Goal

Build a Revised Core Deck without a leadership hero that can beat the Weathered Hills scenario from Angmar Awakened.

Specifically, I wanted to explore the Revised Core more deeply rather than just relying on Eowyn and Aragorn with Sneak Attack, Faramir, Steward of Gondor, Celebrian Stone power, etc.

Summary

After much experimentation, I ended up with this deck. Once I triangulated on the strategy, I won once with it. I still need to experiment to see how well it can handle various opening hands, various reveals from the Orc deck, and various rates of progressing through Stage 1.

Opening

Key cards you want in your opening hand:

• Northern Tracker for exploring locations in the staging area
• Henamarth Riversong for managing encounter deck and questing
• Unexpected Courage to allow for two actions from Eleanor; particularly double block for Cornered Orc
• Gléowine for card draw.

Assuming you've got a Northern Tracker, in general, the aim is to clear the active location early and travel to Weathered Hilltop, then take a few rounds before clearing Weathered Hilltop, and then go slow and build up forces before launching in Stage 2 and clearing it in 2 or 3 rounds.

Rationale For Cards

• Eleanor is the blocker and can be used for removing key treachery.
• Glorfindel is the attacker. In Round 1, he provides valuable willpower. And in the late game, especially with Unexpected courage, he provides good willpower.
• Éowyn is the quester with helpful flexibility for a +1 with card discard.
• Beorn: Combine with Stand and Fight to bring in serious block and attack.
• Daughter of the Nimrodel: Healing is very handy in the mid-game given various shadow cards, treachery, and heavy duty enemies. In general, you want to enter Stage 2 with no damage, because it hampers questing and you want to be able to quest big (end Phase 2 in 2 or 3 rounds).
• Erebor Hammersmith: This is more of a late game non-unique ally to beef up questing and fill out the deck, but is less essential in the early game.
• Faramir is there for the late game (with Stand and Fight) as a strategy to enable massive Stage 2 questing when combined with an army of allies.
• Gandalf is probably best used for threat reduction, although damage to an enemy is another option. He can be played well just before clearing Weathered Hilltop and revealing from Orc Deck.
• Gléowine is there for card draw, which is an important part of the strategy to accelerate obtaining key cards and support Protector of Lórien and Éowyn. Ideally, he gets played early and almost always supplies cards.
• Henamarth Riversong is very powerful solo for seeing the encounter deck. He enables you to quest slowly on the second active location without underquesting. Some treachery effects are also impacted by the number of characters questing or whether they are damaged. So getting a heads up is useful. This is a card that is good to get in play early.
• Lórien Guide: This card is mostly just filling out the deck, and can be used if needed and would be useful in the late game.
• Miner of the Iron Hills is good for providing another option for clearing the Cold from Angmar attachment, although Eleanor and A Test of Will are also options, which should generally be used unless Miner of the Iron Hills is in hand and can be played at the start of the next round.
• Northern Tracker is essential to the turtling strategy. Ideally, getting two into play really consolidates the ability to turtle through quests and clear the staging area of locations. They also have good attack, defence, and hit points. Ideally, one is in hand in the opening, and it is in play at the start of Round 3 at the latest.
• Wandering Took is versatile ally that can also help with questing for the right amount, particularly prior to clearing the second active location.
• Forest Snare: This probably doesn't need to be here, and could be dropped. That said, it provides one other option for disabling Angmar Captain in the late game. In the early game, you mostly want to be getting key lore allies in play, and there typically wont be enough resources to go around.
• Protector of Lórien: This is for Eleanor first to increase defence, and then Glorfindel for defence or questing. This is also handy in the late game, when you need big questing, and are likely to have a lot of spare cards if Gléowine has been ticking over for quite a while.
• Unexpected Courage is great on Eleanor particularly to enable double blocking or dealing with a treachery card and blocking (although as I've learnt, you can't block two treachery cards in one round, because there is no action window for unexpected courage to operate). Later on, getting one on Glorfindel is also good to enable questing and combat or defence and combat.
• A Test of Will is handy given some of the nasty treachery cards or the when revealed effect of Angmar Orc.
• Dwarven Tomb provides flexibility with spirit. E.g., you only get one Stand and Fight but you want two. Or you need a second A Test of Will or The Galadhrim's Greeting.
• Hasty Stroke is useful against some of the worst shadow cards, such as Freezing Blast which gives +1 attack for each damaged player of defending player.
• Stand and Fight is key to getting Beorn and Faramir into play.
• The Galadhrim's Greeting helps keep threat down when turtling in Stage 1.

Deck Development Notes

This was the journey to this deck.

Version 1 Deck: Eowyn, Gimli, Beravor Deck

Attempt 1.1: Probably a False Victory

I seemingly won on my first attempt, but I’m pretty sure I stuffed some things up. There are a lot of cards doing different things. I’m guessing that I missed a few things. That said, it did come together pretty well.

Attempt 1.2: Defeat in Round 4

Things were going pretty well. I was building up Gimli in strength. But Cold from Angmar removed Gimli’s power. Then a Shadow card did a direct damage when Gimil was defending with 4 damage. Protector of Lórien can't solve the direct damage effects.

Deck Thought

• For this scenario, Include 3 * Miner of the Iron Hills to remove that attachment.
• Consider going back to 3 * Hasty Stroke

Play throughs:

• Prioritise getting at least one A Test of Will or Miner of the Iron Hills in the opening hand.

Attempt 1.3: Defeated in Round 7

I got Cold From Angmar twice. I cleared it once. But there are 3 copies in the deck. Basically, there is Test of Will to avoid it in the first place and Miner of the Iron Hills to remove it. Alternatively I could go with a different deck where the skills are less integral. But this deck relies on Gimli’s attack strength and to a lesser degree, Beravor’s card draw.

General thoughts: prioritise getting at least one Test of Will and generally save it for Cold from Arnor.

Deck thoughts

• Swift Strike would be a good response to Cornered Orcs.
• Quick strike: I guess quick strike doesn't prevent the first attack from a Cornered Orc

Attempt 1.4: Defeated in Round 8

Threat maxed out. I did make it to stage 2, but there were already a few location cards in the staging area. I had mostly built up my heroes to be strong. Interestingly, I never actually got any of the intimidating enemies in the orc deck. I also got two Cold from Angmar cards in a row towards the end. I cleared one with Miner of the Iron Hills, but I had nothing for the second.

Play reflections:

• There’s a lot of competing demands in this quest.

How do you turtle and should you turtle?

• The difficulty with turtling is that in order to keep on top of locations, you generally need to travel to and clear locations. And clearing locations reveals a card from the Orc deck, which both increases threat and leads to an enemy engaging. And the enemies are generally, low threat in this quest. Most are 20; then you have 25, 30, and 35.
• The Sheltered Valley location does provide one way to slow things down.
• Northern Tracker would be useful in this quest. I had 4 locations in the staging area in phase 2, but if I had northern tracker, I could have cleared them over the course of a few rounds. It would allow me to avoid travelling to certain places.

The quest is quite different to Intruders in Chetwood. It seems like the quest has quite a bit of focus on managing locations.

A few hero ideas:

• A second spirit hero to speed up playing Norther Tracker.
• Denethor to further prevent Cold from Angmar and other nasty cards. And he’s a good blocker. Get unexpected courage and that would give block and encounter deck control.
• Use Eleanour to cancel the when revealed effects.
• Use Glorfindel (put unexpected courage on him) and you have good questing, good attack, and healing.
• But if I drop tactics, I would lose feint, quick strike, and swift strike, which are pretty handy for handling some of the more heavy duty enemies. And Gimli’s 6 attack is also very good. I suppose I could lean into getting Beorn into play with Stand and Fight. If I drop Beravor for Glorfindel, I’d need to 3 * Gleowine for card draw.

Version 2 Deck: Eowyn, Glorfindel, Elanor,

Deck

• I switched to an Eowyn, Elanor, Glorfindel deck.
• Initial strategy was to generally hold back Elanor to defend and remove major treachery.
• Use Glorfindel and Daughter of the Nimrodel to manage damage. This is quite important in this quest, because it impacts willpower in Stage 2 and some card effects are based on number of damaged
• A Test of Will and Miner of the Iron Hills provide further protection against the nasty condition attachments.
• Northern Tracker is key to the turtling strategy, and it also provides some good attack.
• Stand and Fight combined with Éowyn discard for Faramir or Beorn are also hoped for outcomes to boost questing or attack.
• Dwarven Tomb provides a bit of flexibility.

Attempt 2.1 Defeated Round 9

This was a decent first attempt.

What worked well?

• Two Northern Tracker helped a lot in clearing scenarios in enabling a bit of Turtling and it did clear Anon Forn (3 rounds) without having to travel there..
• Healing power of Glorfindel and Daughter of the Nimrodel was handy.

What was the challenge?

• Several shadow cards can be quite nasty: +1 attack for each damaged hero was very bad in the mid-game where there were 3 damaged heroes; Another one is +2 if character is damaged; And finally Deal 1 damage to defending character. In general, I tried to make sure that I had at least 1 healing with Glorfindel on call. And as it progressed, I had Daughter of the Nimrodel. In general, this is a quest, where you want to have a lot of healing and avoid people being damaged.

In general, it seems like the deck has potential.

• It’s willpower was generally okay.
• The main challenges related to attack and defence, particularly when the bad enemies came out.

Attempt 2.2 Defeat in Round 9

This was a very different experience of the scenario. I was constantly getting locations. If i had Northern Tracker, it would have been fine. But the location area slowly built up to being out of control. I played Gandalf a couple of times which gave short term reprieve. But ultimately, I needed Northern Tracker, and perhaps I was not aggressive early enough. That said, I revealed 2 orc camps from the orc deck.

Attempt 2.3 Defeat in Round 14

That was an interesting one. I got Northern Tracker this time, which helped a lot with location management. But I struggled a bit with card draw, especially when I needed to use card draw for defence on Protector of Lorien.

I didn’t have a great answer for Angmar Captain. I suppose #elanor at full strength plus Protector of Lorien and discarding a card (and hoping for now Shadow card) was one option.

There was a point where I had the resources to pay for Beorn and I had Stand and Fight, but there was nothing compelling in my discard pile. Given how much this deck struggles with Combat and defence, it might be worth putting in a second Beorn in the hope that strategy pays off.

I suppose if I’m thinking of playing a Fortune of Fate strategy, I should have a plan for which Spirit ally it might be. For instance, if I know it’s not going to be Eowyn, I should always use Elanor resources first. That said, I feel like in solo, losing a hero suggests that things are pretty out of control. I suppose if you planned for it, you could use it as a strategic block, but that’s a pretty expensive strategy.

I also found my self using Glorfindel’s healing. So there were fewer Lore resources available to be spent. I suppose Forest Snare would be another solution for Angmar Captain, but I rarely had the resources needed for that. And it’s much less predictable about when you’d need the card.

In general, I think a challenge with this deck is that Elanor’s block is only 2 and her hit points only 3. So, it’s just not up to the task of big defence.

This scenario can play out in different ways. Sometimes it feels like an onslaught of enemies. Other times it feels like you are being overwhelmed by locations.

When you get to phase 2, you do want to have quite a bit of willpower. Ideally, in solo, you want to be questing for 15 or 20, and have the staging area mostly cleared when you move into the second phase.

Tweaks:

• Went with 3 Beorn to commit to that strategy.

Attempt 2.4: Victory 180 + 40 = 120

That was a lovely victory at last. I feel like that was the first truly legitimate victory using this deck. In general, it was quite comfortable.

The keys to success:

• I only ever cleared the active location twice in phase 1. I got one then two Northern Tracker to keep on track of the locations in the staging area. The second time I cleared it, I had Gandalf in play in preparation (but ended up just being an Orc Camp).
• Henamarth Riversong helped a lot with managing the staging area.
• I had Unexpected Courage on Elanor which made managing some of the worse Treachery.
• I had Gléowine for card draw, which gave me a lot of options.
• I eventually got one Stand and Fight and then another, and given the long game, I had the resources to pay for Faramir to enable a mega quest in Phase 2 and Beorn for potential defence and attack.
• I had Daughter of the Nimrodel to manage damage.
• Because I was almost never cleared the active location, my only enemies were Cornered Orc. And Elanor could do double defence with Unexpected Courage. If a Shadow card beefed up the effect, I could heal with Glorfindel or Daughter of the Nimrodel. And in the later game, I could alternatively defend one attack with Beorn. Then I was able to destroy with Glorfindel.
• Then in Phase 2, I was able to end it two rounds. I got a third Northern Tracker, so it only took two rounds to explore Anon Forn without travelling there. I also had an absolute mountain of allies including Faramir. With card discard (3 + 3 + 1), I could have quested for 38. But only 22 was needed.
• I managed threat levels using Gandalf, The Galadhrim's Greeting. I had more Gandalf in hand if needed.