19 hours ago, old toby said:

If this is TL:DR, or not interesting, let me know. I don't post much anywhere on the net. I am a-okay just lurking. Really enjoy reading this board and others for help, tips, and inspiration. Good luck to you all!

Absolutely love your narrative style... fun to read, I nearly laughed out loud at your self-deprecating honesty. Keep at it, and keep posting!

Last Friday, I played the last Khazad-dum quest, Flight from Moria. I played 4 times, lost/conceded 4 times. Splendid!

I am playing one handed solo with a tri-sphere Dwarf deck led by Bifur, Dain and Gimli.

My first attempt at it, I drew a bad hand and still had a bad hand after a mulligan. During the first round I could not play any allies. I drew Chieftain of the Pit during staging. I did not have anything in my hand that could stop the Chieftain from attacking. Whether or not I block the attack, a hero will die anyway. And since the Nameless Fear is going to be sitting in the staging area, I felt like I could not win with 1 less hero, so I conceded.

My second attempt at it, I also somewhat drew a bad hand and could not play allies during the first round. I drew Sudden Pitfall which means I would have lost Bifur or Gimli, so I conceded again.

I do not remember how I lost my 3rd or 4th attempts, I just know that I didn't get past round 3 LOL. Either way, this Flight from Moria quest is tough and like Escape from Dol Guldur, is going to be very hard to beat playing one-handed solo.

Finch,

thanks for sharing... I'm new to the game and have made it through 'into the pit' and 'seventh level.' I was going to try 'flight from moria' in the next few days and your report helps. escape from dol goldur and return to mirkwood (last mirkwood cycle quest) I couldn't beat solo one hand. if I lose flight from moria a bunch I now know to move on to redhorn gate until I can find someone to play two handed with and help me out...

You can play in easy mode if you find the quest too hard. I don't remember it was this hard in easy mode, except one or two nasty treacheries. But this quest relies a bit on luck to win. I still find Escape from dol guldur harder in solo play (at least, you start Flight from moria with your three heroes)

It's obviously possible to have really bad luck playing the Khazad-Dum quests, but I don't remember it being anywhere nearly as hard as Escape From Dol Guldur and Return to Mirkwood. Bad starting hands evidently don't help. As I recall (and I think it's been 3 years or so since I played Khazad-Dum/Dwarrowdelf), The Redhorn Gate was way harder than Flight From Moria.

Finally started The Sands of Harad. Escape from Umbar proved itself to be a fun and challenging quest, giving us quite clearly the feeling of being hunted throughout the city. Now let's see how we will fare in the desert...

I now remember how I lost my 3rd and 4th attempts. I progressed to Stage 2B and it was Blocked by Shadow. Both times, I risked it by drawing a card, and both times I drew Treachery cards, fml. I think I've been really unlucky with it. I'll give the quest another go on the weekend.

On 11/29/2018 at 9:39 AM, Alonewolf87 said:

Finally started The Sands of Harad. Escape from Umbar proved itself to be a fun and challenging quest, giving us quite clearly the feeling of being hunted throughout the city. Now let's see how we will fare in the desert...

Let us know how you do in Desert Crossing, I found it pretty hard.

7 hours ago, Stewart777 said:

Let us know how you do in Desert Crossing, I found it pretty hard.

We ended up winning it more easily than Escape From Umbar (ended it during the combat phase turn 5 at 32 temperature), but we play a 4 mono-sphere decks fellowship, and the Lore deck has a heavy focus on healing so I guess that made it easier for us (also we built the fellowship around the Gondor trait and Visionary Leadership so we are able to get quite quickly a huge quest output even while mantaining a good combat focus) than normal.

And also The Long Arm of Mordor is behind us. We won once again at the first try (as with Escape from Umbar and Desert Crossing) and we quite liked the unique twist and mechanic of the quest (even though it unvalidated lot of our usual strategies).

Finally got to start playing The Mountain of Fire. Cirith Ungol kept us busy all afternoon and we finally defeated it at the third attempt, in quite the epic game which was hard fought till the end and assisted by a little luck with the player draws. It really conveys the difficulty of the situation and the mechanics are really thematic (and **** those Two Watchers).

And now we fought an amazingly tight game against The Black Gate Opens at the second try (after a very quick first loss during the first try) and managed to ****** up an eight resource with a very lucky appareance of Gwahir as a shadow card in the combat phase of the last turn which left a single hero standing. I think it's quite the good result so we will record it in the campaign log to try then Mount Doom.

Built an Isengard doomed deck that uses Orthanc guard as a primary defender.

Elven-light plus Protector of Lorien plus Steward of Orthanc gives essentially Deep Knowledge on demand (which translates into on- demand readying), while Wild Stallion, Ancestral Armor, and ally Arwen give it enough defense to be effective in that role.

Kind of fun, actually.

And here's the deck:
https://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/10533/aid-of-orthanc-1.0

Needs more playtesting, of course, and it probably isn't particularly strong for solo play. But I'm excited to put it through its paces.

Took apart a couple of decks as I prepared for a get-together next weekend, until toddlers distracted me. Later on I tinkered with a mono-lore combat control deck I've been messing with for several days, and finally published it. Then I played 2-handed Journey Down the Anduin using my tactics-lore Hobbit combat deck and a Dale deck and handily defeated it.

Played Journey in the dark, won twice, killed the Balrog once. Non Campaign, Galadriel made the ultimate sacrifice.

Looked at my log to see what I'd played last year December 11th, it was Nin en Eliph, so I was only in the 4th cycle of my progression. Kinda cool. Memories.

Been so busy at work, hardly have time to check the forums. Anyway, I made another attempt at the Flight from Moria quest and lost again when I drew a Treachery card while resolving the Blocked by Shadow quest card effect. Obviously I need some way to know what the top card of the encounter deck is, before the staging step. For that, I retuned my deck and added Rumour from the Earth to help with that. I have not been able to play with the new deck yet. I might even add Henamarth Riversong if I get desperate after losing again. Thematically I can explain Henamarth's addition as the Dwarves hiring an elven scout to help them in Moria LOL.

Used some Xmas money to pick up The Grey Havens, The Sands of Harad, The Flame of the West and The Wilds of Rhovannion at my local game shop. Now to try and find the associated adventure packs and the remaining saga expansions.

Spent today sleeving and updating my collection of cards at RingsDB.

I played the Withered Heath AP. Conceded twice. Decided to try building another deck and play two handed. I really appreciate this game now seeing the dynamics when playing with or as a second player

Last night I was able to do my 6th attempt at Flight from Moria. I had Rumour from the Earth in my hand for the start of the game. Things were looking good. I knew what the top card was on the encounter deck and was ready for the staging step. On Round 1, I revealed the Narrow Paths quest card. I didn't make any questing progress on Round 1, so I didn't get to trigger the forced effect, I thought I would make it a priority on the next round. Dain defended against a Stray Goblin and Gimli managed to do inflict 1 damage on it. Before the round ended, I played Rumour from the Earth again and knew that the next card coming was a location with 1 threat. I was feeling good.

So on to Round 2, I decided to quest with Bifur and Gimli for a total of 6 willpower. Staging step revealed the location which had 1 threat. The location plus The Nameless Fear had a total of 3 threat, so I quested successfully and proceeded to place the progress token on the quest card, which triggered the forced effect. Since the Abandoned Tools had the Guarded keyword, I ended up revealing Sudden Pitfall! Ouch. Now I had the fun decision of deciding which hero to discard, Bifur or Gimli. I decided to discard Bifur. Now I finish putting all progress tokens on the quest card and realized I completely finished that part of the quest, so now it gets to go to the victory display to add to The Nameless Fear's threat. At this early in the game, round 2, losing Bifur was a huge blow and I conceded at that point. Sauron wins again this time.

However I now have a good feeling that I can beat this quest soon. I just need to be wary of the Sudden Pitfall treachery card when questing. I had Erebor Record Keeper in play on Round 2, but decided to quest with Gimli instead, which was a big mistake. Should not be making that mistake next time.

Happy 2019!

It may not sound like much, but last night while I had some downtime at work and decided to challenge myself to the "play 10 games 10 times in a year" challenge.

I haven't played since a Fellowship event in October, so I put this game on the list. I'm determined to get it to my table more frequently. In fact here's hoping I go well over 10 plays!

After taking a long break from Lotr LCG, I finally beat Flight from Moria last week! Rumour from the Earth was a big help. Now I can move on to quests on the Heirs of Numenor expansion.

I've logged 83 plays this year alone so far hahaha. A good half of those are solo, lots of coop with my wife and 10 are four player multiplayer that we have been going through the Saga campaign. Excellent game!

Just beat Return to Mirkwood with an Isengard Doomed deck. Achievement unlocked!

1 hour ago, Onidsen said:

Just beat Return to Mirkwood with an Isengard Doomed deck. Achievement unlocked!

That is enough doom to probably safely name it mount doom haha. And Keys of Orthanc was probably quite happy eh? Haha