I'm trying to beat this quest in a 2-player game, but can't even get close. Is there a thread about Journey to Rhosgobel that someone can direct me to? When I search it just brings up tons of posts about how people don't like this expansion.

Thanks.

Lore of Imaldris is the best card you can draw in this scenario. Decks that have the card and lots of card draw will have a much stronger chance of winning. Also, any deck that can forsee and control the event deck (denthor, Shadow of the Past, etc.) to help you avoid the nasty encounter cards and maximize your chance of getting Athelas and Forest groves will be a big help.

If you have two decks that use lore you shouldn't have too much problem regularly beating this one.

you want lore heavy decks. Card draw and encounter deck control is the key. Also try not to build to strong a quest deck. This is a great quest for Map Maker as having precise control of your quest power is very handy.. you do not want to quest to fast. Also remeber that you only need to discard the card using heal effects in the latter quests so Daughter and the brown are perfectly good choices if you are controling your quest power.. it is rushing into stage 2 that is what trips most people up.

bear in mind that the eagle cant be healed while rhosgobel is in the staging area, and that cant be travelled to until phase 1 is over....youve still got a good few spirit cards that can help get rid of it though

Also having ranged heroes and/or allies or lots of eagle allies to deal with the pesky birds is very helpful

Haldir FTW!!!

Yet more reasons lore shines in this one.

booored said:

Seems that you need to rush to stage 2 because, as was said above, the Eagle can't be healed in stage 1. Also, you mention "Daughter" as a card to heal the Eagle with, but her text specifically says that you exhaust to heal a "hero." Wilyador is an ally, not a hero, so that wouldn't work either.

No problem with not building too strong a quest deck. Lore sucks at questing IMO. I don't have any cards after the AJTR expansion, though, so maybe the majority of people are playing with a strong card or two that I don't own yet.

What about when you guys play solo? I have come very close to winning with a Lore/Tactics deck using Beravor, Glorfindel, and Legolas. But I feel like I don't have enough control over the encounter deck, nor do I ever get to use Legolas's puny 1 resource per turn to ever play powerful tactics cards like Landroval. Has anyone beaten this XP with a Lore/Spirit deck?

If the pace of that quest seems too fast for you, you can actually try and stall it:

Explore Rhosgobel while on stage 1 with Northern trackers, Snowbourn Scouts, Riddermarks Finest or Ride to Ruin and then heal Wyliador for 2 points each turn with Glorfindel and Radagast. Might work for you.

plueschi said:

Only that they both would be discarded the moment they heal Wilyador.

The only strategy to win the adventure is to rush through, have a lore hero and some Lore of Imlardis in your hand. And to draw enough Athelas, of course. Like a lottery!

Vase said:

Lore does just fine for questing. Protector of Lorien in a deck that draws cards is the best questing card in the whole game. And then they have a wide array of amazing allies, some of whom are quite good for questing (dwarven mapmaker!)

leptokurt said:

Actually they would not be discarded if Rosgobel is taken out during stage 1. you can heal Wyliador till your hearts content with the same characters. Stage 2 would cause those cards to be discarded.

Bohemond said:

I agree, I would probably put Lore at #2 (out of 4) when it comes to questing, Spirit still being tops, Tactics worst. Not sure whether Leadership or Lore is better at questing, but Lore tends to have better willpower on allies, Leadership has Faramir. Lore's problem is lack of ranged (just Haldir?), but given its healing abilities, those pesky birds' damage can be healed.

Umm...you can't travel to Rhosgobel until stage 2.

I agree with Leptokurt that the only way to win is hurry and hope for lots of luck.

I would put Leadership at 2nd in questing because of Aragorn's ability to always quest without exhausting, then there is Faramir...then there is Grim Resolve. Faramir + Grim Resolve have won me plenty of games. To be fair though, I have not been able to draw Map Maker on 4 different tries playing solo, even with 3 copies of the card in my deck. So maybe I'll get him and he'll be awesome and I'll reassess my opinion of Lore's questing abilities.

You don't need to travel to a location to explore it. Snowborn Scouts + Ride to Ruin can clear the location on the first turn of the game.

Of course they can, but such trick is extremaly fragile and unreliable. I write ONLY about solo play, for multi this may actually work sometimes

You need snowborn scout (leadership) and ride to ruin (spirit). Alternatively you can use multiple ride to ruin, riddermark finnest, but basically, you'll want to play leadership + spirit.

Then you need a way to heal the eagle repeatedly. So you can either use Radagast or Glorfindel. If you play Glorfindel, your deck building possibilites are very limited solo . And your resources will be crippled (as you will need to pay 1 to heal eagle every turn). On the other hand, if you do not play Glorfindel, but Radagast, you have more space to breath with your hero lineup, but you now need 3 cards to pull off this "great" combo. And it will not happen much because your won't be drawing it consistently, some pieces will be missing all the time.

And if it somehow happens, what will you get at best? Assuming you start healing eagle by turn 3, you can't really stop the clock ticking, you can just slow it a little bit. But not much, while you are still in stage 1, eagle will be getting beaten a lot by his wounds and by encounter deck and you won't be doing much progress because you will not want to move to stage 2.

Exploring Rhosgobel during stage 1 and healing eagle with Glorfindel / Radagast is a funny thing to do, but is very unreliable, does not help you much and designing deck over this will probably drop your chances against other quests.

Just a remainder, all I wrote is about solo play. In multi, you have 6 heroes and 2 decks. It is much easier to design decks that take advantage of such tactic. The question is, wouldn't adding Shadows of the past be much easier to pull off and yet more effective?

I don't think it is unreliable to explore Rhosgobel during stage 1. All you'd need is a Northern Tracker, everything else is gravy.

Bohemond said:

You're right, I didn't have Ride to ruin when I played Rhosgobel though.

Anyway, I totally agree with guciomir that it doesn't make very much sense. You can't reduce Wilyador's threat and there are many treacheries and ahdow effects that jurt the mighty eagle. Perhaps if you have Beravor and Bilbo and Gléowine it might make sense to draw some more cards.

I still wonder why they even made it possible to travel to Rhosgobel in stage 1. Why not using the same mechanic as with Carrock?

plueschi said:

It's going to take six turns to clear that location with a tracker. That's a monumentally inefficient strategy.

Vase said:

yea.. lol.. been a while from last I played that quest... my play group is just about to embark on a full shadows of mirkwood cycle in 2 and 3 player.,. so I'll be getting a refresh soon.. I think my advise is correct I just had teh quest card order mixed up. I should probably read the quest cards b4 posting heh heh

Bohemond said:

Couldn't agree more. Also, remember that AJTR is the most recent XP I own, so I don't have several of these cards some of you are referencing like Ride to Ruin.

Anyway, I just beat the quest on the 4th round. I had a Lore/Tactics deck with Beravor, Glorfindel, Legolas. My wife was playing Leadership/Spirit with Aragorn, Prince Imrahil, Eowyn. Having Leadership/Spirit helped immensely with questing. My deck was only generating between 3 and 5 willpower each questing phase, while my wife's was able to generate 10 willpower a couple times to really fly through the scenario. I never needed to heal the darn bird once. The key was questing, getting a couple Athelas plants (kinda lucky) and keeping heroes alive with healing (also kinda lucky not to draw too many nasty Treachery cards.) Final score 110...not bad, I think, for the first time beating the quest. However, it does raise a question:

I double checked the wording of the new scoring system and it says that 10 points are added on "at the end of each round." So if I beat the scenario in the 4th round, does that mean I would only add on 30 points? 10 at the end of the first round, 10 at the end of the second, and 10 at the end of the third? We won the game in the questing phase of the 4th round. I added on 40 points, but if that is wrong and I should have only added 30, we scored 100 points even.

Bohemond said:

Well, if you want to finish quickly then yes. But if you just want to win then no.

Rhosgobel only has 4 progress required, otherwise Scout + RtR's 4 progress placed wouldn't be enough. Turn 2 removal of Rhosgobel isn't out of the realm of decent probability with the decks that use those cards at which point on Lore of Imladris heals Wilyador very likely to full, negating some Treachery and Shadow card effects for a turn or two.

Vase said:

You are correct with 100 points; you add ten during the refresh phase. I made the same mistake with the new scoring system when it first came out.

Yep, it's 100 points in your case.