Sometimes it's just nice to have a place to share your battle reports. What are you all doing recently? Feel free to use this thread to post whatever recent quest experience you want.

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To celebrate the impending release of the next installment of The Hobbit, we decided to go back and play through all of the Hobbit quests with thematically appropriate decks. This means no Dain, which makes dwarf decks more challenging to play against these quests. We've got Oin, Ori and Bombur one end, with Thorin, Balin and Nori on the other, and all of the other dwarves represented as allies. The only thematic break we made was for functional purposes, putting Wardens of Healing into one deck and Imladris Stargazers into the other. Otherwise everything is a dwarf or Gandalf.

We played We Must Away 6 times before we managed to get the treasure, and had 4 losses in there due to Bilbo getting sacked or just miscalculating and getting to stage 3 too early.

Had some bad luck with Over the Misty Mountains Grim and the crazy Galloping Boulders / Suspicious Crow combo, and took us 4 attempts to win at this one.

Then did Dungeons Deep tonight, first attempt lost quickly when Bilbo failed 2 riddles in the first round. Second attempt we won, and it was a very satisfying victory, with 2 damage on Bilbo, dramatic riddle card reveals, and in the last round winning by questing with *exactly* enough willpower needed to clear the quest card. Still one of my favorite quests, that one.

My recent exploits are very similar to yours!

I am playing through the Hobbit quests as well with my own thematic decks.

I am playing two-fisted with Thorin, Balin and Ori (Leadership/Lore) on one side, and Dwalin, Oin and Nori (Mono-Spirit) on the other. Every ally card is a dwarf or Gandalf, and every other member of Thorin's company is represented. I've made no concessions to theme with any of the other cards - they are all dwarvish, or generic. The mono-spirit deck has a risky heavy Tactics splash, with nearly half the deck. Song cards, Oin's ability and Narvi's belt are all used to get the Tactics resource as early as possible.

It has certainly been challenging with these restrictions. "We must away" took a long time to learn and beat, but when I did win it, it was a landslide victory, plus I got the treasures. "Over the misty mountains" only took me a couple of attempts to win. I just started "Dungeons Deep" this morning, so I'll let you know how that goes!

I hate the first Hobbit quest! The first few turns are fun but then it gets so confusing! Especially if you want to get the treasure.

Anyways, I've recently been trying out a new deck I built using Faramir, Merry and Pippin (lore). The idea of the deck is starting out with low threat, and keep enemies in the staging area so Faramir can kill them with Great Yew Bow, Hands upon the Bow and such. Lot's of Fast Hitches too and Daggers of Westernesse so the hobbits can do some damage too (especially Merry, so I can ready Faramir afterwards). Sadly, the deck really struggled with willpower and it was really hard to win even Passage through Mirkwood. So I decided to change Faramir to Legolas and the improvement was tremendous. I rushed through Journey Down the Anduin like it was Trip Down Stock-brook. You really need to get Rivendell Blade early and the bow, and of course defender of Rammas because it's the only defender in the deck, but once you get those cards the deck really starts to get going. I'm gonna playtest it some more before I put the decklist in the forums.

Wow, Grand Spleen, your Dwarf deck sounds extremely similar to the build I've been playing with (http://downtheanduin.blogspot.com/2013/11/the-lord-of-rings-lcg-storage-solution.html). I am planning a six-quest playthrough of the Hobbit saga soon as well. My favorite Hobbit quest is probably The Lonely Mountain. It is just so fun to try and get all treasures, but I've only successfully done it once without Smaug turning all my Dwarves into roasted marshmallows.

For a more recent quest, I took Sam, Pippin, and Strider (Leadership/Lore) and Merry, Frodo, and Glorfindel (Tactics/Spirit) to Mirkwood to test their synergizing strategies with one another. More and more, I try to devise two-handed decks that benefit one another greatly rather than standing on their own. So, my Lore characters can purchase Spirit Glorfindel his steed, Asfaloth, and in return, he can use the Galadhrim's Greeting to lower their threat by 6. I'm also attempting to use secrecy for the first time in these two deck builds but haven't play tested them enough quite yet to see how successful they will be.

I hate the first Hobbit quest! The first few turns are fun but then it gets so confusing! Especially if you want to get the treasure.

Anyways, I've recently been trying out a new deck I built using Faramir, Merry and Pippin (lore). The idea of the deck is starting out with low threat, and keep enemies in the staging area so Faramir can kill them with Great Yew Bow, Hands upon the Bow and such. Lot's of Fast Hitches too and Daggers of Westernesse so the hobbits can do some damage too (especially Merry, so I can ready Faramir afterwards). Sadly, the deck really struggled with willpower and it was really hard to win even Passage through Mirkwood. So I decided to change Faramir to Legolas and the improvement was tremendous. I rushed through Journey Down the Anduin like it was Trip Down Stock-brook. You really need to get Rivendell Blade early and the bow, and of course defender of Rammas because it's the only defender in the deck, but once you get those cards the deck really starts to get going. I'm gonna playtest it some more before I put the decklist in the forums.

If you are talking about We must away away ere break of the day, troll enemies can not take damage while they are in the staging area because of one troll, it is his ability

If you are talking about We must away away ere break of the day, troll enemies can not take damage while they are in the staging area because of one troll, it is his ability

I was just stating my opinion on we must away ere break of day, not really related to my new deck. And yes, I know would not try it against that one.

Make sure you read the latest errata. They changed the way the troll key and purse work to make it a LOT easier to get the treasures from that quest. It makes it a whole lot more fun (playing the cards as written makes it mostly random, now you can plan to try to get them).

Took a brief hiatus from the Hobbit playthrough in order to play with some other friends who don't have the game. Used the two decks I described above, but replaced Balin with Dain for a more sure victory.

We went into the Seventh Level (one of my favorites for a 2nd or 3rd quest when teaching the game). Setup reveal of a Cave Troll and Orc Horn Blower, with a turn 2 reveal of the other Cave Troll.... yeah, that didn't go well. Then we reset and totally smoked the quest. Ah, encounter deck, your random nature can always throw me for a loop...

We finished Flies and Spiders in one try with little trouble. The Lonely Mountain hit us pretty hard with location lock -- one thing dwarf decks hurt for is management of multiple locations at once. We retooled them and included any dwarf-theme cards that would help with locations-- Thror's Map helped a lot to manage Bilbo's resources (the errata version just lets us skip the travel cost). And we made some concessions, including Northern Trackers and Faramir. Those two cards more or less won the game, and we made off with 3 treasures.

Now we are presently being frustrated by The Battle of Five Armies. We reverted the decks to almost pure dwarf decks (we included only some Warden of Healing and Imladris Stargazer cards that broke theme). Without Dain, we are struggling hard, and in 3 games we have yet to place any progress tokens on a quest card. Some of it was just really bad luck-- we had a fantastic moment with a Sneak Attack Gandalf and a Misty Mountain Eagle questing alongside 4 or 5 other dwarves and Bilbo, and it looked like we would bury a quest card. Then out comes Fighting Among Friends and suddenly we are raising our threat by 10 instead. Ugh!

I think I need to change the decks somehow, but I can't see a good way to stick with the dwarf theme and still be successful. We are targeting the 4th quest card first (discards resources) but because it is Siege, we are having a hard time. With that card's effect in play, though, it is difficult to get any allies on the table to build momentum.

I've been trying to see how powerful the elves are and am quite impressed. Beat Journey Nightmare, Return to Mirkwood, and Laketown. (Massing isn't what it used to be.). They're still a few cards away from the dwarves, but I think the game play is a little more subtle. (This is a pure elf deck btw with no non-elves except for Gandalf.)

P.S. Why do the Watcher of Bruinen and Trollshaw Scout suck so much? And Lorien Guide... Two tokens maybe?

And Lorien Guide... Two tokens maybe?

Inspired by Elrond's healing boost, it would be cool to see an effect that worked for progress tokens like "Response: After any number of progress tokens are placed on a location as the result of a card effect, exhaust <card x> to place one progress token on that location."

And Lorien Guide... Two tokens maybe?

Inspired by Elrond's healing boost, it would be cool to see an effect that worked for progress tokens like "Response: After any number of progress tokens are placed on a location as the result of a card effect, exhaust <card x> to place one progress token on that location."

I just finished Into Ithilien- my 1st try. I checked cards before, but did not look at the text of quest stages, except for keywords. I prepared my deck for this "4-stage-awesomeness" and came up with trio Boromir(HoN), Eleanor(core) and Legolas(core).

Deck list:

Stage 4 was "siege", as my threat was 39. Mumak was unlucky as I won game in 5th round with many characters and some help from FOR GONDOR!!!- this was very thematic for me

I try to beat the Carrock with only available cards of that time. Missed six times now and failed epic like^^

But slowly I optimize more and more cards and it gets closer every time. I play with Tactic / Leadership deck to max. the damage and resources.

Still got problems with the threat increasment when the trolls attack.... But I keep hanging on ( Maybe it ends like the Core Set Anduin Quest with 1:25 xD hey but I won one )

Carrock beat the heck out of me when I first played it (2 player, and with the cards released at the time). We tried at least 3 or 4 times before eking out our first win. Made good use of Gimli in those days.

Just before New Years I finished my thematic playthrough of the Hobbit. The Battle of Five Armies was absolutely brutal with a thematic deck, and it took more than ten tries to win, I think. When we finally did, it was with a Hands Upon the Bow assassination strategy for Bolg. For a time, Hands Upon the Bow was ruled legal against Immune enemies like Smaug and Bolg. That ruling was changed in the most recent FAQ, which I didn't realize until about a week after our victory. Well, I'd had quite enough of Dwarves for awhile, so it may be awhile before I try to go back and try to win with a legitimate strategy.

Currently playing some random quests with a pair of Rohan/Gondor decks that focus on keeping enemies in the staging area and defeating them there as often as possible.

How did you do against "We must away ere break of the day"? I hate that scenario! (solo player)

It was hard but mostly because we kept failing the balancing act of questing without making too much progress on stage 1. I wrote a little bit more about it in my first post in this thread..

When we finally did, it was with a Hands Upon the Bow assassination strategy for Bolg. For a time, Hands Upon the Bow was ruled legal against Immune enemies like Smaug and Bolg. That ruling was changed in the most recent FAQ,

Hi GrandSpleen,

I was just wondering where in the FAQ it rules 'Hands Upon the Bow' out please? I see that it rules Quick Strike in, for attacking enemies immune to player cards effects, but obviously I'm missing something here or looking at the wrong version of the FAQ 1.5?

Thanks

You are right, it is not in the FAQ, my mistake. I actually got clarification from Caleb and assumed this was in the FAQ.

I thought this was a valid move, so went ahead and designed a deck around it. And my memory of past discussions of card immunity was that Hands Upon the Bow would work. When I sent my question to Caleb, I was actually asking a different question. I asked whether Bolg would need to be defeated a 2nd time in order to satisfy the victory criterion once the players reached stage 5.

Caleb's reply (and I deleted it-- really wish I had kept it, now) was that the Hands Upon the Bow ruling had been changed, and that card cannot be used to attack immune enemies, so there would be no way to defeat Bolg before stage 5, anyway. I would assume this applies to Quick Strike as well, since it is similarly worded. The FAQ has not been updated since July, so perhaps we will see an official reversal whenever the next update takes place...

You are right, it is not in the FAQ, my mistake. I actually got clarification from Caleb and assumed this was in the FAQ.

I thought this was a valid move, so went ahead and designed a deck around it. And my memory of past discussions of card immunity was that Hands Upon the Bow would work. When I sent my question to Caleb, I was actually asking a different question. I asked whether Bolg would need to be defeated a 2nd time in order to satisfy the victory criterion once the players reached stage 5.

Caleb's reply (and I deleted it-- really wish I had kept it, now) was that the Hands Upon the Bow ruling had been changed, and that card cannot be used to attack immune enemies, so there would be no way to defeat Bolg before stage 5, anyway. I would assume this applies to Quick Strike as well, since it is similarly worded. The FAQ has not been updated since July, so perhaps we will see an official reversal whenever the next update takes place...

ah I see, Cool . It makes sense that you should not be able to engage the likes of Bolg until you get to the right stage in the quest etc... pity that 'Hands upon the Bow' won't work on immune enemies period though. Would have preferred it if 'boss' type enemies were protected till their grand entrance and then game on.

What a confusing mini saga 'Hands upon the Bow', 'Quick Strike', 'Dunhere's Abilty' etc vs immune to player cards has been. With the various rulings and subsequent ruling changes.

Do you think that 'Forth Eorlingas!' will be in or out? "Combat Action: Each Rohan hero can be declared as an attacker against enemies in the staging area this phase." I'm assuming out like 'Hands.. ' but this makes 'Quick Strike' inclusion look a bit inconsistent. I guess its simply less potentially quest breaking.

I am still enjoying the Black Riders box with my Hobbit Deck. It's incredibly fun and I want to tweak the deck to consistently beat the quests

As for the recent exploits, it doesn't look like many players are still using the quest log on this website, are there? It's a bit of a shame, because I found the statistics part really interesting, where you could see which heroes are most popular and so on. Plus obviously keeping track of your progress is fun

Let me start by saying that I am a new player. So far have only played solo games, I think Im up to 6 games so far. Finally was able to beat Passage through Mirkwood with a Dwarf deck I made with a final score of 62. Will post the deck I made in the decks' section later today.

As for the recent exploits, it doesn't look like many players are still using the quest log on this website, are there? It's a bit of a shame, because I found the statistics part really interesting, where you could see which heroes are most popular and so on. Plus obviously keeping track of your progress is fun

I've been taking the hobbits, (Sam, Merry & L'Pippin), for adventures in non saga quests, which has been quite a lot fun and a little odd to be questing without spirit.

When i first started playing I didn't realise there was a quest tracker... The tracker probably needs a bit if a overhaul to make more appealing/useful. Oh and kept up to date like Theoden being added as a Hero.

I am still enjoying the Black Riders box with my Hobbit Deck. It's incredibly fun and I want to tweak the deck to consistently beat the quests

What is the quest log and where can I find it? (A link would help me ) I have a whole excel full of scores^^

http://tools.fantasyflightgames.com/lotrquestlog/#/home

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