leptokurt said:

Did you healed Wilyador with Glorfindel? I believe 'removed from the game' isn't equal to 'dead'.

If so, your end result is 251! It's getting better after every post. haha

****, thanks y'all. For me "removing" always means dead(why did he leave us anyway when he's not dead?) Cool thing ,as Glorfindel had two damage on him (yep, it was Rockslide).

And yep, I forgot that my group was at Rhosgobel (Théodred made the notes ).

So, the total score is then 251.

It looks like people are starting to figure out decks to beat it. Go time is 2 hours away! Looking forward to hearing some interesting stories with this one, (like the warg that attacked me several rounds in a row during emyn mui and then either didn't have a shadow effect or always drew the one that returned him to the staging area. I think I finally just brought Gandalf in and killed him. What an annoying pest!)

Zjb12 said:

Btw, your go time is midnight here in Central Europe. You should probably consider to choose a time that is early Euro evening to have more players participating.

leptokurt said:

Good point. I am still figuring all this out. Maybe sometime between 10am - and noon here, would that be about 5pm - 7pm where you are?

P.s. have you guys got khazad dum yet? I was wondering about that for next week.

Zjb12 said:

Right now it is almost 11 pm in Germany.

About Khazad-Dum: it's avialable on German Amazon since today. I should get it early next week.

Btw, next my try was far better - 165 points. My biggest problem was an early Marsh Adder and the famous pairing Wargs/Goblin Sniper - of course with no shadow effect happening for four-five turns. Without Glorfindels (underestimated) ability my party would have been toast in midgame. Managed to get through Rhosgobel in 2 turns.

The hills are the toughest part. If you can pick up a lore of imladris while in the hills, it really helps out in the next part. You also have to come out of the hills not too banged up or with a treachery canceller. I had one game where if I hadn't been able to cancel a treachery, I'd have lost about half my board. Glorfindels healing ability is pretty key as well.

Ok, my first official score:

Heroes: Prince Imrahil, Théodred, Glorfindel

Threat: 47

Damage: 0

Dead Heroes: 0

Rounds: 190

Victory Points: 34

Result: 203

Beside 5x Eastern Crows I saw no enemies! OTOH I got one location after the other. Three times I travelled to the Highlands only to draw Impassable Chasm afterwards. Got 1x Rockslide and 2x Pursued by Shadows, the second one being the enocunter of my last turn during Emyn Muil, so thankfully almost everyone was questing (question: because Faramir used his ability, he wass not queting so I had to add one threat for him, right?). The Brown Lands and the East Bight also have been explored by my fellowship. Could have ended this 3-4 turns earlier, but I kept drawing Emyn Muil locations ( VP are: Amon Hen, Amon Lhaw, 2x East Wall, 2x North Stair, 1x Outer Ridge, Shores of Nen Hithoel, 4x Highlands, Rhosgobel).

Rhosgobel dealt me two treacheries (Festering Wounds and Swarming Insects). As I had 3x Lore of Imladris and tons of resources left, I could easily heal Wilyador and finsih this quest in 2 turns.

@leptokurt---good job! I kept getting the east bight earlier today---I think I went there like three times kuz of it and other card effects---ugh!

That would be right about faramir.

Zjb12 said:

I hope so.

Another question that came up during my second unofficial quest: When Rauros Falls is the active location, am I allowed to use Daughter of the Nimrodel's action during the planning or resource phase? Or do I have to keep her ready to commit her to the quest?

leptokurt said:

I have always been unclear on that too. Maybe we should ask in a separate topic and see if someone knows.

First official score: threat, 28; rounds, 14 (140); no damage or dead Heros; Heros were glorfindel, eleanor, theodred. 24 vps (Amon hen, lhaw, hill troll, outer ridge, 2x shores of nen hithoel, Rhosgobel). Final score: 144.

You do not have to keep her ready. This text is more along the lines of "You must commit everyone you can to this quest." She's not eligible to quest if she's been exhausted earlier in the round.

To sort of highlight this more clearly - suppose Rauros Falls is active and Gimli has "Caught in a Web" on him. It's the refresh phase. Do you have to spend the 2 resources to ready him so that he'll be good to go for the Quest Phase? Of course not. Same story here.

This post may contain "spoilers" for those who haven't tried the scenarios yet, in case anybody care.

Done with my 5 tries.

The scores were:

# 1 - Loss

# 2 - Win: 128 (25 threat + 0 dead hero + 0 wound - 27 victory points + [13 rounds * 10] = 128)

# 3 - Win: 163 (29 threat + 0 dead hero + 0 wound - 26 victory points + [16 rounds * 10] = 163)

# 4 - Win: 109 (24 threat + 0 dead hero + 0 wound - 25 victory points + [11 rounds * 10] = 109)

# 5 - Win: 135 (21 threat + 0 dead hero + 0 wound - 26 victory points + [14 rounds * 10] = 135)

My decklist is:

Hero (3)
Denethor (Core) x1
Eleanor (Core) x1
Glorfindel (Core) x1

Ally (22)
Daughter of the Nimrodel (Core) x1
Eomund (CatC) x1
Erebor Hammersmith (Core) x2
Gandalf (Core) x3
Gildor Inglorion (THoEM) x1
Gleowine (Core) x2
Haldir of Lorien (AJtR) x2
Henamarth Riversong (Core) x1
Longbeard Map-Maker (CatC) x2
Northern Tracker (Core) x2
Radagast (AJtR) x1
Rivendell Minstrel (THFG) x3
The Riddermark's Finest (THoEM) x1

Attachment (16)
A Burning Brand (CatC) x2
Ancient Mathom (AJtR) x3
Dunedain Warning (CatC) x1
Forest Snare (Core) x2
Protector of Lorien (Core) x1
Self Preservation (Core) x1
Song of Kings (THFG) x1
Song of Travel (THoEM) x1
Steward of Gondor (Core) x2
Unexpected Courage (Core) x1
Dunedain Cache (TDM) x1

Event (12)
A Test of Will (Core) x2
Dwarven Tomb (Core) x1
Hasty Stroke (Core) x1
Lore of Imladris (Core) x2
Sneak Attack (Core) x2
Strider's Path (THFG) x2
The Galadhrim's Greeting (Core) x2

Preparation: I knew right away that I wanted to play Lore and Spirit for these scenarios. These two are my favorite spheres anyway (Lore > Spirit), but they are especialy well adapted to both Hills of Emyn Muil (Northern Tracker) and Journey to Rhosgopel (Lore of Imladris). It was also interesting to try playing with a single Core Set for a change, although I hope it doesn't become a standard restriction on "tournament-style" posts (after all, it's easy enough to make proxies if required). One of the most interesting aspects of this game was the switch of encounter decks in both quests: this gives the quest a fresh look and makes them feel a bit like "new" quests.

Deck building - Heroes: I knew I wanted Denethor for sure for his "peaking" ability. When playing solo, I always try to use him. I also decided on Eleanor as my Spirit hero, fearing some of the treacheries in these quests. I was left with finding a Warrior or Dunedain hero to complete the trio. I considered Beravor (Dunedain), but with a single Unexpected Courage in the deck, it wasn't that powerful. Also, I needed a quester hero since both Denethor and Eleanor would remained ready most of the time. So I chose Glorfindel. It was my first time playing with him ever except in 4 players game. He's a Warrior, has great stats and his healing ability could come in handy in JtR. I wasn't too worried about the starting threat with 27. In retrospect, I didn't use Eleanor's ability very often, and most of those times, I had A Test of Will in hand anyway. I would probably switch Eleanor for Eowyn as the quester and add Beravor as the Dunedain hero instead. The extra cards would probably have accelerated my play a bit.

Deck building - Player cards: It was also interesting to build from a more limited card pool. I wanted to include Feint at first, until I realized that Song of Battle was out of scope. I went with a Leadership splash for Sneak Attack and Steward of Gondor. I added in a Dunedain Warning to make Denethor an invincible defender and chose to try a Dunedain Cache since I didn't have any eagle nor ranged character. That wasn't a good choice in retrospect: I had not realized how little time would be spent on the JtR quest. Must have for Lore included Lore of Imladris (to heal Wyliador) and Rivendell Minstrel to fetch the two Songs. I only played a single Gildor because of its high cost and I didn't want to find myself stuck with multiple copies of this unique ally. Spirit included the basics: Norther Tracker (star of the deck and a winning condition against THoEM), A Test of Will, The Galadhrim's Greetings, Dwarven Tomb (mostly to replay a GG before winning) and Ancient Mathom as my drawing engine (combines well with Erebor Hammersmith). I only included a single Hasty Stroke since I already had 2 A Burning Brand.

Deck building - What would I change: Haldir wasn't that useful. By the time I had the 4 resources, I was often looking to play other cards (early, I would favor the Minstrel; late, I'd have a Gandalf). Longbeard Map-Maker didn't shine either: I rarely had the resources to make use of him anyway. Not sure what other allies would have been better, however... I could have used more than one The Riddermark's Finest: its ability was great against THoEM and I didn't have any way to recycle him. I should definitively have played the second Protector of Lorien. Ever Vigilant could also have been a good addition to maximize the turns where Gandalf showed. The Strider's Path didn't see much play; maybe Secret Paths would have produced better results against this scenario (the travel costs are not "expensive" in THoEM, as opposed to what we see in the Core quests.

The quests: If I can make one critic about the format and the quest, its that the second part was almost useless. I always completed Journey to Rhosgopel in 2 turns with Lore of Imladris in hand because by then, I had a full army. Also, because THoEM can be won via Northern Tracker (putting the last exploration marker on the last location in staging bringing you to over 20 vp), I often fell into the first round of JtR with a maximized questing army. Either using a different scenario as the first part (THoEM gives you a lot of time to build up your army, although the addition of Wilderlands encounters made for a great challenge) or forcing a bigger reset between the two quests (such as reseting threat, maybe keeping only up to two allies, or some such thing) would have been better.

Loss on the first try: This first game led me to reflect upon the thread about why people find certain quests difficult or easy. The "experience factor" was mentionned in that thread, and it's what cost me that first lost. I haven't played often against THoEM. I didn't realize how difficult it may be if you start struggling against a bunch of ever increasing locations. In that game, I found myself engaging an Orc Horse Thieve. I had a choice at one point of trapping it with Forest Snare or playing an ally. I chose to play an ally because at that point, the staging area included a single location (one of the starting Amon location). I defended easily with Denethor, but got Rauros Falls as a shadow card, so the orcs went back in staging. Next round, I got a new location in staging and the extra 3 from the Orc prevented me from making progress. I defended again, but got the same shadow effect. It did the same for a 3rd round in a row. By then, that Orc was mighty and since it never stayed engaged, I didn't get a subsequent chance to trap it. After Denethor died, I scooped. You bet that I immediately trapped these Thieves in subsequent games.

Winning strategy: My games followed the same patterns. I tried to find at least a cheap ally in my starting hand as much as possible. The songs were always played on Glorfindel, along with Steward of Gondor. Denethor got A Burning Brand and Dunedain Warning. Glorfindel got the other attachments: Protector of Lorien and Dunedain Cache. Self-Preservation went were needed, but it ended up being Glorfindel more often than not. The generic pattern was: struggle for the first 2 turns; start stabilizing the field; get Northern Tracker active and then I made progress. By the 6th to 8th turn, I generaly had full board control, knew what was coming and was adjusting in consequence. Gandalf was used for threat lowering most of the games; I may have used him once to kill a Goblin Sniper. I didn't fight many enemies: mostly Eastern Crows and Orc Horse Thieves. I trapped the bigger ones when they showed (kept a Hill Troll trapped for a full game after the valiant sacrifice of an Erebor Hammersmith). By the 4th and 5th game, I was beginning to not worry so much about threat and chose a few time to quest less than needed, taking a threat increase, but allowing me a bit of flexibility (killing an enemy, peeking at the deck to set up a good turn after). I knew that I would always get a few Gandalf in play along with a couple of Galadhrim's Greetings before the end. On the first turn, I always quested with all 3 heroes and any ally I had. That was always the biggest risk I took: meeting a Warg on turn 1 with a lucky shadow card could have destroyed my strategy. Most of the other enemies are over 30 to engage, so with 5 or 6 points of Willpower questing, I was safe. I always traveled to the Amon location that prevents playing Events first so as to try to clear it.

All in all, a nice "event" and I hope to see more about other people's deck choice and gameplay.

Game 2: loss in the hills. Game 3: miraculous comeback. In the hills, only to threat out in Rhosgobel right after I got Gandalf from the response on mountains of mirkwood!!!! Argh!!!! 1-2 for the tournament. Gonna need two wins tomorrow or my weighted average is going to be to the moon!!! ( to the moon Alice!!!!)

@sick_boy: hey! Thanks for the game review. Sounds like you really enjoyed it!

Hurray, my second try went far better, although it was a bit boring. This time I got only one enemy (King Spider, first turn of Rhosgobel).

Before I give a small review I have a question for you:

I ended Emyn Muil by using Snowbourn Scout's ability during the planning phase to explore the Highlands which got me 20 VP. So how do I continue after switching to the Rhosgobel deck? Am I still in the planning phase of the same turn? Or do I have to move my round marker by 1 and start with the resource phase of the next round? I played it like I still was in the planning phase if the same round. If that's so, one should be careful when finishing Emyn Muil during the questing phase, because the basically loose one turn to explore stage 1B of Emyn Muil, adding two extra damage to Wilyador.

Strategywise this would mean that a player should hold back Snowbourn Scout or use Riddermark's Finest ability so he can finish Emyn Muil before starting the quest phase.

So, here's my second adventure:

Heroes: Prince Imrahil, Théodred, Glorfindel

Threat: 29

Damage: 0

Dead Heroes: 0

Rounds: 80

Victory Points: 24

Result: 85

The encounters were lots of locations (all of them with the Emyn Muil trait!), one Rockslide and some harmless treacheries. Fortunatly Rockslide happened during turn 2, so Glorfindel was able to heal all my heroes in time. I had Celebrían's Stone in my starting hand, which helped a lot. I also had Sneak/Gandalf, Haldir, Snowbourn Scout, 2x Westroad Traveller and Riddermark's Finest as allies during the game. Other attachments were Song of Travel, Dúnedain Quest and Unexpected Courage.

Victory points were: Amon Hen, Amon Lhaw, 2x Highlands, Rauros Falls, Eastwall, Shore of Nen Hithoel, Rhosgobel

Played this into the wee hours this morning. I won 3 out of 5, but I actually think the heroes and deck I used should be able to win close to 100% of the time (maybe perhaps not with the best individual scores though). My two loses were due completely to "brain farts" in my play (highlighted below) as opposed to issues with my heroes/deck - I blame it on playing until 1:30 in the morning while drinking wine steadily.

Thanks for putting together the tourney - was fun, and actually a lot easier than I thought it would be. If you got through the Hills, then Rhosgobel was trivial and over in 3-4 rounds due to the allies and attachments built up by then. After playing, I think 5 games is a lot to cram into 48 hours - would recommend 3 games next time despite luck weighing a little more heavily with less games to average out an overall score.

Details below:

Heroes: Glorfindel, Eowyn, Denethor

Deck: I can send details if anyone is interested. Was a spirit/lore heavy deck with a sprinking of the usual leadership suspects (Sneak Attack, Steward of Gondor, Faramir)

Game #1

Win - 162 points

Threat: 37

Dead Heroes: 0

Damage Remaining: 0

Victory Points: 25

Round Points: 150

Game #2

Win - 138 points

Threat: 32

Dead Heroes: 0

Damage Remaining: 0

Victory Points: 24

Round Points: 130

Game #3

Fail - ended Hills with threat of 47 and then lost a few turns later when it hit 50. Hit a troll and had low threat so didn't really worry about killing him, but then a second one popped up the next card and all of a sudden I had 2 to deal with and had not picked up a single Galadrin's Greeting. Could have killed the first one easily if I had played a few cards differently but just didn't think I had to worry about threat as it was in the 20s when the first hill troll came up.

Game #4

Fail - really had a brain fart on this one. It was the last turn on Rhosgobel and I had more than ennough will to finish the quest and an athleas to heal Willyador with an extra heal remaining from Glorfindel if needed. I used Denethor to check the encounter deck and saw an Athleas card, could have moved it to the bottem of the deck as I didn't need it but left it. Quested with all heroes (didn't need to) and then when I flipped the guard card it was **** festering wounds and nailed Wilyador for 2 additional damage (I could have handled 1 extra, but no, it had to be 2). Had no ready heroes left to claim the Athleas, and ended up 1 short of healing Wilyador and lost the game. Grrrrr.....

Game #5

Win - 198 points (of interest - did not use a single Lore of Imladris or Athleas)

Threat: 42

Dead Heroes: 12

Damage Remaining: 0

Victory Points: 36

Round Points: 198

Just read Sick_Boy's post and was intrigued by his deck so thought I would go ahead and post mine as it is similar, but there are some differences. In hindsite I would replace Will of The West with Ancient Mathom - with 2 quests to play I thought I might run out of cards so added Will of the West, but in reality never needed to use it and what I needed more was a way to get at my Galadrim's Greeting and Lore of Imladris cards (one game they just refused to show up).

My decklist was:

Hero (3)
Denethor (Core) x1
Eowyn (Core) x1
Glorfindel (Core) x1

Ally (23)
Daughter of the Nimrodel (Core) x3
Gandalf (Core) x3
Haldir of Lorien (AJtR) x3
Henamarth Riversong (Core) x1
Longbeard Map-Maker (CatC) x3
Northern Tracker (Core) x2
Radagast (AJtR) x3
Rivendell Minstrel (THFG) x3
Faramir (Core) x 2

Attachment (13)
A Burning Brand (CatC) x2

Protector of Lorien (Core) x2
Self Preservation (Core) x2
Song of Kings (THFG) x3
Steward of Gondor (Core) x2
Unexpected Courage (Core) x1
Celebrian's Stone (Core) x1

Event (14)
A Test of Will (Core) x2
Lore of Imladris (Core) x3

The Galadhrim's Greeting (Core) x2

Hasty Strike (Core) x2

Will of the West (Core) x2

Sneak Attack (Core) x2

Fortune or Fate (Core) x1

Two more scores:

Third game: loss, thanks to Hill Troll in round 2 and Wargs in round 3

Fourth game:

Heroes: Prince Imrahil, Théodred, Glorfindel

Threat: 48

Damage: 0

Dead Heroes: 0

Rounds: 170

Victory Points: 30

Result: 188

Faced a Hill Troll and 2x Rockslide. Sacrificed a Miner of the Iron Hills to the troll and trapped him afterwards with Forest Snare. Rhosgobel was won thanks to Glorfindel healing ability and 1x Lore of Imladris (switched to Rhosgobel during the quest phase, so Willy had 6 damage to heal).

radiskull said:

Thanks, that's what I thought.

RGun said:

Howd you heal the eagle?

Duh! Radaghast, correct?

Wow! After going 4-5 yesterday, I start off this morning getting my butt handed to me by a boat load of enemies. Game 4: loss. That makes me 1-3 for the tournament. At least you can say I didn't rig it!!! ;-)