Hi.

Have anyone beaten A jurney down the Anduin in solo game using only core set cards?

mr.thomasschmidt said:

Many people. 30 card Spirit deck is capable of winning this challenge easily. With so few cards in deck, it is easy to draw threat reduction and kill everything with Dunhere. Troll does not even engage you. Thanks to card "reshuffle discard pile into your deck" , you can play in stage 1B for hours, so before turning to 2B you can prepare powerful army and tons of Gandalfs in your hand.

Of course, if Stand/Fight -> Gandalf is illegal, than this may be harder to pull off.

solo sprit deck is so powerful against this quest mainly because it has just 30 cards, so you pretty much draw everything you need. If you upgrade it to 50 as per rules, the quest is no longer piece of cake.

I was able to do it with Dunhere, Eowyn, and Thalin. Using most (if not all) of the core set Spirit cards and adding in some of the low-cost Tactics cards to get to 50 cards.

I used spirit tactics to beat the first quest using Eowin, Legolas and I think Thalin. This didn't work for me on the Anduin. So after many combos I'm right now using a 3 house deck. Eowyn, Aragon and Gimli/Legolas. To high starting threat. I'll give the spirit only deck a chance and possible the Dunhere, Eowyn and Thalin.

Thanks guys you have given me hope I might swallow my pride and open the HfG adv. pack when I come to the Escape from Dol Dulgur But hey what's the rush...I'm living in boring Norway far away from any tournament so all I have to think of is building the decks and then beat the game while watching the movies/listening to the music. In the wintertimes it look kind of like the peaks in the scene where "the beakons get lit"

norway may be boring, but it's a great, wonderful country with cool people and rich scenery

yeah, I also always listen to the music ) and I'm gonna watch the films soon!!!!!!!!! it's been a couple of years, so I can again tolerate watching them again! with the upcoming hobbit movies - the right thing to do! LOTR FTW!

to the topic: yes, I also have beaten the second quest on a regular basis - once you learn all the possible mechanics of the encounter deck, it is possible - takes a couple of times to learn, but yes... with many combinations! spirit being best... also with a 50 card deck consisting of spirit, it IS possible...

key is: keep threat low, kill the trolls with gandalf, everything else (esp goblin sniper) with dunhere, progress only when strong enough and try to finish before the encounter deck refills itsself ) - that's the easiest way, I think... there are other combinations, though

Yes, several times. JDtA is a challenging quest but reasonable difficulty even with just the core set cards.

Hey fellow Ringer! Before all the expansions started releasing I used a Fellowship with Beravor, Gloin, and Eowyn. Mix in all the best cards from those spheres and you should be able to win against anduin and mirkwood. I only own one core set and cannot for the life of me convince myself to purchase another one for a few cards. I must confess, after using all the expansions to explore new deck possibilities, I am shocked that I have not been able to come up with a better solo deck than the one I built with just the Core starter. Good luck and happy gaming!!!

Vyron said:

How to kill the troll without Gandalf?

Another option next to Gandalf is a Forest Snare. With Feint or Son of Arnor you can prevent him from attacking you even the first time.

wernerkellens said:

yes, of course, you need gandalf. but another option is to amass lots of allies and I mean LOTS of allies (which can be tedious, as you'll be stuck at stage 1 for a long time), keeping your threat in check... engage the troll on your behalf, "block" with wandering took, or whatever (I'd use Frodo now, because the surplus of strength converts anyway into threat) and then kill the troll with all other allies, esp northern tracker, (he has very good stats)... it takes time to learn this mechanic, but it works fairly often... and yes, with gandalf, if and when he pops up, you just use him to give the troll 4 damage, then engage the troll and block, again with a small ally, and then attack with GANDALF and the others... I admit, it has become somewhat harder to do this, since you can't use Stand and Fight anymore on Gandalf....

DurinIII said:

I used a similar deck, only I prefer Theodred for resource generation.

Before the AP's came out I was able to beat JDtA with two different core decks, and with only one set. The first was a Leadership/Lore deck with Aragorn, Theodred, Beravor. Forest Snares and Gandalfs to reduce threat are a key to running this deck on this scenario. Second deck was Spirit/Tactics as some have already suggested with Eowyn, Dunhere, and Legolas. A couple Blades of Gondolin on Dunhere allows him to pick off the large number of orcs in the staging area and advance the quest.

Puzzle said:

Hi. I actually tried with this combo of heroes but didn't get it to mork mainly because Dunhere is too weak. Are you sure you are allowed to place a tactic attachment on a spirit hero? I thought you could only play the attachments to the appointed colors/houses.

mr.thomasschmidt said:

You made up that. There is no issue with putting tactic attachment on spirit hero.

Dang! All those wated games! Oh well, back to the deck building board and on to the JDtA quest again Thanks

It's pretty straightforward with a Spirit deck - keep the threat level low and only fight when you have to.

I've also completed it with a Leadership/Lore deck using Theodred, Denethor and Glorfindel, which was harder but more fun!

John