Into Ithilien - Progression

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Let me start by saying, we continue to try to avoid Dwarf decks as we do not want to play all Dwarves all the time ... but they probably are a way smarter way to go on this quest. Boosting willpower and attack with Dain is great for normal and battle questing and if you keep your threat below 37 you don't need to deal with siege questing.

That being said, we made these decks and after a few attempts we were able to make them win.

General thoughts/strategies: We usually make decks with chump blockers to soak attacks but we didn't want Celador to die. Therefore, these decks were designed to beef up (i.e., Dunedain Mark/Warning, Spear of the Citadel, Citadel Plate, et cetera) our heroes and give them extra actions (Unexpected Courage, Cram). That way we minimized the damage to Celador. Getting to bypass stage 2 is great because the Archery damage adds up quick.

 - Employ above strategy to keep Celador alive.

 - Bring Warden of Healing to heal Celador (and others) from the treachery that deals 1 damage to questing characters (don't quest unsuccessfully either please).

 - When you are on quest phase 3, try to do one big quest push the first round you're on the card to ideally get 1 progress away from completing (don't overquest, favor questing slightly under this goal). Then the next round commit the minimum number of characters you think you need to make it to quest phase 4. Doing these things will make sure you do not push through phase 3 with too many characters exhausted from questing to be able to defend/attack all the enemies that stack up during no engagements of phase 3.

 - Use Thalin, Ranger Spikes, Expecting Mischief and Fresh Tracks to help soften the enemies that are piling up. If Ranger Spikes lands on the enemy with Archery, consider optionally engaging him anyway (if not on phase 3) because leaving his Archery on the board adds up fast. Try not to use Expecting Mischief if you have Ranger Spikes out because you might never need to kill the spiked enemy and therefore the extra damage is wasted.

 - As much as Light of Valinor is important to mulligan for, so too is Vassal of the Windlord for a kickstart to your Battle Questing.

I'm sure I'm forgetting some of the tactics we used but that's all that comes to mind at the moment. If you want a challenge, try out these decks as they have been proven capable of winning, however, if you want a more reliable win rate I'd suggest taking a dwarf deck. Have fun !

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