I can see it.

I ended up taking a token against Across the Ettenmoors -- I scooped the first time when (in the second turn) I failed to place progress on the starting Lie Low side-quest and engaged the two nasty giants in staging to go with the Trollspawn I'd already engaged. The second time I managed to make it through, despite Eowyn getting nerfed by No Rest. I managed to keep my questing allies healthy with the help of Honour Guard.

So here's how we did against Across the Ettenmoors (outside cards in parens)

0 PigsAreOurEquals (0)
0 Velensk (26)
0 Miceldars (26)
1 dalestephenson (26)

And the overall standings:

0 PigsAreOurEquals (0)
1 Miceldars (26)
2 dalestephenson (26)
3 Velensk (26)

No one has posted their Dread Realm score yet. The final deadline is Dec 31st, so plenty of time to build a deck and join the league.

Since three of us have the same number of outside cards (26), I was curious how the tiebreakers would go if we ended with the same number of tokens.

2nd tiebreaker -- number of heroes from LR/AA + TaEowyn. Two for each of us.

3rd tiebreaker -- number of heroes from list Halbarad, TaAragorn, Dori, Arwen, TaEowyn. Two for each of us (I used Dori, they used TaAragorn, we all used TaEowyn).

4th tiebreaker -- number of cards in deck outside LR/AA -- that's 31 for me, 37 for Velensk and 41 for Miceldars. I only used five cards from the core set -- 2 feints and 3 Gandalfs.

Very bad luck this time on dread realm, 6 tokens and I still lose. I manage to go in phase 2 only once v_v

I ended up taking 8 tokens. I actually made it to stage three with one token, but too many locations were out and the damage killed my questing.

I find the dread realm very hard : it focus heavily on combat, espacially with this cursed dead who can come with his 4 cursed friends and just kill you in solo (it happend one time, Daechanar + 1 reanimated + 5 cursed dead v_v), but you need a high amount of willpower on the final turn (or many hit points on your characters) . In stage 3, all my heroes had 1 hit point, but there was only 1 location in staging, so with sword that was broken + faramir I had enough willpower.

I gave a couple of decks a go for this, but the only one I had any success with was pretty similar to the one built by @PigsAreOurEquals , so I think I'm going to pass on actually recording results for the December league.

I had fun trying out different deckbuilds for this one, though. The fact that Amarthiul is ineligible cuts the number of ideal Leadership heroes down to just Halbarad, and I couldn't quite pull off a consistent Dunedain deck without turn 1 access to Heirs and Steward. I wish a few more of the Ents had been in this cycle, we're partway to a pretty good Ent deck here, but a few key pieces are missing (especially Treebeard).

Interesting challenge! I look forward to seeing how next month goes.

Last night I finally completed the Dread Realm. I completed it on the fourth attempt. For me this was the best challenge so far mainly due to the difficulty of The Dread Realm.

@Authraw: Can you explain why Amarthuil is not allowed? I thought he was.

The two ents (Wellinghall preserver and Derndingle Warrior) proved a very solid defense in this challenge, but for an ent deck the crucial pieces like Entmoot are not in cycle.

You have Amarthiul as an ally in Accros the Ettenmoor, so you can't use it for this scenario.

7 hours ago, Miceldars said:

You have Amarthiul as an ally in Accros the Ettenmoor, so you can't use it for this scenario.

I think you mean the Objective Ally is Bamarthiul?

7 hours ago, Miceldars said:

You have Amarthiul as an ally in Accros the Ettenmoor, so you can't use it for this scenario.

Ah I see, I thought I had overlooked a rule of the solo-league. I admit that I always "house-rule" away any conflict between objective allies and player cards.
So count me as one of the Bamarthiul players.

14 hours ago, Network57 said:

I think you mean the Objective Ally is Bamarthiul?

?

Sorry, I don't understand what you mean.

@Miceldars : It's a running joke that uniqueness conflicts can be avoided by drawing an extra B to change the name.
Like Arwen and "Barwen" (some Dwarrowdelf quests have an objective Arwen ally), in this case Amerthiul and "Bamarthiul".

Ok, I see.

I admit I usually don't take care about objective ally, I play arwen (or amarthiul) even in scenario where they are as an objective.

Only four of us posted our results against the final quest, and it didn't go well for any of us (outside cards in parens)

3 PigsAreOurEquals (0)
3 Velensk (26)
8 dalestephenson (26)
8 Miceldars (26)

Authraw choose not to post his results, though they were undoubtedly better than mine. Here's the final standings:

3 PigsAreOurEquals (0)
6 Velensk (26)
9 Miceldars (26)
10 dalestephenson (26)

After taking no tokens in the first three leagues, Dori helped me to last place. While Dori is better suited for multiple decks, I think I had a good hero lineup, but my deck was not well constructed for these quests, and I got far less of the luck that helped me through the first three leagues.

PigsAreOurEquals gets to choose a cycle for February's league, Velensk gets to choose a quest to play from that cycle, and Miceldars gets to choose a quest not to play from that cycle. I get to choose an additional cycle to count for player cards, in an effort to increase the possible diversity of decks.

Thank you for playing, and I hope to see more players in January.

I will pick the RingMaker cycle. I picked it up as a Christmass gift to myself and now I'm eager to play it.

I realize we never beat The dunland trap with my girlfriend, because of the phase 2 where we lose all allies and attachments. I think I would exclude this one, but The three trials seams hard in solo play, with the three guardians... What do you suggest ? You probably know the quest better than me.

For me one of the conclusions from the past league is that it is good to have 1 hard quest in the league which can act as tiebreaker. This is better than deciding the winner based on in-cycle cards and heroes.

I decided to exclude The three trials, because I think it is a bit more random as you randomly choose a guardian for each trial, and there is probably some combination better than others, and that could make some difference on how many token will be needed for each player.

If Velensk chooses the three trials you'll need to choose a different quest to exclude, as his pick has priority. But he may choose a different quest.

I'll pick Lost Realm/Angmar Awakened for a supplemental player card cyle. Ringmaker itself only supports Silvan as a full-fledged archtype, but adding in LR/AA will allow plenty of Ents or a Dunedain deck.

PAOE chose Ringmaker, Velensk has chosen Trouble in Tharbad, and Miceldars excluded Three Trials.

Selecting the other two quests randomly, we have:

The Fords of Isen (Deluxe)
Trouble in Tharbad (AP3)
Antlered Crown (AP6)

As Grima is an objective ally in Fords of Isen, the possible choices for mandatory hero are TaEomer (VoI), Haldir (Tharbad), and Erkenbrand (Antlered Crown).

I choose LostRealm/Angmar as a supplemental cycle for player cards, so there should be alternatives to a Silvan deck with Haldir.