The Lord of the Rings: Adventure Card Game – Definitive Edition – How to defeat the Balrog with Gandalf on “expert”

Enemy deck

The Balrog starts the game in play, so you can just reset the mirror until he spawns. 
 
The Balrog only plays two different cards and both are very weak. A 1-0-3 ranged minion and a 2-0-2 melee minion. 
 
The Balrogs attack leeches one HP from each of your chars. Block prevents the loss of HP but not the healing effect. 
 
 
 

Your Deck

You want to bring Dis to tank the Blarogs attack each turn. 
 
You want the dwarven king to buff your miners. 
 
The third hero is not as important. A green one is recommended and the green elf that heals in your upkeep phase is the one I picked. You can try a red hero as well (ranger spear and dwarven axes are quite good) but then you need to get lucky with your northern survivors. 
 
For blocking the leech attack: the 2 purple shields that give you block. You DO NOT want the purple armor because it gives you guard in addition and the allows the Balrog to bypass Dis. 
 
For drawing aggro: You want the purple helmet that gives block when being attacked (does not help against the leech but it taunts the ranged enemies into attacking into you and you don’t have that many block-cards). Put one onto the healing lady and one onto a mining dwarf. 
 
For scaling: Mining dwarves, reinforcements, elven magic (the your-next-ally-is-free card). 
 
For healing: self preservation. 
 
Minions: Gandalf, Northern Survivors, Fallen Riders (from new questline), Mining Dwarves. You can bring the green healing ally the heals on kills but it is optional. Do NOT bring other/cheap minion. Reinforcements and Eleven Magic bring your strong troops out fast. The miners give you income for block cards. 
 
Weapons: weapons are useful but optional. The cheap +1 sword is fine. You don’t need Dis’ hammer. 
 
The rest of the cards don’t matter. Cards that allow you to draw are good. Cards that give you a second turn are good. Second-turn-on-kill in particular. Depends on the color of your third hero. 
 
 
 

Strategy

First you take a look at the threat meter and if the HP-buffing-revenant is on it (always the lower one) then you restart. 
 
Mulligan: 

• You dig for reinforcements, mining dwarves and elven magic. 
• EVERYTHING ELSE gets discarded. 
• You need 1-mana cards on your first turn.

 
These are your priorities: 

• Dis tanks the Balrog every turn. You can survive one turn on which Dis gets exhausted by the Balrogs obstacle card. 
• There CANNOT be a melee unit left, after your turn is done (except the balrog, of course). Archers can be ignored in the beginning. This makes sure the enemy does not generate “threat” and Dis’ defense get triggered by the Balrog. This can be done without a problem. You spawn reinforcements and a miner on your first turn. The king, the king-buffed-miners and the troops you spawned are easily enough. 
• You want to keep the mining dwarves alive – they can kill the enemy units and they can mine – in reaction to the enemy spawns. 
• You want to focus the obstacle that stuns your troops first. Get it down asap. One Northern Survivor and the Healing Hero should be enough. If you can spare him, you can use the Downed Rider as well. You have won if you can take it out without loosing a hero.

 
Don’t be afraid of the leech attack. Just fill the board a bit more slowly than you would act normally and try to give you minions block (or play those that have it). You can wittle down the Balrog pretty easily while killing all minion he spawns once the obstacle is down. 
 
You don’t need to save your northern survivors. Once the obstacle is down, they are not needed any more. The miners and their king are enough to kill everyting and to wittle down the Balrog. More troops help but are inconsequential. 
 

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