Solo Thematic Campaign: Journey to the Crossroads 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 quest is extremely hard to build for as a solo quest! Haldir of Lórien is excellent tech since you can take out enemies without engaging them and you can knock out Mumaks like only Legolas can in the movies with Straight Shot but I wanted to see if I could do it with just Sam, Frodo, and the Gondorian Rangers. And I did! Just barely... I had to resort to a little help from Gandalf again.

There are so many ways to get destroyed in this quest it's hard to prepare for all of them. Willpower is the first issue that has to be decent from turn 1 and ramp up consistently throughout the game. I counted on Visionary Leadership and some cheap Gondor allies along with Fellowship of the Ring and a late game Faramir to ramp my willpower.

You also need strong combat capabilities from turn 1 and that's more challenging with a couple Hobbits and some 2/2/2 Gondor heroes. I ended up building up Samwise the Brave as a tower using both Anduril (which fits on him now because of the Noble Hero boon) and Sting. With plenty of resources around, I added a single Knight of Minas Tirith for some attack power and some extra hitpoints for an archery sponge.

The Oliphants are a major hazard in this quest, especially without a tower defender like Beregond. If I drew one early, my plan was to let it escape. If I drew one late, I can tank it with Mablung with a Shield if I have a healer out, and if I can get my threat high enough, Fierce Defense can discard that horrible enemy even before it attacks. Mablung always has tons of resources in this quest from constantly engaging enemies.

Forest Snare seems like an obvious choice for this deck but I found killing the enemies to be a better option.

Foe-hammer is on tenuous ground here with only 1 Dagger of Westernesse and Sting and Anduril in the deck, but I was kind of desperate for card draw so I kept it.

Gandalf is non-thematic again here but I swallowed my pride and brought him along after many losses without him. There are times when you get two enemies in the staging area and you can't engage both and knocking one out with Gandalf is the only way this deck has to stop that second enemy from escaping.

The Experience

As expected, this was very hard. It probably took me 10 plays with many deck adjustments to get a satisfactory result. I'm convinced that my successful play was only possible because I didn't reveal one of those surging Man of Harad enemies that always help the encounter deck to overwhelm a player deck.

I used Mountain of Fire Frodo for this quest since the flexible extra resources meant I could get cards out much faster and exhausting the Ring means nothing in this quest. I considered the Land of Shadow Frodo for the emergency willpower but the extra resource proved very, very helpful.

I took the extra resource on my heroes instead of Brace of Conies and that helped me get set up with some extra willpower with Fellowship of the Ring/Visionary Leadership and get an ally our two out before the first quest phase.

As I apprached the lategame, I ended up with 2 Oliphants on me at once which was taxing on poor Sam and Mablung. At that point I had control of the questing numbers and with no active location and thus no fear of location lock, I was able to underquest so I could raise my threat past 40 and discard both Oliphants with 2 copies of Fierce Defense. That felt awesome.

This quest is actually pretty good for Sam. Most enemies have a decently high engagement cost which will trigger his response, sometimes twice in a turn. With both Sting and Anduril attached (finding both those weapons isn't easy...) and a Hobbit Cloak, he can usually defend for 6 , jab them with Sting, the counterattack for at least 4 , then possibly attack again after readying with Fast Hitch. Recycling Entangling Nets with Anborn made that Anduril counterattack that much more effective and Sam could often kill enemies just while defending which left more characters free to quest.

By the end I was questing in the high 20's and ended with 44 progress on the quest stage. I never lost a character to an attack or archery and only let one enemy escape! It's a challenge for the deck, but it can be done with some tricks and a lot of good fortune (or fate).

Moving Forward

Next is Shelob's lair. I don't know that quest very well and I haven't played solo very many times at all. I'm locked into these heroes for one more quest and I have a +3 threat penalty moving forward so it should be interesting! I'll likely try to build up the hobbits as heroes again and put some direct damage into the deck to wear down Shelob faster.

There's no Burdens to earn in this quest and I move forward without the Brace of Conies Boon, but I don't feel too hearbroken about that. I'm just happy to have completed this quest at all!

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