Scoob said:

That's correct. The Banks get explored in the moment that you commit NT to the quest, which is before you deal a card from the encounter deck. So Banjs get placed at the top of the encounter deck before you draw your encounter.

Ok, so I abandoned my lore/tactics deck which wasn't made for good results. I built a leadership/lore deck afterwards which did not idisappoint me, but needs good early draws to get a good result. I played it 8 times, lost 3 games and had 141, 111, 105, 81 and 74 as results.

Heroes: Théodred, Glóin, Beravor

Hero Threat: 24

Hero Damage: None

Round Tracker: 50

Victory Points: None

Result: 74

I had quite good card draws, but got dealt a Hunter as guard for the objective card. Had to use Gandalf's ability plus a Dunedain pimped Glóin who was fighting for Gondor to get rid of the beast. Théodred and Glóin plus Steward of Gondor on Beravor assured  a nice flow of resources which was much needed as I drew all three Old Wive's Tales as encounters. Had eastern Crows at first round which kept attacking Glóin each round (had Self Preservation on him to keep his damage clean).

Will try the same deck with Bilbo instead of Beravor.

My first take on this tournament was with a spirit/lore deck.

Heroes: Bilbo, Eowyn, Glorfindel

Hero Threat: 13

Hero Damage: None

Round Tracker: 80

Victory Points: 3

Result: 90

I got a clue as the setup card, but it was guarded by an Old Wive's Tales which can be really nasty as setup, but luckily I got a location in the quest phase and had a Secret Paths in hand.

Gandalf came by to say hello three times, and the Galadhrim sent their greetings twice, hence my low threat.

I also had do restart phase 2b once because of a badly timed False Lead card, otherwise my score wouold have been better. I might try again tomorrow with the same deck and see if I can improve.

Heroes: Aragorn, Theodred, Bilbo Baggins

Hero Threat: 30

Hero Damage: 2

Round Tracker: 50

Victory Points: 3

Result: 79

First attempt at "The Hunt for Gollum", which I think resulted in a pretty decent score.

Bilbo was the nuts as his additional card draw was what kept my hand loaded with events that reduced threat levels during the quest phase.  

 Maybe this is just barely low enough to crack the 10th spot...???  unless someone else has already done it  :)

Heroes: Eowyn, Aragorn, Dunhere

Hero Threat: 33

Hero Damage: 7

Round Tracker: 50

Victory Points: 3

Total: 87

This was my second attempt with this deck.  First attempt scored 107.

Drat

just arrived to log an 88  -but i now see that won't make the cut this week

have to go and try again.

cracked it! (hopefully)

Eowyn, Aragorn, Theodred

Steward of Gondor on Aragorn 1st turn, Celebrian's a few later.

sneaked Gandalf twice, then played him properly. Also had the Theodred resource topping up, so loads of money all round.

Did first two stages quite quickly- got a clue just in the nick of time before being unable to progress to stage 3.

2x Galadrim's greeting, then a dwarven tomb for a third!

Final threat 6!!!

5 Rounds

score 56.

 Hey Mighty Jim, I thwarted you once...but now you have thwarted me.  I just scored a 57 and thought it would be the new top score...but no!  :)

Heroes: Eowyn, Bilbo Baggins, Gloin

Threat: 15 

Damage: 2

Round: 40

V.P.:  0

TOTAL: 57

Sneak attack twice for Gandalf (reduced threat once, killed goblins the other time), and once regularly.  Galadhrim's Greeting twice.  Had Protector of Lorien in my opening hand.  Think I quested everybody every single time, except Gloin twice (once to get some damage and resources).  Always snuck Gandalf in the Questing phase to use his willpower to get a total of 11 willpower (!) without needing to discard anything.  

Drew a False Lead in the final questing phase, but I had A Test of Will from my opening hand which I had hung on to.  Booyah.

Extremely lucky.  No nasty encounter cards and got a Clue at the last possible moment....which leads me to some ideas about how we could improve these tourneys.  So, onto the ideas thread...

  damn, now I have to try to beat these fabulous new scores.............

vase: whom did you attach your steward of gondor to?

This is tough to do fast.  Stuff starts piling up in the middle.

Aragorn, Theodrin, Eowyn

Final Threat: 32

Rounds 4

Final Score 72.

Not sure I'm done with this... figure if I can get a couple more games in I can get a better game.  Really need to get lucky on the encounter card draw.  Need a lot of worthless treachery and an earlyish clue card to come up.  If you plan well you can blast through the 1B section in 1 round.  The trick to to get 2B done quickly but stuff can really pile up in the staging area.

Wraith428

muemakan said:

Never got Steward of Gondor in that game with my score of 57.  I also never had a Northern Tracker down, which means there are more ways to beat this quest than I had supposed.  It was my first time trying with heroes from 3 different spheres.

 Wow, that was quick.

Played three games:

First one ended with 86, Second one was ended after Hunters killed Aragorn in my third turn.

Third one was the best game EVER

Had a Steward in my starting hand.

Played SoG and Guard of the Citadel in my First Turn.

Gamewinner was a second turn Faramir.

Staging Encounter was Treacherous Fog.

Had 3 clues in play and  the last clue ( third round encounter) was guarded by Hunters. But due to Faramir and everybody questing I managed 15 willpower and discard one card for eowyn and finished in round 3 with just the right amount of progress. 

 2 evil storms in the course of the game made my life much easier. Old wives tale came when my heroes could afford it.

Didn´t had a Gandalf or GG.......but perfect encounters.

Again it shows how luck dependent it is..........Especially for this tournament the treacheries which apply only if your over 34 threat are superb.

Turn Counter 2.

Threat 31

Wounds none ( I didn´t fight once)

Total: 51

Vase: hod did you pay the 7 resources for the 2 GG and the Test of Will??

 muemakan:

I'm glad you said something about enough resources for those cards because I definitely said it wrong.  I remember now that I didn't play G's Greeting twice.  I had looked in my discard pile after I was done so that I could say something about it on here, and I saw two copies of the card.  But after thinking about it and realizing that I wouldn't have had enough resources to play that card twice, I remembered that one of the GG was a card I discarded to get more willpower (the other one I discarded was Unexpected Courage...never thought I would discard that if there wasn't already one in play!).

So I had GG once, and used Gandalf's threat reducing ability twice, for a total of -16 to my threat.  

My starting threat was 27.  

+4 to my threat for number of rounds played.  

27 + 4 - 16 = 15.

When I started my last round, I had 4 resources on Eowyn.  I played GG because I knew I was going to win, and saved one just incase I needed to use that Test of Will card.  I think the one other resource that Eowyn would have accumulated was used to pay for Gandalf the time I paid 5 for him.

Your score is insane.  What heroes did you use?

Tried A LOT of games without Éowyn, but could only get to another 74 round. That's why the Rohan Princess had a comeback from retirement:

Heroes: Éowyn, Théodred, Bilbo

Heroes Threat: 16

Hero Damage: 0

Round Marker: 40

Victory Points: 3

Result: 53 (or 56, see below)

Got Celebrián's Stone, Gandalf and GG in my starting hand. Protector of Lórien came in round 2. In my 2X th attempt for this tournament i finally got Treacherous Fog in the setup phase (instead of HoM). Got one clue in the first round, one in the second. I sent everyone questing each round. Got Pursued by Shadow twice - and here is a question: the second one I got as the forced effect of 1B. I didn't raise my threat by 3, but I am not sure if this was correct. Does the forced effect still belong to the questing phase? If not, my result would be 56.

Later I got another Gandalf, so I could decrease my threat level by 16 points. Gladden Fields and Flooding increased it by 2.

It took me 2 rounds to make it through stage 1B, 2 rounds through 2B and one round for 3B.

Encounter cards dealt:

Setup: Treacherous Fog

1st round: Sign, Pursued by Shadows. Forced: Pursued by Shadows.

WP vs Threat: +6

2nd round: Sign, West Bank; Forced Old Wifes' Tales

WP vs Threat +3

travel to WB

3rd round: Gladden Fields, Eastern Crows, Banks of Anduin

WP vs Threat: +2

travel to Gladden Fields (I had played a Snowborn Scout in round 2,so i could exploere WB)

4th round: Flooding, Ninglor, Eaves of Mirkwood

WP vs Threat: +13 (played Gandalf and used PoL to discard 7 cards; only another Gandalf and Radagast's Cunning left in my hand)

5th round: Hunter of Mordor

WP vs Threat: +8

Yes, Radagast's Cunning saved my day, had the card from the start and kept it all way long after getting these two early clues. I had to pay my last resource for it, the rest was invested in Gandalf's Return. My WP was at 12, threat in the staging area at 6 - and I had 2 cards left to use them for PoL. I'm still grinning.

Vase said:

Yeah, I sometimes let my phone record a session because it sometimes is annoying to remember how I played the cards.

Ah yeah forgot about that. I played with Eowyn, Aragorn and Theodred. And I used 3 core sets and 1 AP.

leptokurt said:

Nice.......