58 minutes ago, Vince79 said:

Seriously, mono Tactics? Why the lol then?

That's really amazing if true. Just because I haven't seen a scenario that called for a monosphere deck since.... ever. I gave up on them back in the Core box. I've heard of people who played one handed monosphere Tactics decks, but I figured they were using cards much later in the Expansion chain. Exciting, really.

Mono tactics for general play will take more than a little bit of development from the card pool you are using.

But the specific nature of the against the shadow cycle and the heirs of numenor box - most particularly, the battle and siege keywords - mean that a number of the quests from the deluxe/cycle work best with a mono tactics focus. The reason that tactics was the weakest sphere during the early life of the game was because it was too specialized. Tactics could spam out cost effective combat allies quicker and more efficiently than any other sphere, but it struggled at contributing to any other part of the game.

But the battle and siege keywords mean that those high quality or at least highly efficient combat allies are useful both for questing and for handling combat after you've exhausted a bunch of combat characters to quest.

10 hours ago, Vince79 said:

Seriously, mono Tactics? Why the lol then?

That's really amazing if true. Just because I haven't seen a scenario that called for a monosphere deck since.... ever. I gave up on them back in the Core box. I've heard of people who played one handed monosphere Tactics decks, but I figured they were using cards much later in the Expansion chain. Exciting, really.

Against the Shadow as a whole encourages mono-sphere deck building. There are several player cards which have a mono-sphere theme, including events which must have all heroes with the same printed sphere (Strength of Arms), the record attachments, and even heroes like Mirlonde who is most effective in mono-Lore.

The encounter cards also encourage mono-sphere in some instances. I won't spoil Siege for you if you haven't played it yet, but there are definitely reasons you might want to play mono-sphere, and also reasons to play tactics.

It isn't an easy quest either way, but I have had success myself with both mono-Tactics and a more traditional dual-sphere deck.

On 11/17/2019 at 11:51 PM, Onidsen said:

But the specific nature of the against the shadow cycle and the heirs of numenor box - most particularly, the battle and siege keywords - mean that a number of the quests from the deluxe/cycle work best with a mono tactics focus.

I can see this now. Makes sense with the battle theme. Funny thing with this game. As soon as I think I have the game figured out, they throw you a curve. Monosphere decks, who would have thought it?

34 minutes ago, Vince79 said:

I can see this now. Makes sense with the battle theme. Funny thing with this game. As soon as I think I have the game figured out, they throw you a curve. Monosphere decks, who would have thought it?

And think thatm e and my wife played through all the quests of the game with four mono sphere deck, one for each sphere.

The man ain't wrong. Mono-Tactics is the silver bullet for Cair Andros. With the correct build, it's hard to lose.

On 11/19/2019 at 10:21 AM, Wandalf the Gizzard said:

Mono-Tactics is the silver bullet for Cair Andros. With the correct build, it's hard to lose.

I think you might be overstating things a bit when you say it's hard to lose. I've been fooling around with it with a Progressive style mono-Tactics deck and I've won a few and lost a few more. I feel like I've been using the best Tactics cards (taking cost effectiveness into account) available at the time that I can. If things go right, they go right. But there are a few nasty shadow effects and such that can mess you up if they fall a certain way.

So how's the rest of the Against the Shadow cycle go? Do those also call for mostly mono-Tactics decks?

I'm also tempted to go back and try the first two scenarios in Heirs of Numenor with the mono-Tactics, does that work? I seem to recall one of them required some threat reduction ability.

Also, do any of you guys use Gandalf in a mono-Tactics deck? Because it doesn't seem practical really, since you don't have Sneak Attack or Steward of Gondor available, unless you throw in a Song.

For the most part, you can use “normal” decks (in terms of sphere distribution) for most of the quests in the cycle. There are some treacheries that encourage mono-sphere, though.

Regarding Gandalf, yes, and three-of! Tactics needs the threat reduction, and it can afford five resources with its lack of card draw.

I second Gandalf's inclusion - he does a lot that mono Tactics is lacking: card draw, threat reduction and high willpower.

For Against the shadow, there is less Battle and Siege questing on average than Heirs, so mono Tactics loses its edge a bit. The quests are quite varied in this cycle so you may need to build some varied decks.

I'll have to try it (including Gandalf). But playing Siege of Cair Andros , it seems like I've been using a lot of resources to keep things building. I'm not sure if there's been a point where I've managed to save up five to pay for Gandalf. Maybe toward the end of the game.

I also noticed in playing this scenario that if I'm successful, I usually manage to knock out quest cards 2, 3, and 4, so threat reduction isn't usually a concern. If I'm successful.

Edited to say:

I've tried Siege of Cair Andros a few more times, with Gandalf. Won one, lost one. In the first game I folded because I lost Gimli in the second round (stupid shadow effects again). In the second, I won fairly easily but Gandalf didn't show up until the last round, and I only had four resources at the time. So he didn't play a part in either game. So in this particular scenario, I don't think he's really a necessary inclusion. I think I'll move on to the next quest.

I don't play very often but I have been stuck on Stewards Fear for 2 years. Majority loses in easy mode too. Most of the treacheries are just awful. Good luck.

Steward's Fear is a classic! Probably the best quest from the cycle.

On 11/25/2019 at 6:23 AM, ScottGilbert25 said:

I don't play very often but I have been stuck on Stewards Fear for 2 years. Majority loses in easy mode too. Most of the treacheries are just awful. Good luck.

I've just played this a few times (unsuccessfully), trying to figure out the best deck and strategy to use. I keep thinking, wow when am I going to catch a break and get an easy quest. It's only rated a 3 on difficulty, IIRC. Just needs the right key to unlock it. It's got that treachery that puts one damage on all your allies, I hate that one, since a lot of cheap allies only have one hit point, it can wipe out your allies.

7 minutes ago, Vince79 said:

I've just played this a few times (unsuccessfully), trying to figure out the best deck and strategy to use. I keep thinking, wow when am I going to catch a break and get an easy quest. It's only rated a 3 on difficulty , IIRC. Just needs the right key to unlock it. It's got that treachery that puts one damage on all your allies, I hate that one, since a lot of cheap allies only have one hit point, it can wipe out your allies.

The difficulty rating is worth less than a handful of sand in the Saharan Desert.

The player ratings at the LCG quest companion are a much better judge of difficulty, though it can vary widely according to your deck. Here's where the nine quests of the HoN/AtS cycle are rated, and the closest difficulty rating from the first two cycles:

8.1 The Siege of Cair Andros (Deluxe 3) [Shadow and Flame 7.9]

7.9 Morgul Vale (AP6) [Shadow and Flame 7.9]

7.7 Into Ithilien (Deluxe 2) [Escape from Dol Goldur 7.8]

6.8 Peril in Pelargir (Deluxe 1) [Return to Mirkwood 7.1]

6.4 The Steward's Fear (AP 1) [Watcher in the Water 6.4]

5.8 Blood of Gondor (AP 5) [Redhorn Gate 5.6]

5.4 Druadan Forest (AP 2) [Journey Down the Anduin 5.3]

5.1 Assault on Osgaliath (AP 4) [Road to Rivendell 5.1]

3.0 Encounter at Amon Din (AP 3) [Hills of Emyn Muil 2.7]

The three deluxe quests are 3 of the 4 hardest in the cycle, according to the raters. Steward's Fear is rated as the second toughest of the APs, though. I think the multiple paths have given the quest a lot of extra variability -- but it is a quest with a lot of devastating cards, especially for certain decks, and it's also a quest with large inherent randomness -- it's much easier when clues come out of the Underworld deck, and depending on your deck some plots/villains may be *much* harder to take than others.

Hm, is Shadow and Flame really an 8 compared to Road to Rivendell's 5? Spirit Frodo made this quest really easy and it does not have Sleeping Sentry in it.

I would say so, but it really depends on how you would personally rate difficulty based on random chance.

Road to Rivendell is really not a hard quest if you except the, admittedly devastating, treacheries that can scupper you. It should be a fairly easy win for any standard questing deck as long as you don't get a bad combination/timing of treacheries - quite possible given the encounter deck is rather large.

Shadow and Flame I think requires a more specific deck build than Road to Rivendell - you need to either have great threat management or the ability to defend against Durin's Bane every turn, potentially strong questing ability to get past the first stage, and then the power to finish of the boss.

Certainly RtR is the more swing-y quest and S&F has a more consistent difficulty. I could see the difference being more like 2 points, but I think you begin splitting hairs at this point.

I actually disagree with some of the Heirs/AtS ratings much more so - I'd move Peril in Pelargir down and Blood of Gondor up (hate this quest - never really clicked for me).

Blood of Gondor is extremely swingy depending on what show up in the hidden cards.

I guess, it depends a lot on how much a quest requires to build a specific deck.

Something that kind of annoys me as the game evolves: The way they keep mucking with the mechanics, making the quests more complicated to set up and play. This is only the third cycle, I'm sure it gets worse as it goes on.

The fourth cycle (Voice of Isengard) is the most complicated by far. After that, though, the fiddliness decreases once again. The newer cycles aren’t too bad.

My favourite cycles are actually the current one and the last 2. Harad and Ered Mithrin

I've been kind of busy around the holidays, so I haven't been able to focus on the game much recently. But so far I've played five games of The Steward's Fear without any wins. Came close a few times. Haven't tried an Outlands deck yet. A few observations:

1) This isn't really a scenario, it's really a set of different scenarios. Which one you play depends on which plot and villain you draw.

2) I frigging hate scenarios where you have to add an extra encounter card every round.

3) I'm thinking a Glorfindel/Asfaloth combination is needed for this one. But I haven't won this one yet, so don't take my advice.

3 minutes ago, Vince79 said:

I've been kind of busy around the holidays, so I haven't been able to focus on the game much recently. But so far I've played five games of The Steward's Fear without any wins. Came close a few times. Haven't tried an Outlands deck yet. A few observations:

1) This isn't really a scenario, it's really a set of different scenarios. Which one you play depends on which plot and villain you draw.

2) I frigging hate scenarios where you have to add an extra encounter card every round.

3) I'm thinking a Glorfindel/Asfaloth combination is needed for this one. But I haven't won this one yet, so don't take my advice.

You sure can use Glorfindel/Asfaloth but be careful when you do, cause you don't want to get waylayed by Underworld cards, ya know? But I used Sp Glorfindel in that quest.

1 hour ago, manoftomorrow010 said:

You sure can use Glorfindel/Asfaloth but be careful when you do, cause you don't want to get waylayed by Underworld cards, ya know? But I used Sp Glorfindel in that quest.

Yeah, you have to be strategic about the timing of using Asfaloth, you don't want to unleash a swarm of enemies at a bad time. It's always a nice surprise to get a clue card though!

I've also been using Spirit Glorfindel, with Light of Valinor, of course.

On 12/4/2019 at 9:35 PM, Vince79 said:

2) I frigging hate scenarios where you have to add an extra encounter card every round.

Welcome to LotR LCG, my friend!