So I have been running my sniper deck of Thalin, SpMerry, and Dunhere. It's been successful with the core and SE two player scenarios, and all of dwarrowdelf except watcher and S&F. I did have to build a small support deck for dol guldor (mho still the hardest scenario in the game solo).

Anyway, I am going to go back and do the mirkwood cycle. In prep for the deck breaker Journey to Rhosgobel, I am issuing a challenge:

Can Journey to Rhosgobel be done with zero lore cards and zero eagles?

Send AAR if you've done it before, and if not, I challenge you to try it.

My goal will be to try to continue my pseudo-secrecy trend, somehow make dunhere ranged, and load up on the tactics ranged elves. And just pray I can get to the athelas.

Let me know!

To be honest, I don't think the eagles are all that useful. I had them in my deck but I don't think I ever really used them. Lore is another case entirely though. Radagast comes in handy, he's neutral, although he's kind of expensive.

Honour Guard can make Rhosgobel easy; the quest targets repeatable healing, but repeatable damage prevention is completely legal.

14 hours ago, Vince79 said:

To be honest, I don't think the eagles are all that useful. I had them in my deck but I don't think I ever really used them. Lore is another case entirely though. Radagast comes in handy, he's neutral, although he's kind of expensive.

My concern is going to be fending off the attacks from the enemies who can only be defended against by ranged or eagle characters.

7 hours ago, player3351457 said:

My concern is going to be fending off the attacks from the enemies who can only be defended against by ranged or eagle characters.

Yeah, I get you. I had them in my deck, but I don't think I ended up using them. Mind you, I only used the eagle cards that were available at the time of that scenario's release, which were only a couple. As for those enemies, I think I ended up just throwing a Forest Snare on them. Luck of the draw, I guess, but those eagles are kind of expensive. IIRC, the enemies in this scenario aren't all that formidable, which is nice.

On 4/18/2019 at 9:32 AM, dalestephenson said:

Honour Guard can make Rhosgobel easy; the quest targets repeatable healing, but repeatable damage prevention is completely legal.

Good call. I guess vigilant guard is of the same vein.

Any other non-Lore cards you would recommend?

Shadow of the Past is probably more useful in this quest than any other -- if you lose an Athelas to being used as a shadow, you can get it back. If you don't have an enemy engaged, you can also recycle Forest Grove after exploring it.

Shadows and treacheries alike in the quest conspire to kill Wilyador, so shadow/treachery cancellation is useful.

Well, I am seven attempts in, and haven't cleared it with my deck yet. The first two rounds were deceptively close, and I haven't had the same traction since then.

Honor guards are must haves. The first round, I was able to take my time since I had two in opening hand. Once they were both out, I searched for athelas. I got two attached, two free, but couldn't close before the treacheries hit.

On the third attempt, I came in loaded for treachery cancelation, and instead got locations. Out of 10 cards flipped (a minor miracle I lasted ten rounds) I flipped 8 locations.

Tonight, in my 0-4 attempts, the cards suggested were fortunate. Vigilant guard is a nice card to have to use both end of round for your eagle but also for the second quest card -- laying your damage on your hero if you are running out of hit points.

The fluctuation is always getting to me. Sometimes I dont bring enough questing. Next its treachery cancellation. Other times I have both prepared but no damage control and the athelas never seems to come... and tick tock out of time.

What a quest! The bats/ravens haven't been as big of a problem as I initially thought. I need more damage control somehow.

Another 5 failures tonight. It's a really balanced encounter deck that just seems to take you out in unique ways. I threated out, lost my heroes to damage, took 6 extra damage on wilyador on two shadow cards, and got location locked again. I will build a mono lore support deck and give it a go.

I toss in the towel to the challenge -- dunno how anyone can do it without lore.

My strategy on this scenario was to use high willpower to speed to the end as fast as I could. This keeps the wounds to a minimum. I used Lore though, along with Leadership. I think I used Glorfindel, Aragorn, and Theodred, quest them all. Usually I got to the end, and it all just came down to whether or not the eagle lived or died.

You're making me want to try it without Lore though, and take up the challenge. Radagast could act as healer, and Eowyn could take Glorfindel's spot. It would take luckier card draws without Lore though, so it seems like the smart thing to do is just play it with Lore.

I did take up the challenge today and tried Journey to Rhosgobel without any Lore or eagle cards. I was actually able to win on first attempt, but to be fair I had a very good first draw of player cards. Didn't even need to take a mulligan.

I used a Leadership/Spirit deck which is a modified version of a deck I got from Wandalf the Gizzard:

https://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/5701/escape-from-dol-guldur-solo-1.0

Basically my strategy is to quest everything I can spare and race through the scenario. You need to get through this one quick because Wylador accumulates two damage per round. So IMO the key is to race to the end, keep his wounds low, and hope you have the athelas to heal him. I was lucky in this game because I had two athelas at the end.

So it can be done without Lore cards, but I'm not sure why you'd want to...

On 4/17/2019 at 2:48 PM, player3351457 said:

Can Journey to Rhosgobel be done with zero lore cards and zero eagles  ? 

I'm kinda interested. Are there any other restrictions? For example cards from set X, Y, and Z only...

Or is it open to whatever we have available?

For what it's worth, I only used cards available at the time of Journey to Rhosgobel's release.

51 minutes ago, Vince79 said:

For what it's worth, I only used cards available at the time of Journey to Rhosgobel's release.

That's a heck of victory. Well done!

2 hours ago, Vermithrax said:

I'm kinda interested. Are there any other restrictions? For example cards from set X, Y, and Z only...

Or is it open to whatever we have available?

No restrictions beyond the lore/eagle combo. I mean you can set your own -- but other than a blitz and some luck, it's hard to deck build around.

I've been told this scenario alone prevents most "one deck to rule them all" attempts.

11 hours ago, Vince79 said:

For what it's worth, I only used cards available at the time of Journey to Rhosgobel's release.

That's impressive! Well done.

4 hours ago, Wandalf the Gizzard said:

That's impressive! Well done.

As much as I'd like to take credit, I was getting very lucky draws. I had Gandalf, Steward of Gondor, Celebrians Stone, Unexpected Courage, Wandering Took, Test of Will, and Dwarven Tomb (which I used to recycle Test of Will) as my opening hand. And I didn't even have to mulligan! I think I only encountered one enemy the whole game - the rest were locations or treacheries, plus I was able to get the two Athelas I needed. I believe it took four rounds. So I was really lucky, but it proved it can be done.

Besides, it was mostly your deck.

Oh, was it? Well, I'm very glad to hear that. I'm happy it was of use!

On 5/1/2019 at 4:39 PM, Wandalf the Gizzard said:

Oh, was it? Well, I'm very glad to hear that. I'm happy it was of use!

The main difference between your deck and the one I had been using is that I had been following the Beorn's Path rule of thumb of having 50% of the cards be allies. What you did (from what I gather) is to keep the low cost allies, and only kept the more expensive ones if they were useful and offered clear value (Faramir, Norther Tracker, and Gandalf). All of those cards are core cards, as you know. The core set has some great cards.

Whatever the reason, I've had a lot more success with your deck, so I've been using it as the basis of any Leadership/Spirit deck that I try to tweak. For the first cycle anyway.

9 hours ago, Vince79 said:

Whateve  r the reason, I've had a lot more success with your de  ck  

I honestly think the 50% allies rule of thumb is a little overrated. Twenty to twenty-five allies is usually a good number to shoot for, but it's not at all as important as it might seem; especially with the low value allies of the Core Set.

It's worth noting that the second Beorn's Path deck constructed to two-hand Dol Goldur (SpEowyn/TaGimli/TaThalin) departs from the 50% ally ratio, using 13 allies out of 40 cards. Having more allies to play matters more in double leadership (Faramir ally) than elsewhere. The second version of that deck (Return to Mirkwood) does rise to 22 of 50 allies, but at that point it is an Eagles deck.

10 hours ago, Wandalf the Gizzard said:

I honestly think the 50% allies rule of thumb is a little overrated. Twenty to twenty-five allies is usually a good number to shoot for, but it's not at all as important as it might seem; especially with the low value allies of the Core Set.

You had 18 allies in the deck I referred to, just FYI. Having a lot of allies was serving me well until I got to that Escape from Dol Guldur quest, so I just left them in.

Apparently I took the Beorn's Path "50% allies" rule a little to literally, or maybe I just didn't read in depth enough. As @dalestephenson mentioned, Beorn's Path recommended playing two handed solo for Dol Guldur, so I didn't pay too much attention to it. I like to play one handed solo, playing two handed is cheating lol (just kidding).

Dale is correct. Honour Guard and Shadow of the Past are excellent tools against Rhosgobel.

I went ahead and built a tactics / spirit deck and played several games against Rhosgobel. Its not perfect but I think it works pretty well once you get the hang of it.

https://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/12111/freewilyrhosgobelwithoutlore-1.0

I put several deck notes with the entry so i won't drone on here much. I do want to mention I found A Watchful Peace to be quite handy as it allows you to recycle Forest Grove.

Not even considering Rhosgobel for a moment - I did notice that 3x Shadow of the Past and 3x A Watchful Peace put me in a good position to lock the encounter deck for a few rounds.