Finally pulled off a win aganist The Tower of Cirith Ungol. I ended up using Sam (my one thematic requirement), Treebeard, and Beregond (Tactics), along with Arwen, Eowyn (Spirit), and Elrond.

6 hours ago, JYoder said:

As I said earlier, I at least wanted to try and prove myself wrong... but I've failed...

With my 2nd group of heroes from a prior run-thru (no Spirit) I've tweaked and played The Black Gate Opens several times, until I finally had an ideal card draw and good options with an early Steward, 2 early Gildor's Counsels, etc. However, with average willpower and not enough readying effects or cancellation, I only got 6 resources on the Black Gate. For these heroes, it may be possible to do better with better builds and a bit more luck (Gwaihir never showed), or maybe these heroes can somehow do the final quest in 6 rounds, but the fun factor has quickly dwindled, and I love the game too much to risk burn out by getting hung up on trying to force these heroes all the way.

So IMHO, the last 2 saga quests feel Nightmare-level (which I never felt in prior saga quests) which, to me, means they require specific builds, possibly beyond the heroes you've brought so far. (I found Spirit had excellent options to deal with the last couple of quests, with 4-6 cards being key). Of course, for those who welcome changing heroes, it doesn't matter. But it's deflating to me, knowing you can create go-to decks for these last 3 quests from the ground up, without penalty, which in my mind, undermines the campaign experience.

Still, there's lots of thematic goodness in these quests, as mechanically, they are very clever.

Spirit is alway good because it is the better way to have willpower, but not only: spirit do everything very well recently. But the best spirit card (test of will) is pretty weak in the last two quest: it trigger a 6 attack on black gate opens (never played until now) and in mount doom the first treachery is impossible to cancel in step 1 and 3, but it also get reninforcement so you can counter if another one came up after (that the best use of test of will), the quest 2 is a one turn in all my games, but it it the only moment you can cancel free because step 4 just forbid to cancel.

4 hours ago, NathanH said:

BTW, how do you actually earn Gwaihir? According to the campaign card you earn him if he is controlled by the first player. But the scenario ends with all players eliminated, so the first player can't control him, being dead.

As usual, rules doesn't work so you have to deal with logical sense, who is a pretty bad things to do when you conceive a game.

3 hours ago, GrandSpleen said:

Finally pulled off a win aganist The Tower of Cirith Ungol. I ended up using Sam (my one thematic requirement), Treebeard, and Beregond (Tactics), along with Arwen, Eowyn (Spirit), and Elrond.

Hurrah! Now you will have to face the worst part! I recently try to play just Sam on mount doom and it doesn't lack that much to win. But I probably won't be able to win this way. It would have been nice to be able to win only with Sam and Frodo :).

6 hours ago, GrandSpleen said:

Finally pulled off a win aganist The Tower of Cirith Ungol. I ended up using Sam (my one thematic requirement), Treebeard, and Beregond (Tactics), along with Arwen, Eowyn (Spirit), and Elrond.

Nice! You (and others) keep us posted on your progress!

Agreed, Rouxxor, that Test of Will had more limited use, but I still found it very useful at times. I was mainly thinking of different cards I'd never used before.

I'm curious -- for those who completed the last 2 quests, how many resources did you get on Black Gate that let you make it through Mt Doom? I really wanted 8 with my first heroes, which I finally got, but I suppose with more tweaking, maybe I could have done Mt Doom in 7 turns, but it would have been quite a bit harder.

With my Elrond Gandalf Arwen I was getting 5 resources on my first try but I wasn't satisfied because it also cost me a valuable boons so I replay it and stand until I got 9 resources without spending any once per campaign effect (I was able to keep them all for the last). I also gain an eagle and get rid off a nazgul on wings.

And when I play mount Doom I succeed using 5, 8 and 6 resources. And get approximately the same amount of defeat ^^. It was the two only time in the whole saga that I have to play more than once a quest.

Very powerful willpower deck, and finishing Mount Doom in 5 rounds is super impressive. So you must have cleared the 1st stage turn 1, the 2nd stage turn 2, then over 2 turns passed fortitude tests to put more than 5 progress on the 3rd stage, then cleared Mt Doom in the 5th round and passed a fortitude test? Yeah... there's NO chance any of my current saga heroes could manage that. Not even close to that much willpower.

44 minutes ago, Rouxxor said:

It was the two only time in the whole saga that I have to play more than once a quest.

You're better than me! When taking new heroes through the saga, I often don't defeat quests on the first try.

5 counters mean 6 turns. I always get the same pattern:

- 2 Turns on the first step (almost every time 5 progress where put on the first try, some coincidence ^^);

-1 on the second

- 1 on the last (mount doom get out of the staging area so it is easy to make huge questing success)

And the rest on step 3, the most annoying with his 20 progression, his test at the beginning of the quest (not easy to figure when to try to succeed or just accept only put 5 counter AND have drawback from cards you reveal because you failing a test this phase), the reinforcement and can't be countered for the first treachery AND his test when traveling to mount doom. I do in 2 turns in an incredible situation but it take me 3 and 5 turns in others try.

You say 5 counters means 6 turns, but I'm not tracking. You take 1 resource off at the end of each round, and if there are none left, you lose. 5 counters = 5 rounds. Am I missing something?

I never finish the round where I'm winning. So when I win on turn 6 i spent only 5 resources.

But you can't have a 6th turn as it's too late -- you'd lose at the end of the 5th round, right after you remove the 5th resource.

You are right. That is why I wasn't satisfied with my 5 resources on black door opens, it means I have to win using only 4 resources, witch almost mean one turn per step and is barely impossible. I probably get confused about this when I post this ^^. Since I get 9 resources on my good run, my following performance of 8 resources spend work well.

An easy way to picture it is to represent us as playing epic mode: when I die during quest phase in door opens I'm only allowed to finish the same turn with mount doom team.

I can see the case for keeping the same "fellowship" - I generally play 2-deck, and try to keep the same heroes throughout a cycle, for example. But with the Saga, especially the last 3 quests, I tended to keep a few core heroes, and draft in others just to stay in the game. And yes, that was hard! I agree, the quests all need a good run of luck to be beaten, at least by me.

Got to 7 resources and Gwaihir on my third try at The Black Gate - top priority was always clipping the wings of both wraiths, as I knew I couldn't face Mount Doom with them in play. Took me 14 attempts to finish Mount Doom, and that was out of time (8 rounds). Finally, on the 15th attempt I did it on my sixth round - so a whole round to spare!

So the 15th time it was too easy!

I played The Black Gate Opens. The first two times I messed up: first time I forgot to reveal extra cards for the first two rounds, so I scrapped the game. 2nd time I forgot to add enemies to the staging area as part of the Stage 2 "When Revealed" effect, so I scrapped the game.

The third time was pretty satisfying. So what do you think, gents: I got 7 resources and I managed to kill both of the Wraiths on Wings (playing 2-handed here, so there are 2 of them). Do I need to push more and get 8 or 9 resources? Or is the removal of both Wraiths enough of an accomplishment that I can try Mount Doom now?

I used Gimli (T), Eowyn (S), and Beregond (T), along with Denethor (Le), Imrahil (Le), and Damrod.

The hero lineup was pretty close to a thematic lineup, so I was satisfied. The heroes who wouldn't physically be present at the battle (Eowyn: wounded, Denethor: dead) would be serving as inspiration for the other heroes. That's pretty much how you have to justify most of the Same & Frodo quests, so I can take the same approach here.

Eowyn has Esquire of Gondor, so Denethor can pass her resources and she quests for 5 at the start of the game, alongside the Gondor deck.

Gimli has Intimidation, which I never got to use during this game. The plan is to set him up with a Rohan Warhorse + one Citadel Plate, but I never drew either card. Gimli also has Esquire of Rohan. If I can ready Eowyn, he gets an attack bonus. Ideally she gets a Steed of the Mark and Herugrim. She got her steed in this game but no Herugrim.

Legolas ally hit the table, which was also a thematic win.

Aragorn has Leader of Men, and I think he even used it successfully on the first round.

The 2nd to last round was very satisfying because one Wraith was already dead, I had 8 enemies engaged (4 per player), I think four of them were Nazgul. The remaining Wraith on Wings had 5 damage on it already. I used undefended attacks to annihilate the Gondor deck, leaving only Aragorn alive on that side of the table. By the end of enemy attacks, only Gimli was alive on the other side (except for allies). Gimli for 6 attack, Legolas for 3, and Gwaihir for 3 finished off the last Wraith. It was also nicely thematic that Gwaihir made an appearance.

I had 90 threat or so at that point. But I didn't make it through staging during the next turn -- The Mouth of Sauron attacked a couple of times and finished me off.

My campaign doesn't have any of the one-time boons left, I used 1 in Pelennor and 1 in Helm's Deep. I do still have Palantir of Orthanc though.

Fun game, satisfying result, but I'm wondering how important it is that I push for 8 or 9 tokens on The Black Gate.

It is hard to say. First you will have to learn how to beat Mount doom, now matter how many turns it will take. Tips: remove allies and add attachments ;). 7 counter seem a minimum though, a little bit hard but possible.

I think you should be okay. I was happy with 7 resources on my third attempt. You can usually recognise when you've had a good run on the cards, and played them to the best. Both wraiths down is good, and Gwaihir is a bonus.

I took the view that if 7 wasn't enough, I could always go back and retry, once I had a target in mind from Mount Doom. (Although I can understand if you don't like that "revisionist" approach). In the (long) end, I only actually needed 6 - but again, that was all the luck staying with me on Mount Doom.

Often I try to play each scenario 5 times, win or lose, as the scenario changes greatly with card draw, with some new nasty twists. After that I tend to get deja vu.

Well done. 7 is doable, as you'll find. Maybe my original 6 heroes could have done it, but I was really glad to have 8. I won't spoil anything as assume you want to figure it out. Enjoy!

I'm not against trying Mount Doom and then replaying The Black Gate Opens if it looks like I need more time. Alright, then. Looks like I'm forging ahead to the mountain of fire next.

I beat it! 22 attempts, whew. There were 2 resources remaining on the campaign card when I won (2 rounds on stage 1, 2 on stage 2, 1 on stage 3, then finished on the 6th round). Family's visiting relatives abroad, so I obsessed over finishing my campaign for a few days. Exhausted now.

There were a couple of key cards that unlocked my victory. It took me a while to find them. I was able to complete it mostly thematically, with only 1 concession.

Cirith Ungol also took 22 attempts, while strangely I got a good result from The Black Gate Opens after only 1. I was worried that it would feel anticlimactic after Cirith Ungol took me so long, but I was worried over nothing. That was **** hard.

Well done! Can you post your decklist?

Way to go! It's certainly a great feeling of accomplishment. And 5 rounds -- impressive!

I'll have to make the decklist first, hah! I started with a shell on Ringsdb and then changed the deck bit by bit physically, so I don't currently have a digital list. I'll make and put it in a separate spoilery thread later on when I have some time.

This deck seems to be fairly spoiler-free, so I made another thread to discuss decks and strategy for Mount Doom, spoilers welcome! Thread is here.

Been a few months, so thought I'd re-visit this thread. I know many said they have no problem swapping out their heroes, but I really enjoy the boons I've earned -- having to drop heroes and their boons feels very un-saga-ish to me. But I'm also realizing I don't always play with "dream teams" (as many do) but I like to experiment. To me, it feels like the saga gives you that wiggle room... up until the very end.

Anyway, now that I assume more have completed the entire saga, I was curious if there were any more thoughts.