As I only saw a few decks here that deal with Into Ithilien, but many players who have problems against this scenario, I offer my Gondor/Eagle deck. It uses the two new HoN heroes and makes, surprisingly, use of the Gondor and Eagle synergies. Oh, and there is Sneak/Gandalf!

This deck has been built with only one core set. Keep that in mind, as those of you who own two or three copies might add additional copies of Faramir and Sneak Attack.

6x Neutral:

3x Gandalf (Core)

3x Envoy of Pelargir

27x Tactics:

3x Eagles of the Misty Mountains

2x Bofur

3x Gondorian Spearman

3x Defender of Rammas

3x Vasall of the Windlord

3x Support of the Eagles

3x Spear of the Citadel

3x Hail of Stones

2x Feint

2x Behind Strong Walls (could be replaced by Fresh Tracks)

17x Leadership:

3x Citadel Custodian

2x Faramir

3x Guard of the Citadel

2x Steward of Gondor

2x For Gondor!

2x Sneak Attack

3x A Very Good Tale

WINS: 8

LOSSES: 4

The deck is good, but it won't guarantee a win. However, in a normal game you should be able to defeat the scenario. This deck managed to beat:

- 3x Blocking Wargs in a single game

- Mumakil appearing in turn 2

- hordes of enemies in multiple games

The good thing is that this deck isn't a one-trick-pony, but offers multiple ways to overcome the encounter deck. I had games in which Gandalf saved my ass, games in which Hail of Stones made the way free for victory, some games in which a combo of Citadel Custodian and 2x A Very Good Tale flooded my player area with valuable allies.

This deck has three weaknesses that a player should keep in mind:

1) threat management

2) card draw

3) vulnerable 1 HP allies

The two first problems are linked with each other. To keep your threat low and avoid the risk of loosing because your threat reaches 50 you only have Gandalf's ability to help you. However, the lack of card drawing means that you won't see the old wizard in many games. That is why A Very Good Tale is in this deck. If you use that event, you it either brings Gandalf into play or it reduces your deck by 5 cards, thus increasing the chance of drawing Gandalf in future turns. As there are three copies of Gandalf and AVGT you should be able to play Gandalf in almost every game.

How do you avoid that your allies get slaughtered by Blocking Wargs. The answer is simple: don't send them questing. AFter two or three rounds the staging area should be cleared and you should have some robust allies (Guard of the Citadel, Bofur, Eagles of the Misty Mountains, Faramir, Citadel Custodian) to help your heroes and Celador questing. Boromir, Thalin and Celador already give you 8 ATT. I ususally support them with Vasall of the Windlord in the first couple of rounds. 8 ATT is, later in the game, enough to make some progress. So use your 1 HP allies only when you must. Don't use them in every single turn, but take reasonable risks - like sending them all questing in on single turn instead of sending some of them each turn.

Instead of letting your allies get killed by Blocking Wargs you should use them for a more useful task: kill enemies! Three low cost Gondorian allies are able to kill a Southron Company in a single turn! You only need two if Beregond has Citadel Spear attached.

Stage 3B might be a problem if you have neither Gandalf or Faramir (which is very unlikely). In that case you have to take the risk of sending all your characters to the quest. Hail of Stones helps to get rid of some enemies, so try to keep this card until that stage.

Support of the Eagles is a great card to either boost Beregond's DEF to 6. I prefer to attach it to Thalin to get faster through the quest.

As I noted above, you might want to include Fresh Tracks. This event handles the when revealed effect of the Morgul Spider pretty well.

Thanks for the deck and strategy leptokurt, this looks like it would be fun to play.  It's really good to see Tactics getting some solo love in the new box, too.

Sounds like Leptocurt comeback to us and bring some new ideas

After having quite a lot of fun with my Gondor/Eagle deck (win/loss: 19-16) I created a new deck that seems to be quite efficient so far (win/loss: 4-1). The loss was in the first game due to Mûmakil slowing my progress since turn 2. After that I made some slight changes to boost my deck’s WP and since then most games went down smoothly.

Deck list:

Heroes:

Glorfindel (Spirit)

Eleanor

Boromir (Leadership)

Neutral (6 cards)

3x Gandalf (Core)

3x Envoy of Pelargir

Spirit (25 cards)

3x Damrod

2x Northern Tracker

2x Elfhelm

2x Arwen Undómiel

1x Unexpected Courage

3x Light of Valinor

2x Blood of Númenor

2x Light the Beacons

2x Greeting of the Galadhrim

2x A Test of Will

1x Dwarven Tomb

3x Elrond’s Counsel

Leadership (19 cards)

2x Citadel Custodian

2x Faramir

2x Erestor

3x Guard of the Citadel

2x Steward of Gondor

1x Celebrían’s Stone

3x Dúnedain Mark

2x For Gondor!

2x Sneak Attack

The aim of this deck is quite easy: keep your threat as low as possible to prevent the nasty opponents from attacking. This usually works good enough with a starting threat of 23, although the Morgul Spider and the Haradrim Elite are a serious problem. That’s why a player should always keep a 2 HP ally ready, additionally to Eleanor.

Glorfindel, Boromir and Celador provide you with 9 ATT for the first crucial turn. There is unfortunatly only one ally you can play during turn 1 (Envoy of Pelargir) which is why I added the Dúnedain Marks. In case there is no support of all, you can still send Eleanor questing.

Afterwards the game is about making as much progress as possible to get to stage 3B. Eleanor can handle the nasty treacheries, while your allies boost your ATT. For Gondor! is also a big help during stage 1B.

Even without Faramir you should have enough WP to make slow progress during stage 3B. Try to get to the last stage with a threat level lower than 34, and you’re almost done. Should your threat rise at 37 or above, Light the Beacons or For Gondor! will provide you with tons of DEF power to finish the game before things get nasty.

Yeah, I've used a mono Tactics Eagle heavy deck to win all of the HoN quests first time through in solo play. It's dicey (I've no way to lower threat), but Vassal of the Windlord/Winged Guardian with Support of the Eagles makes questing through Battle/Siege stages MUCH easier.