John Farrell
Australia
Aspley
Queensland
Averagely Inadequate
Buster Keaton from 'Go West'
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Having satisfied myself that I can cope with the Passage Through Mirkwood, I'm tackling the Anduin. My deck is combined Lore / Tactics, 50 cards, with the intention that Gimli will supervise the fighting while Denethor looks after the defence and Glorfindel manages the quest. I used cards from the base set and the first two expansions, which meant I didn't have a great selection. By necessity I had rather too many Tactics cards, but hey, they seemed useful.
So on my first play this evening I decided that Gimli and Glorfindel would beat on the Hill Troll while Denethor prevented any really awful cards from entering the staging area, and I threw a succession of allies in front of the troll to take the hits. That was a bad idea. The allies were massacred, and the extra damage from the troll increased my threat, as did my lack of questing. Within a very few turns I lost due to excessive threat, though Gandalf did pop up at the last moment to finish off the troll.
Take Two. As Eminem says, where's my snare? I have some Forest Snares in the deck, I was hoping to draw one in my opening hand. I didn't, I had Gandalf and some other stuff, but I took a mulligan in the hope of finding a snare. No such luck, and not even another Gandalf nor any allies at all. Ow. Only Gimli could possibly survive being hit by the troll, so I let it happen. That put Gimli up to 6 Attack, which was a very attractive proposition! I held out for a couple of rounds until Gandalf turned up and helped me kill him, and though feeling rather sorry for myself I could make progress on the quest.
I then had a long series of locations and treachery cards come out of the encounter deck. Denethor was scouting every turn, and more often than not Gimli was able to quest as well. Eventually I realised that if Gimli was questing when a Necromancer's Reach card came out, he'd be dead, as he was prancing around with only 1HP, so Glorfindel fixed that. For a long while I was building up Lore resources as I didn't really have any cards that could use them, or they were events which I didn't really need. However as the turns went by I built up threat and was approaching 50 again, and hoping to see Gandalf's tobacco-stained beard.
Eventually I had to deal with the location that gives you 2 threat at the end of each round instead of 1, and a couple of Goblin Snipers as well, but I struggled through and made it to the banks of the Anduin with 48 threat and 3 cards in my hand.
So, it turns out that in the second part of the quest you draw 2 encounter cards each round instead of just one. OH THAT'S HILARIOUS.   Nevertheless, a bunch of allies turned up and I was able to play them all and we held off the rats and mice that harried us. However Gandalf didn't come to save us, and the threat overwhelmed us.
It was a bit of an anti-climactic ending to a long struggle, but I learnt a few things. First, the imbalance of my card colours as compared to my resource streams really is a problem - I had loads of Lore resources but rarely any Tactics. Secondly, Gimli vs the Hill Troll is not a bad battle, and I think I might go that way again in the future. Thirdly, Denethor's ability is really awesome. Fourthly, there are three Necromancer's Reach cards in the encounter deck and it's worth counting them because they can kill a lot of allies.
To celebrate learning so much, and to try to balance my deck, I opened the third expansion. Haldir, oh yes! He's like a green Faramir. So I swapped out 6 eagle cards to put in Haldir and 3 Infighting, with the hope that Infighting can be used to dispatch those annoying enemies who just hang around a little bit too long.
The problem with advancing down the Anduin step by step is that I can't walk on water, and it turns out I have to sink or swim... next time for sure.
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Kevin Gordon
United States
Meridian
Idaho
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Thanks for the write up. I'm brand new to this game and it's nice to read what others are doing.
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John Farrell
Australia
Aspley
Queensland
Averagely Inadequate
Buster Keaton from 'Go West'
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kevster wrote: what others are doing.
We're getting killed too.
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I can totally connect to counting number of Necromancer's Reach.
I keep count of Dol Guldur Orc as well just in case.
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Ryan Davis
United States
Burbank
California
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Undoubtedly the wrong forum, but an easy question: I'm new to playing solo--are you allowed to have multiple copies of the same "named" ally in play?
Obviously you can have 2 Northern Trackers at once, but can you have 2 Haldirs at once?
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John Farrell
Australia
Aspley
Queensland
Averagely Inadequate
Buster Keaton from 'Go West'
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No you can't, there's a special symbol to the left of the character's name to indicate that they're unique and so can only have one of them in play at a time.
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Ryan Davis
United States
Burbank
California
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Thanks.
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Friendless wrote: kevster wrote: what others are doing. We're getting killed too.
Nice report. For my first foray down the banks of Anduin, I got 2 Hill Trolls at the start. Hell of an introduction 
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Steve Shrock
United States
Ohio
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Nice report. Try choosing heroes with a lower starting threat, so you can build up for a couple turns, at least, before having to engage the Hill Troll. That does wonders for one's chances of beating Anduin. Also, you generally want to manipulate when you hit stage 2, with the idea being to power through that stage as fast as possible, because otherwise the two cards per turn will eventually overwhelm you. Keep trying, you'll get it!
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John Farrell
Australia
Aspley
Queensland
Averagely Inadequate
Buster Keaton from 'Go West'
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Gundo, what do you mean by manipulate?
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I think he by manipulation means: Don't kill the Troll as soon as you can. Try to have plenty of allies in play, and cards in hand. So you can power through the second stage fast. You don't want to linger for long when you have to draw two cards each turn.
If you have a thick hand, plenty of allies and resources. Then kill the troll, and move quickly up the river. Protector of Lorien would work well if you have many cards to discard.
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