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.
Add The Corsair Fleet and Great Corsair Ship to the staging area. Each player searches the encounter deck for a Ship location and adds it to the staging area. Deck One: Corsair Dromon. Deck Two: Corsair Dromon*.
We’ve gone for 2 copies of the Dromon simply because they’ll contribute the lowest amount of threat and we’ll need to get The Storm Comes completed as soon as we possibly can, not only to boost Thurundir’s willpower, but also to allow allies to be summoned with minimum regard to resource matching.
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 takes control of Army of the Dead
Deck One
Threat: 26
Merry
Halbarad
Amarthiul
Deck One Starting Hand:
Weather Hills Watchman
Secret Vigil
Ranger Summons
Fornost Bowman
Outmatched
Roheryn
Not bad, but I’d prefer to have some defensive capabilities, possibly some allies who can quest, but we’ll see what we get.
Deck One Mulligan:
Guardian of Arnor
Outmatched
Dunedain Remedy
Celebrian’s Stone
Warden of Annuminas
Dunedain Hunter
Better, much better. Although we don’t have any enemies engaged with us yet so I can’t play any of the Tactics cards, which is a bit annoying. But Celebrian’s Stone is exactly what we’re looking for, so we’ll gladly take that.
Deck Two
Threat: 29
Idraen
Thurindir
Beravor
Deck Two Starting Hand:
East Road Ranger
Map of Rhovanion
Leather Boots
Wingfoot
Sarn Ford Sentry
Well Warned
We can’t actually afford either of these allies, but getting Wingfoot and Map of Rhovanion is probably too good to pass up this early in the game. We’ll need to keep our hand.
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.
Each player raises his threat by 2 for Fallen Heroes Gimli and Theoden.
Turn No.1
Stage: 1B (0/20)
Active Location: N/A
Staging Area:
The Corsair Fleet (0 resources)
Great Corsair Ship (0 threat)
Corsair Dromon (2 threat)
Corsair Dromon* (2 threat)
Resource Phase
Deck One Hand (New Card in Bold):
Guardian of Arnor, Outmatched, Dunedain Remedy, Celebrian’s Stone, Warden of Annuminas, Dunedain Hunter, Anduril, Ranger Summons
Amarthiel (1), Halbarad (1), Merry (1), Aragorn (1)
We’ve save this for now, our current focus should be on the building up of our willpower first and foremost.
Deck Two Hand:
East Road Ranger, Map of Rhovanion, Leather Boots, Wingfoot, Sarn Ford Sentry, Well Warned, The Storm Comes, The Road Goes Ever On
Idraen (1), Beravor (1), Thurundir (1)
This is ideal, now we can get another side-quest once we’ve completed The Storm Comes, further boosting Thurundir’s willpower.
Planning Phase
Deck One:
Anduril-Aragorn (This is as much for his counter-attacking abilities as much as the willpower boost)
Deck Two:
The Storm Comes (We’ll complete this as soon as possible so we can rally allies quickly)
Leather Boots-Beravor (Same as last game, we can maximise our card draw)
Wingfoot-Thurindir (Now Thurundir can hopefully make use of both his attack and willpower stats)
The Road Goes Ever On-The Storm Comes (We’ll fetch Keep Watch next, so that we can weather the Corsairs attacks better)
Quest Phase
The Storm Comes is the active quest
Aragorn-3
Halbarad-2
Idraen-2
Beravor-2
Thurundir-2
-Trigger Wingfoot: enemy
Army of the Dead-4
Total willpower: 15
Trigger Corsair Fleet: Place one resource on The Corsair Fleet and deal 1 damage to Halbarad and Beravor.
We went with these two because they’re the least likely to be defending in combat. We’ll have Aragorn and Amarthiul ready now in case we need to defend anything.
1: Haradrim Pirate (2 threat). Trigger Merry: exhaust Merry to reduce Deck One’s threat by 2. Trigger Wingfoot: ready Thurundir. (Like this. I’m not sure I realised just how much direct damage there is. Perhaps we should have brought a Warden of Healing along!)
2: Port of Pelargir (2 threat) Trigger Leather Boots: Beravor. (Well at least this means we’ve completed the side-quest, although this does put a dampened on our healing abilities. And although it’s not a ship, we do get to draw two more cards with Beravor now.)
Total threat: 9
Win by 6, complete The Storm Comes and add it to the victory display. Trigger The Road Goes Ever On: Deck One searches his deck for Keep Watch and adds it to his hand.
So on account of my stupidity in not bringing more healing, we’re going to need to reduce the amount of hate coming our way in order survive this quest.
Travel Phase
We should get these ships explored sooner rather than later. Off to the first Dromon we go!
Travel to Corsair Dromon. Discard cards from the encounter deck until a Corsair enemy is discarded: Umbar War Galley, Raiding the Coasts, Driven to the Brink, Corsair of Umbar. Add Corsair of Umbar to the staging area.
I’ve got a feeling we’ll need to buckle up and knuckle down with our combat capabilities or else we may get overwhelmed.
Encounter Phase
Deck One engages both Haradrim Pirate and Corsair of Umbar. Trigger Haradrim Pirate: deal 1 damage to Halbarad and Aragorn.
Again, Halbarad’s ability really comes into its own, bringing Amarthiel online from now on.
Combat Phase
And there’s a Corsair Dromon as the active location so we’ll have to endure some Archery.
Trigger Archery 2: deal 1 damage to Beravor and Idraen.
[Deck One defense]
Shadow Card dealt to Haradrim Pirate
Aragorn defends (3), trigger Forewarned to discard Shadow from Haradrim Pirate.
Haradrim Pirate attacks (3), deals no damage
Exhaust Anduril to declare Aragorn as an attacker against Haradrim Pirate
Aragorn attacks (4), deals 2 damage to Haradrim Pirate (2/4)
As with the last game, we’ll keep them alive but at reduced health so as to act as an emergency pressure valve.
Shadow Card dealt to Corsair of Umbar
Amarthiel defends (3)
Fell Folk of Umbar revealed as Shadow
Corsair of Umbar attacks (4), deals 1 damage to Amarthiel (2/3)
I may have completely forgotten the Corsair’s text and thought he was attacking for 2. Rest assured we will not make the same mistake again. And with no-one left to counter-attack with, it’s time to close this round. Well, almost.
Exhaust Beravor to allow Deck Two to draw 2 cards: Woodman’s Clearing, Dunedain Pathfinder.
This Dunedain is particularly good here as we need to dig out another ship location for us to advance.
Refresh Phase
Raise each player’s threat by 1
Deck One: 30
Deck Two: 33
Turn No.2
Stage: 1B (0/20)
Active Location: Corsair Dromon (0/2)
Staging Area:
The Corsair Fleet (1 resources)
Great Corsair Ship (1 threat)
Corsair Dromon* (2 threat)
Port of Pelargir (2 threat)
Resource Phase
Deck Two Hand (New Card in Bold):
East Road Ranger, Map of Rhovanion, Sarn Ford Sentry, Well Warned, Woodman’s Clearing, Dunedain Pathfinder, Sulien
Idraen (2), Beravor (1), Thurindir (1), Aragorn (1)
I’ve never used Sulien’s ability, but with a quest that spit out locations at you, we may see it used here.
Deck One Hand:
Guardian of Arnor, Outmatched, Dunedain Remedy, Celebrian’s Stone, Warden of Annuminas, Dunedain Hunter, Ranger Summons, Keep Watch, Andrath Guardsman
Amarthiel (2), Halbarad (1), Merry (2)
This is a ton of cards we have here, which we should be able to get out fairly quickly now we have Amarthiel’s extra resource.
Planning Phase
Deck Two:
Dunedain Pathfinder. Trigger Dunedain Pathfinder: Umbar War Galley, Umbar Pirate Crew, Port of Pelargir, Black Sails, Corsair Dromon. (Well we’re spoiled for choice. I’m not sure about having extra Archery, but the War Galley has more threat in the staging area so I’m not sure. We’ll go for the War Galley I think, just for the sake of variety.) Add Umbar War Galley to the staging area and shuffle the encounter deck.
Woodman’s Clearing-Corsair Dromon (I have no idea how to square this thematically. Wait for the narrative to see what I come up with)
Map of Rhovanion-Idraen (This did some serious work in the previous quest, I can’t wait to see how this works out this time)
East Road Ranger (Right now we need her willpower to help us get ourselves establish our side-quests)
Deck One:
Outmatched (This will essentially free up an extra character by allowing a defender to go twice, at the same time as fuelling the Dunedain mechanic)
Dunedain Hunter: Trigger Dunedain Hunter: Driven to the Brink, Corsair of Umbar, Corsair of Umbar, Followed by Night, Port of Pelargir. (Not that we have much choice, but I think we may go for Corsair of Umbar). Put Corsair of Umbar* into play engaged with Deck One. Trigger Outmatched to attach it to Corsair of Umbar*. Shuffle the encounter deck. (Now we should be able to get by with the defenders we have, for now at least)
Keep Watch (If we can clear this, combat will be made infinitely easier, as well as boosting Thurindir’s willpower)
Dunedain Remedy-Aragorn. Trigger Dunedain Remedy, heal 1 damage from Aragorn. (Now at least we can use a spare resource from Aragorn to continue the healing)
Ranger Summons: Shuffle one copy of Ranger of the North into the encounter deck. Remove Ranger Summons from the game. (With Corsair Dromon only having 2 progress needed to explore it, the usefulness of this guy in the quest is pretty good)
Quest Phase
Keep Watch is the active quest
Aragorn-3
Halbarad-2
Idraen-2
-Trigger Map of Rhovanion, place 1 progress on Corsair Dromon (1/2)
Beravor-2
Thurindir-3
-Trigger Wingfoot: Enemy
Dunedain Pathfinder-2
East Road Ranger-3
Army of the Dead-4
Total willpower: 21
Trigger The Corsair Fleet: Place one resource on The Corsair Fleet and deal 2 damage each to Army of the Dead and Dunedain Hunter.
That damage will start to pile up really quickly if we aren’t fast enough. At that stage it might be better to start revealing those extra encounter cards, but we’ll just have to see what kind of a state we’re in.
1: Black Sails. Trigger Doomed 1.(While the Doomed wasn’t the most pleasant,it does only add 3 threat to the staging area, which we can definitely live with)
2: Fell Folk of Umbar (Well there is no way we’re returning everyone to the staging area, not if we want to keep up our momentum). Discard from the top of the encounter deck: Umbar Pirate Crew. (That was quick and simple enough., though dealing with this guy won’t be). Put Umbar Pirate Crew into play engaged with Deck One. Trigger Umbar Pirate Crew, exhaust Merry. (We didn’t get a chance to use his ability and was still standing, so there was no reason not to pick him)
Total threat: 12
Win by 9, explore Corsair Dromon and add it to the victory display. Ready Idraen. Trigger Woodmen’s Clearing to reduce Deck Two’s threat by 3. Complete Keep Watch and add it to the victory display.
That’ll probably be the last side-quest, from now on, we need to buckle up and take down the main quest.
Travel Phase
Let’s avoid the archery this time, we’ll go for Umbar War Galley.
Travel to Umbar War Galley. Shuffle the encounter discard pile into the encounter deck and discard cards from the encounter deck until a Corsair enemy is discarded: Black Sails, Umbar War Galley, Corsair Dromon, Driven to the Brink, Pursued by the Enemy, Haradrim Pirate*. Add Haradrim Pirate* to the staging area.
That’s a fair few locations we’ve just lost to the discard pile. That means the encounter deck will proportionally have more enemies. We’ll need to be careful.
Encounter Phase
Deck Two engages Haradrim Pirate*. Trigger Haradrim Pirate to deal 2 damage to Army of the Dead. Deck Two plays Well Warned to reduce his threat by 2.
The Army of the Dead is just soaking up so much damage.
Combat Phase
No archery to deal with this turn.
[Deck Two defense]
Shadow Card dealt to Haradrim Pirate*
Idraen defends (2)
Port of Pelargir revealed as Shadow
Haradrim Pirate* attacks (2), deals no damage
And already Keep Watch is doing some work for us, keep Idraen safe from harm.
[Deck One defense]
Shadow Card dealt to Corsair of Umbar*
Aragorn defends (3)
Pelargir Quays revealed as Shadow
Corsair of Umbar attacks (3), deals no damage
Trigger Outmatched to ready Aragorn
We’ll save Anduril and Forewarned for the Pirate Crew, were the stakes are significantly higher.
Shadow Card dealt to Haradrim Pirate
Halbarad defends (2)
Followed by Night revealed as Shadow
Haradrim Pirate attacks (2), deals no damage
The sooner we can get our dedicated defenders up and running the better.
Shadow Card dealt to Corsair of Umbar
Amarthiul defends (3)
Port of Pelargir revealed as Shadow
Corsair of Umbar attacks (3), deals no damage
Once we can get more characters on the board, we can start thinking about counter-attacks. For now, we merely have to weather the storm.
Shadow Card dealt to Umbar Pirate Crew
Aragorn defends (3), exhaust Forewarned to discard the Shadow from Umbar Pirate Crew
Umbar Pirate Crew attacks (5), deals 2 damage to Aragorn (3/5)
Exhaust Anduril to declare Aragorn as an attacker against Umbar Pirate Crew
Aragorn attacks (4), deals 2 damage to Umbar Pirate Crew (6/8)
We cannot maintain that level of attrition, we need more defenders or we’ll be losing a hero before too long
[Deck One attacks]
Umbar Pirate Crew:
Dunedain Hunter attacks (3), deals 1 damage to Umbar Pirate Crew (5/8)
And actually more attackers for that matter. We need to take out the Pirate Crew as soon as possible.
Refresh Phase
Raise each player’s threat by 1
Deck Two: 32
Deck One: 32
Turn No.3
Stage: 1B (0/20)
Active Location: Umbar War Galley (0/3)
Staging Area:
The Corsair Fleet (2 resources)
Great Corsair Ship (2 threat)
Corsair Dromon* (2 threat)
Port of Pelargir (2 threat)
Resource Phase
Deck One Hand (New Card in Bold):
Guardian of Arnor, Celebrian’s Stone, Warden of Annuminas, Andrath Guardsman, Weather Hills Watchman
Amarthiul (2), Halbarad (2), Merry (3), Aragorn (2)
This should (hopefully) drag out a Dunedain Warning for Aragorn or another Dunedain Remedy to help with our healing.
Deck Two Hand:
Sarn Ford Sentry, Sulien, Wingfoot
Idraen (1), Beravor (1), Thurindir (1)
Well we’ve already got Wingfoot out, so this is pretty much a useless draw. Ah well, we’ll see what we get with the Sentry
Planning Phase
Deck One:
Celebrian’s Stone-Aragorn (Extra willpower and the Spirit sphere for Aragorn. We all know how this works)
Guardian of Arnor (4 engaged enemies means this guy can now tank the Pirate Crew for us)
Warden of Annuminas (And now this guy’s questing for 4, which we’ll need to blast through this quest quickly)
Deck Two:
Sarn Ford Sentry. Trigger Sarn Ford Sentry: Northern Tracker (Now the difficulty here is whether we choose next turn to play him or Sulien. I’ll leaning toward Sulien, simply because I imagine we’ll be needing her 3 willpower more than the extra progress in the staging area.)
Quest Phase
Aragorn-5
Halbarad-2
Idraen-2
-Trigger Map of Rhovanion: place 1 progress on Umbar War Galley (1/3)
Beravor-2
Thurindir-4
-Trigger Wingfoot: Enemy
Warden of Annuminas-4
Sarn Ford Sentry-2
East Road Ranger-1
Dunedain Pathfinder-2
Army of the Dead-4
Total willpower: 28
Trigger Corsair Fleet: Place one resource on The Corsair Fleet and deal 1 damage to Army of the Dead, Warden of Annuminas, Guardian of Arnor, East Road Ranger, Sarn Ford Sentry and Dunedain Pathfinder.
One of the wonderful things about the Dunedain are their allies with good pools of hitpoints.
1: Raiding the Coasts (Given that the highest cost attachment Deck One controls is Anduril, we’ll take the threat bump there. On Deck Two’s side, we’ll drop Wingfoot since we have a spare in hand.) Discard Wingfoot and add 3 threat to the staging area.
2: Umbar War Galley* (3 threat). Trigger Leather Boots: ready Beravor. (Not terrible. We might go here instead of the other Dromon to avoid the Archery that would entail)
Total threat: 13
Win by 15, explore Umbar War Galley and add it to the victory display. Trigger Idraen to ready her. Place 13 progress on Stage 1B (13/20)
Over halfway there, we just need to keep up this momentum and we’ll be done soon enough.
Travel Phase
Travel to Umbar War Galley*. Shuffle the encounter discard pile into the encounter deck and discard cards from the encounter deck until a Corsair enemy is discarded: Raiding the Coast, Ranger of the North (No!), Corsair Dromon, Driven to the Brink, Fell Folk of Umbar, Umbar Pirate Crew. Add Umbar Pirate Crew* to the staging area.
Another one? It’s a good thing we got out our Guardian when we did!
Encounter Phase
Deck One optionally engages Umbar Pirate Crew*. Trigger Umbar Pirate Crew*, exhaust Merry.
Again, we couldn’t use his ability, so there’s no reason not to exhaust him. But we’re going to need to knock off an enemy or two before too long, or we may find ourselves overwhelmed.
Combat Phase
[Deck One defense]
Shadow Card dealt to Umbar Pirate Crew
Aragorn defends (3), exhaust Forewarned to discard the Shadow from Umbar Pirate Crew
Umbar Pirate Crew attacks (5), deals 2 damage to Aragorn (1/5)
Exhaust Anduril to declare Aragorn as an attacker against Umbar Pirate Crew
Aragorn attacks (4), deals 2 damage to Umbar Pirate Crew
This is the last turn we’ll be able to do that, if Aragorn goes under this game is lost.
Shadow Card dealt to Corsair of Umbar
Amarthiul defends (3)
Black Sails revealed as Shadow
Corsair of Umbar attacks (3), deals no damage
I think Amarthiul is rapidly becoming one of my favourite heroes. If we could slap Unexpected Courage on him, he is the perfect Dunedain hero, able to defend and counter-attack proficiently.
Shadow Card dealt to Haradrim Pirate
Halbarad defends (2)
Driven to the Brink: exhaust Dunedain Hunter
Haradrim Pirate attacks (2), deals no damage
And there goes our counter-attacking capabilities. I guess we’ll have to wait out another turn before we can hit back.
Shadow Card dealt to Corsair of Umbar*
Guardian of Arnor defends (6)
Corsair Captain revealed as Shadow
Corsair of Umbar* attacks (3), deals no damage
Trigger Outmatched to ready Guardian of Arnor
Now he can take one of the Pirate Crews for us as well. Outmatched really is the Card the Dunedain were waiting for.
Shadow Card dealt to Umbar Pirate Crew*
Guardian of Arnor defends (6)
Fell Folk of Umbar revealed as Shadow
Umbar Pirate Crew* attacks (5), deals no damage
And that’s the end of that onslaught. We really need more attacks to be able to balance it out.
[Deck Two defense]
Shadow Card dealt to Haradrim Pirate*
Idraen defends (2)
Port of Pelargir revealed as Shadow
Haradrim Pirate* attacks (2), deals no damage
Deck Two hasn’t nearly the same problem as Deck One, which is why we can do this.
Exhaust Beravor to allow Deck One to draw two cards: Prepare for Battle, Poisoned Counsels. Trigger Poisoned Counsels, discard every other card in Deck One’s hand.
Fortunately it was only a couple of other allies we’ve lost, but I still would’ve liked to get them down. Now we’ll have to start building our hand from scratch.
Refresh Phase
Raise each player’s threat by 1
Deck One: 33
Deck Two: 33
Turn No.4
Stage: 1B (13/20)
Active Location: Umbar War Galley* (0/3)
Staging Area:
The Corsair Fleet (3 resources)
Great Corsair Ship (3 threat)
Corsair Dromon* (2 threat)
Port of Pelargir (2 threat)
Resource Phase
Deck Two Hand (New Card in Bold):
Sulien, Wingfoot, Northern Tracker, Strength of Will
Idraen (1), Beravor (1), Thurindir (1), Aragorn (1)
While this is welcome, we don’t have any Spirit characters with less than 2 willpower to keep in reserve to trigger this.
Deck One Hand:
Poisoned Counsels, Secret Vigil
Amarthiel (2), Halbarad (1), Merry (1)
Excellent. If we can get the counter-attack, we may be able to drop our threat
Planning Phase
Deck Two:
Exhaust Beravor to allow Deck One to draw 2 cards: Dunedain Warning, Andrath Guardsman (That’s a bit better. We can defend with a bit more security and have an extra body for questing)
Sulien (The 3 willpower really is what we’re after here, so the Northern Tracker will have to wait)
Deck One:
Secret Vigil-Haradrim Pirate (This guy is the closest one to being finished off, so he’s the best guarantee of getting the threat reduction)
Dunedain Warning-Amarthiel (This’ll take him up to 4 defense, meaning he can take an attack from a Pirate Crew and live)
Andrath Guardsman (If nothing else he can provide an extra willpower for the quest phase)
Quest Phase
Aragorn-5
Halbarad-2
Warden of Annuminas-5
Idraen-2
-Trigger Map of Rhovanion: place 1 progress on Umbar War Galley* (1/3)
Thurindir-4
Sulien-3
Dunedain Pathfinder-2
Total willpower: 23
Trigger Corsair Fleet: Place one resource on The Corsair Fleet and 1 damage to Guardian of Arnor, Andrath Guardsman, Warden of Annuminas, Halbarad, Sulien, East Road Ranger, Army of the Dead and Beravor.
I don’t think we’ll be able to do that next turn, that damage is really beginning to sting.
1: Port of Pelargir* (2 threat). Trigger Leather Boots: ready Beravor. (Hopefully that’s another 2 cards we can get to draw, but we may need to save her for counter-attacking)
2: Saruman’s Voice. Trigger Doomed 2. (Of all the heroes, I think we need Halbarad and Amarthiul for the combat or else we’ll go under pretty quick. I’m afraid it’ll need to be Merry who’ll eat this) Attach to Merry.
Total threat: 11
Win by 12, explore Umbar War Galley* and add it to the victory display. Ready Idraen. Place 10 progress on Stage 1B (23/20).
And that’s us there. We just need to explore the Great Corsair Ship and we’re done.
Travel Phase
Each player searches the encounter deck and encounter discard pile for an enemy to travel to Great Corsair Ship (0/5) and adds it to the staging area. Deck One: Corsair Captain. Deck Two: Haradrim Pirate^.
Just need to weather one more combat phase.
Encounter Phase
Deck One optionally engages Corsair Captain. Trigger Corsair Captain:
-Shadow Card dealt to Corsair Captain
-Andrath Guardsman defends (1)
-Followed by Night revealed as Shadow
-Corsair Captain attacks (4), destroys Andrath Guardsman
Well I suppose that’s exactly what he was brought in for, to eat an attack and get in the way of the bad guys.
Deck Two optionally engages Haradrim Pirate^. Trigger Haradrim Pirate^, deal 1 damage to Army of the Dead and Thurindir.
We’re trying to keep the staging area as clear as possible for next round so we can guarantee getting through this.
Combat Phase
[Deck Two defense]
Shadow Card dealt to Haradrim Pirate*
Beravor defends (2)
Umbar War Galley revealed as Shadow
Haradrim Pirate attacks (2), deals no damage
Barring any nasty effects in the next quest stage, this pretty much ensures we’ll get to keep Beravor going forwards.
Shadow Card dealt to Haradrim Pirate^
Idraen defends (2)
Black Sails revealed as Shadow
Haradrim Pirate attacks (2) deals no damage
And Idraen stays also. So far so good.
[Deck One defense]
Shadow Card dealt to Umbar Pirate Crew
Dunedain Hunter defends (1)
Pelargir Quays revealed as Shadow
Umbar Pirate Crew attacks (5), destroys Dunedain Hunter
Any there goes another biting the dust. I really hope we’re not stuck here an extra round or we’re in a tight spot.
Shadow Card dealt to Corsair of Umbar*
Aragorn defends (3), exhaust Forewarned to discard the Shadow from Corsair of Umbar*
Corsair of Umbar attacks (3), deals no damage
Trigger Outmatched to ready Aragorn
We’ll save Anduril for later, when we can hopefully take out the Haradrim Pirate.
Shadow Card dealt to Umbar Pirate Crew*
Guardian of Arnor defends (7)
Raiding the Coasts revealed as Shadow
Umbar Pirate Crew* attacks (6), deals no damage
This is the highest I’ve ever had the Guardian boosted up to, nothing is getting past him!
Shadow Card dealt to Corsair Captain
Amarthiul defends (4)
Pelargir Quays revealed as Shadow
Corsair Captain attacks (5), deals 1 damage to Amarthiul (2/3)
And that was actually the last encounter card. There wasn’t a reset built into travelling to the Great Corsair Ship so we’ve run out of cards because of all these shadows. This should make the rest of combat easier at least.
Corsair of Umbar:
Halbarad defends (2)
Corsair of Umbar attacks (3), deals 1 damage to Halbarad (1/4)
That’s him on his last hitpoint, I really hope we’re done here.
Haradrim Pirate:
Aragorn defends (3)
Haradrim Pirate attacks (2), deals no damage
Exhaust Anduril to declare Aragorn as an attacker against Haradrim Pirate. Aragorn attacks (4), destroys Haradrim Pirate. Trigger Secret Vigil, lower each player’s threat by 2
And that should be the last of combat for this game. On to the finishing line!
Refresh Phase
Raise each player’s threat by 1
Deck Two: 34
Deck One: 34
Turn No.5
Stage: 1B (23/20)
Active Location: Great Corsair Ship (0/5)
Staging Area:
The Corsair Fleet (4 resources)
Corsair Dromon* (2 threat)
Port of Pelargir* (2 threat)
Port of Pelargir (2 threat)
Resource Phase
Deck One Hand (New Card in Bold):
Poisoned Counsels, Dunedain Warning
Amarthiul (2), Halbarad (1), Merry (1), Aragorn (1)
An extra defensive insurance is no bad thing, so this is definitely nice.
Deck Two Hand:
Wingfoot, Northern Tracker, Strength of Will, A Test of Will
Idraen (1), Beravor (1), Thurindir (1)
Well this took its time. Better late than never though, especially on this penultimate round.
Planning Phase
Deck One:
Dunedain Warning-Aragorn (Just insurance, but better safe than sorry.
Aragorn pays 1 resource to attach Dunedain Remedy to Halbarad and heal a damage from him.
Halbarad pays 1 resource to attach Dunedain Remedy to Aragorn and heal a damage from him.
Aragorn pays 1 resource to attach Dunedain Remedy to Idraen and heal a damage from her.
And we’ll call a halt to this there, we need to keep a resource for A Test of Will.
Deck Two:
Wingfoot-Thurindir (Here we go again. Also just insurance, but there you go)
Quest Phase
Reset the encounter deck.
Aragorn-5
Halbarad-2
Amarthiul-1
Idraen-2
-Trigger Map of Rhovanion: place 1 progress on Great Corsair Ship (1/5)
Beravor-2
Thurindir-4
-Trigger Wingfoot: enemy
Warden of Annuminas-6
Guardian of Arnor-1
Army of the Dead-4
Sulien-3
Dunedain Pathfinder-2
East Road Ranger-1
Sarn Ford Sentry-2
Total willpower: 35
Trigger Corsair Fleet: Place one resource on The Corsair Fleet and each player reveals 1 encounter card. Deck One: Black Sails, trigger Doomed 1 and increase the threat of each Ship location by 1. Deck Two: Port of Pelargir (2 threat)
Well that wasn’t too painful. We didn’t have much of a choice as we couldn’t sustain much more damage.
1: Driven to the Brink (I think this is where we’ll use A Test of Will, we want to finish everything this turn.) Deck Two plays A Test of Will to cancel the ‘When Revealed’ effects of Driven to the Brink.
2: Corsair Captain* (3 threat). (I don’t think that’s enough, we’re in the clear)
Total threat: 12
Win by 23, explore Great Corsair Ship and add it to the victory display.
Victory.
Victory display: The Storm Comes (1), Corsair Dromon (2), Keep Watch (1), Umbar War Galley (3), Umbar War Galley (3), Great Corsair Ship (5)
Score: 35 threat + 35 threat + 50 for turns taken + 3 for damage on Aragorn, + 2 for damage on Beravor, + 1 for damage on Halbarad, +1 for damage on Thurindir, -15 for victory points = 112
I don’t think we’ve had a game this fast-paced in a while. The encounter deck came out swinging, churning out enemies at us fast and furious. Fortunately this is the Dunedain’s speciality and we were able to use that high pace of enemies to fuel our decks and bring out enough allies and attachments to hold them off while we blasted through the quest.
I’m pretty happy with these two decks, they’re both very good at what they do but things are going to need to change for the Battle of the Pelennor Fields. We’ll need more attack and defense, not to mention additional willpower, but I think with some tweaks we’ll be able to carry the day. What do you think we should do to change our decks before the next game? Are we alright to face the armies of Mordor or will the Grey Company be washed away by the tide of foes we shall face?
The Corsair Fleet (5 resources)
Remove Army of the Dead from the campaign pool.
The Road 