Heh, just curious if anyone has beaten this thing yet. It is TOUGH. My friends and I are like 0-7 against it so far. It's the only quest I haven't beaten yet for the quest log completion.

Not that I'm complaining. I like that these promo bonus quests (Massing at Osigiliath and this) are ridiculously hard. It's fun just because of how crazy over the top they are.

Just curious to hear if anyone has beaten it and if so, what kind of strategies people are using to do it and/or if it was mainly just a lucky break.

No…..that is all

rich

richsabre said:

We've gotten about half-way thru a couple of times decently but then out of nowhere Smaug will attack us like 2 or 3 times in a turn, destroying many of our characters and just crushing any possibility of a win, lol.

Yeah, Smaug the Mighty and Dire Magnificence shadow effect just suck, lol.

I beat this with the forum user Dain Ironfoot this weekend. We actually went pretty far the first time, playing blind without either of us seeing the encounter cards yet, and then beat it our second once we saw our strategy. We used the heroes Dain/Ori/Nori and Aragorn(lore)/Frodo/Glorfindel(spirit) and the same decks for bboth attempts. Some quest spoiling ahead:

We found the key was to always quest as heavy as possible every turn and we basically didn't even think of attacking Smaug until the second quest step. At that point, every damage on Smaug went to extinguishing Lake-town instead. At one point, Lake-town had 49 damage and we brought it back down to Maybe five or less. We also tried to knock out as many locations as possible to the point where we had over 50 points in the victory display. When faced with the option of having two locations, due to Fisherman's Dock, we almost always took it.

We almost always had the first player engage with Smaug in order to keep his threat out of the staging area. I played with Dain who had some shield boost attachments, and was made sentinel by Arwen to act as defender for both of us so as not to keep killing allies. The other player used Frodo and his ability when Dain's defense would not have been enough to keep him alive.

Once it was time to attack in the third quest step we left Smaug in the staging area half of the time so I could optionally engage him when I wasn't first player. I focused on attack while the other player quested. I was able to do pretty hefty damage with my large number of dwarf allies, but since the Old Thrush was on Glorfindel, I think it was the other player who put the finishing touches on the dragon.

It is an awesome quest! I love the unique strategy that is required and will definitely play it again!

You need to regruit several allies in one round and have feint in hand just in the case… And a lot of counterspells…

Very hard and very fun quest indeed ;-)

Yes i do it in solo and 2 player games. Best scores for solo is 100. Is really difficult quest and i know only 1 deck for solo which one can make it is Thorin Company deck. If you go to Strategy and deck building section you can see deck list there.

Hannibal_pjv said:

Feint didn work on Smaug cose he immune to player card effect.

We've beaten it handily with a pair of dwarf decks (with a substitute of Eowyn instead of Dwalin since questing willpower is ridiculously vital in this quest). As always, the first couple of turns are critical, and I find it makes a massive difference to not draw Smaug the Mighty early on (turn 1 in particular). If you can power up Dain to be able to safely soak some of the Smaug attacks, then you can generally crank out dwarves fast enough to handle the rest. Allies are a critical resource that must be managed closely as they are needed to both expand your questing ability and to block Smaug. A test of will and shadow cancellation is critical as well. If you can get through the first 2 turns without losing a hero and get a couple of defense boosters on Dain, I think it is a very straight forward and winnable quest with the dwarf swarm. Although it is admittedly very easy for it to turn against you quickly with a boosted Smaug attack, a badly timed shadow or treachery, a location pile up, or laketown damage - all with the potential to take you from well managed to Kenny Loggins in no time. The margin for error is deliciously thin - and most of our early losses could be traced back to one poor move (or an occasional brutal first two turns encounter/Smaug draw).

I really like the quest by the way. Very epic. It lives up to the standard set by Osgiliath.

I've beat it a few times with my solo Noble deck (Elrond/Beravor/FoS Glorfindel), but it usually smokes me. I probably have a 15-20% win rate. Asfaloth is an all-star.

It's a deliciously brutal scenario. The most hilarious thing, to me, is the fact that you can kill Smaug (no small feat) and STILL lose.

starhawk77 said:

It is kinda funny how it could work that way! I think it is really cool how the traveled locations basically represent the areas that have had their fires extinguished. I guess it is great if you can defeat Smaug, but its not really a win unless the fires of Lake-town have been contained too, and you've saved the city.

starhawk77 said:

Wow! that is an exceptional win rate for solo, I figured it was close to impossible just due to the challenges of mustering enough questing to not have to engage Smaug every turn. The stupid Esgaroth Warffs have largely neutralized my attempts to abuse Asfaloth or NT.

Beano said:

Well, I just went 0-for-3 this evening, so that might be dropping precipitously. I think the key is getting a feel for when to put Smaug into the staging area and when to put him into play engaged with you. Of course, most of the time my threat just skyrockets and makes that decision academic. And yeah, I've been owned by those Wharfs more often than not.

Awesome scenario. I really like how the Smaug deck turns an uber-boss into a dynamic, somewhat unpredictable foe. While Durin's Bane is beastly, you know what to expect from it during any given round; Smaug is much more difficult to plan for.

We've also been screwed by those Esgaroth Warfs quite a few times lol. Those things just suck! And there's so many locations that they easily pile up in 2/3/4 player games without access to Asfaloth/Trackers/etc.

Crazy quest!

We have beaten it with a specialized strategy which I highly recommend:

1. Do not use allies to block -> allies for questing only.

2. Use lots of attachments and equipment that increase defense and health

3. Use lots of cards which can heal every turn

4. Handle lake town before smaug (quest as much as possible)

We played two players:

Player 1 - Glorfindel (LORE), Elrond, Eowyn - Lore/Spirit with every healing card imaginable and good questing ability

Player 2 - Dain Ironfoot, Thorin Oakenshield, Gimli - Tactics/Leadership with every armor and plus defense. Eventually Dain had Citadel plate, Chain mail, and a dunedain warning in our game. (10 health, 5 defense).

I beat it once with an all Spirit deck (Eowyn, Frodo, Glorfindel) (out of 6 or so tries).

Also my brother and I are about 1-3 against it. We beat it with one person playing all spirit and the other playing all tactics (Boromir, Gimli, Beorn). So on the initial turns, when our threat was low enough, we would put Smaug into the staging area when Spirit was 1st player and Tactics would always engage Smaug.

In the end it was one of the closest games I've ever played. There were so many things that happened only with luck.