Hi folks and welcome to the second edition of my Solo Mono Challenge. This time players shouldn't be shy of water, as they're confronted with some of the meanest enemies in this game so far:

TENTACLES!

Yes, this time we're gonna meet the Watcher in the Water. The scenario will be played as usual. There's one slight rule change to make the game a bit easier (and hopefully more interesting):

Everytime a player defeats a tentacle enemy during the combat phase, they can choose one of the following:

1) A hero gets an extra resource.

2) The player adds one progress token on any location.

3) The player reduces their threat level by 1.

4) During stage 1 only: the player may peek at the top card of the encounter deck.

Scoring system and tournament rules:

The players have three attempts for each of the four spheres. After each approach the players have to replace one of their heroes. A hero that was replaced can not be used again. A hero that was a replacement can not be replaced. Example:

Rich builds a tactics deck with Boromir, Beregond and Gimli. After the first attempt, he replaces Gimli with Elladan, as he likes the art of that card very much. In his third attempt he is not allowed to bring Gimli back into play, and he can not replace Elladan. He thus chooses to replace Boromir with Thalin.

Each victory scores 1 point. The player with the most points wins the challenge. In case of a tie the player with the highest starting threat of all his hero combos wins.

Each deck may only contain cards from the chosen sphere plus any neutral cards.

The deadline is May 31th, 8 pm CET.

Have fun!

Clarification:

Once a player has started his first game, he is not able to start the challenge anew. This means the players have only one attempt to approach this tournament.

FINAL RESULTS

1. leptokurt ~ 11 points

2. Benhanses ~ 9 points

3. Pharmboys2013 ~ 8 points

4. Glowwyrm ~ 7 points

5. Khamul the Easterling ~ 2 points

oh man, some new rule changes…

while i plan on attempting this it likely wont be until after i get my hands on the steward's fear and get to play with that a bit….plus Mithrandir's Advice will be quintissential for mono lore

First Sphere: Tactics

Round 1: Thalin, Legolas, Beregond - LOST

got land locked from the beginning and just coudlnt get anywhere questing with via Thalin, was hoping to make some progress via Legolas and blade of gondolin but Mountain Wargs got sent back to the staging area precicsely 4 times

Round 2: Gimili, Legolas, Beregond - WON

Won this out of some good draw and even better luck. Had Bofur and Eagles of the Misty Mountains in my opening hand and had them both out by turn 3 which helped with questing. Quested with Gimili and also allowed him to take the undefended attacks from the tentacles. I actually passed through this stage via the Doors of Durin. I discarded an extra bofur and support of the eagles from my hand. The top card of the encounter deck was Stagnant Creek.

Round 3: Gimili, Legolas, Bard- WON

In this game i made Bard my primary quester and once again got Bofur and Eagles of the MIsty Mountains into play quickly to clear away locations. On the last stage i was able to engage the Watcher right away and was able to take him out with a beefed Gimili (from taking prior damage blocking), legolas with black arrow, and a few vassal of the windlords

Total Points: 2

Reflection:

Tactics did a lot better than i figured it might. I thought the lack of willpower would be crippling but considering theres 2 quest stages and very few cards in the encounter deck have a threat level higher than 2 i didnt have too much difficulty questing sans round 1. Also, i feel like each time i killed a tentacle i almost exclusively picked the extra resource to allow me to play someone expensive like more Eagles of the misty mountains or Radagast

2nd Sphere: Leadership

Round 1: Theodred, Aragorn, Prince Imrahil- WON

The combo of theodred and aragorn just never gets old for me. quested to the second stage quite easily and took down the watcher with some repeated use of gandalf via sneak attack

Round 2: Theodred, Aragorn, Boromir - WON

Easily my favorite combination of mono leadership characters. I literally beat the quest with this combo in just a couple minutes. At the second round i passed the doors of durin by using shadow of the past (which should be like illegal for his challenge haha) and placing striking tentacle on top then discarding sneak attack from my hand

Round 3: Theodred, Balin, Boromir - WON

I really missed aragorn's attack stat on this one, but it was still nice to buff Balin with Theodred to make sure he could use his ability if necessary. Killed the watcher thanks to a nicely timed Gandlaf, a boosted Boromir from dunedain signal, and some augmented citadel guards from boromir's ability

Total points: 5

You're looking fine again, Pharmboys! Yes, tactics does well in this scenario. I played it even without all the benefits granted for defeating a tentacle with only one coreset and won most of the games.

3rd Sphere: Lore

Round 1: Aragorn, Berevor, Denethor - LOSS

Just a complete failure of a game in this one. The setup encounter card was an tentacle enemy, i staged the first turn into another tentacle enemy, they both had their negative effects hit so i had 4 damage on aragorn and 3 damage on berevor (from 1 having to be undefended and the other having my own atk go against one of my characters). on turn 2 i staged into another tentacle enemy. once again all three had shadow or tentacle cards revealed for their effects so i called it a loss (with 2 of my heroes dead) and moved on

Round 2: Aragorn, Glorfindel, Denethor - WON

Had a good setup this game getting Hennamarth riversong in my opening hand. revealed a tentacle on top so i laid down a ranger spikes with my other 2 opening resources. easily cleared stage 1. on stage 2 i used denethor to scry to top card (was warg lair) discarded warden of healing for the victory. Didnt have to engage or fight a single enemy thanks to some encounter deck manipulation

Round 3: Glorfindel, Denethor, Elrond -WON

I knew going in i had a really high threat, but in this quest it doesnt matter cause all those tentacle enemies have such low engagement costs theres just no avoiding them. i was a little scared when undisturbed waters came out the first turn and shot my threat up to 39, but after clearing stage 1, i only had 1 tentacle enemy engage me who was thankfully dispatched in one turn. i won via scyring the top with denethor revelaing striking tentacle then discarding secret paths from my hand

Total Points: 7

Reflection:

I knew going in that this deck would have a decent chance if only becasue of Denethor who's ability makes him the MVP for beating this scenario. I never really cared about a high starting threat as it was never an issue. Looking back, despite the one loss, i feel like lore is better suited to beat this quest than tactics or leadership even are just because of how they can trap the tentacle enemies and manipulate the encounter deck to easily pass the doors of durin. Also, an awesome card i enjoyed using is the new event, Mithrandil's Advice. Not only does it have really great art, but drawing 3 cards for 1 resource just felt awesome

4th Sphere: Spirit

Round 1: Glorfindel, Frodo, Eowyn - WON

I struggeled mightely but still pulled out the victory with this team of heroes. After cruising to the 2nd stage i was trapped there for several turns having to endure repeated attacks from wargs, tentacles, and the passive damage from the watcher. Thankfully as I was close to death (a threat of 46 from constantly blocking with frodo) Imaldris stargazer pulled a shadow of the past and i was able to throw wrapped! on top of the deck and discard westfield horsebreaker from my hand for the victory. Considering how difficult this match was with the ideal hero lineup i should have figured the next two rounds would end badly…

Round 2: Glorfindel, Frodo, Dunhere - LOST

Things started in this matchup very badly. During the set up, disturbed waters was revelaed increasing my threat by 5, i had to reveal another card since there was no threat in the staging area as the set up requires and a tentacle came out. I staged into stagnant waters which revelaed an additional tentacle enemy and increased my threat by 5 again. Plus the extra tentacle made me quest negatively so in just 1 turn my threat increased by 12. Both tentacles had their negative effects trigger. The following turn antoher tentacle came out during staging and i just called it a game

Round 3: Glorfindel, Eleanor, Dunhere - LOST

Another quick defeat, had a few tentacles revelaed within the first two turns and that was basically it with only 1 chump blocker avaliable and Eleanor's paltry defense. Just a mess

Total Points: 8

Reflection:

For this quest in particular, Spirit seems the least developed to handle its challenges. It lacks the firepower or tactics and leadership and the encounter manipulation of lore which is so crucial to complete the second stage. I had a lot of fun in this challenge however going back and tackling a quest I had barely touched previously (I started playing this game last summer and bought everything avaliable around the time Foundations of Stone was released so there are some quests i have previously avoided playing a lot like this one)

Hey, although i'm not going to do well on this at all, I'll give it a try since only 1 player is playing so far so Pharmboy's will have somebody to beat.

I only have FoS, RtR, TWitW, TCatC, AJtR, THoEM and KD but still that does have some pretty good cards so yeah anyways ill give it a try. It might be a little while but ill do the contest.

Khamul

1st Sphere: Spirit

Round 1: Glorfindel, Frodo, Dwalin - WON

The combination of these heroes turned out to do good. I got and UC and 2 Arwens to boost Frodo's defense and defend multiple attacks. I killed the Watcher in this game.

Round 2: Frodo, Eowyn, Dwalin - WON

I shuffled the deck really good but I still got an UC again in hand. I also got another Arwen so Frodo was a great defender. I engaged the watcher and then with a stargazer I got cards with the letter T, and S whitch are fairly common in this E.D. Then I just threw down my entire hand hopeing for the best and I got a striking tentacle or something.

Round 3: Eowyn, Dunhere, Dwalin - WON

Yet AGAIN I got an UC so was able to deal with "Wrapped!" better. I got a T and S again and went for the Doors of Durin and got lucky again. I feel so bad always just doing the Doors of Durin and getting lucky and winning on this contest. But I think Spirit and Mabye a bit of Lore will be the only ones that I will do that on.

Total Points: 3

Dwalin was actually good and I kept him in all 3 rounds. His good attack and def were helpfull in defeating enemies. I had some fairly lucky draws in rounds 2 and 3. Round 1 I just BARELY won. So yeah I'm suprised how well I did.

Wow, I'm quite shocked how Spirit got its ass spanked by the tentacles, Pharmboys! Other than that, I think your results are awesome. Thank you both for your little descriptions - that's what the fans want to hear, after all!

Unfortunatly I am very busy right now, but I hope to finish one cycle over the weekend. Going to start with Tactics.

Khamul, I do not want to spoil it, I am sure you did very well but Arwen is unique…

lleimmoen said:

Completely missed that. Thanks!

Khamul, I'd suggest you replay those games in which you had more than one copy of Arwen in play at the same time. I don't want to be too strict with the rules, but to be fair to the other players I'd suggest that you only get 0.5 points for a win in a replay for each of these games. Hope you're ok with that.

Ahhh. Yes I knew that…. I did all 3 games at like Midnight so I guess thats why. Well, I think im going to do all the rest of the spheres first and then finish the spirit last. I don't mind the score thing, that does sound fair But the thing that is a bit a drag is that I have to do them all over again. I don't have all the time in the world so…..yeah I think ill get the rest of them done before the due date. Thanks for pointing that out lleimmoen.

Khamul

btw the first game was the only one thatI had 2 Arwens

Khamul The Easterling said:

It's enough if you replay that game.

Btw, it's not very polite to let Arwen wait that long!

Yeah well I took apart thw whole entire deck…..

Yeah well I took apart thw whole entire deck….. she's just going to have to wait……you know she will be used to it. She's used to plenty of waiting and sadness and stuff if you know what I mean. She'll be fine.

Khamul

Like I promised, I started my approach with the tactics sphere:

1^st attempt: Legolas, Beregond, Gimli

WIN

Ok, that was close. My threat was up to 47 when I took out the Watcher with Legolas (+Rivendell Blade), Gimli (+3 ATT), Landroval, Eagleas of the Misty Mountains and the Citadel Spear. Got two Mountain Wargs, only one tentacle enemy right at the start and lots of locations. Drawing Radagast and EotMM saved my ass, plus having two copies of Gandalf in my hand.Shadows of the Past helped my to avoid a tentacle enemy after the Watcher entered the arena during the combat phase.

2^nd attempt: Legolas, Boromir, Gimli

WIN

Lots of treachery cards, so I was almost through stage 1 after 3 rounds. Played Bofur on turn 1, had a Defender of Rammas and a Vasall of the Windlord plus one Gandalf. Put the damage of the Striking Tentacle (setup card) on Gimli. Had to wait wo turns before I could engage the Watcher. All in all this approach was rather easy, my threat was at 35 after playing a second Gandalf. I even opened Durin’s Doors!

3^rd attempt: Thalin, Boromir, Gimli

WIN

This time I changed my deck a bit, adding 3 Gondorian Spearmen and 2 Chain Mails. Got a Black Uruk during the setup and a Striking Tentacle during round 1. Put the damage of the ST on Gimli. After that life was rather easy. One Gandalf helped to lower my threat. At the end of stage 1 I played Hail of Stones to kill the Grasping Tentacle that was just revealed. I could thus move into stage 2 and engage the Watcher immediatly. Killed him during my next turn and finished the second stage on turn afterwards.

All in all a rather good start. Only the first game was a problem, the other two went smoothly. Of course I didn't face too many tentacles. Once the staging area was empty I had enough time to build up my WP. Without Gandalf threat managment is a pain in the ass. That's why I used Boromirs ability only once or twice. For my deck I chose the Eagles approach over the Dwarves, as it offers more WP which I considered o be more important than gathering ATT value. Beregond + Spear is a good method to get rid of these tentacles without attacking them. I was bit hesitant to replace him first, but Boromir is also a monster in this adventure (nevermind that he didn't get that much to do). Gimli is also shining, as his 5 HP are a gamesaver everytime the Striking Tentacle shows up.

Leptokurt…. as I mentioned in the thread for your previous challenge (which I just didn't have the time to attempt), I was anxious for you to post another one of these! I still don't have as much time as I would like, BUT I was able to get a start on it (3 spirit hands and 2 leadership hands so far), and I will post those results soon. But I thought you might like to know that this challenge has ALREADY provided me with one of my more satisfying/enjoyable moments playing this game!

So thanks!

I actually talked about it in another thread, (monkeyrama's "Narrative Moments") in a bit more detail, some of which I will include when I put my notes up here for my attempts… but not all, since there is a lot of editorial and contextual material I include in that posting… but I thought I would mention it here and include the link in case you were interested in reading it… It really was some of the most fun I've had with this game to date!

I'll post my current results soon! (don't have my notes with me here at work… lol)

benhanses said:

Thanks, I really appreciate your kind feedback! :-)

I read about your meeting with Stagnant Creek. Have to say that I was tempted to change the text of this card, because it really is a *****, but then it would have made the scenario a bit too easy (I thought about something like "choose 1: add a tentacle enemy or remove an ally from play, if possible"). I got it twice during my third tactics approach, but never got a tentacle enemy.

leptokurt said:

I did get Stagnant Creek a few times in the 6 games I played for the challenege (so far), but have been pretty lucky with it so far, only getting a tentacle one one draw (that I can remember off the top of my head….

As I'll explain in a second, the card I have come to hate most in this encounter is: Black Uruk. Goodbye LoV… Goodbye SoG… Goodbye StwB… I hate that **** card!

Well, since it seems like everyone started tackling this challenge by running out the Tactic decks, I thought I'd do the exact opposite and start with Spirit… especially since it seemed that with the poor combat abilities that sphere has, this would be a bit of a challenge. It sure ended up feeling that way.

First thing… this was my first time playing the game again after about a 4-5 month break, so my first couple of hands seemed sluggish as I made sure I was rememering the flow and details of the rounds as I went on… and for my Spirit decks, I completely overlooked the card the EVERY deck should have for this encounter, Shadow of the Past… sure didn't do myself any favors on that one! (I remembered it for my Leadership decks, thank god).

Round 1 heroes: Glorfindel, Eowyn, Eleanor - lost

For some reason I thought the questing ability of Eowyn, combined with Glorfindel's dual quest/attack stats would make this the best 1-2 combo for the scenario. I only included Eleanor for her treachery negation and because I figured she would be the "wink link" to pair with what I thought were the best two Spirit heroes for this quest…. all that to say, this was my worst game. In a way, I was glad that it happened right off the bat, since it forced me to rethink my hero combinations and deck-focus. I had a decent opening draw, meaning that I got Light of Valinor (the rest was typical fare) to be able to play on Glorfindel, which I couldn't pass up of course. That was pretty much the highlight of the entire round, as it all went downhill from there… lol. I got a Striking Tentacle for the setup, then a Grasping Tentacle for the questing encounter draw. Okay, not TOO bad as I had a chump to burn (Imladris Stargazer) and was able to kill the Grasping Tentacle with Glorfindel without it triggering its ability… I took the resource reward. To make a long story short, within the next few rounds I pulled a Black Uruk (lost my LoV, so no more free questing for Glorfindel), which will be a recurring theme in my narrative, but still moved to 2B on that turn, so out dropped the Watcher and Doors. The next few draws pulled me in some more tentacles, and I just couldn't keep up with putting out enough allies to both absorb the tantacle attacks AND the 3 damage from the Watcher each round. Eowyn went down to a Striking Tentacle, and that was pretty much the game. That being said, I was able to have the necessary progress tokens on site 2B to win, just couldn't get enough to take out the Watcher, and didn't have good cards in my hand to win the Door riddle…

Round 2 heroes: Glorfindel, Frodo, Eleanor - won

I really thought my next set was going to be Glorfindel, Eowyn, and Frodo… but after seeing that even in a loss I was able to quest what I needed, I decided to keep Eleanor's "escape" ability on the table, and sacrifice the extra willpower. My initial draw was (what I thought) pretty good- LoV again, Gandalf, Ancient Mathom, Bofur, and a few others. I thought I was gone from the setup and first encounter draws, though. My setup draw was a Warg Lair, which meant starting with that site plus a Mountain Warg before I had even started questing! ****. Then I pulled a Striking Tentacle during the quest… getting sucky pretty quick. But with LoV on Glorfindel and using Bofur's "quest out of hand ability" (which is pretty much where he stayed all game until near the end) I was able to quest with them and Frodo during the early rounds to keep the progress tokens steadily growing… I also played the Ancient Mathom on Warg Lair, and travelled there right away. With my low starting threat I avoided dealing with the wargs, and was able to get rid of the Tentacles with Glorfindel. Round two I pulled a Black Uruk again… goodbye LoV… again. But I was able to get rid of the Warg Lair, which meant I got to draw 4 cards (1 from the site text, and 3 from Ancient Mathom) and this turned out to be huge for me (Hello LoV!!). The rest of the game was basically a cycle of using Frodo's ability to absorb damage from tentacles and the Watcher into threat, then using Elrond's Counsel and The Galadhrim's Greeting to reduce my threat when I needed… All of a sudden I found myself in a position I didn't think I would be… a chance to take on the Watcher directly with Spirit. I played Gandalf (finally!) out my hand and opted for the 4 damage… I quested minimally and didn't pull a tentacle to block me from engaging the Watcher. So I again used Frodo's ability to absorb damage into threat, then attacked with Glorfindel, Gandalf, Eleanor, and some Northern Tracker's and The Riddermarks Finest to get me the rest of the damage I needed to catch that bastard in my tuna nets. The Fellowship wipped up some on-the-spot sushi rolls!

Round 3 heroes: Glorfindel, Frodo, Dunhere- won

I saved what I thought would be the best combo for last (Glor's quest/attack… Frodo's defending… Dunhere attacking the staging area), and it indeed turned out to be my best game with Spirit… First, my draw was about as perfect as I could hopre for. LoV, Resourceful (since I started with 20 threat!), 2 Northern Trackers, Bofur, Ancient Mathom, and Lorien Guide… so my opening hand basically gave me all the allies I needed for questing, site control, extra resources, card draw, and Glorfindel's god-mode all at once! My setup draw was a Stair Falls, about as safe a draw as I would hope for in this encounter… which of course I dropped the Mathom on right away, with LoV and Resourceful on Glorfindel. That left me unable to play Bofur on the first turn, but I felt okay with my heroes alone on the first round (I quested with Glorfindel and Frodo hoping to save Glor and dunhere to travel to the stairs, or attack if needs be)…. Out pops a Wrapped. ****. Still not a bad draw, as it just means I can't travel to the Stairs right away (exhaust 2 to do so), and had to use Glorfindel to cut Frodo free… Still, about as nice a opening round as I could've wished for with an all-Spirit deck… getting that Resourceful out really set me up for the reast of the game, as getting 4 resources per turn really made it a lot faster to get my Trackers and Guids out quickly… To make a longer story shorter, throughout the game I was able to get a couple more Ancient Mathoms to cash in, and had a handful of cards to burn…. so eventually discarded 5 cards on the Doors with the letters D, B, T, S, W… which gave me something like a 75% chance to hit… and the encounter deck discarded a Bitter Wind to match my Bofur! …. and stumbling into Moria went my rag-tag Fellowship….

Thoughts: Started off rough, but shook off the cobwebs as the hands went along. Turns out that Frodo was the champ for this scenario. His ability to absorb damage into threat pretty much acted as "action potential" for my other heroes and allies, since I could save them to do other things than defend all the time. I just made sure I kept a healthy supply of threat reduction cards in my hand for when they were needed… Obviously, remembering to include Shadows of the Past would have made each hand much easier, and maybe even given me a chance to pull out that first game after it started heading south… That being said, Ancient Mathom filled in that void by putting a lot of cards in my hand over the final two games, so I just kept throwing cards at the Doors until something finally stuck!

I HATE BLACK URUK!!!!

benhanses said:

That's why I never put stuff on my questing heroes. Ok, LoV and Celebrian's Stone are a differnt call. 90 percent of my attachments were given to my defending heroes (Dain for leadership, Beregond and Boromir for tactics).

Time for some leadership:

1^st attempt: Gloin, Dain Ironfoot, Thorin Oakenshield

WIN

Dwarf deck for the win! This time I got three tentacle enemies during stage 1. Setup was a Warg Lair plus the Warg inhabitant. The Warg kept me company until the end of the game, as I only got a shadow effect once, and that was the turn in which I had to attack the Watcher. It was an enemy heavy game, fortunatly I got some Snowbourn Scouts to take some hits and A Very Good Tale to fill up my ranks. Took me two turns to kill the boss, and if my dwarfs hadn’t been lured to Moria, I wouldn’t have made it (as we are speaking of narrative moments, this was indeed one). My final threat was at 45, my hand was empty. But now excuse me, there’s still a Warg out there that’s causing trouble in the Moria neighbourhood…

2^nd attempt: Theodred, Dain Ironfoot, Thorin Oakenshield

WIN

One of the worst setups that I ever got in this scenario. Wrapped followed by Stagnant Creek. Fortunatly I got no tentacle enemy again. And if that wasn’t enough threat in the staging area, my fellowship also had to travel through a Perilous Swamp. I took a glance at my Sneak/Gandalf combo to calm myself. Everything was fine! And indeed I got through stage 1 without any problems, as my party was led by Faramir and got support of some dwarf allies. I didn't even use Sneak Attack. Then came The Watcher, but Gandalf approached just in time (slaying a Mountain Warg on his way) to help my fellowship to overome the mighty enemy. I think that was the first time that my heroes did take almost no wounds. Only Dain took a little scratch from a Striking Tentacle, but everyone else was quite fine (well, everyone beside the dead Errant Rider).

3^rd attempt: Theodred, Dain Ironfoot, Boromir

WIN

Ouch, eventually I got flooded with tentacle enemies! But my fellowship hold the line, though Theodred was slain midgame by a mean and nasty Striking Tentacle. Lots of dead allies, but also a lot of resources to buy replacements. Thanks to Faramir qusting wasn’t a problem, and Path of Need left me free of sorrows when my fellowship approached Durin’s Doors. However, I got three tentacle enemies in a row and couldn’t engage the Watcher. Then I got a location, killed the Watcher and enjoyed the sight of 30 progress token lying on the adventure card. Overall that Dwarf/Gondor deck worked excellent. So far I really cannot complain about bad luck: another Stagnant Creek without a tentacle!

leptokurt said:

Yup. Definitely a needed tactic for this encounter.