And the wheels finally come flying off the wagon (oh wait, wrong cycle...)

I was never really able to get a foothold in the quest; I basically had to have Silver Circlet, and then get the Harad allies into play as soon as possible. 0 and 1 tokens were quick washouts, so I jumped to 4 tokens and actually got off to a decent start, but then an ill-timed treachery left me with too many Haradrim Archers, and too much Archery to soak. Attempts with 8, 10 and 14 tokens all stalled out before I could even beat stage 1. The problem with the tokens is that I don't really want to be drawing all my Harad allies - I want Timely Aid etc, with the allies near the top of my deck! Spending tokens to draw them all just meant I needed a load more tokens in extra resources to get them into play as early as possible (notwithstanding the generation from the contract)

It was a case of needing the right cards to come out, and the encounter deck being kind enough whilst I set up. Eventually things went my way on token 20, getting Silver Circlet, two Harad allies out immediately with Timely Aids, and that gave me the platform to build on to deal with the quest. Firyal's direct damage was particularly handy to soften up enemies in the staging area.

I think my deck wasn't brilliantly suited for this quest, but it is probably capable of beating it with fewer; it just depends how the cards fall out. Strider would have been a game-changer here; making it much more consistent. Any game where I was stuck with just Khaliel questing for 2 was almost an instant write-off.

Still, beating 2/3 quests with no Valar is a decent effort, and I'll try and bounce back next month - I've been working on a cunning plan for Escape from Dol Guldor!

Black Serpent: 20 tokens.

Black Serpent is always tough, but the first attempt went well to start with; I started with Summons of Mordor attached to a Desert Bastion and I quickly had both Vilya and Steward of Gondor. But without card draw I just piled up resources, and I kept needing to use Elrond for defense and couldn't spare a Vilya use. The encounter kept hitting back with enemies, and evenutally I had four defenses needed with just three characters, I did a blind Vilya in hopes of pulling a Gandalf out of my hat -- instead it found my missing Elven-light and I scooped.

The second attempt (one token) started much worse with a Serpent Banner attached to a Southron soldier. I was overwhelmed quickly.

The third attempt I again had Summons/Bastion for minimum impact, and using the two tokens I was able to get a headress and Firyal out in the first two turns. Firyal kept the enemies away and I slowly worked my way through a succession of locations with threat steadily rising; I got the big three Harad allies out, but no Vilya or Elven-Light. Eventually a Headress let me reshuffle and the cards started coming out, I was able to use Gandalf to lower threat immediately after claiming the headdress, and then survived combat long enough to get through stage two and three, finishing with 48 threat and success. I got lucky....

The encounter deck was not so kind to some of the others (outside cards in parens)

1 General_Grievous (31)
2 dalestephenson (11)
4 alonewolf87 (0)
6 Thanee (26)
13 bobbymcbobface(14)
20 Trumpet95 (25)

Final standings:
1 General_Grievous (31)
3 dalestephenson (11)
5 alonewolf87 (0)
6 Thanee (26)
16 bobbymcbobface(14)
20 Trumpet95 (25)

General_Grievous takes first and can choose the cycle for July's league. I will get to choose a quest to play from the cycle, and alonewolf87 will get to choose a quest to exclude. Trumpet95 will get to choose a supplementary cycle for player cards.

Thank you for playing, and join us next month as we return to the first cycle of the game -- Journey along the Anduin, Escape from Dol Goldur, and Journey to Rhosgobel (with LOTR saga for supplemental cards).

7 hours ago, dalestephenson said:

1 General_Grievous (31)
2 dalestephenson (11)
4 alonewolf87 (0)
6 Thanee (26)
13 bobbymcbobface(14)
20 Trumpet95 (25)

Final standings:
1 General_Grievous (31)
3 dalestephenson (11)
5 alonewolf87 (0)
6 Thanee (26)
16 bobbymcbobface(14)
20 Trumpet95 (25)

General_Grievous takes first and can choose the cycle for July's league. I will get to choose a quest to play from the cycle, and alonewolf87 will get to choose a quest to exclude. Trumpet95 will get to choose a supplementary cycle for player cards.

It was a fun experience, I look forward to playing some more of these.

I am wondering if, going forward, I should stick with my decision of using only cards from the cycles pool or not. I wanted to try that way so that I had to play with some cards I usually neglect (though I strive to play different decks and playstyles) but I am not sure if it's too much of a limitation. Let's see how this going back to the basic cycle next month will end up playing out.

15 hours ago, Alonewolf87 said:

It was a fun experience, I look forward to playing some more of these.

I am wondering if, going forward, I should stick with my decision of using only cards from the cycles pool or not. I wanted to try that way so that I had to play with some cards I usually neglect (though I strive to play different decks and playstyles) but I am not sure if it's too much of a limitation. Let's see how this going back to the basic cycle next month will end up playing out.

I honestly go back and forth, sometimes I build using only allowed cards, other times I just play something new I want to try around a required hero they are all good options but the former is definitely harder haha.

It seems the villains worked out for me, I’ll choose the LOTR Sagas for the cycle.

I will choose Flight to the Ford, I want to see how differently it will play out when you don't have to be so careful about Burdens.

Alonewolf will select a quest to exclude.

I will exclude The Dead Marshes, I really hated that quest in our 4 decks Saga playthrough, it was the one we had the most difficulty beating besides Mount Doom.

How are you going to handle the Black gate and Valar tokens?

If Black Gate is selected by the RNG, I figure there are three options for the unwinnable scenario:

1) Just roll again

2) Specify an arbitrary number of rounds to survive as "winning"

3) Combine with Mount Doom, with the rounds from Black Gate providing a time limit for Mount Doom

Let's see what the RNG pulls out of the hat....

Breaking of the Fellowship and Mount Doom.

Suggestions welcome for how Mount Doom *should* be handled, if it is ever selected (previous LOTR saga months it has been the excluded choice).

Mandatory hero list is Gandalf, LeEomer, and Tom Cotton. Trumpet95 gets to choose a cycle for supplementary player cards.

Let's go for Lost Realm/Angmar Awakened for some Dunedain fun.

8 hours ago, dalestephenson said:

If Black Gate is selected by the RNG, I figure there are three options for the unwinnable scenario:

1) Just roll again

2) Specify an arbitrary number of rounds to survive as "winning"

3) Combine with Mount Doom, with the rounds from Black Gate providing a time limit for Mount Doom

Let's see what the RNG pulls out of the hat....

Breaking of the Fellowship and Mount Doom.

Suggestions welcome for how Mount Doom *should* be handled, if it is ever selected (previous LOTR saga months it has been the excluded choice).

Mandatory hero list is Gandalf, LeEomer, and Tom Cotton. Trumpet95 gets to choose a cycle for supplementary player cards.

We could decide to exclude both The Black Gate Opens and Mount Doom due to their peculiar nature.

Mount Doom is tough, but outside campaign mode you don't have the turn limit, making it a *much* more manageable quest. I meant to solicit opinions on Black Gate, not Mount Doom -- my bad.

Aren’t the black riders heroes also part of the mandatory group?

Also, will the same Frodo be required for all three scenarios, since we have to use the same deck?

58 minutes ago, dalestephenson said:

Mount Doom is tough, but outside campaign mode you don't have the turn limit, making it a *much* more manageable quest. I meant to solicit opinions on Black Gate, not Mount Doom -- my bad.

It might be time consuming but we could take advantage of the Saga turn limit and decide that to claim an actual win against The Black Gate Opens you must also win against Mount Doom in the same number of turn we got for The Black Gate Opens with the same deck (basically having to play 4 quests instead of 3).

Otherwise we could, as you said, set a minimum number of turns you must survive (let's say 10?) to declar the game against The Black Gate Opens a win.

3 hours ago, Bobbymcbobface said:

Aren’t the black riders heroes also part of the mandatory group?

Also, will the same Frodo be required for all three scenarios, since we have to use the same deck?

Right, Flight to the Ford is in the first box, so that opens up the hobbits (Sam, LoPippin, Fatty, TaMerry) as mandatory hero choices.

In the past we've required the same Frodo for all Frodo-using quests, which this time around will be all of them.