Welcome & Introduction:

Welcome to my fourth Solo Player LOTR LCG Tournament. This week’s tournament takes the next step in a series of tournaments exploring the Shadows of Mirkwood cycle. The idea behind this tournament is that for one week (Sunday – Saturday), everyone is invited to participate in playing a particular quest with particular deck building requirements in a Solo Player Tournament. You are then invited to record and post your final score, the heroes you used, and any additional narrative that you’d like to add.

Note: this is not a place to post results from the past. The tournament has a one-week lifespan, and only games played and recorded throughout this week are valid. As the week unfolds, I will keep this first post updated with the Top Ten results. (Each participant can occupy a maximum of one Top Ten spot at a time, so you’re welcome to try and best your own result throughout the week.) See also, The juicebox LOTR LCG Top Ten Hall of Fame.

Will you place in the Top Ten for the week? I hope you’ll participate and find out!

After the end of this week’s tournament, you are welcome to continue to post results to this thread if you continue to play this particular quest under these particular parameters. However, the Top Ten on this first post will not continue to be updated after the week is over, thus preserving (like a time capsule) the results from this week’s tournament. Further, please refrain from using this thread for extensive theorizing and/or conversation that is not directly related to this particular tournament. Nothing against other conversations – it’s just, that’s what other threads are for. Specifically, if you have ideas for a future tournament of the week, feel free to suggest them in the Ideas Thread.

And now… on to this week’s Solo Player Tournament!

Solo Player Tournament #4:

Quest: Conflict at the Carrock
Deck Parameters: 1-3 Core Sets + HfG & CotC Adventure Packs
Number of Players: Solo Play – 1 Player/1 Deck

Top Ten:

1. muemakan ~ 65 (Éowyn, Beravor, Thalin)
2. wraith428 ~ 83 (Dúnhere, Éowyn, Beravor)
3. Fatty ~ 87 (Éowyn, Beravor, Bilbo)
4. Da_Engineer ~ 92 (Glóin, Beravor, Théodred)
5. leptokurt ~ 101 (Gimli, Aragorn, Beravor)
6. Chac ~ 106 (Aragorn, Théodred, Éowyn)
7. plueschi ~ 108 (Éowyn, Bilbo, Théodred)
8. juicebox ~ 110 (Aragorn, Beravor, Bilbo)
9. Vase ~ 123 (Aragorn, Eowyn, Frodo)
10. Zjb12 ~ 132 (Aragon, Eleanor, Éowyn)

Last Updated:

January 1, 2012 (1:43am) [FFG Time]

[This week’s tournament will run from December 25 – December 31, 2011 and will officially close at the end of the week (midnight) as time-stamped by the FFG forum time clock.]

First try today. I don't know if it will hold, but here is the result:

Heroes: Glorfindel, Bilbo, Éowyn

Threat: 23

Hero Wounds: 1

Victory Points: 0

Round Tracker: 90

Total: 114

Fatty said:

I think that's a very good result. Haven't even come close to that yet. Might be it's because my deck. sucks. Tried it 4 times, lost 3 games due to some incredible unlucky encounter draws ("Muck Adder" + "Wargs" as shadow effect killed Bilbo in round 1, next game I had 5 locations in a row, with "Brown Lands" being the second; finally I drew "Hill Troll" midgame and then twice "Sacked!")

But hey, I won one game, and it's my personal record:

Heroes: Gimli, Legolas, Bilbo

Hero Threat: 24

Hero Damage: 1

Victory Points: 3 (Marsh Adder)

Round Tracker: 120

Result: 142

Actually I also think it's a good result. I was very lucky with the cards. By the third round I had three Sneaks and one Gandalf in hand, so Gandalf came out every turn the last four turns. I also got an early Steward and a first turn Bee Pastures, so I could get Beorn pretty early whithout too much effort.

Worked a bit on my deck and changed the heroes. Arogorn replaced Gimli, which led me to a results of 142, 126 and 169. Then I replaced Aragorn with my old pal Théodred, and right in the first game I got a 108. Sweet!

Heroes: Théodred, Legolas, Bilbo

Hero Threat: 28

Hero Damage: 0

Round Marker: 80

Victory Points: 0

Result: 108

Key to victory was SoG in round 3 (and getting Grimbeorn right in time). In round 5 I played Gandalf to get my threat below 34. I was then able to get Grimbeorn in round 6 (he already showed up in round 4, so I was prepared) and started my battle with the trolls in that round. Thanks to another Gandalf and Grim Resolve I was able to defeat the first two trolls, Rupert and Louis. I played a "Feint" on Louis to prevent his effect. In round 8 I engaged Morris, not after finally exploring the Carrock. I had to be careful, because I only had Théodred, Legolas (with one Dúndedain Mark), Bilbo, a Dwarven Axe Warrior, a Beekeeper, a Gondorian Spearman and a Mapmaker as my attacking forces (and Grimbeorn, of course). I only had 2 Rivendell Minstrells and a Daughter of the Nimrodel for questing, and Théodred still got one damage point that I wanted to heal. So I only 17 attacking points, and I was also engaged with a Muck Adder which got Wolf Rider as its shadow card (round 8). I lost the Spearman to the Adder and used the Axe Warrior to block the Wolf Rider. Fortunatly I drew another Gandalf in my last turn, so I had enough power to both quest and fight.

IIRC, encounters were

round 1: Wargs (undefended + shadow effect; Legolas hit them for 2 danage and the Spearman killed them next round; 3 damage applied to Théodred)

round 2: Goblin Snipers (undefended, killed by Legolas; 2 damage applied to Legolas)

round 3: River Langflood

round 4: Roasted

round 5: Oakwood Grove

round 6: A Frightened Beast

round 7: Roasted

round 8: Muck Adder

round 9: Wolf Rider

leptokurt said:

What do you mean by this?

muemakan said:

I meant his forced effect about Troll enemies: "After this enemy attacks, the defending player must raise his threat by 3". I played "Feint" and prevented him from attacking which is why the forced effect didn't trigger.

Ah sorry, I just noticed I overread something. I thought you had to fight the first two trolls in the same round. Didn't realize you killed the damaged Rupert with Gandalf and then Louis attacked alone.

Not a great score, but here it is: 167. 44 threat; 3 damage; 12 rounds. No victory points. Heros were eowyn, Gimli, denethor.

Puh, wow, that´s a though one. Played the whole night while Football was on.

Scored some victories around 120.

Now finally a good score.

Heroes:

Aragorn, Gloin ( no Damage taken......****, Theodred would have been much better) and Beravor

Final threat was 28

Aragorn got 4 wounds

7 rounds played

Total: 102, used 3 core and both APs

Realised afterwards if I engaged Louis ( not one of the others ) first and took the 3 threat instead of playing 3 sneak attack Gandalf to kill him in the staging area I could have lowered my threat for an additional 12. Would have took me one more turn. Could have played one more GG.....

So a score of 85 would have been possible........ARGHHHHH

Gleowine and Beravor were a key feature of course.......holding on to 3 sneaks till the end also helped.

Good Night

Ok, couldn´t sleep........tried again.

Heores

Aragorn, Theodred, Beravor

Threat 30

Rouand 7

Damage 1

Final: 101

leptokurt said:

But just to clarify: This doesn't prevent other attacking Trolls to increase your threat.

@ muemakan:

Wow, I didn't ever think that it would be even possible to get a result < 100. Well done, let's see if you can crack the magic number!

plueschi said:

Of course. But that's the good thing about taking these trolls out one by one.

Btw, as I completly forgot about this rule when I first played this scenario, players should remember that they can engage only one of the trolls each round if their threat level is lower than 34. No chance to engage two or more of the bunch, even if that's what you wanna do!

Oh, and there's a mistake in my scenario description: in round 4 it says that "Roasted" was the encounter, but of course it was "Grimbeorn" instead.

Slowly, very slowly it´s decreasing......now I am at 99

Heroes as always: Aragorn, Theodred and Beravor

No wounds, final threat 29 and 7 rounds.

Total 99

muemakan said:

WOW! Since my 167 is only my second solo win, 99 seems a galaxy away for me!!! How do you get enough strength out to take everyone out so quickly?

Hahaha, sounds like a joke.........down to 98 now.

Same Heoroes as before

Wounds: none

Victory Points: 7

Threat: 25

Rounds: 8

Total: 98

Zjb12 said:

Grimbeorn helps......and I think the key at the moment in this deck for me is to get 5 to 6 cheap allies out and then have cards like Grim Resolve and For Gondor in your hand. And of course a sneak Gandalf its always key.

I swapped Glorfindel for Beravor and changed some other cards in my deck. What a difference! Bilbo + Beravor with 2 UC + Gleowine is a nice card drawing engine. It got me the cards I wanted, and the other cards I could feed to Protector of Lorien. I would have finished one turn earlier if not a Hill Troll had showed up in the very last moment. Gandalf helped me five times this game, and I played Greetings of the Galadhrim twice. However I don't think I would have made it without Grimbeorn, so getting him or Bee Pastures early as an encounter seems really important.

Final score: 96

Heores: Bilbo, Beravor, Eowyn

Threat 20

Round: 8

Damage 0

Victory points: 4

Nowhere near the top scores, but a little lower: 153. 12 rounds, 39 threat, 6 victory points. Heros Aragon, Eleanor, eowyn.

Impressiv, tried it with this combo myself.......but before the tournament started.

Couldn´t overcome the problem of attack strength.......and resources were a problem too. Never managed to get Steward out before turn 3.

Fatty said:

How did you get the resources for 2 G Greetings and 2 UC?

muemakan said:

Nevermind, just answered it myself.....

Probably not a top 10, but my first go:

1 Core

Won in Round 16 (160)

Threat (45)

Wounds (0)

Victory Pts (-4)

Total 201

Heroes: Aragorn, Theodred, Bilbo

Started with a Steward, and I had a few Gandalfs early which were helpful in keeping my threat low. It took 5 turns or so to get Grimbeorn out, so that definitely slowed me down. After taking out one troll and engaging two more, a hill troll came off of the encounter deck, which made things rough. I was luck with Sacked cards though and avoided them until late. Lore of Imladris was really helpful to keep Grimbeorn around and absorbing troll carnage.

Just got to take my first stab at this tonight too...

and while I (hopefully) can do better, this run through was so epic in nature that I just had to make a post.

Heroes: Bilbo, Dúnhere, Aragorn

Threat Tracker: 33

Hero Wounds: 2

Victory Points: 17 (that's -17)

Round Marker: 17 (that's 170)

Final Score: 188

What made this epic will not take too long to tell.

In short, I never did manage to get Grimbeorn into play, but I pressed on... and on my way to carving up the four baddies at the end (thanks to an Aragorn on steroids, swinging for 6 each time), I also managed to take care of 2 (count them, 1, 2) not so measly Hill Trolls and a Marsh Adder (plus Gladden Fields x2 makes 17 VP). Just Wicked!

Phew, I'm exhausted. What fun!

Okay, tried again... still no Grimbeorn, but a less dramatic pathway and somewhat better outcome.

Heroes: Bilbo, Dúnhere, Aragorn

Threat Tracker: 26

Hero Wounds: 0

Victory Points: 0

Round Marker: 13 (130pts.)

Final Score: 156