I'm having a terrible time beating this stage of the quest. Me and my friend are using a stock tactics and leadership deck, respectively, but we can't seem to get this one down. Is there a trick we're missing? Any help would be appreciated.

By 'stock' do you mean just cards from the core box?

By 'stock' do you mean just cards from the core box?

Yes. Just the cards that come with the core. I have several adventure packs, but I felt like it would be cheating to use cards from them.

Well for one you might want to include some Spirit/Lore cards in your decks to be able to quest through stage 2B.

^ Spirit/Lore cards would definitely help. Multi-sphere decks are really helpful when using just the core cards too.

Where do you have the most trouble? ie the Troll at the start, or the build up of enemies in the staging area, questing?

First of all, thanks for all the help. I'm new to this, but I love the game mechanics, even if they are kicking my tail!

I was curious about multi-sphere decks. I didn't know if they were almost a necessity or just a fringe element.

We do fine with the troll. He goes down super quick. When we get to 2b, however, the threat stacks up way too quick. I don't have the cards in front of me, but at one point, we had 4 or 5 locations plus the 1 we had traveled to. One of them was 5 threat and the others between 1 and 3. Since we could only take down one at a time, we couldn't stop them from stacking up. It may have just been bad luck, but we didn't get enemies. Only locations.

We tried another time and just couldn't seem to maximize our spirit.

I'll definitely work on including a spirit / lore element.

Welcome Yeah, it's a good fun challenging game.

Northern Trackers are a great option to deal with locations... once you have a couple of them in play, questing, locations disappear pretty quickly.

This forum has lots of friendly members, heaps useful information and people generally answer quite quickly. (personally i find it a little hard to search for older posts) There are also some quite amazing blogs out there that I find easier to search.

The grey company podcast (http://community.fantasyflightgames.com/index.php?/topic/92819-the-grey-company-podcast/) is a combination of some best LOTR bloggers. Blogs and podcasts worth checking out.

Thanks, Chuckles and Djenni! I'll check that podcast out and retweak my decks.

Put down the Tactics and slowly back away. If you want to stay with Leadership that's fine, but make sure you have three copies of Gandalf in the Leadership deck along with all the Sneak Attacks. Then use Spirit as your other deck. Next try Lore and learn how to play those cards. Tactics will not work by itself in the core set and really still doesn't except in specific quests. Once you start making multi-sphere decks - and I would never call that "fringe" - you can start playing with Tactics.

I realy enjoy the "hammer and anvil" deck of Sebastion Barth; (can I post extern Links to other Forum? - If not please delet it!):

http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/662483/hammer-and-anvil-a-strategy-template-for-two-playe

Works fantastic with to players and you just need cards of one Core Set! Have Fun!

PS: If the link is deleted, PN me I´ll send you!

I agree with Chuckles about Northern Trackers. I had two in play and they helped tremendously with managing the number of locations in play.

I am new to the game too, and so far only playing solo games with the Core set. The Anduin Passage quest has been very tough on single-hand play, but eventually I'll figure out these cards and which ones work well together.

As for it being cheating to try and beat the Core Set quests with cards from the newer APs: Many people seem to share this sentiment, but I certainly don't feel that way. I think it is quite fun to restrict the card pool and try to beat the quests, but 'Escape from Dol Guldur' can be a very frustrating exercise for inexperienced players that way.

Much better to start off quickly building two-sphere decks or adding some additional cards. That's als what makes this game so great: You are completely free to find your style of play and develop your own approach when defeating quests

As for the 2B stage from the Anduin quest: I can confirm that using spirit cards - epsecially the tracker - will work wonders for you!