Here is a compilation of my comments on the scenario, note that they were made some time ago and I have not edited them much so they tell a story of how my view point changed (but my current opinion may differ). They are presented chronologically in each section.
[Session Reports]
2012-07-01 Played: 3. Spirit/leadership deck led by Eowyn, Dunhere and Theodred. Won three times.
I was able to defeat Conflict at the Carrock three times in the row using my battle tested deck. At first I was a bit disappointed that I did not have to rebuild my deck times and times again before succeeding with the scenario. Now that I had some time to reflect on it all three tries required very careful play and the encounter deck did put a lot of pressure on me (be it in the danger that mass attack of trolls or enormous threat that accumulated in the staging area). This is my second favorite scenario (just bellow Journey down the Anduin) now and I hope to replay it few more times although I can see it would be much harder without any of the used spheres - spirit (threat reduction, questing) and leadership (allies, resource type)
2012-07-04 Played: 3 Eowyn. Dunhere, Theodred spirit/leadership deck
I am glad that I decided to replay CatC again after my 3 successful runs against it last time. This time the scenario bared its fangs against me and showed me what it can do. First started in a pretty standard way I fielded tons of allies and was slowing down my progress on the quest as much as possible but there was one thing different - I could not draw any threat reduction cards (despite the fact that I managed to draw 4 or 6 additional cards due to valiant sacrifices). Also the threat deck attacked me in a sneaky way accelerating threat increase in few ways. Then it suddenly allowed me to go to the second stage (to tell the truth I was risking it before I was afraid of additional threat increase if I quested with not enough). Then the trolls came down. I actually would succeeded defending and slaying them in 3 rounds or so (I had so many allies after all that I was not scared of loosing some of them) ... but there is one trick to the trolls attacking all at once - your threat goes up whopping 12 points. This was the end for my party.
Win was not much different then before.
Third attempt was interesting again as this time encounter deck managed to kill me (not me not drawing right cards as in the first case). Dunhere was sacked on first turn, next the standard troll came up. Those two things combined meant that I was behind in resource generation. I was not able to field enough allies as I had to use resources on threat reduction. When I was finally tricked into the second stage I had only few guys on my side and the regular troll still engaged. I killed it with sneak attacking Gandalf but had to engage another troll (otherwise I would have to quest with all team just to stay equal with staging area) but this still left me with no force to kill buffed up troll and not enough quest power to take care of the Carrock. I gave up when left with two enemies (troll and snake) engaged threat at 33 and no allies (Dunhere was still sacked). FUN TIMES!
[General Thoughts]
Unfortunately I allowed guys from the Cardboard of the Rings podcast to spoil the scenarios for me (I stated to listen just when I got the game). Despite the fact that I enjoyed listening to it I decided against doing that in order to explore scenarios on my own. This seems to be a huge problem with discussions on the game. Many of the scenarios relay on surprise factor and if it gets spoiled you loose two or three plays before gaining experience required to rebuild your deck and those first games might be really really fun as you tweak and re-tweak your deck.
One thing that starts to annoy me are difficulty levels of the scenarios. Those are really off as far as solo plays goes. How can be Escape from Dul Guldur that is famous for being almost un-beatable solo be on the same difficulty level as Conflict at the Carrock that I manged to best with my (strong but still) regular deck?
Nov 2012: As you can see from my second session report ... I still had problems with the scenario after that initial comment and generally rate it quite favorably
[Session Reports]
2012-07-01 Played: 3. Spirit/leadership deck led by Eowyn, Dunhere and Theodred. Won three times.
I was able to defeat Conflict at the Carrock three times in the row using my battle tested deck. At first I was a bit disappointed that I did not have to rebuild my deck times and times again before succeeding with the scenario. Now that I had some time to reflect on it all three tries required very careful play and the encounter deck did put a lot of pressure on me (be it in the danger that mass attack of trolls or enormous threat that accumulated in the staging area). This is my second favorite scenario (just bellow Journey down the Anduin) now and I hope to replay it few more times although I can see it would be much harder without any of the used spheres - spirit (threat reduction, questing) and leadership (allies, resource type)
2012-07-04 Played: 3 Eowyn. Dunhere, Theodred spirit/leadership deck
I am glad that I decided to replay CatC again after my 3 successful runs against it last time. This time the scenario bared its fangs against me and showed me what it can do. First started in a pretty standard way I fielded tons of allies and was slowing down my progress on the quest as much as possible but there was one thing different - I could not draw any threat reduction cards (despite the fact that I managed to draw 4 or 6 additional cards due to valiant sacrifices). Also the threat deck attacked me in a sneaky way accelerating threat increase in few ways. Then it suddenly allowed me to go to the second stage (to tell the truth I was risking it before I was afraid of additional threat increase if I quested with not enough). Then the trolls came down. I actually would succeeded defending and slaying them in 3 rounds or so (I had so many allies after all that I was not scared of loosing some of them) ... but there is one trick to the trolls attacking all at once - your threat goes up whopping 12 points. This was the end for my party.
Win was not much different then before.
Third attempt was interesting again as this time encounter deck managed to kill me (not me not drawing right cards as in the first case). Dunhere was sacked on first turn, next the standard troll came up. Those two things combined meant that I was behind in resource generation. I was not able to field enough allies as I had to use resources on threat reduction. When I was finally tricked into the second stage I had only few guys on my side and the regular troll still engaged. I killed it with sneak attacking Gandalf but had to engage another troll (otherwise I would have to quest with all team just to stay equal with staging area) but this still left me with no force to kill buffed up troll and not enough quest power to take care of the Carrock. I gave up when left with two enemies (troll and snake) engaged threat at 33 and no allies (Dunhere was still sacked). FUN TIMES!
[General Thoughts]
Unfortunately I allowed guys from the Cardboard of the Rings podcast to spoil the scenarios for me (I stated to listen just when I got the game). Despite the fact that I enjoyed listening to it I decided against doing that in order to explore scenarios on my own. This seems to be a huge problem with discussions on the game. Many of the scenarios relay on surprise factor and if it gets spoiled you loose two or three plays before gaining experience required to rebuild your deck and those first games might be really really fun as you tweak and re-tweak your deck.
One thing that starts to annoy me are difficulty levels of the scenarios. Those are really off as far as solo plays goes. How can be Escape from Dul Guldur that is famous for being almost un-beatable solo be on the same difficulty level as Conflict at the Carrock that I manged to best with my (strong but still) regular deck?
Nov 2012: As you can see from my second session report ... I still had problems with the scenario after that initial comment and generally rate it quite favorably