Me and my girlfriend are going to try in the next days (as soon as we have the time) our first shot at Mount Doom, after what I consider a decent run at The Black Gate Opens, which granted us 8 tokens. We are using a 4 mono sphere decks fellowships, mainly built around a Gondor swarm (LeBoromir + Visionary Leadership) with quite some healing and TaBeregond as main defender.

Apart from what I read around (keep the characters count as low as possible, get a lot of reading/not exhaust to quest effects) is there some specific advice you can give us to prepare at the best for this quest? I am expecting to have to try it quite some times before getting through. Unfortunately the idea of modifying our decks specifically for the quest is a kind of last resort for us, having brought those decks through all the Saga (and almost all the normal quests) we would really like to go on as always.

Mt. Doom is definitely not a quest which wants you to go on as always, but I wish you the best of luck. 8 rounds is a very comfortable number for this quest. I mostly ignored the Fortitude tests in my win, just dealing with the consequences of failing them. And surprisingly, side quests can help. Stalling on stage 2 of the quest was useful, Scout Ahead is an excellent quest to buy yourself some time, and Rally the West supports the generally recommended strategy of having a low character count.

Lay of Nimrodel is a bomb card for this quest, if you can afford resources to use it.

By the way what can be considered in your opinion the minimum number of rounds at the balck gate opens to "confortably" approach mount doom?

We just finished our first run, ending up with 4 progress token on Mount Doom before losing. It will surely need some strategic planning and from what I can determine handling the turns so that when the time comes for the last Fortitude test the first player is the one better equipped to deal with it among the 4 decks can be crucial.

Still an epic and amazing quest, I am still gettin goosebumps.

Glad you got so far on your first try! I think the only time I made it to Mt. Doom was the time I won...

Halberto: you can win it in 4 rounds (one per quest stage). I stalled 2 rounds deliberately when I won, so I completed the quest during round 5. I had 7 resources on Mt. Doom and I don't recall ever feeling pressured to complete the quest within that amount of time. I would call 6 safe, 7 comfortable and anything more than that extra icing. 4 is possible if everything goes perfectly, 5 is doable but you'll sweat.

While we will probably give it a shot or two again with the old decks I am starting to think about some modifications and so I created a Felloswhip on RingsDB with some new ideas. I hope you guys can take a look at it and give me more specific suggestions if you are up to it.

https://ringsdb.com/fellowship/view/5945

3 hours ago, GrandSpleen said:

Glad you got so far on your first try! I think the only time I made it to Mt. Doom was the time I won...

Halberto: you can win it in 4 rounds (one per quest stage). I stalled 2 rounds deliberately when I won, so I completed the quest during round 5. I had 7 resources on Mt. Doom and I don't recall ever feeling pressured to complete the quest within that amount of time. I would call 6 safe, 7 comfortable and anything more than that extra icing. 4 is possible if everything goes perfectly, 5 is doable but you'll sweat.

Thanks. i played it only a few times some time ago and I think I always was doing it in 6/7 turns. I want to try it and black gate opens again with the different approach: see what i can do in terms of the speedrun mount doom as fast as possible and the stalling black gate as long as possible. In two separate quests obviously.

22 hours ago, GrandSpleen said:

Mt. Doom is definitely not a quest which wants you to go on as always, but I wish you the best of luck. 8 rounds is a very comfortable number for this quest. I mostly ignored the Fortitude tests in my win, just dealing with the consequences of failing them. And surprisingly, side quests can help. Stalling on stage 2 of the quest was useful, Scout Ahead is an excellent quest to buy yourself some time, and Rally the West supports the generally recommended strategy of having a low character count.

In our first try we indeed ended up playing Keep Watch in stage 2 and completing it to quite some effect. I will think about adding Rally the West, it seems quite a good idea.

Secrecy and keeping the ally count down helped us a lot. Sam, Pippin, Rosie and Galadriel on one team, Eowyn, Glorfindel, Dunhere on the other.

(I think it actually works better to do Mountain of Fire before the Black Gate; changes the feel of that mission, to where you need to hold out a certain number of turns.)

Were you able to stay in Secrecy despite the Dire keyword? (meaning, you can only reduce your threat by 1 per round)

No, we didn't stay in secrecy the whole time, or even past turn 1! (Might be possible in a two hero deck, but not with 3.)

Rosie, Strider, Sword Thane, Fast Hitch, Celebrian's Stone was the core of one deck.

Dunhere clearing enemies in staging was the other deck. (Dunhere had an attack boon.)

Both decks had very few allies.

Spare Cloak actually was fairly useful.

14 hours ago, GrandSpleen said:

Were you able to stay in Secrecy despite the Dire keyword? (meaning, you can only reduce your threat by 1 per round)

I explained it badly; we had done the "Frodo" missions with secrecy decks. When we got to Mountain of Fire, we adapted them specifically for the mission.

The key element of the quest seemed to be managing threat; keeping it mostly in the 20s was a great help.

To do this, we went with very few allies. Some effects are really punishing with lots of characters.

We were fortunate to have used Dunhere most of the saga; with +1 attack and ignoring 2 armour, he could clear the staging area quickly. ( He came in huge in Bree and again in the crossroads, straight shot a Mumak.)

With Galadriel/Rosie, spare cloaks, readying effects, we almost always had someone with 7+ willpower to do a fortitude test. (There is a window for player actions before the test!)

Stuff to deal with locations is a big help as well.

Hopefully that clarifies what worked for us.

13 minutes ago, ColinEdwards said:

The key element of the quest seemed to be managing threat; keeping it mostly in the 20s was a great help.

How did you stay in the 20s when at the end of each round you increase your threat by 1 for each non-fellowship character (so at least three usually) and considering you cannot reduce your threat by more than 1 each turn? Also there is the treachery that have you either increase your threat by 1 for each questing character or discard 1 of them (and quite often you can't cancel those if they are the first of the quest phase).

1 hour ago, Alonewolf87 said:

How did you stay in the 20s when at the end of each round you increase your threat by 1 for each non-fellowship character (so at least three usually) and considering you cannot reduce your threat by more than 1 each turn?

You hopefully can burn 3 golden hairs at the start (threat reduction from boons still works beyond 1.)

Starting in your teens, especially with Galadriel, you can last a while; the whole mission is only about 5-6 rounds.

15 minutes ago, ColinEdwards said:

You hopefully can burn 3 golden hairs at the start (threat reduction from boons still works beyond 1.)

Starting in your teens, especially with Galadriel, you can last a while; the whole mission is only about 5-6 rounds.

We had to use that boon in The Passing of the Grey Company unfortunately. That said in four players it's basically assured you can see Old Water-Course so there is that at least.

Even more assured since you can (and it is recommended) choose to put it on the staging area on the setup of the quest 1A. And since it has a victory value you won't see him again even with 4 players.

18 minutes ago, Rouxxor said:

Even more assured since you can (and it is recommended) choose to put it on the staging area on the setup of the quest 1A. And since it has a victory value you won't see him again even with 4 players.

Yeah, that's what I meant.

The second try also went badly, still got to travel to Mount Doom but some bad luck in that turn and in the following one (two Foul Fumes in Stage 4 of the quest where they cannot be cancelled straight killed Frodo). The decks fared a little better after some trimming but Spirit had some awful luck in drawing.

On 12/12/2018 at 7:00 PM, ColinEdwards said:

(There is a window for player actions before the test!)

Well it actually depends. If the fortitude test is required by an encounter card revealed during the staging step there is no player's action window between the reveal of the card and the test, only after you determine the total number of Sauron's Eye icons. Of course you have your usual action window after sending characters to the quest and before the staging step (or after the staging step and before the total progress is determined so you can prepare heroes for the fortitude test that let's you put the resource tokens on that stage).

One problem I had was that for Stage 3 I was basically forced to get the +1 threat from Heavy Burden, so that Frodo would be ready at the beginning of the quest phase for the preemptive Fortitude test that lets you put more than 5 progress per round on that stage. That's because I assumed there is no player's action window between the very end of the Planning Phase (where you have to choose what effect Heavy Burden will have) and the very start of the quest phase (where you have to do the Fortitude test), so I couldn't use Fast Hitch to prepare Frodo in between. Perhaps I did it wrong?

I think there was a clarification from a developer that something to the effect that "a fortitude test creates its own window for player actions immediately preceding the test"

(We had to look it up, but it feels to me that it was intended to work that way.)

2 minutes ago, ColinEdwards said:

I think there was a clarification from a developer that something to the effect that "a fortitude test creates its own window for player actions immediately preceding the test"

That would be quite convenient, do you perhaps have a link or something?

I'd have to Google for it. (The Golum escape test in shadows of mirkwood has a similar mechanic and ruling, if I recall correctly, so I may be getting things crossed! In both cases: actions are allowed immediately prior to the test.)

3 minutes ago, ColinEdwards said:

I'd have to Google for it. (The Golum escape test in shadows of mirkwood has a similar mechanic and ruling, if I recall correctly, so I may be getting things crossed! In both cases: actions are allowed immediately prior to the test.)

For the Escape test in Shadows of Mirkwood I am quite sure there is only an action window after committing characters, but before revealing cards (see this Q&A to Caleb)

Question

Escape Tests (The Dead Marshes)

Is there the opportunity to play actions during the resolution of a escape test, after the escape cards have been dealt but before the players will is calculated? As in a similar window to the quest phase after the staging area is revealed but before quest tokens are placed.

Answer

No, there is no action window at that time. The only action window during an Escape test is after committing characters to the test but before dealing cards from the encounter deck.

Cheers,
Caleb

So if the Escape test is required from a card revealed during the staging step you would not have any actions to use before having to commit characters to the test (but reactions like Wingfoot would work).

http://www.lotr-lcg-quest-companion.gamersdungeon.net/mobile.html

Looks like the action window is after the icons are revealed