot of locations with really nasty effects while they're in play. We've found that they stack up, and when you're paying +2 for all your allies, losing them regularly, and can't reduce your threat it's nasty.

Absolutely! The locations I think are the worst part of the quest if you can't keep them limited in number, and the more players you have the harder this is to do. None of the enemies really hit that hard, and the worst treacheries focus on ally-hate, but the locations are really awful.