Personal Progress - Milestones

By TheSpitfired, in The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game

We finally killed the Balrog in The Long Dark! During our Saga run we decided to forgo sacrificing the hero, so we never killed it in the official way, but today while testing a couple of Contract decks we tried the quest again and finally got the chance to slay the foe!

Heirs of Numenor truly is brutal!

After multiple struggles with Peril in Pelagir (PiP) it was finally defeated. I was running 2-handed solo with my two silvan decks, a mono-Lore and a Tactics/Leadership. They just were not cutting it against these quests. I was able to defeat PiP. The trick? I swapped out the mono-Lore Silvans for my 3-player deck - A Spirit-Lore Woodman/Dale scout deck with Haldan, Lanwyn, Idraen and the Burglar's Turn contract. It feels like something unconventional that somehow still works and is fun to play.

So I went after Into Ithilien. Veterans can chuckle as they guess how this went! Not well. Burglar deck could not beat it solo and could not beat it with the Silvan elves help. That early combat against enemies with 5 attack was too punishing. I didn't despair, but the puzzle was daunting.

Last night before I went to bed I had an idea. I promptly jumped on cardgamedb and put together my newest creation: A Three Hunters contract deck featuring Tactics Beregond, Tactics Gimli and Spirit Legolas. It felt very clever and looked amazing on paper. I played the game with a friend and took the deck on a trial run, pairing it with my woodman/dale scout deck on Journey Down the Anduin. Even without critical cards the Hunters crushed it! It was time for the rematch with Into Ithilien.

Into Ithilien was nearly a slaughter. Between ill-timed shadow cards, tough enemies and locations that are immune to player card effects (reducing the Woodman/Dale burglar deck's efficiency by a lot percent) it was looking fairly grim. On what would be the final turn of the game I had my siege-questing nearly cut in half by horrible shadow cards, causing the loss of 3 allies, 1 objective ally and one hero from each deck. I barely made the final 3 progress needed to top the quest off and log the win. Citadel plates saved the lives of Beregond, Gimli and Idraen. Beregond has been a true workhorse despite the fact that in 2 quests he has yet to see his trusty Gondorian Shield!

I can only imagine how brutal these quests were to both voluntary and involuntary progressive players. Here I am with the entire card pool running what I believe to be decent decks and I still barely cut it.

I like going into quests blind but I did preview the quest stage cards for The Siege of Cair Andros, and it does look tough. However, I will not despair and it is next!

On 10/21/2019 at 4:07 AM, TheSpitfired said:

New milestone for me - I played and beat the Redhorn Gate tonight and ended the quest with 0 threat. I never dreamed I’d ever do that in any quest!

I think my best milestone so far is beating Conflict at the Carrock and finishing with 0 threat - and a final score of exactly 1000.

Finally found a Core Set in stock. Gotta start somewhere, right?

*cherry pop* Hello!

The Siege of Cair Andros has been defeated! As much as I want to stand the proud and peerless warrior, I had to fail this quest 4 times before passing it once and I still think there was a huge degree of luck in how the cards came out.

To say it was tough was an understatement. My decks went through several revisions. The Spirit Legolas, Tactics Gimli and Tactics Beregond three hunters deck dropped the contract and became Tactics Beregond, Tactics Boromir, Spirit Legolas as I just didn't have enough siege questing and had to get Defenders of Rammas in there. If this deck ever draws perfectly it will truly be a spectacle to behold!

For the second deck I ended up drafting a completely new mono-Lore support deck. Drawing on some good cards from how the Mono-Lore Elves worked, this deck featured Denethor, Damrod and Faramir and brought back one of my favorite mechanics: Traps! Yes I knew they wouldn't help much if the Mumak joined the staging area but I needed something against these strong enemies. Entangling Nets is my new favorite. This deck also featured the healing I needed to keep heroes alive. Ioreth proved her value this day and was absolutely essential in surviving. From untimely Orc Assaults to bad appearances from a battering ram, to The Master's Malice which always put 3 damage on Legolas, Ioreth was invaluable from the time she hit the table to the end of the game.

Even with these decks, like I said this quest still took multiple attempts. I don't want to talk about how many times Beregond went the entire game without a Gondorian Shield. I will mention one humorous time where I had him defend an attack against a battering ram, he had his shield, and the shadow cards drew more shadow cards, with the final one giving the ram +1 attack for each shadow card it had, giving the enemy enough attack to still one-shot Beregond. Did I mention he had a round shield too? Like I said, it's all about how the cards come out.

I was able to discard two quest stages during this victorious attempt, The Rafts and the Citadel. While I was eventually able to explore the Ramparts it was already the active quest card. However that did setup the Final Battle to have Battle instead of Siege. On the final turn I threw a trap into the staging area and went battle questing with everything I could. 19 in total. The first card was another Master's Malice. Cue sweat and 3 damage on Legolas. The second card was a lowly Orc Arsonist who I dispatched with Forest Patrol, allowing me to quest to victory.

I'm not sure when I'll be able to start the cycle, but finally getting past this quest was a huge victory for my morale. The Steward's Fear is next!

Edited by TheSpitfired
cleaned up a bit
14 minutes ago, TheSpitfired said:

and the shadow cards drew more shadow cards, with the final one giving the ram +1 attack for each shadow card it had,

I had an Orc Vanguard get to 19 attack and attacking twice in that quest once with the shadow cards combo, I still have nightmares about that

13 hours ago, Alonewolf87 said:

I had an Orc Vanguard get to 19 attack and attacking twice in that quest once with the shadow cards combo, I still have nightmares about that

As if the Vanguard wasn't brutal enough on its own! Nothing screws up my favorite mono-lore card "The Great Hunt" like the Vanguard does!

The crazy thing is I have cards like Sterner than Steel, Feint, Hasty Stroke for dealing with shadow cards, but I'll tell you what I never see them when I need them. Even on the Lore side A Burning Brand only came out for Denethor once or twice.

Well, we approach the final hour of the forums. You look to the East, and here I come with Erkenbrand and the turn of the tide. Maybe not, but it is high time I gave one final update before the Age of the Forum has ended.

We last left off mid-may with a victory over the brutal siege of Cair Andros. I don't remember what happened between May and June but after these posts I didn't play for a bit. Long story short I first attempted The Steward's Fear on July 6th, 2020. I got my butt kicked.

In 4 attempts over the next 10 days I could not make any progress in this quest. I just couldn't figure it out. I finally built a spirit Glorfindel One-Ring "Grey Wanderer" deck and much to my surprise it consistently got to the final stage of the quest when no other deck I built could. That deck eventually beat the quest, and as I sat in the "virtual tavern" telling my 3-player group the tale of my glorious battle my friend had to observe that I had played the game wrong. I had missed some of the FAQ and I did not know that the spirit event "Stand and Fight" could not be used on neutral allies. So my heavy reliance on it to bring Gandalf back from the discard pile to bring me victory was null and void.

I kept going, determined to beat the quest. However, other RL changes occurred (good ones mind you) and the time between games increased. Over the past 7 months I logged over a dozen attempts on the quest with various decks. I tried everything I could think of and tailored each one to the quest specifically. I just could not beat it. This demoralized me. I'm not even counting the digital attempts using Table-Top Simulator, that's how poorly it went. I even went to easy mode and part of me thinks that made it worse in some ways! My friends tried to advise, but admittedly they told me that they had beat the quest almost every time they went against it, and their struggle was against the next encounter, The Druadan Forest. That didn't make me feel better!

I had settled into what I believe is a very good deck, a Rohan Forth the Three Hunters Contract deck featuring Fastred, Dunhere and Tactics Eowyn. The deck worked pretty well but due to no allies and amazingly poor luck in encounter card draws it was very common for the deck to go into questing and draw 5-8 encounter cards due to surges. The deck needed a partner to go at the quest 2-handed solo, and we went back to the drawing board.

Two weeks ago I finally got the idea for a basic Outlands deck. (Leadership) Aragorn, Hirluin, Beregond. It was a big step in the right direction but I struggled to get the deck firing. I revised it last week and turned it into what I call the "Outland Rangers of Gondor." It still has Hirluin, but now had Damrod and Leadership Faramir. Traps to complement the Outlands when the allies were not drawing. Friday the Outland Rangers and Rohan Hunters finally saw victory against this quest, 7 months after I first attempted it. I have never been so beat down by a quest and to finally see one legitimate victory against it was a great feeling.

Saturday, I played the Druadan Forest solo with the Rohan Hunters and nearly beat it. As I reset the decks to play it again I realized a grave mistake I had been making. In all the time I had played with the Three Hunters contract and this Rohan deck, not once had I reduced the cost of the first restricted attachments I was playing on the heroes each turn. This meant my the loss I just suffered against the Forest should not have happened (long story), and I beat the quest on the next attempt. I won't say with ease but I will say I very much enjoyed the ques mechanics, particularly the mechanics in the third stage where you are siege questing and fighting with your willpower. That is interesting.

I just beat Encounter at Amon Din about an hour ago and that was another quest I really enjoyed. I know these Gondor quests are some of the brutal hard ones, but at the same time I love the theme. The villager mechanic in this quest is fascinating. For the record, 7 villagers killed, 19 saved. Fun stuff.

That's where I am at. Assault on Osgiliath is next and I can't wait to check it out. The deck ideas are flowing, and the game is fun again. Even when it wasn't, the it still was for the theme.

Should I keep this journey going on a wordpress blog or something? I'm not to keen to post stuff like this on BGG, reddit, or even the COTR discord if I joined. That being said if there are even a few people interested I will find a way to keep recording my journey.

Thank you for your kind words, your inspirations and the cheers and moans you have shared with me in through these quests. It has truly been a pleasure.

Edited by TheSpitfired
cleaned up a bit

I for one would love to see it continue!

So glad you made such quick work of Druadan Forest! I think it's rather fitting that Rohan had so little trouble negotiating a peace with the Woses where Gondor struggled so very much. :)

I agree that Encounter at Amon Din is just a wonderfully exciting quest with a great theme One of my favorites, to date.

I think these Campfire Tales should very much continue on a blog or something! For what it's worth, the COTR Discord has an entire channel devoted to Session-Reports like these and folks generally love this sort of stuff, but it wouldn't hurt to have all your narrative accounts linked together in one central location.

May the winds be ever in your favor as you continue to press on against the shadow in the HoN cycle. I think the worst of it is behind you. Once you hit the great plains of Rohan in Ringmaker, you'll be farther than any of us local players have gone! Like Samwise, taking that first nervous step past Farmer Maggot's fields and into the great unknown...

Edited by EBerling

Hey Everyone!

Thank you for your kind words and encouragement. Instead of playing like I wanted to tonight, I setup a wordpress blog. My future progress documentation now has a home. I'm calling the blog "All That Shuffles is not Dealt." If you would like to follow my adventures through the quests you may find them at:

https://allthatshuffles.wordpress.com/

For now the site is very basic, I'm very much out of my element. I will improve it as I learn and for now it will get the job done! I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoy writing it!

Hope to see you there!