I'm cheering for the person who can beat this with the highest threat (while still trying to get best score possible). Well done! Those are usually the most memorable games.

leptokurt said:

Second Hill Trolls are SO PAINFUL!

Updating your score... now.

Distracted my two girls with Garfield long enough to get a game in. I was just trying this quest solo yesterday with a tactics deck with extreme little success, so I figured limiting myself to just the core set wouldn't end to well. Also, I didn't want to break apart my good 2 player deck. So that left me with lore and spirit.

I chose to go low threat to pray for a gandalf before having the enage the troll.

Game 1 went pretty fast. I got the troll ensnared only to have his twin show up. I managed to kill both trolls but I was at 48 threat at that point and gave up.

Game 2 went more smoothly.

I drew ensnare on turn 2 and sacrificed a took to the troll so I could ensnare him next turn. That worked out well. I was just playing the questing game while putting 2-3 wounds on the troll a turn. I managed to get out a hammersmith and a guide, aswell as getting self preservation onto beravor.

While questing through the 2nd stage I managed to get 2 more guides out (huge), brought the took back to life and gave eowyn +1 quest. The last turn on stage 2 saw a chieftain flip and a location. Stage 3 flipped the treachery card that put 1 wound on everyone. That killed the took for the second time (poor little took) as well as taking down eowyn, but her job was done. The 2nd card from stage 3 was an adder (yay me). All that was left between me and a victory was the chieftain and an adder. Lucky me I just drew gandalf. How thematic. I didn't have enough to bring him out with a dead eowyn, but next turn I would. I sacrafice the hammersmith and a guide and put 3 wounds on the adder. Gandalf comes out next turn and killed the adder. The chieftain kills another guide, but between dunhere/beravor/gandalf the chieftain easily falls.

End score:

45 threat + 9 for eowyn + 12 turns - 14 bonus points = 160

leptokurt said:

How did you manage an 11 turn game and end with 111 points? You kill every victory point card in the deck?

Eric W said:

I suppose he lowered his threat somewhat. 11 turns = 100 points. After 11 rounds he has 36 threat, so if he can lower his threat by 21 (3x gandalf, 1x Greetings) he reaches 111 (with 4VP from at least one Hill Troll).

Of course he can have more VP and less threat reduction.

I can see it, but it seems like a perfect situation. Specially since this quest deck loves raising your threat. I just hope everyone knows you have to let the troll attack 1 turn before ensnaring him.

But I shouldn't talk, I played it again and won, so I'm 2 for 3, but I got the worst score I've ever seen.

I had 28 threat at the end. 1 wound on a character. and it took me EIGHTEEN turns. I couldn't quest out of the 2nd stage even with eowyn at 6 willpower and being able to discard my whole hand whenever i needed for more willpower. The problem was I had 3 of those locations that are worth victory points but have 3 threat. It took 3 turns for a guide to burn through them and finally a gandalf had to be used to put me over he top. Its hard getting 16 quest on that 2nd stage when the staging area consistently was having 12-15 threat.

Guess I forgot to put my heros. Same this game as last. Dunhere/Eowyn/beravor.

28+1+180-17 = 192

Wish this forum had an edit button. I also decked myself this time around. First time that ever happened.

I played 10 rounds, not 11. Perhaps I worded it poorly when I said I enetered stage 2B in round 8. I meant that round 8 was the first round in which I quested against 2B. I finished 2B in round 9 and entered 3B, but needed another round to defeat that ugly troll.

Result: 90 points + 29 threat - 8 VP (2 trolls) = 111

Btw, if I had not drawn the troll, my result would have been 80 points + 24 threat - 4 VP = 100

Finally cracked the 100!

Deck: Eleanor, Glóin, Beravor

Result: 8 rounds = 70 points + 30 threat + 2 damage - 7 VP = 95 points

I'm a bit surprised that this game went so good, because I considered to take a mulligan when I looked at my starting hand first, but fortunatly decided to keep it. It consisted of

Faramir, Celebrían's Stone, Grim Resolve, Sneak Attack, Test of Will and Forest Snare

I was a bit worried about the lack of allies, but hoped for Beravor to gather some of them. I also had Forest Snare as my backup against a possible early troll attack. I got dealt Enchanted Stream during the setup which is not too bad, but relying on Beravor I didn't like that card at all. Gamebreaker was Gandalf who I drew early enough to defeat the Hill Troll (Sneak Attack + Ever Vigilant) and Steward of Gondor, which I placed on Glóin as I had tons of leadership cards. During stage 2B I took advatntage of Protector of Lorien which allowed me to get through in two rounds. Grim Resolve allowe me to send everyone questing.During stage 2B and 3B i was luck to draw locations mostly plus one Dol Guldur Orc. I didn't even have to fight in stage 3B.

Weird facts:

I had two Forest Snares but used one of them.

I didn't have a spirit ally or a spirit attachment at all!

I got dealt only 3 spirit cards in total - 1x Hasty Stroke, 2 x A Test of Will. I played none of them.

Eric W ~ Welcome to the Table!

And leptokurt ~ You're moving on up!!

Thanks juicy!

Oh, and of course I used NONE of my Forest Snares, in case you're wondering about the weirdness of using ONE of them.

Eric W said:

Looks like the tie doesn't hold

There was a recent thread over at BGG complaining about the dominance of Eowyn and she is prominent in this tournament, too. So I felt interested, how I would fare without her. After looking over the spheres I wanted to use and the heroes that went with it, I realized that my starting threat would be above 30...

I tried anyway and am amazed by the results I got. I played 3 games and while one was lost to a 2nd Hill Troll on turn 2, I won the other two even with a Hill Troll engaging on turn 1, here is the one with the better score:

Heroes used: Glorfindel, Beravor, Gloin

Win on turn 6 (!) 50pts

45 threat +45pts

4 damage +4pts

7 VP (Hill Troll, Gladden Fields) -7pts

= 92pts Woohoo

I recorded a turn by turn play, because I think people will be interested in how it went (I knew I would) and am going to post it after the tournament is over, here are the highlights:

I managed to kill the Troll on turn 2 already

I finished stage 2 and 3 all on turn 6 thanks to Faramir and Grim Resolve

plueschi said:

Congrats! Especially for deliberatly not using Eowyn.

I tried a similar approach in one of my first decks, but I focused on tactic heroes (Gimli + Legolas) and cards like Feint to prevent the troll from slaughtering my heroes. Looking at your threat it seems that you sacrificed an ally or two to block the troll. But how did you manage the questing? I mean treachery cards like Evil Storm or shadow effects like those of Eastern Crows can easily kill your mission, and other cards raise the threat of the staging area.

I might give it a try again.

Well, I got somewhat lucky (I think everybody gets somewhat lucky, when achieving a highscore) as no Evil Storm showed up.

Protector of Lorien was a very neat questing card as Beravor got me a good supply of cards, but it also helped survive the Troll on turn 1. And then Faramir is pretty strong (as we all know), I even planned to use him twice on the final turn with Grim Resolve (awesome card, wouldn't have been possible without it), but then I only had to use him once.

Concerning threat increase: The Hill Troll kicked a Snowbourn Scout (+4), I lost questing once (+3) and Gladden Fields have been active two turns (+2)

On the other hand I don't think, that I got overly lucky as I didn't draw a Steward of Gondor, which is probably the single most game changing card and I didn't sneak a single Gandalf, which is probably the most often used and abused combo out there.

plueschi said:

I'm sorry, but I read it and understood that maybe I misunderstood the Hill Troll's ability. Is his ability means that I must increase my threat level to his attack strength - defense strength of defender - hit points of defender + damage tokens on defender? E.g if defender is Faramir with 1 damage token, I must increase my threat level for 2 (6 attack - 2 defense - 3 Faramir's hit points + 1damage token)? Because I played like difference between attack strength and defense strength of defender. Maybe it is my knowledge of English.

LEGA said:

Yes, every unused point of damage is increasing your threat by 1.

So the "formula" is: Troll ATK - defense value - current (!) Hit points.

Your example with Faramir is correct.

Thank you plueschi. This quest will be easier for me now. And I should improve my English.

LEGA said:

Your english sounds fine to me (I'm not a native speaker), but the word you probably want to look up for the Hill Troll is "excess".

plueschi said:

Congrats plueschi!

And now... off to reconfigure the Table.

jhaelen said:

Brilliant jhaelen! I hadn't thought about saving the URL.

I'll be using this a lot now to make the updates to the Top Ten!

Thanks!

Managed to sneak in a few games and recorded a win against Anduin again after a loooong time (this quest seems incredibly hard to me, although not as hard as the ones I haven't beaten yet - Dol Guldur and Osgiliath - but definitely harder than Carrock).

Heroes: Gloin, Legolas, Eowyn

Final threat: 47

Wounds: 4

Rounds: 13

VPs: 14 (2 Trolls, Marsh Adder, Gladden Fields)

Score: 167

Gameplay: It took me 10 turns to get past stage 1, having to battle my way through both Trolls, the Marsh Adder (set up card), a Beastmaster, Wolf Rider and Wargs (took 4 turns to kill as they didn't get a Shadow effect the first 3 times). When Ufthak went as a shadow card, I knew there were no big enemies left. On stage 2, I quested hard and made it in 3 turns, with Legolas swinging his Blade of Gondolin to deal with two Misty Mountain Goblins. That only left one flock of Crows to deal with, so stage 3 was finished in one go.

Due to the 2 Trolls, it was impossible to keep threat low enough, and quest fast enough, to make it a good score, but at least I've now entered a score for this tournament! It's tempting to see how much better the deck can perform if I include AP cards.

Heroes : Eowyn, Beravor, Theodred

Round Markers : 7 (70)

Threat : 30

Wounds : 4

Victory points : 7

Total : 97

I have first tried the quest with a lore/leadership deck (Glorfindel, Denethor, Theodred) but i lost all the games i played. So i try a spirit/lore/leadership deck (Eowyn, Denethor, Theodred) and have some success with it (score of 155 and 145) but i finally choose to use Beravor in place of Denethor to have the opportunity to draw more cards.

juicebox said:

I'm sorry, but you have to update the table again. I overlooked one point of damage in the final calculations. So the score is actually 93 and not 92.

This was tough

I don't play a lot of solo, and haven't played 1 core set only in ages (normally 2x Core, + every expansion pack help i can get my hand on.

Went for a 3-sphere deck, lost within a few rounds my first two attempts - second hill troll first time, brown lands, taking the threat high enough to be engaged by the Dol Guldur beastmaster AND the Troll the second.

Third attempt, managed it, with a lucky starting hand.

Heroes: Eowyn, Theodred, Gimli.

Got Gimli a little bit damaged with a smallish enemy, Steward of Gondor out second turn on Eowyn, for Northern Tracker and Lorien Guide not that long after, Gave Eowyn Celebrian's stone in round 4. Also managed a Gandalf before the end.

Finished in the 9th round - 80
Final Threat - 35
7 Points of Damage on Heroes

13 Victory Points

Final score 109