Quest 6: A Journey to Rhosgobel

Victory on the second attempt

The Journey

After a brief initial attempt where I lost all of my heroes (unwisely taking undefended attacks), I had a great hand the second time around that saw an easy victory. Asfaloth in the initial draw got Rhosgobel resolved early on. Two Warden of Healings got a large chunk of damage off of our winged friend on stage one. Forest Grove came into the staging area, giving me easy access to an athelas. Proceeding to the second stage, I deployed Gandalf to lower my threat and help me push right to the cusp of the stage (11 progress points out of 12). Was planning on stalling and searching for a healing card (using Beravor), but drew Healing Herbs. Got the athelas (guarded by an Enchanted Stream, which Asfaloth took care of), used the Healing Herbs, then pushed past a Dol Guldur Beastmaster and Dol Guldur Orcs to put the final progress point on, initialize the healing of Stage 3B, and getting to a victory in the midst of round 6.

Final Scoring
5 completed rounds x10: 50
Final threat: 31
Damage on heroes: 4
Threat cost of defeated hero: 0
Victory points: -4
Total: 81

The Deck

Been down this road before, so I knew healing is essential and included every healing card I could think of that did not solely target heroes.

Healer and Seekers

Heroes
Glorfindel (Core)
Beravor
Bilbo

Allies
Radagast x2
Warden of Healing x3
Erebor Hammersmith x3
Gandalf x3
Gildor Inglorion x1
Haldir of Lorien x1
Ithilien Lookout x3

Attachments
Healing Herbs x3
Asfaloth x2
Elf-stone x3
A Burning Brand x2
Protector of Lorien x2
Fast Hitch x2
Good Meal x3
Ranger Bow x3

Events
The White Council x3
Lore of Imladris x3
Mithrandir's Advice x3
Risk Some Light x3
Word of Command x2

Sets Used
Core
The Hunt for Gollum
A Journey to Rhosgobel
The Dead Marshes
The Hills of Emyn Muil
The Redhorn Gate
Foundations of Stone
Shadow and Flame
The Steward's Fear
Assult on Osgiliath
The Black Riders
The Dunland Trap
The Long Dark

The Recap

Can you win this one without a lot of Lore? Maybe a deck that can tear through enemies and locations, taking full advantage of the stage 2 ability to look through the encounter deck. You'd still need a good deal from the encounter deck (with a lot of athelas cards or Forest Grove locations near the top) and would have to pick up quite a bit of athelas to compensate for the damage on Wilyadore.

It was a fun little romp, when the deck worked right. I may come back to have fun with location sniping and healing cards (assuming more are released in the future), but A Journey to Rhosgobel is not a quest I would come back to with just any deck.