Quest 1: Passage Through Mirkwood

Victory after 2 attempts

The Deck

And here we are: back at the start of it all! Passage Through Mirkwood is the quest meant to show you that the game is fun and not that hard, right?

There are some surprised to be here, but Passage Through Mirkwood is often used as a testing scenario (allowing players a quick way to see how their deck actually functions before taking on their target quest). I thought of a few ways to have fun with this (trying out a Doomed deck, or playing with Hobbit synergy) and landed on sticking with a single core set. Limiting myself to the cards available at the time is not a pattern that will continue, though. This time around I want to re-experience that feeling of first cracking away at the game with the limited tools at my disposal. After all, working with a single core set is more a matter of eliminating what you don't want than truly building a shining deck (yes, there are exceptions out there).

So which spheres of influence to pick? Spirit and Leadership stick out as the strongest in the core, so let's set them to the side and go for  Lore/Tactics mash-up. Tactics being the weakest on it's own, let's go for a high proportion of Tactics cards. If I'm going for one core hero, I'll go for Glorfindel since I almost never use him and I like the ability to quest or attack with force each turn. Legolas is a favorite for Tactics, so he's in. I have a good quester (Glorfiendel), a fighter (Legolas), so let's go for Gimli as my defender. Then I cram the two pre-made decks together, giving me 60 cards and add in another Gandalf for 61. Now to weed out eleven cards.

I get in habits with my deckbuilding. Right now, I'm enjoying a mix of 20 allies 15 attachments, and 15 events. So the first thing I target in the Tactics/Lore mash-up is getting to those numbers. Allies are easy: Beorn is out and one Daughter of Nimrodel. The attachment cont is only at 14, so I'm going to pick on events for a while. Thicket of Spears is eliminated right away. I only have two tactics heroes and no way to slap a tactics resource icon on Glorfiendel. Since Tactics will be generating higher resources than Lore, I'll prune away some of the higher Lore cards like Beorn's Hospitality. I'll also take out Lore of Imaldris. Card draw is nice, but I don't see myself spending three resources too often. And, while not necessarily costly, I never find Gandalf's Search being used. Checking my spread of cards per sphere, I'm still heavier in Lore than I'd like to be. Turning my gaze to the attachments, I'll upset my preferred distribution and take out Forest Snare. Great card in the right circumstances (and potentially useful in this scenario), but I don't see myself ever having three Lore resources lying around when that right enemy engages me. That gets me the following deck:

Heroes:
Glorfiendel (Core)
Legolas
Gimli

Allies:
Gleowin x2
Daughter of the Nimrodel x2
Erebor Hammersmith x2
Miner of the Iron Hills x2
Henamarth Riversong x1
Gondorian Spearman x3
Veteran Axehand x3
Horseback Archer x2
Gandalf (Core) x3

Attachments:
Protector of Lorien x2
Self Preservation x2
Dark Knowledge x1
Dwarven Axe x2
Blade of Gondolin x2
Citadel Plate x2
Horn of Gondor x1

Events:
Lore of Imladris x3
Radagast's Cunning x2
Secret Paths x2
Blade Mastery x3
Rain of Arrows x2
Quick Strike x2
Feint x2
Stand Together x1
Swift Strike x1

Sets Used: 
Core

The Journey

I learned a hard, valuable lesson during the first run-through. My impression of Passage Through Mirkwood is that it's a total breeze, requiring little to no deck building. What should happen but subsequent King Spider shadow effects, causing my reserved fighting hero (Legolas) to exhaust and thus leading to a build up of engaged enemies that overwhelmed me. I didn't last five rounds. My notes at the start of that final round read: "I'm going to die. On Passage Through Mirkwood. This is ridiculous." Humble pie = eaten.

The second run through was much more of an expected one. A single location or enemy would appear in the staging area, to be knocked off in turn. Or a threat card would come up, causing minimal damage and allowing me to free reign for progress tokens. I did get caught in a web once, but had Miner of the Iron Hills waiting in my hand to remove it.

Most of my choices were typical and relatively safe ones. I did quest with Daughter of Nimrodel twice, despite having more Necromancer's Reach cards in the deck (which would have destroyed her and removed her from the quest), but the risk pulled off. I had Gandalf take out a Forest Spider, which seems like a waste but it allowed me to use the wizard for some much needed questing power (and I had another Gandalf in my hand).

Chieftain Uftak appeared right at the end. That's a nasty piece of work there. But he only got one good hit in (to take out the Miner) before I quested through to victory.

Seven rounds completed. Three damage on heroes. All heroes alive. Nothing in the victory display. Final threat of 39.

Score = 112

The Recap

I was impressed at how this quest could still challenge. Even during my second, easier run-through I had to think carefully about which cards to play when and who to hold back/utilize at the right moments. It could be just an effect of the card deals from the encounter deck. It could be the hand I got (which seemed like a good one my first attempt). Or Tactics really could be that bad out of the box.