Ok we play with Kobby 2 game against this quest. First we terrible lost and second one we won. I like this quest is much better done then SOF but MAO is still the best in my opinion. MAO is going to be more difficult with the number of players Lake-city i think is going more easy instead.

I use Glorifindel(FOS), Beravur and Aragorn and Kobby have Elrond, Bofur and Eowyn deck.Both of us use spirit and Lot of Test of will and Dwarfen tomb cose there a lot of nasty when revealed and shadow effects.

And also Lake-town is more static ques then MAO. In MAO last stage can bring you lot of surprise (cose of Massing in Osgiliatn threachery or Captain effect) here is everything more monotony and if you are reach a certain point the encounter deck cannot do nothing against you(little bit remind me SAF).But still this one really cool quest and quite difficult as well. This quest take a lot time to win. And I really love the idea of Dragon deck! Smaug is flying around the city and you never know where he will going next round and what he will do. Really interesting quest and very, very difficult for solo play i suppose.

richsabre said:

Thanks for the info.

If "burning" becomes a decently common mechanic in LOTR LCG then I hope FFG will include burning tokens in a future Deluxe Expansion, like the ones used in Warhammer: Invasion possibly.

Today i play another couple of solo sessions against this quest. Aragorn/Glorifindel/Denethor deck (Valinor might). All games lost.

Really difficult quest solo! Need to start use Elrond otherwise i will always lose.

Good god, I think I'm just going to give up now! The cards look beautiful (as most encounter deck cards do, anyway!) so that's one reason to buy this, of course, but I don't anticipate completing this one, ever!

Makes me wonder what three scenarios will be included in the Hobbit 2, really…

spalanzani said:

i think is an extreme example as participants had to register as a couple, so it was tailored to be this hard.

id be really surprised if we ever got something as relatively brutal as this…..unless we were storming the dark tower with a feather duster or whatever

rich

Wow, if I didn´t make some mistakes due to not having the rules for this pack and only using the stuff I found on this forum I have just beaten Smaug.

I made a print out copy and decided to try my dwarf solo deck for one quick try……wasn´t that quick in the end.

Used Dain, Ori and Bifur. Final threat was at 47. Laketown had no damage on it. I got SoG and Dunedain Warning in my opening hand.

After fighting for 4 rounds to stay in the game ( in one round my threat went up by 6 ) I managed to get a solid Dain with BB, 2 Warnings, Ring Mail and

a Daugter. The Master of the Forge and a Record Keeper helped a lot. And after building up my army and having Dain to block 3 times a turn if needed, it was just a matter of time.

I decided to not damage Smaug till the very end.

And man was I lucky to get the Great Bridge when Lake Town had only 3 damage on it….. Getting this in mid game when I had 38 damage on it would have been a disaster.

Very hard to manage the threat in the early rounds of the game……..

interesting to me how almost no one beat this quest at gencon and we already have folks on the boards beating it!

Dain Ironfoot said:

when the pressure's off though……..

Dain Ironfoot said:

If you play this quest first time you will lose more then 90%. But when you understand the idea so then you can win. Smaug is the key in this deck.

If you have manage his attack you done. Problem is Smaug is moving around a lot and you never know what can happen next turn. SO you must to have hevy defense hero to be able deal with a Smaug. But Smaug can attack more then 2 times and more then 1 players in 1 round in quest phase and combat phase. And sometimes thank to shadow effect he can attack twice in the row. But if you can manage his attack you will win is only matter of time. But is really hard to manage his attack that is a problem. You must to have tank hero like Dain or Elrond.

muemakan said:

Wow is cool to win this quest in the first try. I still cannot make it solo for now. Won only 2 players game and this was really hard.

Burt as i say from the certain point quest is become monotony cose if you can manage Smaug attack there is only matter of time to win for sure. Still is not easy to do without certain heroes.

Can you confirm that first player choose where to play Smaug at the beginning of the quest phase (either put it on the staging area or in play area, engaged) ?

So you always know where it will fly, do you?

sorty said:

yes

I just tried this on OCTGN, very hard solo without knowing what's coming up. I'm looking forward to trying 2-player.

The "immune to player card effects" raised an interesting question, muemakan mentioned burning brand and I'm not sure how that would work for smaug, he is, after all, immune to all player card effects and I can't beleive he is really scared by a fiery stick.

Thoughts?

Memetix said:

Since Burning Brand targets the shadow effects on cards, not the enemy itself, it should still work. While CONTEXTUALLY I agree that Smaug would not be frightened by a flaming stick (he does breathe fire after all), per the wroding/text, Burning Brand actually has no interaction with him directly. He is merely the conduit for a shadow card that Burning Brand can cancel.

benhanses said:

100% right

There's no denying that Burning brand doesn't target Smaug so I'm happy to agree on that part however that is only a part of the definition of the term ….

Cards with the text "immune to player card effects" ignore the effects of all player cards. Additionally, cards that are immune to player card effects cannot be chosen as targets of player card effects

I'm finding it hard to justify that a burning brand doesn't effect Smaug. Let's say the shadow card dealt to Smaug was Esgaroth Wharf

Attacking enemy gets +2 [Attack]. Then it makes an additional attack after this one.

The defender has a burning brand

While attached character is defending, cancel any shadow effects on cards dealt to the attacking enemy.

Smaug will "ignore the effects of all player cards", so he will ignore the "cancel any shadow effects" from the Burning Brand and therefore the shadow effect will trigger giving Smaug +2 and another attack.

Memetix said:

Not to be contentious (that means I will be), but that's an incorrect interpretation. I stick to my original point. Since the Burning Brand's effect is a constant effect while it is in play (unless altered by some other card that negaets it's text), it still cancels even an attack boost. The shadow effects are a keyword (Shadow:), that are triggered. In this case, BB is NOT negating an attack bonus of Smaug's: the bonus does not originate from him, but the shadow card. Therefore, before it can even technically be considered an attack boost, it is already canceled by BB. If the bonus had been printed on Smaug as a "give Smaug +2 attack if dealt a shadow card with a Shadow effect", then you would be correct, since his "immune to player card effect" would prevent a bonus being blocked since it originated from his text. But if your interpretation is correct, then BB vs Smaug would be a VERY confusing conundrum indeed, as you would constantly have to be determining WHICH shadow effects qualified as a Smaug-boost, and which were just "normal".

Nope, BB cancels ALL shadow effects, plain and simple. For once, FFG's wording is pretty clear and concise

I don't really mind how "immune to player card effects" is ruled in the end however I will enjoy a good discussion in the mean time

A burning brand says "cancel any shadow effects", I guess I'm interpreting that to mean that the shadow text is resolved and then burning brand cancels any effects that it might have had. i.e. It still triggers (Smaug get +2 Attack and another attack) and then BB cancels that effect, then Smaug ignores the effect of the player card (A burning Brand) meaning it is not cancelled after all.

Does Smaug with (ignore the effects of all player cards) trump A Burning Brand (cancel any shadow effects).

I'm not sure if there is anything in the rules to help answer that one. I suspect FFG will need to clarify exactly what "ignore the effects of all player cards" really means. For a start it makes sense that it only ignores effects that interact with Smaug but where do you draw the line?

I don't really care how this turns out, I'm just happy to see some activity. It's been pretty dead around here the past few days…

John85 said:

very dead…..its the lack of news

ive missed the talk on here

At least they're starting to post some news (even if it's not for our game).

Memetix said:

i asked this, and posted about it, on another thread when it comes to locations that are immune to player effects; my guess is it works the same way as it does here.

Dain - which thread is that?

In the mean time I've sent the following question to the rules team ….

I have a query about how to interpret "immune to player card effects", I suspect this phasing will be used again (i.e. Beorn) and I'm not sure how far reaching the phrase 'Cards with the text "immune to player card effects" ignore the effects of all player cards.' really is.

Here's a scenario
Smaug (the battle for laketown) attacks and the revealed shadow card is Esgaroth Wharf (Shadow: Attacking enemy gets +2 att, then it makes an additional attack after this one).

The defender has a burning brand.
"While attached character is defending, cancel any shadow effects on cards dealt to the attacking enemy."

So Smaug gets +2 att from the shadow effect then burning brand cancels this effect. No problems so far …. but what happens next?
Option 1: Smaug's immunity means he ignores the effect of a burning brand, meaning that the shadow card is not cancelled.
Option 2: Smaug's immunity does not affect the burning brand because <some reasonable reason here>.

What if the defender has a Dunedain warning (+1 Def), will the defender still get the bonus?
What if I attack Smaug with a character with a Rivendell Blade, does Smaug get -2 Def? What happens if I cast Heavy Stroke on an attacker on Smaug, will it ignore the effect (the extra damage)?

In order to answer these questions and possibly lots more in a similar vein, I think I/we need a better definition of "immune to player card effects" that clearly describes the extent (or range) of this trait, one that works for Smaug and Beorn and any future cards with this trait.

if i may post on dains behalf as i came across it again the other day

Message flagged
Wednesday, August 22, 2012 12:05 PM
Hi Matthew,
Good question. You can play attachments on locations that are immune to player card effects. If a card cannot have attachments, then it will read "Cannot have attachments." However, cards that are immune to player card effects will be immune to the abilities of attachments. So you can play Power in the Earth on the Troll Cave, but it will have no effect on that location. Card like Ancient Mathom and Path of Need work differently because they don't affect the location, so their abilities will still work.
Thanks for asking,
Caleb