The Stone of Erech - Progression

From my experience with The Massing at Osgiliath and The Battle of Lake-Town, I thought all print on demands were going to be crazy tough. It turns out that this one was fairly docile or maybe we just had well crafted decks.

The name of the game here is to go fast so that you are less likely to stomach bad effects. I think we finished the scenario on Dusk with 3/4 progress tokens and therfore didn't have to face any of the worst effects the encounter deck can bring to bear.

We used mostly used Frodo as a dedicated defender, Pippin as a dedicated quester and Sam Gamgee always went to the quest, if he didn't engage a higher threat we had fast hitch and if his ability readied him we could attack with him twice so we always quested and got at least 1 attack from him. On the other side, I had thought Elrond's well rounded stats would be good but we ended up using him as the dedicated defender on that side. Glorfindel sometimes quested but was mostly an attacker because we did not draw Light of Valinor and Eowyn always quested.

Obviously, because of spectral (attacking with willpower) the dedicated questers vs. attackers could be swapped around. Sam Gamgee was just amazing because we had multiple Favor of the Lady on him. Once we snagged Derufin he was mostly used as an attacker.

I generally just thought this was a breeze but still a fun twist on the race the encounter deck type of scenario. More interesting than just a character losing life and you have to win before they die. I like how the stages of night ramped the encounter deck's strength. Bottom line I think is to just quest your maximum every time while leaving ~ 1 defender and ~ 1 attacker and you should out race the encounter deck.

Next up is the last of the Against the Shadow cycle ... my best guess, time for more mono-tactics decks.