What deck do you recommend for someone stymied by the latter half of the Agsinst the Shadow cycle? I’m specifically stuck at Assault on Osgiliath. I beat it once with the deck below. I’m considering Sestan’s Boromir, Caldara 2.0, Ent!, or Nary an Exhausted Ent. There’s also a strong dwarf deck by jjeagle. Thoughts?

My one victory came with:

Hero (3)
Caldara (The Blood of Gondor)
Éowyn (Core Set)
Théoden (The Morgul Vale)

Ally (17)
2x Defender of Rammas (Heirs of Númenor)
1x Déorwine (Temple of the Deceived)
1x Elfhelm (The Dead Marshes)
1x Éomund (Conflict at the Carrock)
2x Escort from Edoras (A Journey to Rhosgobel)
1x Gamling (The Land of Shadow)
1x Gildor Inglorion (The Hills of Emyn Muil)
1x Glorfindel (Flight of the Stormcaller)
1x Grimbold (The Flame of the West)
1x Guthlaf (The Blood of Gondor)
1x Háma (The Treason of Saruman)
2x West Road Traveller (Return to Mirkwood)
2x Westfold Outrider (The Voice of Isengard)

Attachment (18)
3x Ancient Mathom (A Journey to Rhosgobel)
3x Herugrim (The Treason of Saruman)
3x Map of Earnil (Assault on Osgiliath)
3x Snowmane (The Land of Shadow)
3x Spear of the Mark (The Morgul Vale)
3x Unexpected Courage (Core Set)

Event (15)
2x A Test of Will (Core Set)
1x Astonishing Speed (Return to Mirkwood)
1x Charge of the Rohirrim (Celebrimbor's Secret)
3x Foe-hammer (Over Hill and Under Hill)
1x Forth Eorlingas! (The Morgul Vale)
3x Fortune or Fate (Core Set)
2x Hasty Stroke (Core Set)
2x Mustering the Rohirrim (The Hunt for Gollum)

Your deck contain one hero tactic, who boost tactics hero and one spirit hero, who rely on having a lot of spirit heroes. It is confusing. You are not using any of them for they full power.

You are also playing Gildor Inglorion and I see absolutely no way to have him in play. You are playing 3 fortune or fate and 3 map of earnil like in good old days but since you can only do Caldara ability once in a game you have no good use for more than one of those effects. And even the first is less effective than raising a Prince Imrahil with Caldara ability. And it fit well with the thematic rohan/gondor. I assume that you don't have the card. And anyway sacrifice Caldara for only get one ally is really sad. If you planed to do a fate of fortune after that you could simply cost the ally for the same price, it it would have been easier and you can enjoy a hero with effective abilities instead of Caldara.

As far I remember Assault on Osgiliath is one of the easiest quest of the cycle 3. When you face Ithilien, Defense of Cair Andros, Steward's fear and will face blood on gondor and morgul vale this one is not supposed to be that hard. What do you suffer from? Threat? Lake of willpower? Treachery?

Thank you for your ideas; I really appreciate them. You’re spot on in your analysis.

I think I distracted things by posting my deck. That deck actually won, despite its oddities. It was assembled and played the weekend before Caldara was errata’d, ironically enough. The three copies of the two cards you mentioned were included to ensure they were drawn. The odd combo of heroes was chosen because I try to use heroes from the cycles I’m playing through. Admittedly, their abilities weren’t used to max effect. In the end, I didn’t even have to sacrifice Caldara. I might just have to try it again. The win may have been luck.

Every other deck I’ve used has been crushed by enemy threat strength or enemy combat power. That’s why I’m considering using a published power deck.

Ok. I don't mind the deck anymore :).

I don't know what tell you about the publised power deck. Basically every power deck could win it quite easily. There is a gap between a power deck and a "just heroes for the cycle, and thematic" decks ;). For illustration I just have play the Nightmare version with my 1 hero deck ( http://ringsdb.com/deck/view/60874) and it only take me two try to win.

If you're looking for thematic decks that can still take on the quests themselves, you could check out the decks I used when I played through them in Nightmare mode: https://darklingdoor.wordpress.com/thematic-nightmare/

If they worked in Nightmare, they'll probably work in normal mode too.

Your deck for Blood of gondor didn't work that well since Boromir errata. And it block him for winning turn one if he don't reveal a location turn one ^^

I'll grant you that it probably won't be enough for Nightmare mode post errata anymore, but I suspect it would still work fine in normal mode. Boromir is still plenty powerful!

Thank you both ... good discussion. I checked out Authraw’s link.

I tweaked my deck to Théoden (tactics), Eowyn (tactics), & Dunhere and I swapped out a few cards. I dropped Map of Earnil and Fortune or Fate for Golden Shield and Song of Travel. I also dropped the Elf allies for Rohan allies. It became a pure Rohan deck. This new deck beat Assault on Osgiliath by turn three. Only two locations came out, so I feared it was fluky. Out of curiosity, I kept playing for 18 turns, just to see what would happen, and the deck never ran into any serious trouble. It eventually threated out, but, by then, it had met the win condition multiple times and had taken everything the encounter deck threw at it (including, very late in the game, two copies of “Street Fighting” together popped out 7 cards into the staging area).

Well, I beat Assault on Osgiliath four times in a row and moved on to Blood of Gondor, where the new deck was promptly beaten. Tweaking it again to include Beregond, Eowyn & Théoden (all tactics) resulted in 2 wins & 6 losses. Back to the drawing board.