Solo Thematic Campaign: Knife in the Dark 2.0

• Versions
• 2.0

The Campaign

I’ve been part of 2, 3, and 4 player campaigns but I’ve never sat down and run my own solo campaign. I won’t be recording or blogging this campaign as others have recently done that (I’m in the middle of a YouTube thematic campaign with Mr Underhill right now) and I want to play rather quickly through the entire set of quests but I will play in “strict” campaign mode and trying to build as thematically as I can.

I can’t promise the decks I publish in this series will be totally optimized or super teched against each quest for a 90% win ratio, but I hope they will be decent thematic decks that could provide a good experience for people looking to play the campaign in a thematic manner.

The Deck

Lore Aragorn is basically made for this quest (or maybe the quest was made for him) so I bit the bullet and took the +1 threat penalty to drop Pippin and sub in Aragorn. It was too painful to not let Aragorn be part of the story here! (On a sidenote, I wish the campaign let you swap out 1 hero at this point. It would still limit you, but represent the significant meeting they had with Aragorn here. The free ally at the Prancing Pony is something, but since they literally isn't an ally version of Aragorn in the cardpool and may never be, the option to switch out one hero would be nice.)

This is a hard quest for these decks because I don't have a very solid defender. I try to use Aragorn with A Burning Brand but with a starting level of 2 , he takes some real work to become reliable. Feint has been my best friend through this campaign so far.

Bill the Pony finally shows up here! I have a copy of Barliman Butterbur here just for theme but he doesn't do a lot since I have a non-Hobbit hero. The Dunedain Lookout is here to stop the Surge/Nazgul triggered by the Squint-Eyed Southerner.

I started with a solid set of Doomed cards in the deck, but I found I didn't need the resources from Legacy of Númenor and Deep Knowledge while good, just wasn't what I wanted. I found I sailed up to 38 threat just fine on my own with Bill Ferny watching me from his hovel.

My favorite trick in this quest is to use None Return to add the two Riders of Mordor to the Victory Display. If you're careful and don't shuffle any of the other Nazgul into the deck, you can face the Witch King alone at the end which gives you a much better chance at success at the last stage.

With no access to Unexpected Courage I threw some lame readying for Aragorn. Wingfoot is obviously best, but I felt a nod to Aragorn Leather Boots was worth a 1x.

There's a nasty condition attachment that basically removes a hero from the game so I included Athelas for Aragorn to heal up any Hobbit that was caught out in the streets at night but it was difficult to use in practice. It could be attached to the Dunedain Lookout as well but only if you know you can use it right away since he could be leaving play on any given turn.

Without Pippen, card draw was slow so I put Peace, and Thought into the event list. I found I was fine using it early and just underquesting and taking the threat penalty. Got me close to Ferny faster!

The Experience

This took several attempts and modifications to beat. I really needed to get at least 1 Nazgul into the victory display and avoid adding any others or I got overwhelmed at the last stage. Getting enough attack online early was fairly difficult as well. This isn't a great deck for this quest, but after a couple plays, I got everything to happen like I needed and Aragorn took down the lonely Witch King while I avoided Weathertop altogether. Feint was very valuable again since Aragorn wasn't that stout and I couldn't rely on Hobbit defenses with Cloaks and Staffs since my threat was drastically fluctuating.

Going Forward

I agonized about which boon to take but settled on Noble Hero for Sam. I know Sam will be along for the long haul on the Frodo side of the quest so that extra willpower will be helpful. It also opens up Noble/Ranger events like Proud Hunters which is always nice. The Ranger attachment on Sam was tempting as was the Warrior attachment on Aragorn.

You can see the final board states to my successful games on my Twitter account.

Campaign Decks so Far

1. Shadow of the Past
2. The Old Forest
3. Fog on the Barrow Downs
4. Knife in the Dark
5. Flight to the Ford
6. The Ring Goes South
7. Journey in the Dark
8. Breaking of the Fellowship
9. The Uruk-Hai
10. Helm's Deep
11. The Road to Isengard
12. The Passage of the Marshes
13. Journey to the Crossroads
14. Shelob's Lair
15. Passing of the Grey Company
16. The Siege of Gondor
17. The Battle of the Pelannor Fields
18. The Tower of Cirith Ungol
19. The Black Gate Opens
20. Mount Doom