Solo Thematic Campaign: Helms Deep 1.0

• Versions
• 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 a hard quest to build for! I could have gone with Legolas, Gimli and some token Rohan characters but I decided to go full Rohan and see if I could make it work. I have a longstanding love/hate relationship to Rohan in this game and I'm constantly trying to make decent decks with them but they usually end up frustrating me more than anything else.

This deck is similar to my standard Rohan lineup. Theoden is necessary for the cost reduction and resource smoothing, Eowyn is all around awesome and provides early game willpower, and Erkendbrand is an amazing defender. I really like this hero lineup. These heroe's deserve better attachments than I can afford to give them in this game but the key attachments are Sword that Was Broken which is basically essential in this build. You really need to buff those Rohan allies if you want any chance of keeping up with the constantly growing threat in the staging area in this quest. Hauberk is helpful on Erkendbrand and much easier to play than my favored Ancestral Armor in a tight game like this. Thror's Key is far from thematic, but it could be extremely helpful to put on a copy of Helm's Gate or Deeping Culvert. I try to always run Snowmane with Theoden, but this quest is different in that you often quest unsuccessfully so Snowmane's value is reduced to almost zero.

My 11 events are just basic good stuff. Test of Will is always in demand to counter Night Without End or Devilry of Saruman. Tighten Our Belts has been a mainstay for me in this campaign. So far I've only resorted to Steward of Gondor once in the Uruk Hai quest. I really like the cost/benefit balance of this card and I often look for it in my opening hand. Very satisfying to go into turn 2 with 3 resources on 4 heroes! Not always a good idea but if the opening isn't too brutal and you can weather the first turn without playing much/anything, it can get you moving into turn 2 and 3 really well. I had a hard time deciding how many copies of The Three Hunters to run. Leader of Men doesn't actually kick in very often on Aragorn since you aren't questing successfully on most turns so those Fellowship resources are pretty tight in this game. I settled on 2 but maybe 3 is wiser. I used Aragorn's ability to ready a hero several times in my games to let Erkenbrand defend again for let Theoden attack with Gúthwinë after he quested.

The ally selection is the most crucial part of this deck. I struggled to make choices on my allies for a good while, but I found that the combination of the The Riddermark's Finest and Snowbourn Scout helped me control the staging area by removing nasty locations at opportune times! Who would have guessed these two Rohan allies I usually spurn would help me win at Helm's Deep? Not only did they remove threat from the staging area, but they basically removed the entire penalty for letting them get explored which can be massive if triggered during the Quest Phase, but doesn't hurt at all if triggered during the Refresh Phase.

I included Legolas and Gimli out of loyalty to theme but they're very difficult to get into play because of their cost and I didn't actually play them on my successful run.

Card draw is a weakness here and I rely entirely on Gandalf for my draw in this deck which isn't good deckbuilding but I couldn't figure out how to get more in thematically without destroying the other themes I was trying to build around.

I briefly toyed with the idea of getting Ring of Barahir on Aragorn to gain access to Lore healing and card draw effects but I concluded that was a bad idea... It's too slow and unreliable. No access to healing in this quest makes it very difficult! You can count on lots of Archery!

I would have liked to fit a few Ents into the deck to represent the Huorns that came and helped unnerve and destroy a large portion of the orcs at the end of the battle but I couldn't make it work.

Sneak Attack Gandalf is entirely appropriate here since he came with Erkenbrand as the dawn rose near the end of the battle.

The Experience

This took many attempts and many modifications to the deck. I was determined to get through the quest without gaining the Poisoned Counsels burden that you'll earn if you hang out at the Golden Hall and recruit a free ally. That meant I played the first few turns of this quest a good number of times! You can get a terrible start to this quest if you reveal Scaling Ladders and surge into another enemy. It's easy to start with 10+ threat in the staging area and then you'll likely raise your threat by 4 that turn and things will go downhill from there. I had to get a reasonable opening to have a solid chance at getting far in the quest.

As I write this it's been a few days since I played my game so I don't remember every detail but it was a tight game even with a favorable opening. I know I got out Sword that was Broken early which helped my questing numbers a lot. That willpower combined with some targeted location control with my allies let me quest successfully more often than not. The Three Hunters proved very valuable and those extra resources off Leader of Men actually triggering helped me play it at least once.

I managed to stay at stage 2 and keep the Soldier of Isengard in the staging area for a few turns so I didn't have to reveal extra cards.

I was able to cancel a Night Without End and never removed resources from the objective. A Deeping Culvert pushed me to stage 3 but I held there until the 8th round when the King rode forth!

I didn't actually have that many characters on the board at that point after having to chump a couple times and discard allies to control locations but I managed to stay alive while I finished off the last couple enemies and win on the 10th turn as I hit 47 threat. It was a tough game! My end board state was very unimpressive as most of my allies had been discarded or destroyed (Theoden spent a good deal of the game Overcome by Grief...).

Going Forward

I'm very happy to have completed this quest without taking the Poisoned Councils burden. That can be devastating! I move on to Road to Isengard next. I would like to use Hero Gandalf in this next quest as he was central to the confrontation with Saruman but I don't think I can stomach another +1 threat penalty so I'll be using the same heroes moving forward. I don't earn any Boons for completing this quest but not earning the Burden is good enough.

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