Quest 9: Return to Mirkwood

Victory on the 7th attempt

The Deck

Some people feel this quest is impossible solo. It's nearly so.

Ways to manage threat and quest with force are what I was looking for here. While he's appeared twice in this blog so far, Spirit Glorfindel is a must (in my opinion). Also, welcome back the return of Lore Aragorn! Both are there to bring heroes with high stats to the battle, in both questing an attacking. Aragorn should also help with the threat of threat. Eowyn was brought in after I tried three rounds with Elanor. I only used Elanor's ability to cancel the treachery & reveal a new one once, so she wasn't missed that much. Browsing a few blogs to get tips for tweaking this deck (I wanted to stick with the basic idea, since it had come close to winning already), it seemed that Eowyn might be a perfect fit for a solo round in Mirkwood.

I put in Glorfindel's required equipment (Light of Valinor, Asfaloth), threat reduction (Elrond's Counsel, The Glandhrim's Greeting), and some allies with questing power behind them (Escort from Edoras, Silvan Refugee + Children of the Sea). And, of course, Gandalf.

It is in many ways a deck still in progress that happened to pull out a win. It might do so again occasionally, but I'm not confident it would do so regularly without more refining.

No Threat To You

Heroes
Aragorn (The Watcher in the Water)
Glorfindel (Foundations of Stone)
Eowyn

Allies
Henamarth Riversong x2
Silvan Tracker x3
Silvan Refugee x3
Gandalf x3
Escort from Edoras x3
Warden of Healing x2
Westfold Horse-Breaker x3

Attachments
Asfaloth x3
Light of the Valinor x3
Healing Herbs x3
Unexpected Courage x2
Protector of Lorien x3

Events
Children of the Sea x3
Elrond's Counsel x3
Dwarven Tomb x2
A Test of Will x3
Radagast's Cunning x3
The Galandhrim's Greeting x3

Sets Used
Core
The Hunt for Gollum
A Journey to Rhosgobel
The Dead Marshes
The Watcher in the Water
The Long Dark
Foundations of Stone
The Druadan Forest
The Blood of Gondor

Note: Tracker1's Mono-Spirit Caldara deck (the one I used for Escape from Dol Guldur) might work well again here, but I want to see if I can continue using different deck each time. Another option would be something to handle the large enemies and still progress on the stages (so Legolas seems like a likely option).

The Journey

Player setup
Threat set to 26
Draw: The Glandhrim's Greeting, Healing Herbs, Westfold Horse-Breaker, Light of Valinor, Elrond's Counsel, A Test of Will

Encounter setup
Gollum placed under control of first player
Reveal: Mountains of Mirkwood
Proceed to stage 1B

Round 1
Resource Phase
+1 Aragorn (1), +1 Glorfindel (1), +1 Eowyn (1)
Draw: Children of the Sea

Planning Phase
Play: Light of the Valinor (Glorfindel -1). Attach to Glorfindel.

Quest Phase
Commit: Aragorn, Glorfindel, Eowyn to the quest
Play: Elrond's Counsel (reduce threat to 23, +1 willpower to Glorfindel)
Total willpower: 10
Reveal: Hummerhorns
Total threat: 3
Discard Children of the Sea to trigger Eowyn's ability
Place 8 progress on stage 1B (7/12)

Travel Phase
Travel to Mountains of Mirkwood
Reveal: Hill Troll
I don't think this deal worked out in my favor

Engagement Phase
None

Refresh Phase
Read all
Raise threat to 27


Round 2
Resource Phase
+1 Aragorn (2), +1 Glorfindel (1), +1 Eowyn (2)
Draw: A Test of Will

Planning Phase
Play: Westfold Horse-Breaker (Glorfindel -1, Eowyn -1)

Quest Phase
Commit: Aragorn, Glorfindel, Eowyn, Westfold Horse-Breaker
Total willpower: 10
Reveal: Eyes of the Forest. Discard all events from hand (The Galandhirm's Greetings, A Test of Will x2)
Total threat: 2
Place 3 progress on Mountains of Mirkwood, exploring it. Search the top five cards of the player deck and add Gandalf to hand. Shuffle deck
Maybe I can avoid this Hill Troll for a bit...
Place 5 progress on stage 1B (13/12), exploring it

Encounter Phase
None

Combat Phase
None

Refresh Phase
Ready all
Increase threat to 31


Round 3
Resource Phase
+1 Aragorn (3), +1 Glorfindel (1), +1 Eowyn (2)
Draw: Silvan Refugee
Maybe getting rid of Children of the Sea will come back to haunt me

Planning Phase
Play: Gandalf (Aragorn -3, Eowyn -2). Reduce threat to 26.
Damaging the troll was an option,but keeping the threat low so I can avoid the Hummerhorns as long as possible is ideal. I'll probably still take the troll on.

Quest Phase
Commit: Glorfindel, Eowyn, Westfold Horse-Breaker
Total willpower: 7
Reveal: Gollum's Anguish (raise threat to 34)
Okay, I will definitely still take the trolls on.
Total threat: 2
Place 4 progress on stage 2B (4/3), clearing it.
Proceed to stage 3B

Travel Phase
None

Encounter Phase
Engaged by Hill Troll

Combat Phase
Deal a shadow card to Hill Troll
Hill troll attacks. Gandalf defends. Shadow: Mountains of Mirkwood (no effect). Two damage on Gandalf.
While more damage on the Hill Troll would be great, I would rather risk my ally than a hero right now
Glorfindel, Aragorn declare an attack on Hill Troll. 6 attacks vs. 3 shields = 3 damage.

Refresh Phase
Ready all
Increase threat to 38
Discard Gandalf


Round 4
Resource Phase
+1 Aragorn (1), +1 Glorfindel (2), +1 Eowyn (1)
Draw: Gandalf

Planning Phase
None (due to stage 3B's effect)

Quest Phase
Commit: Aragorn, Glorfindel, Eowyn to the quest
Total willpower: 9
Reveal: Wood Elf Path
Total threat: 2
Place 7 progress on stage 3B (7/7), clearing it.
Proceeding to stage 4B

Travel Phase
None

Encounter Phase
None

Combat Phase
Deal shadow card to Hill Troll
Discard Westfold Horse-Breaker to ready Aragorn.
Hill Troll attacks. Aragorn defends. Shadow: Woodman's Glade (no effect0. Westfold Horse-Breaker is destroyed. Four damage on Aragorn.

Refresh Phase
Ready all
Increase threat to 42


Round 5
Resource Phase
+1 Aragorn (2), +1 Glorfindel (3), +1 Eowyn (2)
Draw: Asfaloth

Planning Phase
Play: Silvan Refugee (Eowyn -1)
Play: Gandalf (Aragorn -2, Glofindel -2, Eowyn -1)

Brief pause for a whole lot of thinking (to the point where I had notes written out on little scraps of paper).

I had four options I could choose for Gandalf here. We'll call drawing cards Option #0, since it would not make sense to do that now. The other three options were:

Option #1: Lower threat to 37. Quest with Silvan Refugee and Eowyn. Block troll with Eown (killing her and raising my threat to 39). Kill troll with Gandalf, Aragorn, Glorfindel. Plan on engaging hummerhorns the following round, killing Aragorn, and destroying them with Glorfindel. Hopefully Aragorn + Glorfindel (+an ally, hopefully?) could quest enough to put two progress on stage 4B and hopefully no more enemies would come out in the two staging phases I would have to go through.

Option #2: Place four damage on the troll. Quest with Eowyn and the Refugee. Engage Hummerhorns, killing Eowyn. Gandalf would block the troll's attack, while Aragorn and Glorfindel would kill the troll. The next round, Hummerhorns would need to be destroyed and two progress would need to be placed on stage 4B. Once again, this would require no enemies revealed from the encounter deck during either staging phase.

Option #3: Destroy the Hummerhorns. Quest with Eowyn. Block the troll with the Refugees, raising my threat to 47. Aragorn, Glorfindel, and Gandalf kill the troll.

No matter what, I'm at the mercy of the encounter deck. For Options 1&2, I have at least two rounds where any enemy (large or small) could be revealed to mess me up. For Option #3, I only have one round to worry about. No use playing it safe...

Deal 4 damage to Hummerhorns, destroying them

Quest Phase
Commit Glorfindel, Eowyn to the quest
Total willpower: 7
Reveal: The East Bight
Place 5 progress on stage 4B (5/2). Cleared once all enemies are destroyed

Travel Phase
Travel to The East Bight
Bam. If I had tried one of the other options, this card alone would have cost me the game (since I would not have been able to quest past it in time).

Encounter Phase
None

Combat Phase
Deal shadow card Hill Troll
Hill troll attacks. Silvan Refugee defends.
A Ungoliant's Spawn here could raise my threat by 4 and end the game. I think I'm safe with everything else.
Shadow: Attercop, Attercop (no effect). Silvan Refugee is destroyed. Threat raised to 47.
Declare an attack on Hill Troll with Aragorn, Glorfindel, Gandalf. 10 attack vs. 3 shield = 7 additional damage, destroying Hill Troll and adding it to the victory display.

VICTORY!

Final Scoring
4 completed rounds x10: 40
Final threat: 47
Damage on heroes: 4
Total threat of defeated heroes: 0
Victory display: -4
Total: 87

The Recap

I assumed that going up against this quest solo was going to be a miserable, grueling experience. But it was actually fun! Sure, the encounter deck beat me to a pulp a few times, but for the most part I made some good progress and had a fighting chance.

This quest is tough. No doubt about it. But, if I have a great deck I want to test with a real challenge, I might return to Mirkwood some day.