Solo Thematic Campaign: The Ring Goes South 1.0

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• 1.0

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

This is the first time we get to use the entire Fellowship! As of today (July 19th 2019) there are not available ally version of Merry and Pippin so this is the only real hero combination I can use and still get all 9 of the Fellowship of the Ring into 1 deck. It seems crazy to ignore using Sam after giving him that Noble Hero Boon, but to get the entire group into a deck, I have to use Sam as an Ally for now. I'm really looking forward to getting Merry and Pippin in ally form in the upcoming cycle!

I used Lore Aragorn in Knife in the Dark and Tactics Aragorn for Flight to the Ford and now it's Leadership Aragorn's turn! He's not my favorite Aragorn, but here he gives us access to The Sword that Was Broken, Tighten Our Belts, Sneak Attack, Celebrían's Stone and Gimli. Just access to Sword that was Broken alone makes him valuable.

I used 2 copies of core Gandalf and 1 copy of OHaUH Gandalf. I don't want to get the permanent Gandalf into play too soon or my threat will ramp too quickly and Sneaky Gandalf can take care of some of the wargs and prevent damage on the active locations.

Raiment of War turns both Gimli and Boromir into solid defenders. If Boromir with a Raiment is defending against an enemy with a higher engagement cost, he's defending at 5 with 6 ! That's amazing for an ally.

Elf-stone isn't thematic at this point in the story but it's such a nice way to get these expensive allies into play so I haven't cut it out yet.

With Legolas and Boromir around, I'm not relying on Merry to kill things as much so I cut the Dagger of Westernesse and brought Fast Hitch down to 2x. It's still helpful to attack with Merry so you can ready another attacking character. Getting two draws out of Legolas in a turn is always nice!

I considered puttin Sword-thain into the deck to make Legolas, Gimli or Boromir a hero to make him safe from Eregion, but dropped it as too expensive and unreliable.

The Experience

I had a good Counsel of Elrond and got Gimli into play for free on turn 1. Lust for the Ring went into the deck and I just counted on Athelas to get rid of it if it came up. You really don't want to move forward with the campaign with this Burden! I used Mountain of Fire Frodo Baggins again since this quest doesn't punish using the Ring. With the Rings's resource acceleration I would have been able to quest through the Redhorn Gate in one turn but I drew Snowdrifts which slowed me down.

The main danger in this quest for this deck is the Eregion location which discards allies from play. I didn't have an answer for that location other than avoiding engaging enemies while it was active. I could also Sneak Attack Gandalf in for that quest phase then discard him which wasn't too painful. Sam is also pretty cheap and painless to lose if you've found your Celebrían's Stone.

I actually overquested in the early game and ended up questing really lightly or not at all for a couple turns to I had time to build up my board a little before facing the Great Warg Chief at stage 3. The deck can afford to unsuccessfully quest a couple times.

Anduril is great in this quest as Storm of Howls can make a Hound of Sauron attack you from the staging area. Aragorn can defend and kill the enemy during the quest phase which is awesome.

By the time I got to stage 4 I had all 9 Walkers in play and I was able to smack the Watcher around when he grabbed Frodo and quest out right away after that. Gimli defended the Watcher with his Hauberk and survived!

I won on my first attempt and I think the deck could fairly reliably beat the quest unless Eregion keeps coming up and discarding valuable allies.

Going Forward

I didn't get Lust for the Ring which is good so I move forward without any more Burdens. I earned all the Treasures at the House of Elrond but for the next few quests, I'll likely not use the Mithril Shirt or Sting. Anduril is very valuable going forward and Glamdring isn't bad but can only be attached to Warrior heroes or Gandalf so I'll be subbing it in or out depending on my hero lineup.

Next is Journey in the Dark and bringing two hobbit heroes to this quest is questionble especially if the direct damage and archery combo on me. But I'm committed to bringing all 9 Walkers so I'll stick with this deck for now.

I'm still remembering my +1 threat penalty for swapping in Aragorn at Bree but 25 starting threat is fine for now. Might become more of an issue in Treason of Saruman...

You can see 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