Foundations of Stone - Progression

This was our first time taking 2 triple sphere decks. Here's some of our though process, we don't like doing Dwarves every time so we try to mix it up every other scenario, that being said we wanted at least one Dwarf for the Durin objectives if it came up. Obviously we often like spirit on either side for more A Test of Will and Hasty Stroke but we also went for Bilbo and Beravor for extra card draw. This scenario has a potential for a lot of discard so card draw is good (I ended the scenario with only 2 cards left in my deck). Also, because we went for triple sphere in each deck and because the Nameless enemies get buffed by higher value cards, we went with only cards costing 2 or less (favoring 1 and 0 costs). Because we had low cost cards, more card draw is good too because you can buy a lot of the cards. This being decided, we determined we didn't require the leadership sphere. Naturally, Thalin was good for the bats and Legolas too was good as ranged character for bats. We left ourselves with at least a competent quester and a character that could kill bats for when we got split and could only rely on our own boards. We didn't even take Gandalf this scenario, rare. He just didn't seem necessary and is high cost, see rationales above. This ended up being a really fun, flavorful scenario. I really felt like we were washed away and split up and down where the Dwarves had delved too greedily and too deep. This isn't a terribly difficult scenario but we didn't have a easy-breezy playthrough. It took us a few rounds to get through quest phase 1 and 2 and therefore our second encounter deck ended up having a fair few bad treacheries. Also, on the second encounter deck we had to face 2 of the elder nameless simultaneously. It was fine though, we had built up a great board by then. Lots of fun, cant wait to take down the Balrog next !