The wife and I are trying to nail this quest, and we're having a tough time. I pretty much only have access to Tactics and Leadership, as she jealously guards the Lore and Spirit stuff haha. I'm using a Dwarf deck using Dain, Thalin and Gimli. She does the questing, I do the fighting. My deck is as follows:

3x Veteran Axehand

3x Veteran of Nanduhirion

3x Erebor Battle Master

3x Citadel Plate

3x Khazad! Khazad!

3x Feint

3x Quick Strike

3x Dwarrowdelf Axe

3x Longbeard Elder

3x Longbeard Orc Slayer

3x The Steward of Gondor

2x Hardy Leadership

3x Campfire Tales

3x Lure of Moria

3x We Are Not Idle

3x Sneak Attack

3x Gandalf

My wife is using Eowyn, Glorfindel and Elrond, and she's still toying with her deck. Is there something we're missing, that we should definitely be including? I didn't bother posting her deck since she keeps tweaking it, but I'm thinking 3x Hasty Stroke and 3x A Test of Will is a must for her, cuz that shadow that boosts attack based on progress tokens has killed my hero more than once. I'm thinking 3x Dwarven Tomb is going to be important as well.

She also has Asfaloth, Light of Valinor, Minor of the Iron Hills, lots of Rohan allies for questing. But we haven't played enough to spot obvious combos yet. Anything we should consider?

Micah

Now you might want to keep your deck to dwarves only but I'd take out Veteran of Naduhiruion (haha however you spell it) and put in A winged guardian or some type of eagle.

For Spirit/Lore deck, yes always include all hasty stroke and Test of will and Dwarven Tomb. But Also Include 3x Arwen Undomiel and I would personally include Mirkwood Runner if not already in the deck.

What's been the main problem that you have been losing? What's keeping you from beating it?

redhorn gate is a great quest. there are perhaps 2 major steps to winning

the first is that you need treachery cancellation. so far this means test of will, and also shadow cancellation so o thats hasty stoke, dawn take you all, and dunedain watcher are some of them. this is to get rid of cards such as frozen and snowstorm which will make you lose pretty quickly.

second is to get questing increase cards in play. these include dain for dwarves, longbeard map maker, protector of lorien, elronds counsel, rear guard....cards like those.

the problem is when you get to the stage that puts caradhras in play.....3b i think, all your 0 willpower characters are dead, and any questing 1 willpower characters get -1 so are also dead

you need to strategically prepare for that, and do not over quest will 1 willpower characters when you know you may clear stage 2b and end up losing them all

rich

We had Arwen in there until we realized that we can't legally player her since we're escorting her Objective version throughout the quest.

What gets me are shadow cards that boost attack and take out my heroes. I was running a Gondor deck at first, and that shadow card allowed an uruk to take out Beregond with a Gondorian Shield...that was frustrating. And once stage 3 hits it gets really tough to quest at all. Sometimes we get a flood of enemies at the beginning and we get overwhelmed easily.

Micah

I have personally not had much luck putting leadership and tactics together, and the Redhorn Gate will really highlight the weakness of that combination: low willpower! There is definitely some fighting to do in that AP, but the willpower requirement for that scenario is significant enough that I would recommend building two decks that can quest, rather than relying on one deck to pull the weight for both. Tactics does have a few allies with good willpower, but they are expensive (Bofur, Eagles of the Misty Mountains). As for leadership, get Faramir into that deck!! He can basically neutralize the negative effects of Caradhras. You mentioned that you tried playing with Beregond-- he'll be discarded when you get to quest card 3 unless you get a +willpower attachment onto him. Some other ideas that may help:

-Narvi's belt and Steward of Gondor on Dain for resource management. Also, if the lore deck has some Burning Brands, you can use Narvi's Belt to get one of those onto Dain to neutralize those shadow cards.

-Your deck lacks much card draw. You could speed it up by putting in King Under the Mountain and Foe-hammer. Replace Campfire Tales -- it's nice but won't provide any benefit for your own deck (works better in games with lots of players). CF is one card that translates into 1 card (and at the cost of 1 resource, at that). For card draw to be meaningful you need to have 1 card that allows you to draw at least 2 cards (or provide an effect that can be used repeatedly, like King Under the Mountain). Erestor might be another winner here, and gives you some nice questing power to boot.