…is it strong enough to go through the Mirkwood Cycle solo and say beat each quest at least two out of three? It is 4-0 against Anduin and 3-0 against Hunt for Gollum (not touching Dol Goldur), but I think there is room for improvement. It quests well (though struggles a little early without LoV), deals with locations well, deals with the encounter deck well, fights well, draws well, reduces threat well, and heals well, but is its difficulty questing early its sole weakness? Also, am I overlooking something that would give me trouble later in the cycle? I have only a single Core, own everything in Mirkwood except CATC, and only own FoS and WitW in the Darrowdelf. Resourceful is included as I found it difficult to pay for all the Spirit cards I needed.

Heroes (22 threat)

Bilbo Baggins (9)
Glorfindel (5)
Denethor (8)

Player Deck (50)

Northern Tracker x2
West Road Traveler x3
Arwen Undomial x3
Daughter of Nimrodel x3
Miner of the Iron Hills x2
Erebor Hammersmith x2
Haldir of Lorien x2
Mirkwood Runner x3
Gandalf x3

Ancient Mathom x3
Light of Valinor x3
Forest Snare x2
Protector of Lorien x2
Asfoloth x3
Resourceful x2

A Test of Will x2
Hasty Stroke x2
Elrond’s Counsel x3
Healing Herbs x2
Daeron’s Runes x3

One problem is that you can't use Arwen in the first two Dwarrowdelf adventures, as she is a neutral ally there.

Northern Tracker seems to be a waste to me, as you already have Asfaloth. You should trade him for Burning Brand.

This would also make Resourceful obsolete, as you now have enough spirit resources. Take Fast Hitch instead. Both these cards help you with the biggest weakness of your deck - the lack of a decent defender (you can also use Haldir, of course).

Not sure if only 2 Healing Herbs are sufficient for Rhosgobel.

leptokurt said:

Not worried about Darrowdelf just yet as I don't have Kazad-um (sp?). I typically just get adventure packs for the player cards which explains why I have WITW and FOS.

Northern Tracker is the primary reason I felt at the time I needed some resource acceleration and he makes me feel safe, but perhaps I should remove my crutch and see how it works without him.

I have thought about Fast Hitch but didn't feel I had the room (Northern Tracker maybe) and CATC is the only Mirkwood pack I don't have (My friend already had that one so I went for different ones), but you are right in that Burning Brand would make a fine addition.

You are absolutely right about Healing Herbs, two are not enough as I found that out the hard way and three are in there now and it made a huge difference.

Personally, i'd trade in Denethor for Lore Aragorn. Even though Aragorn costs a bit more in terms of starting threat, he is more all-around while Denethor is just for blocking. You have a low starting threat cost anyways. I will not dispute that Denethor's special ability is pretty handy to have around, but Aragorn's can save you from losing the game because of high threat. Once you start getting hit with a few "Doomed" cards, you'll know what I'm talking about.

Hope this helped!