So, some people have Battle of Laketown and for everyone else, it's available now on OCTGN. I thought if might be good for us to pool our knowledge against this grave threat. What's working for you in the fight against Smaug?

I went at it with Tactics/Spirit and got crushed. Then I tried solo-spirit Eowyn/Frodo/Glorfindel. I felt like getting immediate allies out was one of the keys to the game which single-sphere helps with. Also with solo-spirit I could let Smaug stay in the staging area and still get enough threat to get some progress. This worked well and I got half way through the second quest card. New-Gandalf was really helpful in conjunction with threat reduction events. I was taken down by "deal 1 damage to each character" which killed Eowyn and Gandalf. The other problem was how would I get enough attack to kill Smaug!?!

Oh well, back to putting out fires…

For now looks like is impossible win solo this quest. I manage to win once with 2 players. Need to come to this quest with more serious approach.

Just get the Hobbit and really like it! Will play Smaug quest latter.

I played a few of my standard decks and got crushed, I then built a deck to take on Smaug and I haven't lost since. (Played 5 won 5)

I'm playing solo, I haven't tried this multi-player yet but if you fancy a go with me on Octgn (ID = Memetix), let me know.

The key is to pick a defensive hero (big defense and hit points) and then buff their defense. You also need the ability to cancel shadow and treachery cards and some healing to keep your big hero alive. I picked Dain as the defender which meant a Leadership, Spirit, Lore deck.

Here's my deck.

Heroes: Dain, Eowyn, Bilbo

Allies:
2 Dunedain Watcher
3 Snowbourn scout
2 Longbeard Elder
3 Zigil Miner (another cheap quester/blocker)
2 Bofur
3 Arwen (pump up Dain)
2 Dori
1 Erebor hammersmith
2 Erebor record keeper
1 Faramir
2 Daughter of the Nimrodel
2 Warden of healing

Events:
2 Hasty Stroke
3 A test of Will
1 Dwarven Tomb (usuallt used to get a test of will)
3 Daeron's Runes

Attachments:
2 Narvi's Belt (Dain)
3 Dunedain warning (Dain)
2 Hardy Leadership (Dain)
3 Steward of Gondor (Dain)
3 Unexpected Courage (Dain)
3 Ancient Mathom

Notes:
There is no threat reduction in this deck but you usually win on about 45-47 threat. I don't attack Smaug until the end of stage 2 when you have a large army of allies in play. You should have enough to kill Smaug in 2 turns (attacking for about 18 damage each round). In all 5 of my games the Old Thrush has appeared as a shadow card so I can't comment on how this might affect timing.

I found Gandalf was too expensive early on and wasn't really needed later on either, so no Gandalf in the deck!

Stage 1: Mulligan if you don't have either a Dunedain Warning or SoG. On turn 1 put Smaug in the staging area, on subsequent turns, have him engage you. If you can't get a chump blocker out on turn 2 then put Smaug in the staging area again and hope! Try to clear as many locations as you can in this stage. Burn damage on Laketown gets to about 20 in general but you really don't need to worry if it gets higher.

Stage 2: Remove all the damage from Laketown first, then build up your army of allies. Only complete this stage when you have enough allies to hit Smaug for about 18 (so about 9 damage). The dwarves do most of the damage. Feel free to attack with Dain and refresh him (with unexpected courage or record keeper).

Stage 3: You should be hitting Smaug for about 9 damage on the turn you enter stage 3 and then killing him the turn after (so you only have 1 full turn in stage 3 in which you draw an extra encounter card).

I just won for the first time!

I used Elrond/Bilbo/Glorfindel

My basic strategy was to put Smaug in the staging area until I could build up enough to start attacking him once in the second stage. I had to engage him a couple times when the threat was getting too high and locations were stacking up. At one point I had to discard Bilbo to cancel the damage all characters 1 shadow card. New Gandalf played a decisive role towards the end. I basically attacked Smaug twice, once during the second stage (using old thrush to help) and then once at the very end using Beorn (which I got in play using Vilya!) and his 8 attack. YES!!!!!

My score was 120