Wrath and Ruin is difficulty 7. I've played one and two-handed solo on normal mode

This quest is proving to be very difficult. The synergy within the encounter deck is very lethal and tight .

Has anybody beaten it yet and if you did, how?

Yes I beat it with my brother. Its tough alright. I had a deck with tactics Eowyn and the twins while my brother was dale.

You gotta chump to Ulchor a lot otherwise adding that extra location is gonna wreck you. One trick in lower player counts is to not travel for a round to avoid triggering his effect.

The quest really hits you everywhere. You gotta quest hard or your done. You gotta be able to defend and attack a lot because theres a lot of enemies engaging and Ulchor is a constant threat. You need healing for all that archery. And your threat goes up fast. My deck was low threat and the twins, once set up, are really good at handling lots of enemies. I wanted sterner than steel to cancel nasty shadows, because losing Elrohir would be devastating.

Since my brother was Dale, he could handle a lot of questing.

We only tried it once but since we play with 4 decks getting to have more locations under our controls than in the staging area (even with the Ransacked House and Contested Square effects) is really problematic. We ended up losing to threating out (just one turn short) because it took us too long in the second quest stage to retake control of enough locations (we lost like 6 of them since we had a few Ransacked House which also got lost when we lost control of the location with the quest change). The choice of which location to take control of each turn it's really crucial.

For the rest I second MikeGracey opinion, this is a quest which attacks you from every possibile angle.

I also have to say that I am really enjoying it for now.

After countless defeats I decided to go with leardhip Gloin and tactics Gimli to put the archery damage to good use. I had x3 self preservations and Elrond hero too. That's the closest I've come to defeating the quest. That allowed me to take an attack from Ulchor after exploring, gain resources and heal. Ancestral armour, dwarven armour, dunedain warning and self preservation with Narvi's belt all on Gloin.

Also used Vilya, light of valinor and Imladris Stargazer on Elrond and leadership Galadriel to get all the attachments out asap.

X3 unexpected courages for elrond and gloin. Gimli has darrowdelf axes and pumped by archery.

How could I not win..... shadow effect synergy and swarming easterling and swarming locations that don't leave play and don't stay put.

I found 2-handed solo worse. Overrun by turn 2 usually

I finally beat it tonight.

I switched Gimli hero and put in Gandalf Hero. Some of his toys and took out the stuff I was going to use to buff Gimli and put in some giant bears and Beorn. Used gildor inglorian to pop a giant bear on the top deck to vilya it into play.

Elrond had self preservation+ x2 unexpected courages+ steward of gondor+ vilya+ light of valinor + ancestral armour and was often the target of ally Arwens defense buff.

3 defender of cair andros each with a spear of the citadel out

3 galadriel hamdmaidens out

Gandalf had shadowfax, his staff and narya attached

Gloin a self preservation and narvi's belt.

Game took ages to run through but towards the end it became easier. Eventually I was able to travel to the Gate and stop all the control locations for adding to the staging area.

One nasty combo was the easterling that grabs the top easterling treachery off the top of the discard pile. I got stuck for ages as the too one was the healing one. So as you cant attack an enemy twice in a round I'd kill the easterling, discard the attachment and heal it and then the following round it would grab the same attachment again as I had no other easterling attachments being discarded.

Overall. That's taken me over a month to complete.

On to the next quest.

5 hours ago, asgardianphil said:

One nasty combo was the easterling that grabs the top easterling treachery off the top of the discard pile. I got stuck for ages as the too one was the healing one. So as you cant attack an enemy twice in a round I'd kill the easterling, discard the attachment and heal it and then the following round it would grab the same attachment again as I had no other easterling attachments being discarded.

Wouldn't a direct damage source like Yew Bow discard the attachment?

No because you only discard the attachment if the easterling would be destroyed. So you have to completely kill the easterling then the attachment heals the easterling and discards its self. The easterling on the next turn grabs that attachment back if it's still the topmost easterling treachery, which in my game it was for about 6 turns.

The attachment is called Fury. I was trying to get it so my spear of the citadel did the last point of damage in defense and then the easterling would be healed and I'd kill it for good with my attack. But I just couldn't get the timing right.

Ha just realised you had the same idea with the direct damage. However you'd have to time it so that the direct damage did the last/killing point of damage before totalling attack vs defense and then your actual attack being at least 7 to beat it again.

Not really, I assumed, a point of damage would discard the attachment similar to Daechanar. But you could use some condition removal or Feints to deal with the Warrior.

Ok it took us three games but we finally beat this Eru-forsaken quest. In 4 players the location lock is really brutal and without our Lore deck centered around Traps and healing I am not sure we would have survived this ordeal.

This quest seems insanely difficult but we were able to clear it in a four player game our second attempt. The key to success seemed to be me getting Beregond to block the Thane's perpetual attacks of the course of the game to keep things under control, as well as help with threat, then most importantly when we pushed to phase 2, my friend played the card that gave characters +2 defense and did not make them need to exhaust to block, which let me block the countless enemies, allowing everyone to clear out what they had in front of them. Even then it still came down close to us almost losing to threat at the final moment.

This and temple of doom were back to back challenges, and have set up the Thane to be quite the opponent, curious to see how the block wraps up.

11 hours ago, programdude said:

This and temple of doom were back to back challenges, and have set up the Thane to be quite the opponent, curious to see how the block wraps up.

Indeed it seems quite an enemy, worhty of being our last great foe before the hiatus.

But also what's up with his sword? Just generic black numenorean magic or perhaps there is some connection with Sahir's sword?

On 3/22/2020 at 5:05 PM, Alonewolf87 said:

Indeed it seems quite an enemy, worhty of being our last great foe before the hiatus.

But also what's up with his sword? Just generic black numenorean magic or perhaps there is some connection with Sahir's sword?

Not sure, but with the Thane they do indeed seem to be trying to emulate Sahir who I found to be the best villain so far. I haven't played Challenge of the Wainriders yet, but I am loving the block so far. I almost feel like there will be a showdown with an incarnation of Sauron, or at the very least the Thane channeling him.