For all you guys that are looking for some hard quests, these ones should satisfy you. I have played the first two a bunch of times, and they can be quite brutal.

There are conditions that cause you to either add a nasty enemy to the encounter deck or choose something like raising your threat a bunch/revealing another encounter card. Lots of surges. Just took Thorin and Co. to the Prancing Pony and had a turn 1 loss due to a Black Rider making multiple attacks.

I have been able to beat them a couple of times, but certainly more losses than wins, especially with a Hobbit deck.

All of the Black Riders cards are available for viewing over at LOTRLCG. I hope to have my set by the end of the week.

Spurries, which heroes did you use? I consider Spirit Pippen to be inferior to Lore Pippen, but he does give you access to some key Spirit cards. I'm still building my deck virtually as I (cannot) wait.

Very, very very good! I love it!

I didn play L0tr for a while......since is nothing coming. Cannot wait to get BR

Very, very very good! I love it!

I didn play L0tr for a while......since is nothing coming. Cannot wait to get BR

haha i was waiting for you to respond to this. when i saw this thread i thought to myself "nothing can be deemed difficult until Glaurung has had his say". cant wait to get my hands on it either.

I think my box will be arriving via mail while i'm away on a trip naturally. pure agony

Me too thought of Glaurung when reading the threat title

Good when your position is well know to anyone.

Dat english.

For Hobb

All of the Black Riders cards are available for viewing over at LOTRLCG. I hope to have my set by the end of the week.

Spurries, which heroes did you use? I consider Spirit Pippen to be inferior to Lore Pippen, but he does give you access to some key Spirit cards. I'm still building my deck virtually as I (cannot) wait.

I used Lore Pippin Merry, Sam. Lore Pippin is wayyy better than Spirit, the +3 engagement is fine, but the card draw ability is awesome. I do miss out on Threat reduction/shadow/treachery cancel is the only tough part, but Frodo can sort of cancel cards that come out if super nasty.

As an update, Thorin an Co. which can beat most quests, got decimated by this one my last 12 chances. Maybe encounter deck was overly mean, but 12 is a decent sample size.

Maybe I got lucky or maybe I was doing something wrong, but I didn't find the quest that hard. I used the deck the Boris posted in strategy. Unseen Strike is a great card on this quest as it really helps drive off the Black Riders.

Edit: I am only talking about the first quest at this point. It's the only one I've tried.

@Took,

Ill give that deck a shot, but the dwarf power deck gets destroyed by the first quest on a regular basis. I originally tried with a hobbit deck, but was a bit different than the one you referenced

Played quest 1 again this morning and beat it again handily. Just played quest 2 though and got slaughtered.

After playing through though I see a couple places where I made key mistakes. (Hail of Stones red courtesy phone..)

lucky dudes got BR already...... Actually is good time coming we will got last 2 packs of the third cycle +BR + VOI and N decks as well.

Beat the second quest on my second try. Hail of Stones was key and so is this: Bill Ferney has got to die ASAP.

Even so it was really close.

Yes bill ferny must die asap. When i see him first time i tell my.self this guy must die or i lose. But he have 5 life Gandalf cannot shoot him.... hail of stone? Yes good idea.

Yep Hail of Stones is great for that one. I actually beat all 3 with a Spirit-Tactics deck that I love, I think someone on here posted it. Eowyn, Beregond Glorfindel. It only suffers a bit when the Witch King comes, as you need 2 WP to defend, so Beregond is out.

Took you mind posting a recap of your quest 1? Im using that deck and have a bunch of trouble with it. Got to quest 3 once but failed Hide Tests hurt me.

Just got BR today. Slapped together a hobbit deck Merry, Sam, Pippen lore, and beat first scenario first attempt.u

The Hobbit cards are really powerful, Sam is really good, i hooked him up with 2 ring mail and a hobbit cloak, and he is good to go at 6 def. Merry with two blades of westernese is attacking for 8! Of cousrs most of this comes down to engaging enimes with higher engagment cost then your threat, but Pippen makes that possible most of the time. Fast hitch, obviosly rocks in this deck.

Elf stone was able to get Beorn and Gildor allies in basically for free.

Jeez maybe it was beginners luck, but the hobbits seem like they are really going to be able to hold their own on a number of quests.

As for the first scenario. I thought it was really well done, I don' think it's easy, but I would'nt say it's really hard. Although, these are only impressions after one play through.

Campaign mode seem interesting, and that's how i played it. I'll probably just stick with it now.

Just got BR today. Slapped together a hobbit deck Merry, Sam, Pippen lore, and beat first scenario first attempt.u

The Hobbit cards are really powerful, Sam is really good, i hooked him up with 2 ring mail and a hobbit cloak, and he is good to go at 6 def. Merry with two blades of westernese is attacking for 8! Of cousrs most of this comes down to engaging enimes with higher engagment cost then your threat, but Pippen makes that possible most of the time. Fast hitch, obviosly rocks in this deck.

Elf stone was able to get Beorn and Gildor allies in basically for free.

Jeez maybe it was beginners luck, but the hobbits seem like they are really going to be able to hold their own on a number of quests.

As for the first scenario. I thought it was really well done, I don' think it's easy, but I would'nt say it's really hard. Although, these are only impressions after one play through.

Campaign mode seem interesting, and that's how i played it. I'll probably just stick with it now.

I guess I have trouble with the quests adding in Black Riders and performing Hide tests, with them attacking if you fail. Mind posting a recap/details on the turns? Maybe staying on the first stage as long as possible is best strategy?

Isn't Hail of Stones an auto-include for every tactics deck?

Took you mind posting a recap of your quest 1? Im using that deck and have a bunch of trouble with it. Got to quest 3 once but failed Hide Tests hurt me.

I wouldn't mind, but I don't remember all of the details either. Are you leaving the Riders in the staging area and not engaging them? You have to kill them-

Oh no, you can't kill them!

Ok, you have to drive them off as soon as you can. Save your Sneaky Gandalves for the 4 points of damage, engage, ready Sam, draw a card, play the Feint or Quick Strike you've saved (and maybe an Unseen Strike too if you don't have Gandalf) and send the Rider to the discard pile.

As far as Hide tests go, get a Fast Hitch on Sam and use him and Frodo to Hide. Discard cards to the Protector of Lorien (that you've put on Frodo) or play Frodo's Initiative to make sure you don't fail.

I have a pretty busy week ahead and probably won't play again until next weekend.

Just got BR today. Slapped together a hobbit deck Merry, Sam, Pippen lore, and beat first scenario first attempt.u

The Hobbit cards are really powerful, Sam is really good, i hooked him up with 2 ring mail and a hobbit cloak, and he is good to go at 6 def. Merry with two blades of westernese is attacking for 8! Of cousrs most of this comes down to engaging enimes with higher engagment cost then your threat, but Pippen makes that possible most of the time. Fast hitch, obviosly rocks in this deck.

Elf stone was able to get Beorn and Gildor allies in basically for free.

Jeez maybe it was beginners luck, but the hobbits seem like they are really going to be able to hold their own on a number of quests.

As for the first scenario. I thought it was really well done, I don' think it's easy, but I would'nt say it's really hard. Although, these are only impressions after one play through.

Campaign mode seem interesting, and that's how i played it. I'll probably just stick with it now.

I guess I have trouble with the quests adding in Black Riders and performing Hide tests, with them attacking if you fail. Mind posting a recap/details on the turns? Maybe staying on the first stage as long as possible is best strategy?

After one play i did not really come up with a solid strategy. It seemed like readying is going to be really important to deal with the questing and any potential hide tests that came up. I was lucky to get 2 fast hitches early in the game. I put one on Sam and the other on Frodo. I would Quest with them and Pippin form7 and if a hide test came up, i would be able to ready Sam and Frodo for at 5 WP. Of course later i had some more questing power. The tactics event halfling Determination and Frodo's intuition cards were really great for a willpower boost. With the heroes i had Cram could also be useful. If you have a spirit hero. You have a lot mor readying options. I also used the Mr. Underhill Boon once and a couple of Feints on the Black Riders throughout the scenario.

I wish i could find a good way to include a spirit hero with these hobbits, but the 3 of them seem like such a good fit, i think it's going to be hard to split them up. I'm going to need to keep tweaking the hobbit deck, there are lot's of possibilities, and too many good cards to choose from.

Isn't Hail of Stones an auto-include for every tactics deck?

I've never included it in a deck before because most of my decks until now haven't included a lot of allies to use.

Henceforth I'm calling the card Hail of Apple Cores.

Took you mind posting a recap of your quest 1? Im using that deck and have a bunch of trouble with it. Got to quest 3 once but failed Hide Tests hurt me.

I wouldn't mind, but I don't remember all of the details either. Are you leaving the Riders in the staging area and not engaging them? You have to kill them-

Oh no, you can't kill them!

Ok, you have to drive them off as soon as you can. Save your Sneaky Gandalves for the 4 points of damage, engage, ready Sam, draw a card, play the Feint or Quick Strike you've saved (and maybe an Unseen Strike too if you don't have Gandalf) and send the Rider to the discard pile.

As far as Hide tests go, get a Fast Hitch on Sam and use him and Frodo to Hide. Discard cards to the Protector of Lorien (that you've put on Frodo) or play Frodo's Initiative to make sure you don't fail.

I have a pretty busy week ahead and probably won't play again until next weekend.

Cool thanks , yea basically what Im doing, think ive been getting unlucky encounter deck, just actually beat it with a decent draw, but for your strategy of quick striking, what character do you have using that? No one attacks for more than 4(Black Rider's defense) unless you attach the Daggers, which the deck you referenced doesnt include(although unseen strikes work fine here).

I was using the deck I mentioned stock for the first quest. (Sam, Pippin, Merry) I added Hail of Apple Cores for the second. Anyway, Merry attacks for 4, which takes care of the defense value. Sam will ready and be attacking for 2 more. If you have popped the rider for 4 on a Sneak Attack that will drive him off. Or use Unseen Strike and another character.