Sat down tonight for a few solo games with my recently constructed Glorfindel/Elrond/Legolas deck which is exactly as you would expect: Vilya and Light of Valinor as central cards, more expensive allies than in a normal tri-sphere deck thanks to the abilities of Elrond and Vilya etc.

Breezed past Druadan Forest and Amon Din on the first try and decided to go for something a bit more epic. Because I didn't feel like setting up the Steward's Fear, I went on a blast from the past and played Journey Down the Anduin instead.

And got smoked twice.

First game I managed to make it to stage 2B after an opening hand of Feint and Black Arrow took care of the Troll on the first turn. Only downside was that threat was rising quickly form both the Troll attack on turn one, no Light of Valinor with Glorfindel required to quest in the absence of allies, Gladden Fields as active location for a few turns and a general lack of threat reducers showing up. Still, I thought I was still safe until Wolf Rider surged into Brown Lands followed by an Evil Storm reducing willpower on the quest by taking out Arwen. Threat 50, gone.

Second game had the immortal sequence of:

set up: Wolf Rider surging into Marsh Adder

Troll added

turn 1: second Troll

turn 2: some Goblins

turn 3: Ufthak.

Managed to take down one Troll but with 5 enemies engaged and Imladris Stargazer telling me no help was forthcoming, I conceded the game.

Was hoping for a win, obviously, but somehow it felt good that a deck with cards from all available expansions and APs could still be bossed around by a DL 4 core set scenario in normal mode.

Journey is such a good quest -- the troll and the escalating threat during the raft ride makes this a great test for generic solo decks.

had a great quest down the anduin myself today. mirlonde/glorfindel/frodo secrecy deck. i won, and it was a satisfying win though i think the secrecy has such a benefit with the troll on set up

but yes, i do agree with you, anduin is certainly one of the best quests of this game, and im sure it always will be rated highly by players for its balance and thematic play.

rich

And just to clarify: in the first game I looked at my options and decided to feed a Silvan Refugee to the Troll instead of Feinting it, so it did attack. Cost me 5 threat which would have kept me alive one more turn, but don't think it was a fatal decision as after that 13-threat round I was basically done for anyway.

Aqnduin on of the best quest now. And NM Anduin is amazing!

we generally always use journey down the anduin as the test for new decks. It is a pretty accurate meter for how your deck will do against most things out there. It will still come out and knock me off my feet with a deck I feel is reasonably good. Last night we thought everything was going great and something similar to Clydes first game happened and.. we had to raise threat by nine. We still won but it was by the skin of our teeth.

To further spotlight the game I played last night. We were two player and I was playing a mono spirit with more threat control than you can shake a stick at. I lowered my partners threat by eighteen. He lowered his own threat by five and mine by six and we still ended the game at 47 threat each. it felt less like a journey and more like running pell mell down the river screaming as a forest fire raged at our backs

While I completely agree that Journey has stood the test of time, I disagree that there has been no power creep. Before I posted this I thought I'd better put my tokens where my fingers are and play JdtA again to be sure. I used my Glorifindel(Sp)/Aragorn(Lo)/Boromir(Tc) deck which can be found on the strategy page. My opening hand was weak, as was my second, but it contained two Councils of Elrond which allowed me to buy some time. (On the turn which I was going to engage the troll I drew a SECOND TROLL. I thought it was over, but a timely Feint kept Boromir alive for a turn and then I managed to get Arwen in play so that Boromir was defending 5 and only taking 1, which my lone Warden could help out with.

Once the trolls were out of play it was cheesecake from there.

Without counting I'm guessing only 10/50 cards in my deck are from the core set, and it might be less.

Power creep still seems to be an issue, though. Take the difference between Silverlode Archer, for example, which has 1 will, 2 attack, 0 defense and 1 hp, ranged, and Ithilien Archer, which has 1 more defense, 1 more hit point, and has a special ability where he can send enemies back into the staging area.

Power creep still seems to be an issue, though. Take the difference between Silverlode Archer, for example, which has 1 will, 2 attack, 0 defense and 1 hp, ranged, and Ithilien Archer, which has 1 more defense, 1 more hit point, and has a special ability where he can send enemies back into the staging area.

true, though i think that they are different spheres needs to be taken into account, especially that silverlode is leadership which in general has a much easier job paying for him than lore

rich

That may be what's going on there. I hadn't thought of that--I rarely use Leadership. I'm a Lore guy, through and through. All my decks are Lore with or without some kind of support, usually Spirit. But it does lead to the question of why Leadership cards are more expensive just because Leadership can pay for it more easily. What's the point of being able to get more resources if your cards all cost more because of it?

i am also a lore player as well....not sure why, though i guess a lot of the lore cards are very thematic (and with a name like lore so they should be)

you make a good point there, i havent really thought about that. perhaps it is to counter act the ease of getting leadership resources....sort of making it less tempting to just run mono leadership all the time, and mix spheres

I've been able to destroy (!!) Anduin pretty consistently with Glorfindel/Eowyn/Legolas combo. Stargazer and Zigil Miner works some pretty sweet magic on that quest, even with the Miner nerf.

Notwithstanding Dol Guldur, I would say the difficulty in Conflict at the Carrock has held up pretty well.

Notwithstanding Dol Guldur, I would say the difficulty in Conflict at the Carrock has held up pretty well.

i tend to disagree here. a tactics blocking deck with beorn and hama can finish the trolls off easily. the problem here is that the stats on the trolls were quite scary when Conflict came out, now not so much. the attack is pretty standard, and defense matters little with rivendell blade and direct damage cards

rich

Notwithstanding Dol Guldur, I would say the difficulty in Conflict at the Carrock has held up pretty well.

i tend to disagree here. a tactics blocking deck with beorn and hama can finish the trolls off easily. the problem here is that the stats on the trolls were quite scary when Conflict came out, now not so much. the attack is pretty standard, and defense matters little with rivendell blade and direct damage cards

rich

I tend to love my spirit/tactics combo which might be handicapping me a bit, but that sounds like a good strategy. I think my focus was on trying to tackle the threat/questing side of things rather than going to battle. Much more successful if I can get enough allies on the table before 30 threat and handle the trolls one a time.

Thanks for the tips though.

Maybe I'll give that combo a shot but I would need to get Hama for it.

I think Rich has the right of it in this case. I've always liked the Rohan Archer compared to the Silverload, example. That 1 hp is just not cool in silverload. However, availability to specific spheres makes all the diff in the world.

Talking about power creap, I belive that the raise in power is much bigger with the encouter cards than the player cards.

Definitely been an increase in card power with The Hobbit quests and Numenor cycle. If you disagree, try Into Ithilien or Cair Andros using only cards from Core, Mirkwood and Dwarrowdelf cycles!