Hi! Welcome to this weekend's Zjb12 Quest #1. This tournament begins at 12pm (CST/FFG time) Friday, February 3 and runs through Sunday, February 5, 5pm. (Please do not include scores from times before or after that period.)

Solo Player Quest: Passage Through Mirkwoodx2 (This idea comes to us from Juicebox with a little tweaking by myself.)

Deck Parameters: 1-2 Coresets + all Shadows of Mirkwood APs (for both decks).

Tournament Parameters: 2 Games (combined), 2 Separate Decks, 2 Heroes Each, Use All Spheres*

*(A result for this weekend’s tournament will include the combined score of 2 back-to-back games. In each game you are limited to 2 heroes, (from 2 different spheres). Between the 2 games you must have all four spheres. In addition, each deck can only contain cards from the 2 heroes’ spheres along with neutral cards. So, for example, game 1 might include a Leadership and Lore hero pairing and game 2 a Spirit and Tactics hero pairing. In the first deck could only be Leadership, Lore, and Neutral Cards (like Gandalf or Song cards that would give the other hero Leadership or Lore). You must construct both minimum 50 card decks before beginning the first game. Since there are no sphere crossovers between the 2 decks, and plenty of Gandalfs from 2 core sets, you should be all set.)

You must win both back-to-back games to equal a result. Please be honest when starting the second game and take no more than 1 mulligan per standard rules.

For this quest, you can attempt it as many times as you want during the weekend tournament time frame, but you may only hold 1 position overall in the final standings.

Please post your results to this forum topic. When you post your scores please include: final threat, damage, dead heros, rounds, and victory points, and heros used, as well as final total. (When including rounds, give the number of rounds as well as the calculated points).

Questions? Please ask!

Please let me also know which random quest card you got for 3b in each game.

It's go time! And this is a lot harder than it looks!!!

Ok - since I did a play test earlier in the week I had an idea of what you need in a deck to make it work. My first decks (hobbits and dwarves) worked OK but were really slow so I've switched to a Spirit/Tactics deck and a Lore/Leadership deck.

Here's my first successful pair of results.

Eowyn/Boromir - Beorn's Path - Turn 7 (60), Damage 3, Threat 31, VP 0 = 94

Glorfindel/Gloin - Don't leave the path - Turn 13 (120), Damage 0, Threat 41, VP 9 = 152

Total score = 246

I used 1 core set - no shared cards, I do think the decks would play better with 3 Gandalfs rather than 2 in each.

Good luck everyone - I love this challenge. Off to bed now, expect more tomorrow!

Not sure I'll have time to play this weekend as my inlaws are in town and we are having plumbing issues at the house, but I did also try this one earlier this week with an Aragorn/Dunhere and Glorfindel/Boromir combo. I wanted to play Aragorn along with the Spirit Hero because of the potential of Celebrian's Stone.

It didn't work too well for the second deck. Too much starting threat and it just goes up crazy fast with Boromir fighting non-stop. My next intention was to use a Boromir / Eowyn deck along with a Glorfindel / Dain Ironfoot one. Combining Lore with Leadership will let me play Steward of Gondor on the Lore Hero. Lore has the most expensive cards (3 and plus) that I intend to play from the 4 Spheres. With Dain, I'll be able to play many dwarven allies.

I tried earlier this week and failed. I made my two decks today and came really close with a Eowyn/Aragorn deck, but just kept coming up short and always drawing the path with the spawn. My other deck is glorfindel/Gimli. Nt sure how that will do yet. I went 1-4 on the other quest.

Just finished (what else is there to do at 6 am when you're waiting to know if the roof is gonna fall on your head, besides playing LotR).

Result:

Win (Don't leave the path): 33 threat + 0 dead hero + 5 wounds - 0 victory points + (10 rounds * 10) = 138

Win (Don't leave the path): 34 threat + 0 dead hero + 0 wound - 0 victory points + (7 rounds * 10) = 104

Combined score: 242

Decklists (in the order played)

Tactics / Spirit

Hero (2)
Boromir (TDM) x1
Eowyn (Core) x1

Ally (20)
Escort from Edoras (AJtR) x2
Gandalf (Core) x3
Gondorian Spearman (Core) x3
Northern Tracker (Core) x2
The Riddermark's Finest (THoEM) x2
Vassal of the Windlord (TDM) x3
Wandering Took (Core) x2
West Road Traveller (RtM) x3

Attachment (11)
Ancient Mathom (AJtR) x3
Blade of Gondolin (Core) x2
Horn of Gondor (Core) x2
Song of Travel (THoEM) x2
Unexpected Courage (Core) x2

Event (19)
A Test of Will (Core) x3
Blade Mastery (Core) x3
Dwarven Tomb (Core) x2
Feint (Core) x3
Hasty Stroke (Core) x3
Stand and Fight (Core) x2
The Galadhrim's Greeting (Core) x3

Leadership / Lore

Hero (2)
Dain Ironfoot (RtM) x1
Glorfindel (Core) x1

Ally (24)
Daughter of the Nimrodel (Core) x1
Erebor Hammersmith (Core) x3
Gandalf (Core) x3
Gildor Inglorion (THoEM) x1
Gleowine (Core) x2
Haldir of Lorien (AJtR) x2
Henamarth Riversong (Core) x2
Longbeard Map-Maker (CatC) x3
Miner of the Iron Hills (Core) x2
Rivendell Minstrel (THFG) x2
Snowbourn Scout (Core) x3

Attachment (14)
Celebrian's Stone (Core) x2
Forest Snare (Core) x3
Protector of Lorien (Core) x3
Self Preservation (Core) x2
Song of Kings (THFG) x1
Steward of Gondor (Core) x3

Event (12)
Ever Vigilant (Core) x3
Rumour from the Earth (RtM) x2
Sneak Attack (Core) x3
Strider's Path (THFG) x3
Valiant Sacrifice (Core) x1

Summary and comments:

It went pretty much the way I expected it. The first game saw a few more locations than enemies, but I won't complain. I quested with both heroes on turn 1, readying Boromir from the Old Forest Road and engaging the Forest Spider. Allies started coming out after the second round on a steady basis. I held on to 2 Gandalf until the end, but only managed to play one to help me finish Ungoliant's Spawn. Horn of Gondor was well supplemented with allies sacrificing themselves (Vassal of the Windlords in an attack to kill a Dol Guldur Beastmaster, The Riddermark's Finest to eliminate a Necromancer's Pass from the staging area) left and right. I got my three Ancient Mathom in a row (well, the second and third were drawn off the previous one) and kept hitting locations, so I wasn't worried. Ended up with an unused A Test of Will as well.

The second game was even better. I had a hand with Steward of Gondor and 5 Lore cards. Glorfindel quested all game long and brought his army of dwarves out of the woods while Dain stood guard, making everyone else a little better. Self Preservation even ensured I could let a few attacks slip through without worries. I flipped to stage 3 just after having revealed Ungoliant's Spawn as a shadow card; would probably have won a round earlier if it had been Beorn's Path (since I could have quested with everyone without worrying about fighting off the spider). I left Hummerhorns in the staging area at the end (they showed up on the turn after I cast Gandalf).

A very nice challenge. As I said earlier, much harder than it may sound like. I think the key is in playing the best questing characters and playing a lot of low cost cards. I'll be curious to see the scores people obtain by using different heroes (if others do).

Finally switched my Heros around and used the same pairings as sickboy. Problem I seem to have is I can win with one duo and lose with the other, so it's not back to back. When I lose it's as often because of too many locations as it is too many enemies. If only they made a Southern Tracker and out him in Lore!!!

Zjb12 said:

muemakan said:

NOOOOOOOOOOOOO, all for nothing.

I will submit my score anyway:

Game 1: Beorn´s Path

Boromir/Eowyn (R-5, W-3, TH-28, V-0) Total: 81

Gandalf in round 5 was perfect for questing and reducing some threat.

Game 2: Don´t leave the Path

Imrahil/Glorfindel (R-6,W-0,TH-37, V-0) Total: 97

A SoG in my starting Hand, do I have to say more….?!

Overall: 178

muemakan said:

You made me laugh first thing this morning!!! Good job on your game too!

Tried again, this time won with glorfindel and Dain but lost with Borodin and eowyn. Cannot seem to get back to back wins on this!

Alright, time is up....90+ minutes ago, but I was at a Super Bowl party. Our finishers:

1. Muemakan 178 (eowyn, Boromir, 81); (Imrahil, glorfindel, 97).

2. Sick-boy 242 (eowyn, boromir, 138); (Dain, glorfindel, 104).

3. Memetix 246 (eowyn, boronia, 94); (Glorfindel, Gloin, 152).

Eowyn, Boromir was the big pairing and then Glorfindel and leadership hero. Good job you guys and kudos for pulling off back-to-back wins, something I couldn't do!!!

Well done everyone - I was hoping to play lots yesterday, but spent the day in bed feeling pretty ill.

I built some test decks last week using all AP's, not realising that we wouldn't be using Khazad Dum cards in the tournament. As it happened my Lore/Leadership deck was only using 2 copies of the boots so it was easy to change and my spirit/tactics deck had 3 zigil miners.

Swapping these for something legal meant I only had time for the 1 valid game over the weekend.

Before the changes I played about 10 times with each deck. Eowyn/Boromir won 8 out of the 10 with scores in the range of 93 to 112 (i.e. very consistent) and Glorfindel/Gloin won 6 times with scores from 96 to 155.

Both decks quested for 5 on turn 1, travelled to the Old road and then engaged the Forest Spider (unless something else came out). This seemed key in getting down the threat in the staging area.

I teneded to lose if I got 3 or 4 locations in a row early on, or I got Ungoliant spawn on turns 1 or 2.

@Memetix, was your deck legal for the score you posted during the tournament then?

Zjb12 said:

@Memetix, sorry, just reread your note and saw that it was. Got confused there for a moment!!!

I wasn't with my notebook this weekend, so I'm posting now.

I lost both my attempts with these decks:

Éowyn/Theodred

Gimli/Glorfindel

&

Éowyn/Gimli

Glóin/Glorfindel

It was a shame really, I was lacking deckbuilding skills this weekend for sure.
Even not counting anymore, I'm going to play this scenarios again.