Welcome & Introduction:

Welcome to my second LOTR LCG 2 Player Tournament, a month-long tournament that will prove capstone to my first series of tournaments exploring the Shadows of Mirkwood cycle. The idea behind this is that for one month (January ’12), everyone is invited to participate in playing a particular quest with particular deck building requirements in a 2 Player Tournament. You are then invited to record and post your final score, the heroes used, and any additional narrative you’d like to add.

Note: this is not a place to post results from the past. The tournament has a one-month lifespan, and only games played and recorded throughout this month are valid. As the month 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 month.) See also, The juicebox LOTR LCG Top Ten Hall of Fame.

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

After the end of this month’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 month is over, thus preserving (like a time capsule) the results from this 2 Player Tournament. In the mean time, if you have ideas for a future tournament, feel free to suggest them in the Ideas Thread.

And now… on to this month’s 2 Player Tournament!

2 Player Tournament #2:

Quest: Return to Mirkwood
Deck Parameters: Each Player may use 1-3 Core Sets + All Shadows of Mirkwood APs
Number of Players: 2 Players

Top Ten:

1. muemakan ~ 83 (Théodred, Éowyn, Dúnhere) & (Frodo, Bilbo, Beravor)
2. plueschi ~ 105 (Éowyn, Eleanor, Théodred) & (Thalin, Bilbo, Beravor)
3. Zjb12 ~ 113 (Brand, Legolas, Dúnhere) & (Éowyn, Glorfindel, Théodred)
4. Narsil0420 ~ 120 (Éowyn, Frodo, Eleanor) & (Thalin, Boromir, Legolas)
4. Chac ~ 120 (Éowyn, Denethor, Beravor) & (Aragorn, Théodred, Dúnhere)
6. LEGA~ 139 (Éowyn, Dúnhere, Théodred) & (Beravor, Legolas, Brand)
7. HilariousPete ~ 147 (Thalin, Boromir, Beravor) & (Éowyn, Dúnhere, Prince Imrahi)
8. wraith428 ~ 150 (Thalin, Boromir, Aragorn) & (Frodo, Bilbo, Beravor)
9.
10.

Last Updated:

February 1, 2012 (12:13am) [FFG Time]

[This 2 Player Tournament will run from January 1 – January 31, 2012 and will officially close at the end of the month (midnight) as time-stamped by the FFG forum time clock.]

Alright, let's kick the new year (and new challenge) off!

Just had an awesome game with my wife. She played all Spirit (Eowyn, Frodo, Eleanor) and I all Tactics (Thalin, Boromir, Legolas). It was discouraging starting off because we lost half our starting hands to Eyes of the Forest. We faced a Hill Troll starting in the staging area but thanks to Winged Guardian's sacrificial defense and boost to Eagles of the Misty Mountains, I took it out pretty quickly. We took a couple turns on the first stage but ran quickly through the forest thanks to the Rohirrim. We were fortunate enough not to draw any Attercops but did have to deal with the Hummerhorns at the end (Frodo absorbed the damage!) we got through the 3rd stage in 1 turn and then faced a Wargs, Marsh Adder, and the Hummerhorns. Fortunately I had two Feints in my hand and was able to keep the Wargs from running away. Boromir attacked the Wargs and then readied to join with Legolas and Landroval to finish the Marsh Adder. The Hummerhorns were obviously engaged with my wife and Westfold Horse Breaker lent his horse to Legolas who did that sick flip move he does in Two Towers to mount up and ride down those Hummerhorns. This final kill gave us the two progess we needed to complete the fourth stage and win the game! I really enjoy the multiplayer challenges!

Final Threat: 39 and 39

Damage: 4

Rounds: 50 points

- Victory Points: 12

Final Score: 120

First win over this scenario. One of my hobbits and I. Two core sets and various cards from the mirkwood aps. Heros: brand, legolas and dunhere with a total of 4 damage and final threat of 34; then eowyn, glorfindel, theodred with 2 damage and final threat of 36. Total threat 70, 6 damage, 4 rounds (40pts) for a total of 116.

Just played two more games with the same decks with one of my other hobbits. First game got crushed. Second game got a 113. Same exact threat (36,34) and round points (40) but only 3 damage. Same Heros: eowyn, glorfindel, theodred; brand, dunhere, legolas.

BTW, I played my game with only 1 core set plus all expansions

Played with my brother during Christmas holidays. Deck 1: Eagle-deck with Thalin, Boromir and Beravor. Deck 2: Rohan-deck with Eowyn, Dunhere and Prince Imrahil. Win in the 8th round (so +70 points), with 2 dmg on our heroes, 3 victory points and threats of 43 and 35. Makes a total score of 147.

It felt like we had bad luck with the encounter cards (but I think you mostly feel like that when playing RtM ;-). The decks were not specifically built to win RtM, we played the whole Mirkwood cycle with them. 2 cores and all 6 AP were used as card pool. Gandalf made a lot of visits to reduce threat, and Galadhrim's Greetings were absolutely necessary, too.

Enjoyed the quest pretty well. You even like to remember the losses (e.g. when the Eagle-deck player had to quest in 2B Escape Attempt, used all characters which have willpower, but one of the encounter cards drawn was Brown Lands with 5 threat meaning we quested unsuccessfully with just 1 willpower too less...)

HilariousPete said:

Welcome HilariousPete!

Just to clarify (it's a challenge for me, but I want to try and remain as "fair" and consistent as possible in hosting these) - did your game happen since the start of the tournament (January 1st)? Just want to make sure it's a valid entry, since I made such a deal about not posting "past" entries in the Welcome & Introduction section. Hope that makes sense...

Personally, I'm hoping so, as it's always such a lot of fun to post someone's results. Hope to post many more of yours.

juicebox

juicebox said:

Yes, that's fair, and your question is resonable. The game took place on the evening of Jan 2nd, so it's in the timeframe. My "Christmas holidays" is vague, indeed ;-)

Greetings,

Pete

HilariousPete said:

Excellent!

I haven't had a chance to try this adventure with two players yet, but I tried (and tried and tried) it out tonight solo until I finally tasted some sweet Mirkwood victory!

(Good practice for a future Solo Player Tournament maybe... ) Anyway, this one is pretty rompus!

I really hope to have the chance to make a go of it with two players sometime in the next couple weeks so I can join the ranks of you fine people who have already placed so far in this tournament. Nice job, by the way.

This one is tricksy!

Managed to play with a friend. Tried it 2 times.

The better one was as followed:

Player 1: Theodred, Eowyn and Dunhere (1 core set and I don´t know how many APs)

Threat: 0

Wounds 0

Player 2: Frodo, Bilbo and Beravor (3 core sets and all APs)

Threat 0

Wounds 0

Victory Points: 7

Rounds 9

Final score: 83

Pretty sweet result.

muemakan said:

and how many Galadhrim's Greetings?...

I guess I played 4 of them, and my friend played 2 of them.

The encounters were quite balanced.

Ok, played 3 games with my brother.

Game 1 had 2 Attercops on turn 1. And while we were able to kill them eventually and didn't lose any heroes, we eventually lost due to threat.

Game 2 had 2 Hill Trolls and Mirkwood Bats by turn 2 and we scooped

Game 3 was a win finally.

Turns 6 (50)

Threat 29 & 45

Damage 4

Dead Heroes 11 (Boromir) (The transition from stage 3 to 4 is so brutal on the player guarding Gollum...)

VP 4 (Hill Troll)

Score: 135

Heroes: Eowyn, Theodred & Brand + Imrahil, Boromir & Beravor

Not great but at least we won.

Thalin, Boromir, Aragorn and Frodo, Bilbo, Beravor

Rounds: 7

Threat: 43, 41

Damage: 5

VP: 9

Total: 150

muemakan said:

Amazing score, you have raised the bar really high for this challenge. I wondered if you could help me out, I'm planning to play this today with a friend and I wondered how to build a deck that managed its threat as successfully as you. As I understand it you both played Greetings, that make sense, but I can't see how you managed it quite as well as you did and could do with some pointers.

Your starting threats were 27 and 26, you had 9 rounds were your combined threat went up by 5 each round (1 each +3 for gollum). That makes 53+45 = 98 threat to needed to reduce. 6 Greetings makes 36 leaving 62 threat. The only other threat reducing card I know of is Gandalf but you'd need to play him 13 times (in 10 turns) to drop your threat by 62 and since I'm sure you didn't do that, I'm missing something. Any tips on how you did it?

Thanks

The GG were played on my friend only. Also there were these locations that reduce the non guarding players threat by 2. That reduced his threat by 4. And as I remember it he played Gandalf twice. He only had Gollum for the first 3 rounds. And he also had him in stage 3B but we changed control before the refresh phase again.

I don´t know how many times I played Gandalf exactly, but as I recall , it was more than 13 times.

If both players can play spirit cards and both can sneak Gandalf, this will help a lot to reduce threat. Also Thalin seems to be a good idea as we noted.

Hammer & Anvil FTW

Me: Eowyn, Eleanor, Theodred

Final Threat: 12

Brother: Thalin, Bilbo, Beravor

Final Threat: 39

Win on turn 6 (50)

Hero damage 4

victory pojnts 0

score 105

Was a fun game. Apart from standard cards like SoG, I've had some strong effects via Gildors Counsel and Shadow of the Past on Mirkwood Bats.

muemakan said:

Thanks - that was a helpful insight, I had no idea that decks could achieve that sort of thing. You're definitely playing at a different level to me.

wow, amazing score

but how were you able to play Gandalf more then 13 times?

Knoedelmeister said:

Will of the West is key.

First try and we got 139.

First player (Eowyn, Dunhere, Theodred): 35 threat, 8 (dead Dunhere), 3 wounds.

Second player (Beravor, Legolas, Brand son of Bain): 47 threat, 6 wounds.

4 rounds.

We used 1 Core Set and all Mirfwood APs except HfG.

Hi,

Here is our score for this quest.

Card pool (Chac) : 3 core sets + The Dead Marshes

Card pool (Thomas) : 3 core sets + Hunt for Gollum + Journey to Roshgobel

Heroes (Chac) : Eowyn, Denethor, Beravor (starting threat = 27)

Heroes (Thomas) : Aragorn, Theodred, Dunhere (starting threat = 28)

Round markers : 5 (50)

Final threat (Chac) : 38

Final threat (Thomas) : 32

Dead heroes (Chac) : none

Dead heroes (Thomas) : none

Wounds (Chac) : 5

Wounds (Thomas) : 0

Victory points : 5 (Hummerhorns)

Total : 120

I seriously want to congratulate everyone who placed and participated in this month's 2 Player Tournament.

You've done the Shadows of Mirkwood proud, and you're an inspiration to folks like me who have a challenging time coordinating play time for 2 player games.

I hope you'll continue to sport your impressive ways.

It makes Frodo happy. He told me so.