Solo Campaign - Black Riders 1.0

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• 1.0

Despite having a full collection, I've not played through these quests before. I've played through the Hobbit saga (which I thought was cool but not amazing), and all of the "normal cycles" through Against the Shadow, and I'm now into the Ring-Maker cycle. After struggling through The Three Trials, I kinda took a break and started over with a solo progression series, as I wanted to experience the game as a solo player in "release order".

Coming up with those decks takes me time though, and I've always wanted to give the saga quests a proper thematic run-through without any special rules or restrictions (other than campaign mode), and with the use of my entire card pool. I picked hobbits as my theme, and it turned out to be a pretty strong choice.

I used this list for all three of the quests in the Black Riders box. I found Shadow of the Past to be the trickiest with this list - on my first attempt I took the hide tests a bit lightly and I got REKT by the riders, so on attempt 2 I played it much more slowly and cautiously and won. It absolutely smashed Knife in the Dark, and was solid against Flight to the Ford as well. I really enjoyed these first quests, and I'm pretty motivated to continue on with this run now.

Some tips:

• Keep threat low so you can optionally engage enemies. Since your threat will almost certainly be lower than the enemy you engage, it will turn on Sam Gamgee, Dagger of Westernesse, Gaffer Gamgee, Hobbit Cloak, Farmer Maggot, etc. The Shirefolk is pretty broken with this setup and is there for this purpose - I don't think my threat ever exceeded 30.
• Boromir in particular is amazing for these quests, he'll defend and attack pretty much always so 4 resources is amazing value for him once you get him out.
• Your Sneak Attack-Gandalf combo can be used for card draw or damage on enemies, depending.
• You'll have 13 willpower with just Sam, Pippen and Frodo, once you get Fellowship of the Ring and Red Book of Westmarch out.
• If you have Rosie Cotton, give her your first Fast Hitch, second priority is on Merry.
• Then, for 2 resources, you can use Frodo's Intuition for even more willpower, and FOUR cards!
• Be mindful of how you allocate your willpower for hide tests on the first quest. Phase 2 (as well as some other card effects), really messes with the hide test math, so manage that carefully. Rosie and Faramir are super useful for these since you get an action window after the cards for the test are revealed (but before the test resolves).

Weakest card in the deck is Take No Notice. I'd swap that out for sure, I just never needed it thanks to The Shirefolk. Maybe this didn't need Hobbit Cloak either because most of the time, if I needed a strong blocker I'd either use Rosie to pump Sam or just defend with Boromir. Resourceful could be a good addition - I wasn't always within secrecy, but I was there enough that it would probably be worth it to speed up the deck even more.

I chose Mr. Underhill and The Ring Calls Them after winning Shadow, Noble Hero after winning Knife, and Sting after winning Flight.