Look there is a lot of talk about this.. and honestly I think a lot of it is bull, how can peopel not think this quest is super hard solo.. Personally I think this quest is VERY hard solo, especially when you have a limited card pool.. Now lets put a end to this...

2 Competitions.

• 1xRestricted
• 1xRestricted+SOM

Rules: Restricted

• You have to play 5 games total and ONLY 5 NO MORE.. 5 GAMES TOTAL!
• You can use 1 copy of CORE + HFG + CATC + AJTR
• Post your results for each game... Score / Heroes + Anything else you want to add.

Rules: 1xRestricted+SOM

• You have to play 5 games total and ONLY 5 NO MORE.. 5 GAMES TOTAL!
• You can use 1 copy of CORE + All cards from Shadows of Mirkwood ONLY
• Post your results for each game... Score / Heroes + Anything else you want to add.

Then I will add it all up and use Petes or RGun's averaging system to get a meta score for us all.. Winner and 2 runner ups will be asked to post their decks.

LET'S END THIS NOW!!! - IS A JOURNEY TO RGOSGOBEL REALLY HARD FOR NEW PLAYERS?

If people get into this we will do it again this time with no restrictions on how many copies of core there is..

Time to put your money where your mouth is... stop calling "easy / hard" and lest see it in action.

NOTE TO CHEATING - There is no way we can stop you from cheating... but just don't.. come on.. if you embarrassed make a new account and post under that name or something.. you can ONLY play 5 games per round . no more... no less... you can not play the set 10 times and give your best score....The fail rate is a massive part of what we are trying to look at here.

Excellent idea.

this really isnt going to do much for my standing in the forum , but it wont be joining in, as soon as i see competition i fade out........anyways this seems way too a hostile comp.....in the red corner we have rhosgobel is easy and in the blue corner......

also after all my opinions on this when people said journey i was actually refering to journey down the anduin, which is why i was confused people were saying it was easy for beginners......yes it is late, still never mind, i dont usually check competition threads, but i will never the less watch this one with interest

I think most people would agree that Journey to Rgosgobel is one of the harder quests (it does have a 6 rating), especially solo. That being said, I don't think a second core set is required to enjoy and play any of the quests solo, including this one. I have won all playing solo except Escape from Dol Guldor using the restricted rules (i.e. only use cards available at the time the scenario was released) although my win percentage on the harder ones is down around 15-20%. Lord of the Rings is my first experience with deck building games and I definitely do not consider myself an expert deck builder so I expect there is much I could do better to improve my win % significantly.

Personally, I like a difficult challenge, provided a win is not impossible so I find the difficulty just right for me. I enjoy learning and seeing the results as my deck building skills increase, as well as discovering more optimal strategies for dealing with each specific quest. I also like the fact that playing as a solo player, the decks and strategies really need to be tailored to each specific quest and I also like to see the impact that the new cards have on quests previously played using the restricted rules.

That being said, if I was going to play competitively then there is no doubt I would want 3 copies of some of the key cards.

Everyone has different tastes so there is no right answer for everyone, but my advice would be if you like a challenge and aren't going to be playing competitive tournaments than no need to get a second core set. If you don't enjoy losing a significant amount of the time and don't enjoy fiddling with your deck but want to play solo then I would recommend staying away from the quests with a difficulty higher than 5 (or just play those ones with 2 or more players).

Well this isn't a "completion".. it is just a friendly game, to see exactly what people are saying... IMO, a lot of the "difficulty" bitching is not that some players are better, it is that they just do not see loosing as a problem. AjtR is one of my fav quest in the game for solo. I have had more fun trying to build a consistent deck to this quest than nearly any other. Like you say you are on about a 15-20% win ratio on some of the harder quests... that sounds about right to me.. but I do not see that as a problem.. while others do.

This is just to see what other people are doing, especially with a single core restricting them.

Excited you are hosting this booored. I'm looking forward to seeing how the results play out.

Do you have a set time frame for people to get their 5 plays in, or will it be open ended?

Honestly, the idea of an ongoing, open-ended (living, if you will) competition is very intriguing to me.

I want to play around with that idea and make a separate post about it.

In the mean time, I'm curious about your plans for this one here.

Well I give up, I just played about 20 games over course of the entire day and didn't win a single one.. would love to see these decks that supposedly can beat this quest Solo with 1 copy of Core and just the restricted card set.

I tried this around xmas, played two or three times back-to-back and just got angered by Wilyador letting me down by dying, **** him! I might get inspired this weekend to give this a try, though I'm not one for keeping track of exactly what happened during games, so may not be able to fully participate. But I'll be keen to see the responses roll in!

Try using Denethor and Eleanor. Denethor is particular is key to winning some of the quests solo. He lets you see the top card of the encounter deck, and move it to the bottom if need me. If it is an "ok" encounter card than you leave it and you know exactly how many characters you can quest with. If it's a card with a "killer" effect then you move it to the bottom. Eleanor lets you cancel bad events. If you get Unexpected Courage on Denethor than he is really good because he can get you out of trouble twice, or ready again and defend after he deals with the encounter card. He is very powerful playing solo because just one encounter card is flipped from the deck each time so with him in play you usually know exactly what you will see (except when there is a card with surge). Obviously, Lore of Imladris is key as well.

yeah well that is all obvious and has been said a billion times before...

The point of this is for people to put up or shut up and post their decks if they can do it. The real question is can you win once in 5 games. Though in retro, it should have been 3. The LoTR forum is full of people going on about "how easy" it is and offering advise, shooting down others for saying it is super hard... but there is still doubt that skill and deck building makes any difference at all, and it is all just really the luck of the encounter deck draw.

Witch is why Juice and co are spending sop much time trying to work out a score system that takes loosing into account.

If you think you have a deck that can run it.. then do it.. Lets see it in action.. instead of just another post of telling us how it should be done.. cause bottom line.. I do not believe it. or if your to chicken to put your money were your mouth is.. just post the deck for others to try... this "blanket advise that is in like every 2nd thread" is useless.

I'm glad you didn't choose Dol Guldur to proof your point.

I'm going to participate, but first I have to finish Zbj's tournament. 1 of 5 should be doable.

Attempt One: fail.
Lore/Leadership deck, using Glorfindel, Bilbo and Theodred. I'm using cards from the whole Mirkwood cycle (and one core set).

When it was all over, the state of play was thus:
- Finishing Threat 35
- Glorfindel and Theodred both had athelas
- Wilyador still had 7 wounds on him
- Used Lore of Imladris, and attached Self Preservation to Wilyador to heal him of 7 wounds, and also used 5 resources amassed by Radagast to do so.

(As I go on, I'll edit this post with the results of subsequent games)

Are we supposed to use the same deck for all 5 attempts?

Caputo said:

No, you can change your decks and heroes between games (but not between Emyn Muil and Rhosgobel). I plan to use a different combo for my last shot and already made some small corrections in my deck after my first game.

Interesting idea.

My answer in short: Is JtR really hard for new players? Yes. Is it still hard after you gained some experience? Less so.

I think the one Core Set restriction has a big impact on the difficulty of the quest, not like "If you can win it", but "how reliable do you win it". A third copy of Sneak Attack, Steward of Gondor, A Test of Will and other cards will go a long way of making you win more reliable.

That being said, I consider myself in the "quest is not too hard" corner (but I honestly don't know how hard it is with one Core Set, I have two). So I would like to put my hat in the ring and play some games with your restrictions. But instead of just posting some scores, maybe someone here is willing to meet up with me while I play those games on LackeyCCG (Tragic should be releasing JtR sometime early February, right?).

Just two questions upfront: Winning consistently trumps any score, right? And what is considered a good outcome? 2/5, 3/5 or 4/5?

Thx in advance.

just a second though......this is for the new players right??? to see how they fare against it? wont all this be a little overwhelming for them? i mean what are we calling new anyways? and wont the new players be a bit imtimidated about just coming to the game, not really knowing their ways about the game, then getting blasted by the nature of this competition

also the majority of 'new' players on here have id say at least 3 months experience, i havnt seen many people join recently, and those who have have made the threads regarding help for JTR, so will have access to decks pre made....

for instance im pretty sure i told someone a deck that i won easily with twice in a row, but hey, im not competiting, so the rules of this thread dont let me talk about it unless im going to enter with it

spalanzani said:

Hey, thought you might want to know, wilyador cannot have attachements.

I always manage to get something wrong I suppose I lost even worse than I thought!

Caputo said:

Yes. You need to use the same deck in all games.

richsabre said:

There is a no competing, this is just for fun and a way to judge the validity of this as a "solo game". The entire point is for people to step up and show us what you got.. saying you "got a deck that works.. but oh wait I'm to much a a blow hard chicken to play and post because in reality the deck can NOT do it... as there is NO deck that can do it because it is all just about how lucky your encounter draw is and has NOTHING to do with deck building or skill" is the entire point of the thread. Thanks for proving it.

New players find this game hard, they come to the forum and then they post "hey this is hard" then there is a billion posts saying "oh. .you beat it like this".. "this is easy".." do it this way".. and I think most of those posts are full of it.. so basically the fact that you can not be bothered to play a few games over the course of a few days of a game you supposedly love.. makes pretty much every one of your posts the exact butt of the joke that this thread is highlighting.

booored said:

oh you just love to push dont you booored? not everyone in the world has you attitude towards life....i know about 2 dozen people like you, always trying to prove something, not everyone plays to win, plays to prove a point, i have no point to prove, you think you can judge me half way across the world? man you have some skill, i wish i was like you i seriously do

thanks for your infinite wisdom as per usual, but i think i will be the judge of how much i love something or not

believe it or not you do not need to take part in any form of competition or tournament or player created whatever... to enjoy this game, it has other aspects, aspects which i think many people on this forum either 1. dont care about or 2. are so lost up in what win or loses they have forgotten this game is about possibly the best peice of literature ever created, which you know is fine, but they should remember some people play it for that reason, you know there was a time when this forum actually was a friendly respectful place, where you could have a mature discussion without resorting to trolling for a reaction, but.....i guess times change eh?

also i think your signature says alot about your character....why dont you try for once not to purposely p*ss people off who are genuinly here to enjoy themsleves

this forum has seriously taken a significant leap down the sh*tter over the last few weeks

spalanzani said:

Me too, so don't worry about it. Part of the learning curve.

Boooored---hey, you are correct, there is no one deck that can beat this consistently 100% of the time, because too much depends upon both encounter draws and player hands/card draw. Anything I have said in the forums, was simply meant to help someone out who was having problems winning at all. It is hard, but there are ways to increase your chances in winning, and perhaps that is how it should have been said!

Atttempt 1: Success

Using 1 x core and shadows of Mirkwood. A Lore deck with Bilbo, Denethor and Glorfindel, using no Gandalfs or Radagasts

Game lasted 13 turns winning on turn 14, used 3 Lorer of Imladris and 3 Athelas

Final threat 43 Score 165

Cant help but think this was very lucky due to getting all 3 Lore of Imladris over 5 turns in the middle of the game.

I'll give this a try. Not because I care about any side (JtR is too easy or JtR is too hard), but simply because it makes for a challenge and an occasion to compare scores and results with other players.

I bought each expansion as it came out and have played with 3 Core sets since before The Hunt for Gollum was released, but I went for a long period without playing. By the time I tried JtR for the first time, I had all the Mirkwood cycle of AP. I used my Lore deck (Beravor, Bilbo, Denethor using Songs to splash) and got destroyed on my first try. That was a generic deck designed to do well against any quest (and it worked up to that point). But ahainst JtR, I was always behind with that eagle. The clock is fast in this quest! My second try was with a friend in 2 players (Gimli-Eowyn-Brand / Bilbo-Beravor-Gloin) and we won easily. The fact that we got 2 Athelas in the first 2 turns was a major point (and I had added Lore of Imladris to my deck, a card I didn't play before this quest came out).

I then only played it a few more times. Once as a 4 player team (won in 3 or 4 turns), once as a 2 player team with the Zigil deck (again, a fast and easy win) and a few times this weekend as part of Zjb12's tournament, which doesn't really count since I won it in 2 turns each time.

So, I'm looking forward to trying this. I must say those challenges of playing with a single Core set make for a change, but I'll probably tire of them soon. Maybe I'm lazy, but I do enjoy having my 3-of for most spells (A Test of Will, Galadhrim's Greetings), especialy Unexpected Courage. Having 3 or only 1 of that attachment completely changes the game (obviously, the game is easier with 3).

I built 2 decks to try. One is Spirit / Lore (Eowyn, Eleanor, Denethor). I already tried 2 games and loss both. I'm always a turn late in getting an Athelas or my Lore of Imladris. I'll post complete results later.

The second deck is built to fight. I use Eleanor, Frodo and Legolas. I splash Lore for Lore of Imladris, but the rest includes more Eagles and ranged allies in order to better fight the enemies.

My assumption in both cases, after reviewing the encounter deck, is that you don't need major questing since most cards have only 1 or 2 threar (there's Necromancer's Pass and Ungoliant's Spawn as the exception). However, what I'm realizing now is that you still want a lot of questing speed to get to the end soon. Every turn is 2 more points of damage and you quickly run out of options. In my two tries, I had to use Lore of Imladris when Wyliador was up to 18 or 19 damage.

I'm beginning to think you need a solid alignment of planets on this quest. As in: getting early Athelas and having the right cards in your hand. This reminds me of Escape from Dol Guldur (at least from the solo perspective) The quest becomes way easier the more players you have, since the clock on Wyliador doesn't scale, but you get to see more cards from the encounter deck and can thus get Athelas sooner (solo, you'll see 9 encounter cards before Wyliador dies; two players will see 18; etc.).

Anyway, I hope to see other people post results and strategy. The fact that you can design a deck just for this quest should make it easier, but it doesn't make much of a difference right now for my tries.

Attempt 2: Fail

Glorfindel died on turn 5 having taken 2 damage from the arrival of Dol Guldor Orcs on turn 4, swarming insects and festering wounds finished him off the next turn leaving the other two heroes to die a slow lingering death over the next 5 turns. Bilbo died next on turn 7 from an undefendable Black Forest Bat and finally poor old Wilyadir succumbed to his wounds on turn 10, In spite of a Lore of Imladris and Denethor having 2 Athelas. Basically it was an unlucky run of treacheries wot did me in.

I changed my deck for this before the rules were clarified. So:

Attempt 1a: fail

This time, I used a Lore/Tactics deck, Bilbo, Denethor and Legolas.
- End threat: 39 (Game ended because Wilyador snuffed it)
- Denethor took 2 wounds from an undefended Dol Guldur Orc attack; Festering Wounds then did him in.
- Swarming Insects wounded everyone (and killed Daughter of the Nimrodel) for one, then...
- Bilbo was caught in a web, a second Swarming Insects killed him off, as well as sweeping up a couple more of my allies.
- As a last-ditch effort, I managed to bring out Eagles of the Misty Mountains for a questing-boost, but before long, it was all over.