Revised core - Journey down the Anduin - campaign speed run

Goal: personal score record with core set only and in campaign mode so aim to have no hero deaths and same heroes as Dol Goldur deck.

General thoughts about strategy:

• Score benefits from healing and threat reduction.
• Score benefits from wound prevention.
• Score benefits from high questing ability to minimise rounds. Need to win in as few rounds as possible unless can achieve score improvement greater than 10 in single round.
• In a speed run there is less benefit from high cost cards as game over before they pay themselves off, or perhaps before you even have resources to play them.

14/2/2022 Attempt 1

Round 1: Played Unexpected courage on Beravor, Hannarmarth, and Blade of Gondolin on Legolas. Used Beravor to draw cards on Tactics/Leadership as have Sneak attacks but no high power allies. Minor progress on Questing. Travelled to Gladden Fields. Killed a goblin and got rid of Gladden Fields with Legolas. Troll not engaged as highest threat is 29 and wasn't ready to engage optionally.

Round 2: Got down Steward of Gondor on Eowyn. Used Beravor to draw cards on Tactics/Leadership side again, but still no high power allies. Played Gandalf from team Spirit/Lore and wounded Troll four times and used him to go questing. Lost questing by two (even after discarding cards) due to Brown Lands, increasing threat dial for both teams. Travelled to Brown Lands to get rid of it. Played Feint on the now engaged Troll, then attacked with Gloin, Gimli, Legolas and Mendor to finish him. Legolas got more progress on Quest. An encounter card on the Spirit/Lore side returns Gandalf to my hand.

Round 3: Played Snowbourne Scout and Northern Tracker. (Combo to remove 2 progress location in Staging) Questing was enough to finish Quest 1 and get in boats. [Ready Mendor, draw cards] Good use of Mendor's Support here to boost Questing and then ready him to benefit from the increased attack too. Optionally engaged Chieftain Ufthak as had a Sneak attack/Beorn combo ready to kill him with a friend.

Round 4: Played Second Unexpected Courage on Gimli. Solid progress on Questing. Optionally engaged Marsh Adder to fight with another Sneak attack and the same Beorn card. Also optionally engaged a Dol Goldur beastmaster to kill with Legolas and a friend. (More progress on Quest from Legolas)

Round 5: I play Gandalf in the planning stage on the Tactics/Leadership team, choosing threat reduction, as I have 2x Ever Vigilant and Quick Strike in hand to use so will get very good value from him. Big push on Questing to finish it off. [Ready Mendor, draw cards] After revealing the final Quest card there are about 6 enemies in staging but mostly low key opponents. It does include one Goblin Sniper though which I can't engage. The enemies attack and I defend on the Spirit/Lore team and make a couple of kills on the Tactics/Leadership team. Because I know I can't finish the sniper I play safe on the combat mostly, leaving a few to finish off the final round. (e.g Crows, Dol Goldur Orcs)

Final round (Game win mid-round): I have oodles of resources on Spirit/Lore side as haven't played much for a couple of rounds, and am able to play The Galadhrim's Greeting twice using a Dwarven Tomb and also Gandalf one last time, choosing threat reduction. Then I finish the last enemies to complete the game.

Final score: 84

Math check Tactics/Leadership: 29 +1 +2 +1 +1 +1 -5 +1 -6 = 25

Math check Spirit/Lore: 26 +1 +2 +1 +1 +1 +1 -6 -5 = 22

4 wounds

5 complete rounds

-17 from Victory points in display area.

Notes: big miss, forgot to add Valor after killing the troll as didn't have Campaign card out at the start to remind me. (Damn) I normally give Valor to Legolas and Beravor. I think Beravor may have had a wound so probably would have improved score by at least 1. Actually looking at the main events of each round, I don't think it would have changed too much luckily. I think Gimli had two wounds at the end so he would be prisoner going into Dol Goldur scenario.