by nssxxx
Given that I have Battle of Lake-Town and Heirs of Numenor in the post, I thought I'd have a bit of practice at a really tough quest. Last night I busted out EfDG for the first time in month, as i was convinced that it was unbeatable solo. I think that the Hobbit pack has 2 very tough (the first two) quests; so much so that they have greatly improved my all-round playing ability. Strange as it may sound, I did not "fear" Dol Guldur this time the way I had in the past!I used the Tactics/Leadership Deck I posted earlier in the week - but using Gimli and Legolas alongside Beorn.
In your deck you will put 3 song of kings, 1 celebrian stone, 2 sneak attack, 2 faramir and 2 steward of gondor. The rest of the deck will be (almost) all of the Tactics allies:
3 x Eagles of Misty Mountains
2 x Bofur
3 x descendant of thorondor
1 x Landroval
3 x dwarven axehand
3 x gondor spearman
3 x watcher of the bruinen
3 x trollshaw scout
3 x winged guardian
3 x vassal of the windlord
+ 2 Radagast, 3 Gandalf (core), 1 Born Aloft
+ 2 Citadel Plates, 2 Blade of Gondolin and 2 Hail of Stones + 2 feint
My strategy was to get Faramir out and as many cheap as allies out as possible to rush my way through, and use Beorn to soak up damage and kill any enemies in the way. I would also use Gandalf + born aloft + sneak attack to stop the timer running out.
I did not pre-ordain the prisoner and i played whichever 3 encounter cards I got given, as per the standard rules. I DID NOT apply the when revealed effects on set up. Not sure if this is right or not but i had seen consensus agreed on BGG somewhere that this was the case (as they are not "revealed".
On my winning go - (about 5th attempt) i drew 2 treacheries on setup. So started the game with just one card in the staging area. Beorn was the prisoner.
I had expected to have the best chance of winning with Legolas as prisoner, but with 1xblade of gondolin he turned out be invaluable in the early stages. I brought in a dwarven axehand on the first turn, and then eagles of misty mountains two turns after that, and then a Watcher of the Bruinen (excellent ally for this scenario) two later. It was a reasonably quick process, questing with four and slaying for three progress tokens. I was very lucky that I drew the Jailor card when my threat was at 37 as i was questing hard and in no position to engage him. Gandalf's Map went on Gimli.
After the first stage, I played very coyly on stage 2. Given that by this time I had 1 Eagles of Misty Mountains, 1 Dwarven Axehand 1 Watcher of the Bruinen and 1 Trollshaw scout in play, I did not need to rescue the prisoner immediately. I decided to bring the Nazgul in after placing tokens with Legolas's ability. It was around the 7th progress token. In hindsight, it would have been better to bring him in through questing, but part of me wanted certainty as to over exactly when he would arrive. I also played Descendent of Thorondor at this point (had an extra resource token from Beorn) to apply 2 damage to the Nazgul.
Nazgul had no shadow effect, and he was slayed easily with Beorn, Legolas + Dwarven Axehand (who survived for ages). After this it was pretty much plain sailing, but i was worried about my threat. I was questing for 6 each turn which was enough, not that many high threat locations/enemies in this set.
Once I had enough progress tokens I raised my threat by four to put the Shadow Key and cave torch on Legolas (1dmg). At the end of the round I raised my threat to 48. Luckily I managed to draw some Orcs. This gave me four progress tokens, but best of all, I was able to let them kill legolas and get rid of the Torch's +2 threat effect.Threat 49. Beorn + Allies could easily handle the Orc Guards.
On my last round I drew another eagles of the misty mountains. This allowed me to quest for 7. I can't remember what card i drew but it had threat three, and i remember thinking that if i hadn't drawn Eagles of Misty mountains (or Bofur) I would not have had enough questing power to finish, and would have failed.
So i won with threat 49, 1 damage on Beorn, 4 damage on Gimli and a brave dead legolas. I had in play Descendent of Thorondor, 2xEagles of MM, 1 Watcher of Bruinen and 1 Trollshaw scout. So actually managed the quest with no Leadership cards and no help from Gandalf. I did avoid Ungoliant's Spawn and Chieftan Ufthak. I could not have handled them. Obviously given my ending threat, you can see that there was absolutely no margin for additional threat. I could perhaps have made it slightly easier by bringing the Nazgul in at the end of the quest phase rather than the end of the combat phase but it did allow me to soften him up with Thorondor.Also could have killed Legolas a round earlier (immediately after arriving at Stage 3) i suppose, and saved two threat that way.
Still need to test this deck on Carrock and Shadow + Flame (may even waste my time on Rhosgobel one evening).