The Hunt for Gollum Adventure Pack - Tips & Strategies

Here’s the deck, which was built using two (2) Core sets and The Hunt for Gollum expansion:

HEROES
Eoywn
Bilbo
Glorifindel/Beravor

NEUTRAL
x3 Gandalf
x3 Song of Kings

LORE ALLIES
x2 Henmarth Riversong
x3 Erebor Hammersmith
x3 Daughter of the Nimrodel
x3 Rivindell Minstrel

LORE EVENTS/ATTACHMENTS
x2 Secret Paths
x3 Strider’s Path
x2 Protector of Lorien
x3 Forest Snare

SPIRIT ALLIES
x2 Lorien Guide
x3 Northern Tracker

SPIRIT EVENTS/ATTACHMENTS
x2 Unexpected Courage
x2 A Test Of Will
x3 The Galadrahim’s Greeting

LEADERSHIP
x3 Sneak Attack
x3 Dunedain Mark
x3 Steward of Gondor
x1 Celebrian Stone
x1 Faramir

There are several good combos in here. The powerhouse in both games was Bilbo + Protector of Lorien. With this combo I was able to defend against any enemy (including a pair of Hill Trolls which I engaged one at a time). Multiple Song of Kings turns out to be pretty nice, since you can then have multiple heroes with it, and therefore more flexibility when choosing who pays for what. Te Northern Trackers — always nice — were barely necessary. Especially in the HFG scenario, just being able to quest Eowyn + Glorifindel for 7/8 was huge. A pair of Dunedain Marks turns just about any hero into an attacking powerhouse. My only concern was that it was almost too easy, especially in Hunt for Gollum where you often get to chosoe which encounter cards you’ll face. But I’m looking forward to seeing if this deck has what it takes to handle Escape From Dol Guldur.

But the real kicker was being able to include the most powerful Leadership cards without having a Leadership hero. Thumbs up to Song of Kings… it’s quite a potent card.

In my games, we’ve encountered extremely unbalanced encounter decks, with creatures clumping and locations stacking up quickly. In order to balance this a bit, you can plan the encounter deck a bit. Divide out stacks of ten cards, with a few creatures and a few locations in each. Shuffle each and then stack them together. You still get a “random” draw, but within a somewhat ordered limit. This can prevent extremes of getting sudden clumps of strong enemies or long stretches of nothing but locations.

Obviously, some will prefer to play with the extreme random factor, but this method can make sure the game runs a bit smoother.

Obviously, this quest has tons of locations, which fits into the whole theme of searching from place to place for traces of the elusive Gollum. It can border on tedious if you don’t plan for it, particularly when your clues get sent back to the encounter deck or discard pile. It may be obvious, but it seems the single most important card for this quest is the Northern Tracker. With multiples of Northern Tracker in play, you can make progress on several locations at once, without having to deal with travel effects. For most of the locations, you can easily explore them in a couple of turns, eliminating the cards and their attendant threat and preventing them from piling up in the staging area.

I also like Dunhere in this quest. As long as you can keep your threat controlled, you can confine your enemies to the staging area, where he can attack them without them damaging any of your heroes or allies. He works well when boosted with attachments that increase his attack power. Combined with Northern Tracker, you can effectively eliminate both locations and enemies without risking a hit or shadow effect that sends your clue cards back to the encounter deck.