Has anyone completed a quest (any of them) solo with a mono-sphere tactics deck?

I'm getting increasingly frustrated with Tactics, I just can't see what use it is - yes the 3 core set heroes all have useful abilities, but the other cards just don't seem that good.

There's a massive lack of willpower for questing - 4 total for the Heroes, and nothing at all for the Allies (excluding Gandalf, and possibly Beorn, but at cost 6 and unique he can't be relied upon). There's also a serious lack of defence - other spheres have cost 3 or 4 allies with a defence rating of 2, but not the sphere that's supposedly for fighting.

So how do people use it? multi-player with Lore to heal you / Spirit to do the questing etc. I can see, but solo, I'm failing to see what to do with it, even in a multi-sphere deck: what success have other people had? what works for you?

First quest is doable with just the starter-Tactics, Legolas + Blade of Gondolinx2 is what gives you quest progress tokens. Just hope you don't run into a Location-streak, rather that locations come up as Shadow Cards.

Tactics mono is just not designed for soloplay. It's great in any multiplayer game and almost every card is useful then.

I really like to play Legolas, Blade of Gondolin, Feint, Quick Strike, even Blade Mastery and Stand Together lately. But that all pretty much means you play a Tactics-minor deck. It is not design for even Tactics-major so far, much less for a mono-sphere. It may change though in the future, the eagle theme seems to be very nice. Already, the Winged Guardian is a pretty good Ally and the search card may become very effective with more Eagle cards (it is cool that it is itself an Eagle card). That being said, search cards tend to be a bit tricky, they may stand the tide but often they may feel like a bad draw.

It is refreshing for a game to have a fighting aspect that is not the most powerful area of the game.

i too have beaten the first scenario with tactics solo. can't seem to do it with a solo lore deck, though!

Only Beorn and heroes have willpower so it's necessary to quest with Thalin and Gimli all the time. Even Legolas is sometimes required to use his willpower instead of skill. So basically: heores and Beorn quest, allies attack and defend. Plate allows to take undefended attack, Feint and Thicket of Spears let allies kill stuff and not die. The most crucial combo is Legolas + Blade because it's necessary to travel ASAP and explore ASAP.

Tactics is not the greatest....

....at least when it comes to mono-sphere solo play.

For multi-player and/or dual-sphere decks, Tactics is dang useful.

Tactics has some really good, low-cost cards. They fit well in multi-shpere decks. I really like Feint, Quick Strike, and Gondorian Spearman.

Kristabelle said:

As much as I enjoy the combat aspect of this game, I have to agree with you on this point. Back when we only had access to articles previewing the game, I thought that Tactics would definitely be my favorite sphere, but I love the fact that now that it has been released, my favorite Sphere is probably Spirit, just because FFG has done such a good job of making this game about more than just killing monsters.

Full disclosure: I almost exclusively play two-player games. I haven't experimented as much with deck building as some other people on these boards, simply because I ended up making two very strong, synergistic decks that work exceedingly well and I've largely stuck with them, just making simple tweaks here and there as time goes on. However, I think there are several cards from the Tactics sphere are a huge asset. My favorites (that I actually use for team games) are as follows:

Legolas: probably goes without saying, but his ability is fantastic, he hits hard, he's ranged, and his threat cost is very low. Amazing Hero.

Veteran Axehand: hits pretty hard for an ally, he's cheap, and is relatively durable compared to allies like Guard of the Citadel.

Gondorian Spearman: a fantastic defender. Need a chump block? Not a problem. Attacking Enemy almost dead, or just really weak? It dies without you having to sacrifice an ally. Sentinel makes this even better, as you can take advantage of any opportunity to use its response.

Feint: awesome card. Normally used for absorbing an initial Hill Troll attack before I can toss out a Forest Snare, or otherwise saving a character from an untimely death. Also very useful for freeing up characters to focus on attacking instead of needing to defend, to save yourself from having to deatl with nasty enemies for 2 rounds instead of 1 if one character's attack strength will make the difference.

Quick Strike: good, great after the clarification for this card in FAQ version 1.1. Not only useful for killing off enemies before they have the opportunity to attack you, but this allows you to declare more than one attack against the same enemy, and any ranged characters controlled by other players can join in on the attack.

Blade of Gondolin: more (situational) attack strength and quest progress for cheap? Yes please. Useful not only on Legolas, but also Dunhere to help him push past the occasional high-defense enemy.

Dwarven Axe: I don't use this too often, but it helps out Dunhere, and if you are using Gloin (who I use for massive resource generation with self preservation) to attack, its great. I don't use Gimli (in fact, I've never used Gimli), but it quickly makes his attack value huge.

Horn of Gondor: I include this in my decks, but I don't really have allies die often enough for it to do a whole lot. Situationally it could be very useful, though, especially if the tide happens to turn against the players it could potentially allow for a nice recovery.

Swift Strike could be situationally very good, and I recently added 3 copies of it to my combat-oriented deck, but I haven't had the opportunity to really test it out. Thicket of Spears, while amazing in theory, is about as viable as solo Tactics. Rain of Arrows doesn't seem very useful, and I've never been able to use Blade Mastery to good effect. Since I always play with at least a little Lore, Citadel Plate, while powerful, is pretty unecessary (especially considering I don't use Gimli). I don't have any good uses for Stand Together, Horseback Archer is a tad too expensive while running only 1 Tactics hero, and Beorn, while extremely powerful, is so expensive that I've never considered trying to fit him into one of my decks.

So I read the thread title and immediately thought... WAR! HUH! Good God, y'all! What is it good for? Absolutely nothing.

I like Tactics in two player. Solo Tactics is almost like playing a different game, one that I haven't spent enough time with to get the hang of, but still enjoy.