The Decks I have used for the quest, and the notes for them, can be found here and here. The narrative for the quest can be found here.
Encounter Deck Set-up:
Shuffle Pursued by the Enemy, Followed by Night and Saruman’s Voice into the encounter deck.
Set The Stone of Erech and Army of the Dead aside, out of play. Each player attaches a copy of Overcome by Fear to his threat dial. Remove each unattached copy of Overcome by Fear from the game.
Player Deck Set-up:
Attach Valiant Warrior and Intimidation to Merry.
Attach Forewarned to Aragorn
Deck One draws opening hand, adds Anduril, Palantir of Orthanc and Poisoned Counsels to his deck.
Deck Two draws opening hand, adds Glamdring and Poisoned Counsels to his deck.
Deck One
Threat: 26
Merry
Halbarad
Amarthiul
Deck One Starting Hand:
Dunedain Warning
Secret Vigil
Outmatched
Vigilant Dunedain
Ranger Summons
Fornost Bowman
While these are all good cards to be had for this quest, I am unable to play two-thirds of these because Amarthiul has not his Tactics resource yet. And as our hand must get discarded after the first turn, we find nearly all of these cards wasted when we need to make the most of the first planning phase. We shall mulligan, and hope for better.
Deck One Mulligan:
Ranger Summons
Fornost Bowman
Weather Hills Watchman
Celebrian’s Stone
Dunedain Warning
Double Back
This on the other hand, this may be as good as a hand as I may ask for. If we raise our threat to get the extra resources, we should be able to afford most of these. The Fornost Bowman cannot be helped I suppose, but in this scenario defense is more important than attack so we shall bear it.
Deck Two
Threat: 29
Idraen
Thurindir
Beravor
Deck Two Starting Hand:
Sarn Ford Sentry
Dunedain Pipe
The Hidden Way
Northern Tracker
A Test Of Will
Well Warned
We cannot afford Northern Tracker, and the Sentry’s ability won’t trigger just now so their both sub-optimal. The Hidden Way might be helpful if we didn’t discard it at the end of the planning phase. In the same way, A Test of Will would be wasted as would Well Warned. Dunedain Pipe is good, but that’s about it. We’ll take the mulligan.
Deck Two Mulligan:
Wingfoot
Unexpected Courage
Leather Boots
Map of Rhovanion
Dunedain Pipe
Dunedain Lookout
Wow. That’s a lot of readying in one hand! We’ll need to take the additional threat to be able to afford all this, which puts us at a dangerous 35, but I guess we’ll have to bite that bullet to get things up and running.
The first player raises each player’s threat by 1 to search his deck for Anduril and add it to his hand.
Trigger Thurindir: search Deck Two’s Deck for The Storm Comes and adds it to his hand.
Raise each players threat by 2 for the Fallen Heroes Gimli and Theoden
Trigger Stage 1B: Each player raises his threat by 3 to place 1 resource on each hero he controls.
And that’s 6 extra threat each deck has to contend with. I really hope this is worth it.
Turn No.1
Stage: 1B (-/-)
Active Location: N/A
Staging Area:
–
Resource Phase
Deck One Hand (New Card in Bold):
Ranger Summons, Fornost Bowman, Weather Hills Watchman, Celebrian’s Stone, Dunedain Warning, Double Back, Anduril, Outmatched
Merry (2), Halbarad (2), Amarthiul (2), Aragorn (2)
We don’t have the Tactics resource yet, so I’m afraid this is going to be wasted.
Deck Two Hand:
Wingfoot, Unexpected Courage, Leather Boots, Map of Rhovanion, Dunedain Pipe, Dunedain Lookout, The Storm Comes, East Road Ranger
Idraen (2), Beravor (2), Thurindir (2)
I’m afraid this lass is not going to make it, we’ll be spending our resources on all of our other gadgets instead.
Planning Phase
Deck One:
-Anduril-Aragorn (Now the heir of Elendil can quest for 3 without exhausting and defend for 3 with sentinel)
Celebrian’s Stone-Aragorn (And now he’s up to 5 willpower with access to the Spirit sphere on top of things. That is however his second restricted slot taken up so any other fancy toys will have to go on other folk instead)
Dunedain Warning-Aragorn (With sentinel Aragorn can probably more of this over any of the other heroes we have)
Ranger Summons: Shuffle one copy of Ranger of the North into the encounter deck. Remove Ranger Summons from the game. (I know this isn’t the most strategically reliable play, but I just love the theme behind it so much, the idea of Rangers appearing when you least expect it to aid you just reeks of the hope found in Tolkien’s world)
Double Back (We probably won’t get to this for a turn or two, but for only 4 progress a reduction of 5 threat is huge)
Deck Two:
Wingfoot-Thurindir (With the amount of locations we should be sucking up from the encounter deck, we ought to be able to name ‘enemy’ and pretty consistently ready)
Leather Boots-Beravor (Let’s spread the love around, if we do still get a location we will at least be able to draw some extra cards for our effort, or help Deck One out with their card draw)
Unexpected Courage-Amarthiul (We have enough readying and “does not exhaust” effects so that everyone else (except Merry, whose one job is threat reduction) is able to potentially quest and take a second action. Amarthiul has 1 willpower however so questing with him is almost a waste. He has 3 attack and defense though so we can now do both with him)
Map of Rhovanion-Idraen (We need to clear locations to make the most of Idraen, now we can help ease that along and try and make sure we can clear one every turn)
Dunedain Pipe-Aragorn (Now we should be able to spread out the card filtering so we can make sure we get the cards we need when we need them)
The Storm Comes (Clearing this will mean paying for our allies will become a whole lot easier, allowing us to mix and match our resources as needed)
Trigger Stage 1B, each player discards their hand. Advance to Stage 2. Each player searches the encounter deck for a different location and adds it to the staging area. Deck One: Dark Door (4 threat). (We may as well get this out the way now before things get desperate). Deck Two: Deadly Road (2 threat) (This is just the lowest threat location in the encounter deck with the fewest quest points, I’m afraid choosing this is as simple as that). Shuffle the encounter deck.
Quest Phase
Now this will be pretty much our best shot at making the most amount of progress in one shot for the next wee while. We’re going all in except Amarthiul, who we’ll keep for defense. We’ll even throw in Merry because we can’t reduce our threat yet anyway.
Aragorn-5
Halbarad-2
Merry-2
Idraen-2
Beravor-2
Thurindir-2
-Trigger Wingfoot: Enemy
Total willpower: 15
And so we start the 13th quest in the Saga (remembering that PoDs are numbered 1.1 and 1.2). Unlucky? We’ll see.
1: Ghosts of Men (3 threat). Trigger Wingfoot, ready Thurindir. (Thurindir is ready, though I’m not quite sure what for yet, but there you go. Also Ghosts of Men now makes an attack, but Amarthiul is ready for them). Trigger Ghosts of Men, it attacks Deck One:
-Shadow Card dealt to Ghosts of Men
-Amarthiul defends (3). Exhaust Unexpected Courage to ready Amarthiul
–The Way Is Shut revealed as Shadow
-Ghosts of Men attacks (3), deals no damage (We need to get Amarthiul buffed up sooner rather than later so he can defend more of these attacks for us)
2: Dead Man of Dunharrow (2 threat) (A relatively weak enemy, it’ll be the sheer number of these that might be the death of us as opposed to their individual strength)
Total threat: 11
Win by 4, place 4 progress on Stage 2B (4/35)
Well it’s a start I suppose, but not the best either. Still, every step counts right?
Travel Phase
The first player reveals an encounter card to travel to Dark Door (0/4): No Turning Back (Well this is appropriate, but ultimately it does nothing. Neither player has an ally on the board and both players still has their Overcome by Fear still attached so…hooray?)
Encounter Phase
Deck One optionally engages Ghosts of Men and Dead Man of Dunharrow.
Trigger Dead Man of Dunharrow to raise Deck One’s threat by 2.
Thank goodness for Halbarad’s ability. He’ll be able to keep the enemies concentrated where we need them. And now both he and Amarthiul are boosted so questing and resource smoothing is easier.
Combat Phase
[Deck One defense]
Shadow Card dealt to Ghosts of Men
Aragorn defends (4), trigger Forewarned to discard the Shadow from Ghosts of Men.
Ghosts of Men attacks (3), deals no damage
Exhaust Anduril to declare Aragorn as an attacker against Ghosts of Men.
Aragorn attacks (4), deals 3 damage to Ghosts of Men (2/5)
One more encounter with Aragorn and Ghosts of Men will be destroyed. For now though we’ll want to keep them about to keep triggering the Dunedain mechanics.
Shadow Card dealt to Dead Man of Dunharrow
Amarthiul defends (3)
Faithless Dead revealed as Shadow
Dead Man of Dunharrow attacks (3), deals no damage
And with no-one left to counter-attack, we’ll leave it there folks.
Refresh Phase
Raise each player’s threat by 1
Deck One: 35
Deck Two: 36
Deck One: Trigger Overcome by Fear to raise Deck One’s threat by 1 (36). Pay 1 Fellowship resource to discard Overcome by Fear from Deck One’s threat dial.
Deck Two: Trigger Overcome by Fear to raise Deck Two’s threat by 1 (37).
Turn No.2
Stage: 2B (4/37)
Active Location: Dark Door (0/4)
Staging Area:
Deadly Road (0/3, 2 threat)
Double Back (0/4)
The Storm Comes (0/5)
Resource Phase
Deck Two Hand (New Card in Bold):
Legacy Blade
Idraen (1), Beravor (1), Thurindir (1), Aragorn (1)
I think we’ll leave off playing this for now and avoid taking the additional threat. Our resources can wait.
Deck One Hand:
Vigilant Dunedain
Merry (1), Halbarad (1), Amarthiul (2)
We don’t have a side quest in the victory display yet, and we can’t even afford this guy yet, so we’ll take a pass on bumping our threat this time.
Planning Phase
Deck Two:
N/A
Deck One:
N/A
Quest Phase
While I’d like to get a side-quest done to boost Thurindir’s willpower and the Vigilant Dunedain for next turn, we can’t guarantee we’ll finish it so instead we’ll just chop away at the main quest a wee bit more.
Aragorn-5
Halbarad-2
Idraen-2
-Trigger Map of Rhovanion: place 1 progress on Dark Door (1/4)
Beravor-2
Thurinder-2
-Trigger Wingfoot: enemy
Total willpower: 13
1: Trysting Place (3 threat) (3 threat stings, but it’s not the worst we could have drawn) Trigger Leather Boots: ready Beravor. (Extra card draw, here we come!)
2: Dead Man of Dunharrow* (2 threat) (A second one leaves us in danger of beginning to get overwhelmed. We should be alright for now but we need to be careful.) Trigger Merry: exhaust Merry to reduce Deck One’s threat by 2. Trigger Wingfoot: ready Thurindir (Not sure what we need him to be ready just now, but better safe than sorry)
Total threat: 7
Win by 6, explore Dark Door and place 3 progress on Stage 2B (7/37). Trigger Idraen to ready her.
If we can reduce Deck Two’s threat we’ll be able to decrease the progress we’ll need to make before progressing, so any threat reduction we can get will effectively be a form of pseudo-questing.
Travel Phase
We need to get as much threat out of the staging area as possible, and this location has the most threat. We’ll go for an enemy with a ‘When Revealed’ effect as opposed to a ‘When Engaged’ effect so we can dodge that.
Search the encounter deck for Faithless Dead and put it into play, engaged with Deck Two to travel to Trysting Place (0/3).
With Map of Rhovanion the quest points are essentially reduced by one, meaning this’ll only take up 2 of our progress that would otherwise go on the main quest.
Exhaust Beravor to allow Deck One to draw 2 cards: Weather Hills Watchman, Secret Vigil
Well I think next turn we are going to have to play some cards. That possible threat reduction is just too good to pass up in this quest.
Exhaust Dunedain Pipe to place Legacy Blade at the bottom of Deck Two’s deck and draw a card: Sarn Ford Sentry
Legacy Blade wasn’t doing anything for us right now, and right now I’m glad of the willpower the Sentry can offer us and am willing to forgo her ability just to get the extra stats on the table.
Encounter Phase
Deck One optionally engages Dead Man of Dunharrow*.
With Halbarad still ready after questing, we should be able to defend all three enemies now.
Combat Phase
[Deck Two defense]
Shadow Card dealt to Faithless Dead
Aragorn defends (4), trigger Forewarned to discard the Shadow from Faithless Dead.
Faithless Dead attacks (3), deals no damage.
Exhaust Anduril to declare Aragorn as an attacker against Faithless Dead
Aragorn attacks (4), deals 3 damage to Faithless Dead (1/4)
With Anduril and Forewarned together, Aragorn will be able to take care of most enemies in this quest himself.
[Deck One defense]
Shadow Card dealt to Ghosts of Men
Amarthiul defends (3). Exhaust Unexpected Courage to ready Amarthiul
Followed by Night revealed as Shadow
Ghosts of Men attack (3), deals no damage
Next turn we’ll attach Secret Vigil to this guy and then Aragorn can finish him off to net us that threat reduction.
Shadow Card dealt to Dead Man of Dunharrow
Amarthiul defends (3)
Blood Runs Chill revealed as Shadow
Dead Man of Dunharrow attacks (2), deals no damage
That’s the first, now for his brother.
Shadow Card dealt to Dead Man of Dunharrow*
Halbarad defends (2)
Haunted Path revealed as Shadow, raise Deck One’s threat by 2. (Since the engagement cost of engaging this guy is to raise our threat by 2, the only thing we’d be doing is adding his threat in the staging area for questing, so we may as well keep him here.)
Dead Man of Dunharrow* attacks (2), deals no damage
[Deck Two attacks]
Faithless Dead:
Idraen attacks (3), destroys Faithless Dead
Straightforward enough, and as long as I can keep on top of destroying these enemies I should be able to avoid being swarmed and overwhelmed.
Refresh Phase
Raise each player’s threat by 1
Deck Two: 38
Deck One: 37
Deck Two: Trigger Overcome by Fear to raise Deck Two’s threat by 1 (39). Pay 1 Fellowship resource to discard Overcome by Fear from Deck Two’s threat dial.
That’s them both free, now we can work on keeping them so and on dropping our threat while we have the chance
Turn No.3
Stage: 2B (7/39)
Active Location: Trysting Place (0/3)
Staging Area:
Deadly Road (0/3, 2 threat)
Double Back (0/4)
The Storm Comes (0/5)
Resource Phase
Deck One Hand (New Card in Bold):
Vigilant Dunedain, Weather Hills Watchman, Secret Vigil, Tighten Our Belts
Merry (2), Halbarad (2), Amarthiul (4), Aragorn (1)
With the prohibition on playing cards, this’ll be easily played, if not this turn then on the next one perhaps.
Deck Two Hand:
Sarn Ford Sentry, Warden of Arnor
Idraen (2), Beravor (2), Thurindir (2)
More location control, never a bad thing, especially with Idraen’s ability hinging on the exploration of locations.
Planning Phase
Each player raises their threat by 1 to be able to play cards this phase.
Deck One:
Secret Vigil-Ghosts of Men (Once we kill this enemy both our decks should receive a threat drop of 3, which should help us out massively)
Weather Hills Watchman. Search the top 5 cards of Deck One’s deck for a Signal attachment: Fornost Bowman, The Sword that was Broken, Weather Hills Watchman, Andrath Guardsman, Ranger Summons. Add Ranger Summons to Deck One’s hand, shuffle the deck. (I would have liked a Warning or a Mark instead, but I suppose an extra ally in the encounter deck wouldn’t hurt)
Ranger Summons: Shuffle one copy of Ranger of the North into the encounter deck. Remove Ranger Summons from the game. (That’s two now. The dream would be to have one surge into the other, but that’s just wishful thinking I suppose.)
Deck Two:
Sarn Ford Sentry (We’re not getting any card draw from this, but the 2 willpower will be needed to get through this quest as quickly as possible)
Warden of Arnor-Idraen (Our only scout hero, but now every time she commits to the quest two progress are placed on various locations for us)
Quest Phase
Double Back is the active quest
If we can reduce our threat with this, things should become a bit smoother for us.
Aragorn-5
Haldarad-2
Weather Hills Watchman-1
Idraen-2
-Trigger Map of Rhovanion to place 1 progress on Trysting Place (1/3)
Beravor-2
Thurindir-2
-Trigger Wingfoot: enemy
Sarn Ford Sentry-2
Total willpower: 16
We’ll have to see if this enough. It should be, but 1 bad draw is all it would take to scupper us.
1: Whispers in the Dark (We’re not putting any Overcome by Fear back on our threat dials if we can at all help it. We’ll take the stat debuff instead). Reduce the willpower, attack and defense of each character controlled by Deck One by 1.
2: Haunted Path (3 threat). Trigger Warden of Arnor, place 1 progress on Haunted Path (1/4). (Not terrible, but it’ll get a bit easier to deal with this once we get our threat back down) Trigger Leather Boots to ready Beravor (I know this card hasn’t had the best reception, but if you use it as a bonus as opposed to something you need to rely on then I think this is working brilliantly)
Total threat: 5
Total willpower: 13
Win by 8, explore Trysting Place and complete Double Back, adding it to the victory display. Reduce each player’s threat by 5.
We’re down to 33 and 35 threat for the two decks now, which is getting close to comfortable.
Travel Phase
Once we trigger Secret Vigil, Haunted Path will only be at 1 threat, compared to Deadly Road’s 2. Also Haunted Path gets us to raise our threat, so I think we’ll travel to Deadly Road this turn.
Spend 1 Fellowship resource to travel to Deadly Road (0/3)
Encounter Phase
No enemies came off the encounter deck so…we’ll do this instead!
Exhaust Beravor to allow Deck One to draw 2 cards: Guardian of Arnor, Sword that was Broken
And now our questing comes online! I’m not sure when we’ll be able to afford to play it, but given we need to steward our threat carefully this game, it may not be next turn, we’ll have to see.
Combat Phase
[Deck One defense]
Shadow Card dealt to Ghosts of Men
Aragorn defends (3), trigger Forewarned to discard the Shadow from Ghosts of Men.
Ghosts of Men attacks (3), deals no damage.
Exhaust Anduril to declare Aragorn as an attacker against Ghosts of Men
Aragorn attacks (3), destroys Ghosts of Men
Trigger Secret Vigil to reduce each player’s threat by 3
Whispers in the Dark reduced Aragorn’s defense to 3, which might have been a bit risky facing Ghosts of Men, but Forewarned means we were guaranteed to survive the attack by discarding the shadow.
Shadow Card dealt to Dead Man of Dunharrow
Amarthiul defends (2). Exhaust Unexpected Courage to ready Amarthiul
Deadly Road revealed as Shadow
Dead Men of Dunharrow attacks (2), deals no damage.
Thankfully Amarthiul has 3 native defense so the debuff only takes him down to 2. Once we get his defense boosted then he’ll be further protected from shadows that increase the enemies’ attack.
Shadow Card dealt to Dead Man of Dunharrow*
Amarthiul defends (2)
Whispers in the Dark revealed as Shadow
Dead Man of Dunharrow* attacks (3), triggers Phantom and raises Deck One’s threat by 1.
Of course the down-side to using Amarthiul as a defender is that he is super fragile with just 3 hit points. It only comes off as extra threat just now, but we’ll need to be careful of that in the future.
[Deck One attack]
Dead Man of Dunharrow*:
Halbarad attacks (1), Merry attacks (1), deals 1 damage to Dead Man of Dunharrow*
I know it’s just the 1 damage, but neither hero had anything else to do because they were both ready after questing so there was no reason not to.
Refresh Phase
Raise each player’s threat by 1
Deck One: 32
Deck Two: 33
Turn No.4
Stage: 2B (7/33)
Active Location: Deadly Path (0/3)
Staging Area:
Haunted Path (1/4, 1 threat)
The Storm Comes (0/4)
Resource Phase
Deck Two Hand (New Card in Bold):
The Hidden Way
Idraen (2), Beravor (2), Thurindir (1), Aragorn (1)
Good, but not quite what I’m after. I was hoping we could draw into some more willpower or threat reduction. I’m actually happy with Deadly Road as the active location so we’ll probably swap this out with Dunedain Pipe.
Deck One Hand:
Vigilant Dunedain, Tighten Our Belts, Guardian of Arnor, Sword that was Broken, Followed
Merry (3), Halbarad (1), Amarthiul (4)
We won’t be able to play both Followed and Vigilant Dunedain in the same turn, let alone half the other cards, so we’ll hold off on raising our threat until next turn.
Planning Phase
Deck Two:
Exhaust Dunedain Pipe to put The Hidden Way on the bottom of the deck to draw a card: Woodman’s Clearing
Perfect. We won’t spend a resource so we can still get to play Tighten Our Belts this turn, and there’s threat reduction, which essentially counts as quest progression in this quest.
Deck Two raises his threat by 1 to allow him to play cards this phase
Woodman’s Clearing-The Deadly Road (Hopefully this means we can take Deck Two down to 31 threat now)
Deck One:
As I’ve said we’ll wait until next turn before playing anything so we can afford to play everything out at once.
Quest Phase
Aragorn-5
Halbarad-2
Weather Hills Watchman-1
Idraen-2
-Trigger Map of Rhovanion: place 1 progress on Deadly Road (1/3)
Beravor-2
Thurindir-3
-Trigger Wingfoot: enemy
Sarn Ford Sentry-2
Total willpower: 17
1: Shadow Host (4 threat) Exhaust Merry to reduce Deck One’s threat by 4. (The biggest baddest enemy we’ve encountered so far, the initial extra attack may sting a bit). Trigger Wingfoot to ready Thirindir
2: Trysting Place (3 threat). Trigger Warden of Arnor to place 1 progress on Trysting Place (1/3). Trigger Leather Boots to ready Beravor (And that’s another two cards Beravor can draw for us. 3 extra threat in the staging area isn’t nice, but I suppose things could have been worse)
Total threat: 8
Win by 9, explore Deadly Road and place 7 progress on Stage 2B (14/34). Trigger Woodman’s Clearing to reduce Deck Two’s threat by 3. Trigger Idraen to ready her.
So according to maths, we essentially made 10 progress on the main quest here. The hope is that we can close out this quest stage before too long and then the quest as a whole.
Exhaust Beravor to choose Deck Two to draw 2 cards: The Road Goes Ever On, Poisoned Counsels. Trigger Poisoned Counsels: discard all other cards in Deck Two’s hand.
Fortunately this only got rid of The Road Goes Ever On, but it’s still annoying nevertheless.
Travel Phase
Of the two locations, Trysting Place has the most threat and the least progress needed to explore it, it’s no contest really. We’ll pull out another Ghosts of Men to avoid the ‘When Revealed’ effect it has.
Deck Two searches the encounter deck for Ghosts of Men and engages it to travel to Trysting Place (1/3)
Encounter Phase
We’re going to leave Shadow Host in the staging area for now, so we can take on its 4 attack when we are better prepared for it.
Combat Phase
[Deck Two defense]
Shadow Card dealt to Ghosts of Men
Aragorn defends (3), trigger Forewarned to discard the Shadow from Ghosts of Men
Ghosts of Men attack (3), deals no damage
Exhaust Anduril to declare Aragorn as an attacker against Ghosts of Men
Aragorn attacks (4), deals 3 damage to Ghosts of Men
Aragorn is carving his way through the Undead here. I know we have The Sword That Was Broken, but I’d really like to see Anduril in the regular games outside the Sagas, in the same way as we’ve had Glamdring and Sting now.
[Deck One defense]
Shadow Card dealt to Dead Man of Dunharrow
Amarthiul defends (3), exhaust Unexpected Courage to ready Amarthiul
Saruman’s Voice revealed as Shadow
Dead Man of Dunharrow attacks (2), deals no damage
That’s a bullet dodged! That could have completely shut down one of my heroes for the rest of the game with the low hand sizes we have here
Shadow Card dealt to Dead Man of Dunharrow*
Amarthiul defends (3)
Blood Runs Chill revealed as Shadow
Dead Man of Dunharrow* attacks (2), deals no damage.
Except for the shadow cards, the last three rounds of combat for Amarthiul could almost have just been copied and pasted, for all the good it is doing him.
[Deck Two attack]
Ghosts of Men:
Idraen attacks (3), destroys Ghosts of Men
I am loving this gal. As long as we clear a location every round, she’s able to contribute 2 of her considerable stats.
[Deck One attack]
Dead Man of Dunharrow:
Halbarad attacks (2), deals 1 damage to Dead Man of Dunharrow (2/3)
And that’s that, just working our way through. This seems like a comparatively straightforward quest compared to some of the more gimmicky ones we’ve had to contend with of late. I’m enjoying it immensely.
Refresh Phase
Raise each player’s threat by 1
Deck Two: 32
Deck One: 29
Deck One plays Tighten Our Belts and chooses Deck Two to add 1 resource to each hero he controls.
Now because the first player token is passed on before the action window, Aragorn does not receive an additional resource, but Idraen, Beravor and Thurindir all do.
Turn No.5
Stage: Stage 2B (14/32)
Active Location: Trysting Place (1/3)
Staging Area:
Haunted Path (1/4, 1 threat)
The Storm Comes (0/4)
Shadow Host (4 threat)
Resource Phase
Deck One Hand (New Card in Bold):
Vigilant Dunedain, Guardian of Arnor, Sword that was Broken, Followed, Warden of Annuminas
Merry (4), Halbarad (2), Amarthiul (6), Aragorn (2)
Right now he only has 2 willpower, maybe 3 if we play Sword that was Broken, but if we can find more Dead Men of Dunharrow in the encounter deck we’ll be able boost his willpower by engaging these weaker enemies.
Deck Two Hand:
Poisoned Counsels, Dunedain Pathfinder
Idraen (4), Beravor (4), Thurindir (3)
Of the four 0-cost ally, this guy is the only one with 2 natural willpower, for the cost of pulling another location out of the encounter deck. We probably won’t play anything this turn, but we’ll exhaust Beravor to draw our cards here and now to make sure of that.
Exhaust Beravor to allow Deck Two to draw 2 cards: East Road Ranger, Northern Tracker.
Only 2 extra willpower here, but with extra progress placed with the Northern Tracker and the potential for a boost when the East Road Ranger goes on side quests, I’m not disappointed with this at all.
Planning Phase
Each player raises their threat by 1 to be able to play cards this phase.
Deck One:
Vigilant Dunedain (With a side quest in the victory display, this guy can defend for us all day long)
Followed (And just in case a beefier enemy engages us, this can help cover the gaps in our lines)
Sword that was Broken (Now the Heir of Isildur can inspire his people on to greater things!)
Warden of Annuminas (2 enemies engaged and Aragorn’s boost leaves the Warden at a comfortable 3 willpower. I’ll take that.)
Deck Two:
Northern Tracker (Until Dark Door reappears, this guy will do some serious work for us)
East Road Ranger (What’s impressive about most Dunedain allies is the healthy amount of hitpoints they seem to have. We have 3 here, so we may take the East Road Ranger with us when we face the Corsair’s Archery)
Dunedain Pathfinder. Trigger Dunedain Pathfinder: Dark Door, Ranger of the North, Whispers in the Dark, Deadly Road, Shadow Host. (With the Northern Tracker out, we do not want to see Dark Door any time soon. I’ll take the Deadly Road please.) Add Deadly Road (2 threat) to the staging area and shuffle the encounter deck.
And that’s how a planning phase is done. We’re on our way folks!
Quest Phase
Aragorn-6
Halbarad-3
Warden of Annuminas-3
Weather Hills Watchman-2
Idraen-2
-Trigger Map of Rhovanion: place 1 progress on Trysting Place (2/3)
Thurindir-3
-Trigger Wingfoot: enemy
Sarn Ford Sentry-2
East Road Ranger-1
Northern Tracker-1
-Place 1 progress on Haunted Path (2/4) and Deadly Road (1/3)
Dunedain Pathfinder-2
Total willpower: 25
1: Blood Runs Chill. Trigger Doomed 1, raise each players threat by 1. (Fortunately both decks are still below 35 so both decks escapes damage)
2: Ranger of the North. Deck Two takes control of Ranger of the North and places 2 progress on Deadly Road, exploring it. (That’s the first of the Rangers in the encounter deck, but we will have to deal with what we’ll be surging into)
2.1: Dead Man of Dunharrow^ (2 threat) Trigger Merry: exhaust him to lower Deck One’s threat by 2. (Another one of these for Deck One to engage and benefit from. We’ve got the Vigilant Dunedain powered up so we can keep back Amarthiul for emergencies now). Trigger Wingfoot: ready Thurindir. (Deck Two will be taking on the enemies in the staging area to protect Deck Two’s threat, but we’ll ready him just in case.)
Total threat: 7
Win by 18, explore Trysting Place and place 17 progress on Stage 2B (31/34). Trigger Idraen to ready her.
So close, we just needed another 3! Next turn we’ll be sure to close things out in this phase, and then it’ll be two more turns maximum before we can complete the scenario and summon The Army of the Dead.
Travel Phase
There’s only one location in the staging area so this decision is not a hard one.
Raise each players threat by 1 to travel to Haunted Path (2/4)
Encounter Phase
Now with Halbarad we can engage both enemies in the staging area and protect Deck Two.
Deck One optionally engages Dead Man of Dunharrow^. Trigger Dead Man of Dunharrow: raise Deck One’s threat by 2. Trigger Followed: attach Followed to Shadow Host.
The upside of this is Warden of Annuminas now has 4 willpower, 5 when Deck One is the first player and has Aragorn boosting him, and we can reduce the threat of whatever’s in the staging area by 2.
Deck One optionally engages Shadow Host. Trigger Shadow Host and attacks Deck One:
-Shadow Card dealt to Shadow Host
-Aragorn defends (4), triggers Forewarned to discard Shadow from Shadow Host
-Shadow Host attacks (4), deals no damage
-Exhaust Anduril to declare Aragorn as an attacker against Shadow Host
-Aragorn attacks (4), deals 2 damage to Shadow Host
That wasn’t too bad, but now someone else is going to have to defend the next attack and we’ll probably have to raise our threat as a result.
Combat Phase
[Deck One defense]
Shadow Card dealt to Shadow Host
Amarthiul defends (3), exhaust Unexpected Courage to ready Amarthiul
The Way is Shut revealed as Shadow
Shadow Host attacks (4), raises Deck One’s threat by 1
Bringing us up to 33 threat for Deck One, this is less than ideal, but with Merry on board we should be ok.
Shadow Card dealt to Dead Man of Dunharrow
Vigilant Dunedain defends (2)
Dark Door revealed as Shadow
Dead Man of Dunharrow attacks (2), deals no damage
Ideally we’d have some way of boosting the Vigilant Dunedain’s defense, but as he’s a Tactics Ranger, as opposed to Leadership or a Warrior, there’s not really any defensive boosts that can go on him, except maybe the Wild Stallion, but we’ll need to try that out next game.
Shadow Card dealt to Dead Man of Dunharrow*
Vigilant Dunedain defends (2)
Ranger of the North revealed as Shadow
Dead Man of Dunharrow* attacks (2), deals no damage
I was afraid of this appearing as a Shadow, But still, at least this doesn’t have a detrimental shadow effect and gets shuffled back into the encounter deck.
Shadow Card dealt to Dead Man of Dunharrow^
Vigilant Dunedain defends (2)
Whispers in the Dark revealed as Shadow
Dead Man of Dunharrow^ attacks (3), raises Deck One’s threat by 1.
And that’s us up to 34 threat for Deck One. We’re not in any danger just yet, but we do need to be careful.
[Deck One attack]
Shadow Host:
Amarthiul attacks (3), Halbarad attacks (2), Ranger of the North attacks (2), destroys Shadow Host
That’s the big one taken care of, we’ll keep the smaller enemies around to power up our Dunedain effects.
Dead Man of Dunharrow^:
Vigilant Dunedain attacks (3), deals 2 damage to Dead Man of Dunharrow (1/3)
Not killing him, but keeping him on low health with the others gives me a pressure valve to let off excess pressure.
Refresh Phase
Raise each player’s threat by 1
Deck One: 35
Deck Two: 36
Turn No.6
Stage: 2B (31/35)
Active Location: Haunted Path (1/4)
Staging Area:
The Storm Comes (0/5)
Deadly Road (2 threat)
Resource Phase
Deck Two Hand (New Card in Bold):
Poisoned Counsels, Double Back
Idraen (1), Beravor (3), Thurindir (3)
Now Aragorn is back under Deck Two’s control, we can use his Dunedain Pipe to get rid of Poisoned Counsels.
Exhaust Dunedain Pipe to place Poisoned Counsels on the bottom of Deck Two to draw 1 card: Dunedain Pipe.
Right, that’s a second chance to get something good. First we’ll get Beravor to see if there’s anything we can trade out.
Exhaust Beravor to allow Deck Two to draw 2 cards: Dunedain Lookout, Warden of Arnor
And now we can swap out Warden of Arnor for something else in the planning phase.
Deck One Hand:
Guardian of Arnor, Ranger of Cardolan
Amarthiul (2), Halbarad (2), Merry (1)
We’ll play Guardian this turn, giving him 4 defense right from the start.
Planning Phase
Each player raises their threat by 1 to be able to play cards this phase.
Deck Two:
Dunedain Pipe-Idraen. Exhaust Dunedain Pipe to place Warden of Arnor on the bottom of Deck Two to allow Deck Two to draw 1 card: Woodman’s Clearing (Perfect. We can clear Haunted Path this turn and drop Deck Two’s threat by 3 if we’re able)
Woodman’s Clearing-Haunted Path (This will reduce Deck Two down to 34, back to where we were during last turn)
Dunedain Lookout (One of the brilliant things about this guy is he does not exhaust to use his ability, so we can commit him to the quest and still are able to trigger him is we need to)
Double Back (This should be doable this round, taking us down by a further 5 threat)
Deck One:
Guardian of Arnor (With 3 hitpoints to match its current 4 defense, this guy is nearly as good as a dedicated defender hero)
Quest Phase
Double Back is the active quest
Aragorn-6
Halbarad-2
Idraen-3
-Trigger Map of Rhovanion: place 1 progress on Haunted Path (3/4)
Thurindir-4
-Trigger Wingfoot: enemy
Sarn Ford Sentry-3
Northern Tracker-2
-Trigger Northern Tracker to place 1 progress on Deadly Road (2/3)
East Road Ranger-4
Warden of Annuminas-3
Total willpower: 27
If that’s not enough to close things out, I don’t know what will.
1: Trysting Place (3 threat). Trigger Leather Boots to ready Beravor. Trigger Warden of Arnor to place 1 progress on Trysting Place (1/3). (Now we should be able to trigger Beravor again to draw some more)
2: Dead Man of Dunharrow” (2 threat). Trigger Wingfoot to ready Thurindir. Trigger Merry: exhaust him to lower Deck One’s threat by 2. (A fourth one? Thank goodness for the Vigilant Dunedain, he’s going to have to take the brunt of the defenses here.)
Shuffle the encounter discard pile back into the encounter deck. Trigger Followed on Dead Man of Dunharrow^ to reduce the threat in the staging area by 2.
Total threat: 4
Win by 23, explore Haunted Path, complete Double Back, adding it to the victory display. Reduce each players threat by 5. Trigger Woodman’s Clearing to reduce Deck Two’s threat by 3. (This has now reduced both deck’s threat to 29, meaning…)
Complete Stage 2B (31/29), advance to Stage 3. Trigger Stage 3A, add The Stone of Erech and Army of the Dead to the staging area.
We won’t be able to travel to The Stone of Erech until next turn once we have 5 progress on Stage 3B, meaning we’ve got at least 2 more turns left before we can finish this up.
Travel Phase
Deck Two searches the encounter deck for Ghosts of Men and engages it to travel to Trysting Place (1/3)
Ghosts was chosen so we could avoid the nasty ‘When Revealed’ effect. We want to avoid taking any more Overcome by Fear if at all possible.
Encounter Phase
Deck One optionally engages Dead Man of Dunharrow” and Army of the Dead.
This 4th Dead Man of Dunharrow serves to further power up the Guardian of Arnor, taking him to 6 defense which should be enough to hold off the Army of the Dead. We’ll need to take down the Army as soon as possible so we can avoid the nasty effect that discards an ally every time it attacks.
Exhaust Beravor to allow Deck Two to draw 2 cards: Well Warned, Map of Rhovanion.
Both good, we shall keep these and not use our Pipes to search for better.
Combat Phase
[Deck Two defense]
Shadow Card dealt to Ghosts of Men
Aragorn defends (4). Exhaust Forewarned to discard Shadow from Ghosts of Men.
Ghosts of Men attacks (3), deals no damage.
Exhaust Anduril to declare Aragorn as an attacker against Ghosts of Men
Aragorn attacks (4), deals 3 damage to Ghosts of Men (2/5)
Not bad. We should be able to finish him off by the end of this round.
[Deck One defense]
Shadow Card dealt to Dead Man of Dunharrow
Vigilant Dunedain defends (2)
Blood Runs Chill revealed as Shadow
Dead Man of Dunharrow attacks (2), deals no damage
That shadow could be really nasty if our threat was higher and it was a hero we were relying on.
Shadow Card dealt to Dead Man of Dunharrow*
Vigilant Dunedain defends (2)
Haunted Path revealed as Shadow, raise Deck One’s threat by 2
Dead Man of Dunharrow* attacks (2), deals no damage
If I’d gotten Dead Man to return to the staging area, when he engaged me again next turn I’d either have to raise my threat by 2 or gain an Overcome by Fear, so there was no point in putting it off at all.
Shadow Card dealt to Dead Man of Dunharrow^
Vigilant Dunedain defends (2)
Trysting Place revealed as Shadow
Dead Man of Dunharrow attacks^ (2), deals no damage
We’ve getting pretty lucky with the Shadows, but what we really need is to have completed Keep Watch for some extra insurance
Shadow Card dealt to Dead Man of Dunharrow”
Vigilant Dunedain defends (2)
Deadly Road revealed as Shadow
Dead Man of Dunharrow” attacks (2), deals no damage
And that’s all four. This guy is worth his weight in gold! Which as a card, I suppose isn’t much. His metaphorical weight shall do!
Shadow Card dealt to Army of the Dead
Guardian of Arnor defends (6)
Followed by Night revealed as Shadow
Army of the Dead attacks (6), deals no damage
Trigger Army of the Dead: discard Weather Hills Watchman
That is nasty. We need to take him out before he starts on the more valuable allies we have out.
[Deck Two attacks]
Ghosts of Men:
Idraen attacks (3), destroys Ghosts of Men
And that’s that. Who’s next?
[Deck One attacks]
Dead Man of Dunharrow”:
Amarthiul attacks (3), deals 2 damage to Dead Man of Dunharrow (1/3)
Exhaust Unexpected Courage to ready Amarthiul
Just keeping them all on the edge of death, no need to make an exception here.
Army of the Dead:
Amarthiul attacks (3), Halbarad attacks (2), Vigilant Dunedain attacks (3), Ranger of the North attacks (2), destroys Army of the Dead and adds it to the victory display
And the Oathbreakers have been summoned! Now we will finish this quest as soon as we can. Pelargir awaits!
Refresh Phase
Raise each player’s threat by 1
Deck Two: 30
Deck One: 32
Turn No.7
Stage: 3B (0/5)
Active Location: Trysting Place (1/3)
Staging Area:
The Storm Comes (0/5)
Deadly Road (2 threat)
Stone of Erech (5 threat)
Resource Phase
Deck One Hand (New Card in Bold):
Ranger of Cardolan, Heir of Valandil
Amarthiul (2), Halbarad (2), Merry (2), Aragorn (4)
Very nice, though a little late to the party. Better late than never though.
Deck Two Hand:
Well Warned, Map of Rhovanion, Legacy Blade
Idraen (1), Beravor (2), Thurindir (3)
This would go on Aragorn, but he’s already full with his restricted slots. I suppose Amarthiul can take this though.
Planning Phase
Deck One:
Beravor exhausts to allow Deck One to draw 2 cards: Andrath Guardsman, Weather Hills Watchman (Look, he’s back! I’m not sure how useful these guy’s abilities will be at this stage, but I’m glad of the company nevertheless)
Heir of Valandil-Aragorn (Come on, who else would this go on?)
Exhaust Heir of Valandil to reduce the cost of Andrath Guardsman by 2
Andrath Guardsman (Now he’s free!)
Ranger of Cardolan (We didn’t use Heir of Valandil on this guy because we can pay for him with Aragorn’s stockpiled resources)
Weather Hills Watchman. Search the top 5 cards of Deck One’s deck for a Signal attachment: Secret Vigil, Fornost Bowman, Palantir of Orthanc, Prepare for Battle, Roheryn. Shuffle the deck. (Nope, nothing. Ah well, worth a shot.)
Deck Two:
Legacy Blade-Amarthiul (With 2 copies of Double Back in the victory display, he’s up to an impressive 5 attack)
Map of Rhovanion-Sarn Ford Sentry (Now we have a second Map out, we’ll be able to explore Trysting Place immediately, before even encounter cards are revealed.)
Quest Phase
Aragorn-6
Halbarad-3
Idraen-2
-Trigger Map of Rhovanion: place 1 progress on Trysting Place (2/3)
Sarn Ford Sentry-2
-Trigger Map of Rhovanion: place 1 progress on Trysting Place and explore it. Trigger Idraen to ready her.
Northern Tracker-1
-Trigger Northern Tracker to place 1 progress on Deadly Road and explore it
Dunedain Pathfinder-2
Total willpower: 16
I know it may seem a bit underwhelming compared to previous turns, but we’ll need as many bodies as possible ready to face the Undead
1: Faithless Dead (2 threat). Discard Dunedain Lookout to cancel to When Revealed effect on Faithless Dead. (Really did not fancy the extra 2 threat each and there was no way I was taking an extra encounter card from anyone) Trigger Merry: exhaust Merry to reduce Deck One’s threat by 2
2: Ghosts of Men (3 threat) Trigger Ghosts of Men, attacks Deck Two
-Shadow Card dealt to Ghosts of Men
-Aragorn defends (4). Exhaust Forewarned to discard Shadow from Ghosts of Men.
Ghosts of Men attacks (3), deals no damage.
Exhaust Anduril to declare Aragorn as an attacker against Ghosts of Men
Aragorn attacks (4), deals 3 damage to Ghosts of Men (2/5)
I have a feeling we’ve already done this recently. And I’m a wee bit guilty about using Aragorn so early on, but that’s what he’s there for.
Trigger Followed on Dead Man of Dunharrow^ to reduce the threat in the staging area by 2.
Total threat: 8
Win by 8, place 8 progress on Stage 3B (8/5)
Nearly there, we just need to explore Stone of Erech.
Travel Phase
Discard 5 progress from Stage 3B (3/5) to travel to The Stone of Erech (0/5)
Trigger The Stone of Erech: each player searches the encounter deck and encounter discard pile for an Oathbreaker enemy and adds it to the staging area. Shuffle the encounter deck. Deck One: Faithless Dead*. Deck Two: Faithless Dead^.
So that’s 4 enemies in the staging area now, we may see some allies begin to bite the dust because now Phantom is turned off.
Encounter Phase
Deck One optionally engages Faithless Dead and Faithless Dead*. Deck Two optionally engages Faithless Dead^. Ghosts of Men engages Deck One.
Because The Stone of Erech is now the active location, all Oathbreaker enemies get -20 engagement cost so we had no choice but to take them all on.
Combat Phase
[Deck One defense]
Shadow Card dealt to Dead Man of Dunharrow
Vigilant Dunedain defends (2)
Whispers in the Dark revealed as Shadow
Dead Man of Dunharrow attacks (3), deals 1 damage to Vigilant Dunedain (2/3)
This is the first of 7 enemies, buckle up!
Shadow Card dealt to Dead Man of Dunharrow*
Vigilant Dunedain defends (2)
Dark Door revealed as Shadow
Dead Man of Dunharrow attacks (2), deals no damage
I am so pleased to see this as a shadow, this could have made things nasty earlier on with all the locations we were getting
Shadow Card dealt to Dead Man of Dunharrow^
Vigilant Dunedain defends (2)
No Turning Back revealed as Shadow
Dead Man of Dunharrow attacks (2), deals no damage
There’s no way we’re taking an Overcome by Fear at this stage, we’ll eat the second attack
Shadow Card dealt to Dead Man of Dunharrow^
Vigilant Dunedain defends (2)
Whispers in the Dark revealed as Shadow
Dead Man of Dunharrow^ attacks (3), deals 1 damage to Vigilant Dunedain (1/3)
We’re pretty close to the wire with our Vigilant Dunedain, one more damage and someone else might have to take a turn defending
Shadow Card dealt to Dead Man of Dunharrow”
Vigilant Dunedain defends (2)
Pursued by the Enemy revealed as Shadow
Dead Man of Dunharrow attacks (2), deals no damage
But there’s yet another attack because of the shadow. Here we go again!
Shadow Card dealt to Dead Man of Dunharrow”
Vigilant Dunedain defends (2)
Shadow Host revealed as Shadow
Dead Man of Dunharrow” attacks (2), deals no damage
And we’ll give our defender a break now, keep his attack around for our counter-assault
Shadow Card dealt to Faithless Dead
Weather Hills Watchman defends (0)
Saruman’s Voice revealed as Shadow
Faithless Dead attacks (3), destroys Weather Hills Watchman
Well at least you absorbed an attack for us buddy, even if you contributed absolutely nothing else!
Shadow Card dealt to Faithless Dead*
Guardian of Arnor defends (8)
Blood Runs Chill revealed as Shadow
Faithless Dead^ attacks (3), deals no damage
Yeah, there’s no way anyone is getting through that defender just now
Shadow Card dealt to Ghosts of Men
Andrath Guardsman defends (1)
Dark Door revealed as Shadow
Ghosts of Men attacks (3), destroys Andrath Guardsman
So after nine attacks, we have only lost 2 allies. Not a bad score at all. Now for Deck Two, beleaguered by a single Faithless Dead
[Deck Two defense]
Shadow Card dealt to Faithless Dead^
East Road Ranger defends (1)
Blood Runs Chill revealed as Shadow
Faithless Dead^ attacks (3), deals 2 damage to East Road Ranger (1/3)
Our turn next. Let’s try and whittle down some of these Oathbreakers.
[Deck One attack]
Faithless Dead:
Amarthiul attacks (5), destroys Faithless Dead.
Exhaust Unexpected Courage to ready Amarthiul
That’s the first down. Now for the rest.
Faithless Dead*:
Amarthiul attacks (5), destroys Faithless Dead*.
Amarthiul is a brilliant Dunedain hero. With stats stacked on defense and attack he can safely specialise in combat.
Ghosts of Men:
Vigilant Dunedain attacks (3), destroys Ghosts of Men.
Aragorn softening him up has proved the deciding factor here.
Dead Man of Dunharrow:
Halbarad attacks (2), Ranger of the North attacks (2), destroys Dead Man of Dunharrow.
He’s been with us from the beginning powering the Dunedain mechanic. He has served us well.
Dead Man of Dunharrow*:
Ranger of Cardolan attacks (2), Warden of Annuminas attacks (2), destroys Dead Man of Dunharrow.
That leaves us two enemies engaged to make sure Amarthiul gets his extra resource.
[Deck Two attack]
Faithless Dead^:
Idraen attacks (3), Thurindir attacks (2), destroys Faithless Dead^.
And that’s 6 of the 8 enemies destroyed this turn. That’s the power of the Dunedain for you.
Refresh Phase
Raise each player’s threat by 1
Deck One: 31
Deck Two: 31
Turn No.8
Stage: 3B (3/5)
Active Location: The Stone of Erech (0/5)
Staging Area:
The Storm Comes (0/5)
Resource Phase
Deck Two Hand (New Card in Bold):
Well Warned, Sarn Ford Sentry
Idraen (2), Beravor (3), Thurindir (3), Aragorn (2)
We won’t get the card draw but the extra willpower will certainly be needed.
Deck One Hand:
Dunedain Warning
Amarthiul (2), Halbarad (1), Merry (3)
A bit late, but we’ll still use it just in case the worst happens.
Planning Phase
Deck Two:
We won’t exhaust Beravor for her card draw this time, we’ll just keep her ready for questing.
Sarn Ford Sentry* (Hopefully this is the last ally we’ll be summoning this quest)
Deck One:
Dunedain Warning-Aragorn (And we’re up to 5 defense for Aragorn now, though hopefully it won’t be needed)
Quest Phase
Aragorn-6
Idraen-3
Beravor-3
Thurindir-5
Amarthiul-1
Halbarad-2
Merry-2
Sarn Ford Sentry-3
Sarn Ford Sentry*-3
Northern Tracker-2
East Road Ranger-2
Dunedain Pathfinder-3
Ranger of the North-3
Warden of Annuninas-2
Vigilant Dunedain-1
Ranger of Cardolan-2
Guardian of Arnor-1
Total willpower: 44
This should be it now. Let’s see if the encounter deck has any last tricks up its sleeve.
1: Shadow Host (4 threat). (I’m just glad this didn’t show up last turn, but there we are)
2: Whispers in the Dark (Too little too late I’m afraid, we’re in the clear.)
Trigger Followed on Dead Man of Dunharrow^ to reduce the threat in the staging area by 2.
Total threat: 2
Total willpower: 37
Win by 35, explore The Stone of Erech and complete Stage 3B.
Victory.
Victory display: Double Back (1), Double Back (1), Army of the Dead (6)
Score: 31 threat + 31 threat + 80 for turns taken, -8 for victory points = 134
That was relatively straightforward a quest, really refreshing after the mayhem of Journey to the Crossroads and Shelob’s Lair. There wasn’t really a time when I felt on the ropes, but that’s primarily because I was able to keep my threat below 35 most of the time. Had it slipped beyond that threshold, things would have gotten much worse with all the quest-effects that would penalise that. The Double Back side-quest really is gold in this quest, dropping everyone’s’ threat by 5, as well as essentially counting as 5 progress in Stage 2, all for a very reasonable 4 progress points itself.
The Dunedain deck-types really excelled at this quest, where the Vigilant Dunedain was able to tank the weaker enemies and allow the Guardian of Arnor to get powered up and take care of the beefier enemies. The two halves played off each other well, with Beravor providing a decent amount of card draw to each deck and Dunedain Pipe filtering out the cards we didn’t want at the time. For the next quest I think we’ll add in a bit more location control as the goal is to clear out as many Ship locations as fast as possible, though we’ll need to balance that with maintaining a good board state for handling combat as well.
Add Army of the Dead to the campaign pool.
The Road 