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Fredmans74

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Posts posted by Fredmans74

  2. Posted

    Made it just in time. I stand by my original assessment that The Dread Realms is almost just as tough as Battle of Carn Dûm, albeit in a more sly and cunning manner. I found Power of Orthancs eventually, but Vilya was sorely missing for the first three runs. The third run I was killed by two Dimmerlaiks who swept into combat by the Doomed 2 treachery. In the fourth run, I drew into the side quest that churns out enemies every turn with no means to shift it because of the active location. And then there was the small matter of four sorceries to whittle off and then the reanimated dead soon flooded my threat area. Being engaged by 7 reanimated dead, the villain and two Dimmerlaiks was the last thing my heroes saw. In the fifth run, I felt like cheating. I had Imladris Stargazer, Elven-light, Treebeard and Vilya from start, played Vilya to attach Steward of Gondor and then built a forest to go into the ruins of Angmar. There were no treacheries in play when I completed Stage 1, and stage 3 was swiftly dealt with, questing for 26.

    So, 5 tokens for The Dread Realms, 10 in total. A few more than I expected, but my respect for The Dread Realms increased exponentially. It has so many ways to get to you. Oh, you have a strong army? I hope you do not have any of those ents in the discard pile... Oh, Treebeard is an expensive ally, I mean zombie...

    Alonewolf87 reacted to this

  3. Posted · Edited by Fredmans74

    I still cannot enter anything into the spread sheet, so I will continue using this thread.

    So, the Battle is fought and was won at 5 Valar tokens.

    I felt I was making progress at 3, but the 4 token run was botched by me only drawing events with Vilya and werewolves and whatnot. Slogged through the side quest that stopped Elven Light for 4 turns while never drawing Light of Valinor to threat myself to death. The 5 token run was epic. I was at threat 46 when flipping to stage 2 with only one threat added. Refreshed into threat 48. Cleared the quest stage 2 in two quest phases. Thaurdir, the 30-threat orc and a grunt stood in the way of victory. I had Fair and Perilous on Glorfindel with Unexpected Courage, Treebeard readied for 2 resources and a Booming Ent with 1 added strength for the needed 13 strength attack at threat 49. I have saved a Northern Tracker for Thaurdir who draws the shadow card for another attack. I take it undefended. Down goes Arwen. The 3 strength orc attacks Glorfindel who will use Unexpected Courage to attack to inflict two damage. Grunt attacks undefended, gets the shadow effect for another attack. Damage goes to Glorfindel who now is at 4 damage. Elrond at 3 damage from a sorcery attack from Thaurdir during the quest phase. Grunt attacks undefended, kills Elrond. Fair and Perilous Glorfindel, Treebeard and Booming ent kills Thaurdir. 49 threat, 2 heroes dead, Glorfindel at 1/5 left. Whew!

    Now, those Power of Orthanc cards which I kept drawing into during Battle of Carn Dum to clog up my hand will of course turn invisible throughout The Dread Realms.

    Alonewolf87 reacted to this

  5. Posted · Edited by Fredmans74

    So, I started this month’s league resorting to an Elrond deck. I will fill out details later when I get the chance, but Treachery of Rhudaur was completed with 0 valar tokens. There was some tension before the Vilya wall of allies was set into motion. Glorfindel and Elrond had 4 and 3 damage respectively and I had six enemies in my threat arra, but a round of almost no questing set me up to start decimating the undead army. MVP was my last addition to the deck, Gather Information, which I played when stage 2 kicked in to get to Vilya.

    Now I am about to enter a world of pain.

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  6. Posted

    I finally got to play through the Dream-Eaters two-handed solo. I had Patrice and Sefina playing through part A, despite people's warnings about Patrice's compability with the A part of the campaign. I built her using a lot of Stella cards like Mysterious Raven and Old Key-ring and used the arcane slots for Mind's Eye. It worked really well, although I did lack a little damage output in retrospect. Sefina tried out Winni's best friend Chuck and when she drew him she did fantastic. When she did not find her resources nor Chuck, well, drawing a lot of Hyades stars did not help, she struggled to say the least.

    For the B part, I used Tony, going for succeed by-tactics with Sawed-off shotgun. The new Mausers from Winnifred were fantastic, too. I guessed, quite rightly, that there would be something to put a huge hole into. I paired him with Parallel Daisy, parallel front side, original back side. I really wanted her to have the new Necronomicon and despite getting it after two scenarios, never saw it. I guess she should not have upgraded the Researchers into Docents, they apparently get lazy when promoted. Despite her ability being less valuable than original Daisy, I did use it at clutch moments to see them through the first two scenarios. My only question is whether those clutch plays would have been needed with regular Daisy.

    In the end, all four were driven insane, but I loved both campaigns.

    Now, I am setting up a fan-made Idol Thoughts campaign with Jenny and Jim.

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  7. Posted

    It is quite safe to say that the whole modern D&D/RPG concept of Necromancy and Undead was not in Tolkien's mind when he wrote his books. Yet there is undeniably a quite widespread use of undead spirits.

    If we stick to the LotR, there is as soon as we leave The Shire the Barrow-downs which are home to the barrow-wraiths. There are of course the Ring-wraiths. Then there are The Dead Marshes with its corpse-lights. And finally, we have the whole Army of the Dead business. I guess the Undead spirits go well with the overarching "spirit" discourse set by Tolkien. Maiar, both good and evil, are often described in spirit terms themselves, as is the whole soul/spirit - body construct. The temporal body/eternal soul dynamic seems to fit the living/undead theme.

    As to the Hobbit, it was written before even the concept of Sauron and the Second and Third Age was fleshed out. I doubt that the nature of The Necromancer was known even to Tolkien at that time. When The Necromancer in Mirkwood was revisited during the writing of LotR, it became Sauron and took on a different character.

    Finally, you should give the books a try.

    ShiraHata and General_Grievous reacted to this

  8. Posted

    Thanks for doing this. As a semi-new (one year) player who is trying to progress through the game in release order, I very much appreciate your podding to the same experience.

    I might not have understood you correctly, or I am playing it wrong, but to my understanding there is an action window between staging and placing progress, the action window used for Faramir’s or Eowyn’s action or Cunning of Radagast etc.

    hellboyberry reacted to this

  9. Posted

    First of all, thanks Dale for organizing this. You are doing a top notch job, and I am very glad to have found this league. It is a lot of fun to me, since I usually play two-handed, but also trying to adhere to some deck-limiting restrictions (both card pool and a set of scenarios). I must admit that I had some luck at critical moments, but it feels great to finally have a 0 token run. Hats off to everyone else who participated. I have been eyeing your decks and drawn inspiration from them.

    I am not at all used to choosing cycles, and have not opened them all yet, but there are two cycles I have played or will have played come October that has not been a League Challenge the last couple of months, Voice of Isengard/Ringmaker and The Lost Realms/Angmar Awakened. I looked which one of them had not been played the most recently, so my choice for October's league will be The Lost Realms/Angmar Awakened. So far, it has been one of the most enjoyable/challenging cycle for me, so I am looking forward to it.

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  10. Posted

    @Alonewolf87

    I had a look at your deck and felt the urge for Silvan sneakiness. I made a Galadriel deck to fool around with and even without the Host, there is a lot going on in a Silvan planning phase. It is great fun, though I do miss some of your key cards thus far. Galadrim Weaver (my most recent/noteworthy Silvan card) really gets things going in a fun way, recycling all those events. With the mirror and a harp, Master of the Forge and Galadriel's ability, you start to see some serious card draw.

    Alonewolf87 reacted to this

  11. Posted

    So I delved deeper this morning and came out by the grace of the Valar with 0 Valar Tokens.

    I drew two Erebor Record-keepers and Legacy of During in the opening hand and first round to enable Óin's tactic sphere, which helped me see off a troublesome Goblin Swordsmen who was whittling away at my heroes, but a Khazad Khazad helped me get him off. By round three, I could afford a Longbeard Elder which helped me plan my quest phase and by now Bifur had gathered resources which made it possible to ready Balin and Oin as needed. Dwalin was my seventh dwarf and he managed to take two attacks, cancelling one shadow effect with Balin and I was slowly making progress on stage 1 (failing one quest by 1 to a 4 threat location). I managed to play Kili (and Fili) to get me to nine dwarves and striking gold by drawing me Steward of Gondor. I held back a Ring Mail and Narvi's Belt, instead playing a Longbeard Orc Slayer to kill off a Goblin Ambusher who had 1 hp left, and then an Erebor Battle Master and was now on threat 34, when clearing stage 1. Stage two was dealt with in two swift turns with a goblin scout drawing two consecutive torch treacheries.

    Stage 3 saw me with a lot of allies and money and no items in play, but axes, ring mail and Narvi's belt in hand. I drew the 11 quest point quest with 2 cards in staging area. There was two Deep deep dark, followed by Durin's helm and a big Nameless fear. I then played all my assets as soon as I could, drawing more deep deep darks, but I was geared up at threat 39. Balin had Ring Mail and Durin's helm and Self-preservation and there were three Erebor Record-keepers in play and Bifur stacked with money. I drew a small Nameless Fear and engaged them both at threat 40. Balin defended them and the Orc Slayer and Battle master both had axes on them, so I kept killing one Nameless Fear a turn, dealing with Stage 4 in three turns (killing three Nameless Fears). Stage 5 saw me playing Celebrian's Stone (by now my deck was running really low) and Untroubled by Darkness to give me a 17 quest turn to win the game. The only Lost treachery was a shadow effect which Balin whiffed with a resource.

    I felt I was lucky, drawing exstinguished torches with only a Goblin scout in the staging area two times, not having to deal with multiple goblins, and drawing a good stage 4 card. In a practice run I drew the 4 card-one. This deck is very dwarvish, trudging along, making small gains (there are no big quest turns, but small consistent gains), so location lock and Nameless lock is a very real danger for it. Bombur is good for the first, nothing for the later. I also had very gentle draws for the Nameless ones (the first one had 4 with 4 cards, the others drew 2 with 2 and 3 cards respectively). Anyway, the deck was very fun to play. I always feel good building a dwarf deck without Thorin or Dain. I tried To me my kinsfolk during the practice runs, but this deck does not want allies to go away, but to keep them in play, slowly building an unstoppable force through numbers.

    Thanks for letting us halfway-throughers be a part of the challenge by choosing Khazad-dûm, and as always for arranging the monthly challenge.

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  12. Posted · Edited by Fredmans74

    Road to Rivendell traversed. Now that went according to plans. Drew Erebor Record-keeper, Legacy of Durin and Ever the Heart Rises in opening hand, drew into a Iron Hill Miner to get to 5 dwarves in turn 2, netted Steward of Gondor which helped me play Erebor Battle-master, Gloin, Fili and Kili in successive turns. The steady card draw helped me find A Test of Will. The bears that kept popping up were harmless due to low threat (ended at 28). Final quest flip drew me Followed by Night, which I cancelled. Then I quested for 13 against 0, drew a Patrol Leader to which we answered with mighty song about Durin Deadless as we force marched into safety.

    I knew I wanted card draw and this game gave me one card/turn due to Legacy as well as two Daeron's Runes to help me find Steward of Gondor, a second Erebor Record-keeper which made it possible for me to quest all-out without risk of getting caught flat-footed, Gondorian Shield and especially both copies of A Test of Will.

    Next week, on to the final challenge, which I think might net me a valar token or two. A lot will depend on the quest draw. At least I have quite a few titles, which I will not drop automatically.

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  13. Posted · Edited by Fredmans74

    I decided to use Bifur as my mandatory hero, who I always love playing. I recently took a Balin deck through Moria, and his ability to cancel shadow cards is really good in this cycle. I am looking at you, Sleeping Sentry and Sudden Pitfall. Last time I played Balin, I chose his buddy Dwalin, but I wanted to give another dwarf I seldom play a chance, so I picked Oin. His quest is OK, he can pick the Test of Will, I am looking at you again - Sleeping Sentry, and when he gets his tactic icon, I can use him for axes and Erebor Battlemasters, since my combat is a bit on the weaker side.

    I could not resist packing a Gondorian shield. I love playing it on Balin with Steward of Gondor and Ever the Heart Rises. And finally, I opted for four of the unique Dwarf characters (Dwalin, Fili, Kili and Gloin) to bring me to a total of 5 cards outside this month's cycles.

    Edit: A Leadership/Spirit deck without Sneak Attack, Gandalf AND Unexpected Courage. It feels somewhat forbidden, but it did do well during my practice runs.

    Into the Pit was not effortless, but I stalled quite happily for some time at Stage 1 to build up a board state of 8 or 9 allies, and from that it was quite easy. I played two Axes on Fili and an Erebor Smith to use Oin for questing, and that is enough for the Goblin Swordsmen. The Patrol Leader was killed with two Khazad Khazad and I managed to make steady progress, apart from Balin questing the last two rounds with 3 damage and without A Test of Will. Luckily, it never got Dark and Dreadful, and I made it on the first attempt.

    Ended on Threat 39, mainly due to a lot of threat-raising shadow effects that I did not want to cancel to draw into something worse. 0 Valar Tokens.

    On to Rivendell (nasty place I have heard from my bearded friends). It surely is more dangerous than the lovely halls of Moria.

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  16. Posted

    So, I made it to the crack at 4 Valar tokens. I was making good progress all the first tries and made it to quest 3, but I was a little short of steam every time. I felt I really had to almost clear the staging area every turn to not get caught in a vicious ally/threat race into the wall. Bad encounter draws and shadow cards did not help in the first three games. The final game I finally drew some lucky cards. Celebrian's Stone on Sam with an Unexpected Courage and Fast Hitch on Merry helped me a lot to make all the Fortitude tests. I drew the Heavy Burden treachery on quest 2 with A Test of Will in hand to save Sam from it. I managed to draw some Gandalfs and Arwen and then drew into the other two Frodo's Intuition. I did not see a lot of enemies until the penultimate round where I was charged by three orcs and Gollum, but I was prepared for it, except that there was another attack from a shadow card, so Pippin bit the dust. By then I had Faramir, Treebeard, Arwen, Bilbo, Rosie Cotton and Gandalf to help clear Mount Doom and still have 15 will for my 9 card fortitude test. I drew 6, and Frodo saved Middle-Earth.

    It felt good. I feel I had decent tries with every game. On my second run I had three "raise threat by 10" to spoil the day. I was otherwise in a good spot to travel to Mount Doom but by then I had accumulated a Threat of 85. The deck performed exactly as planned. I had not played Mount Doom enough to properly deck build for it. I did change my Tactics Merry to Spirits Merry during the practice run. I felt that spirit allies were more valuable than Tactics allies at Mount Doom, and as the other scenarios showed, it performed equally good or better during the first two scenarios. If I had stuck with Tactics, I believe I had accrued something like 10 tokens to make it work.

    I hope I will have better luck in Khazad-dum.

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  17. Posted · Edited by Fredmans74

    Broke up the Fellowship! I drew a fantastic starter hand. First round saw me playing Bill the Pony, Resourceful on Merry, Frodo's Intuition for a second Sneak Attack to go with the Gandalf I had, and Arwen for Merry's second planning phase. I also played Out of the Wild to snipe any thoughts on claiming the ring for themselves out of the deck. (I really wanted to get that pesky archer as in one practice run, but no). I then proceeded to draw Black-Feathered Arrow with only one ally in play. Frodo's Intuition saw me off to a head start, clearing quest 1 in three phases, only drawing one enemy (the warrior who had planted his axe in Sam's pony upon arrival). I Sneak Attacked Gandalf in for defense, since the Hobbit Cloak did not show up until next turn.

    I picked Orc Hunting as quest, which saw off the steady but small trickle of Uruk Captains and Scouts. Rosie Cotton appeared, to get struck by an arrow. Frodo's choice was stuck in the bottom five, but I managed to find and travel to the location where the encounter deck is searched and shuffled to speed things up. Discarded Frodo's Choice after the third quest phase. By then I had a minstrel, a warden of healing, Arwen, Elrohir and Treebeard up. It felt a bit like the meeting in LotR (the book) between the hobbits and the elves bound for the Grey Havens, travelling secretly in style. I quested for 20 something to clear Parth Galen and put 14 progress on the final quest. Played Faramir for a final 24-will questing phase to see me safely off.

    Now that went according to plans. My plan (and only plan) for Mount Doom is similar, to get one or two Frodo's Intuition off early and then hit Faramir to keep me ahead of the Doom race. That is how I beat it during practice (oh, and Grim Resolve on Sam with a Good Meal).

    I only had one real hail of arrows. Drew Black-feathered Arrows with six allies out, but one of them was a committed Gandalf, so that was an easy choice. I knew he would come back. To be fair, I do think MoF Frodo is a bit overpowered in the two first scenarios. Before spoiling the box, I found BR Frodo better than TRD for the first two quests, but the resource acceleration is so powerful. It really lets you get a head start. Combined with Frodo's Intuition and Faramir, it is my Fool's Hope for Mount Doom, though.

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  18. Posted · Edited by Fredmans74

    Just listened through your casts. You have a very entertaining banter going on, please keep it up. I started playing in earnest this winter, so I very much appreciate and sympathise with your progress approach. Brand was the grandson of Bard, but you were otherwise spot on, he fought alongside Dain in the War of the Ring. They, of course, both died. 

    A fun fact about the late Ian Holm. He voiced Frodo in the BBC radio version from the 80’s that I listened to on cassette tapes in the beginning of the 90’s.

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  19. Posted · Edited by Fredmans74

    Well done. In my practice runs, I also used Argonath to keep my hobbits from Archery, especially after having made it through the falls. I love it when there are tactical terrain advantages to play with, like the petrified trolls or the upcoming Water-course.

    From your deck I gather there are more hobbits to come in my unopened boxes. Love to see the Shirefolk do so well. Hobbits really make for fun games.

    Alonewolf87 reacted to this

  20. Posted · Edited by Fredmans74

    Started the league off with a good Flight to the Ford. I quickly established Sam as a defender (hobbit cloak), drew two Gandalfs, one Sneak Attack and Treebeard. After Gandalf, Sam and Merry dispatched the first Fell Rider, I quested on and after letting Bruinen do its work, I was left with two (soon to become three) riders. I Gandalf-damaged two of them in consecutive turns, but that shadow effect kept them dancing around me. When I drew the third, I had Elladan and Elrohir out and Treebeard with two resources. I stalled a turn around the Hobbit monuments to give the hobbits a welcome attack and defense boost, letting the Fell Riders engage me. Hobbits and Ents and Elves striking at two saw me killing two, but one danced off. I was now at six health left on the wound, managed not to draw another nazgul for two turns, killed the last Fell Rider and made it to Rivendell at 4 health on the Evil Wound at Threat 27.

    The deck worked fine. I had Sam with Fast Hitch and Unexpected Courage and Fast Hitch on Merry to reduce my threat. This quest is gold for Pippin since you always engage higher-threat enemies. I did not see any of Frodo's Intuition. I hope he is saving them for the other two quests.

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  21. Posted

    Thanks for setting this up. I will try to participate next league as well. I liked the challenge  of building a deck for three particular quests, and I am currently setting out from Rivendell in my first run-through anyway. I guess I will have to spoil Mount Doom, but I think it would be worth it. KD for August is another league I will try, for sure. 

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  22. Posted

    I am very impressed by your run, trumpet. I included A Elbereth with both hill troll and nazgul in mind, but never drew it when I needed it. I have the exact same feeling about Rhosgobel. I was a little light on healing, and was therefore completely at the mercy of the encounter deck giving me the right cards and the deck was so thick. It was never a matter of resources, and at the end of my 1-token run, I had money in piles but not the athelas. Fortunately, I drew two at the same time, which made me win the scenario at the very last moment, but at that point I pictured myself adding a lot of Valar tokens.

  23. Posted · Edited by Fredmans74

    1 hour ago, Adaepholn said:

    Unrelated comment -  I think it is very interesting to see the other decks people have come up with for this league. Personally I built my deck with the hope it could beat Journey along the Anduin and A Journey to Rhosgobel easily, and just hoped for the best on Escape from Dol Guldur. Maybe that wasn't the best plan in hindsight :)

    I found that interesting too. I built exclusively for Dol Guldur and Anduin, hoping to beat Rhosgobel quite easily, since I thought of it as easier than it turned out to be. :) With hindsight, I should have run the deck against Rhosgobel at least once, since I had never played it solo-handed. A couple of Distant Stars could have made a lot of difference, and I could possibly have used them to find that Mountain location that lets you search your top 5 cards in the other two scenarios. At the time of deck-building, I thought it too niche.

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  24. Posted · Edited by Fredmans74
    apparently profane non-contextual meaning for a synonym to grab

    3 hours ago, Alonewolf87 said:

    I think a Guarded Objective, cannot be Guarded by another Guarded Objective, you have to reveal another encounter card to fulfill the first Guarded (while the second objective is put into play free).

    That is what I meant. I guarded both objectives, just to not mess up. I drew into a bat and an enchanted wood, but I was already tip-toeing to not quest, so I could travel by exhausting Merry, and I had Unexpected Courages out for both rangers to grab the Athelases after engaging the bat. Threat was at 20 due to Merry's ability and two greetings.

    Question: I do recall reading some thread OR FAQ on guarded-on-guarded cards where you resolve both, in effect put the second objective in play and keep drawing for Guarded on both cards. Maybe someone will beat me to it.

     

    The FAQ says:

    Surge, Doomed, and Guarded keywords should be resolved any time the card on which they occur is revealed from the encounter deck, including during setup.

    I interpret this as both Guarded cards are resolved independently, drawing me two additional encounter cards.

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  25. Posted · Edited by Fredmans74

    Made the journey to Rhosgobel. This was the first time playing the scenario one-handed, and if I had done so, I would definitely have packed a third Athelas. The first run was going too well. I drew Good Meal and Galadhrim's Greeting in the opening hand for a starting threat of 22. I quickly played Master of the Forge, starting to dig out my own Athelas, but only just when it was too late for Wilyador (hitting six wounds after finding the first and 11 after the second). As for the groves where athelas grew in abundance, they were nowhere to be seen, until at the very last moment at 19 wounds. One valar token.

    The second try was very much like the first. I kept finding athelas in the decks a turn too late, but when I was at 12 wounds with one Athelas, I drew the jackpot from the encounter deck. Athelas, guarded by Athelas for a quick two Athelas. I blitzed the quest for victory.

    Journey to Rhosgobel is a very weird quest. If you tech for it, it is too easy. If you semi-tech for it, it is down to luck of the draw in solo-mode. With bad luck, the valar tokens could have piled up indefinitely.

    Thanks to Dale for organizing this. It will not be the last time I enter. I had great fun trying to build for three quests, rather than one or an entire cycle. It hit an unexplored spot for me and opened up yet another way to play this amazing game.

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