Waking up before my family this Sunday, I decided to get a little LotR time in. My first-draft Noldor deck was such a blast to play, as was the quest, that the bits of free time I had throughout the day went into playing a little more until, lo and behold, I knocked out the entirety of The Grey Havens deluxe box.
The Deck
While I have played with Noldor heroes, I have not really made a true "Noldor" deck, fully capitalizing on the trait. Since I wanted to run Lindon Navigator against a sailing test quest, this seemed like the perfect time to explore the fair elves a bit more. I am sure that my resulting build is a bit on the amateur side. A quick search will likely
find similar decks that have been refined further and do not even bat an
eye at The Grey Havens box. But I found this deck to be a blast to play and ended up skipping my usual practice of changing decks between quests. It was nice to spend time getting to know a deck a bit more. One thing that stood out is that almost all opening hands are good ones, simply due to the amount of the deck you see initially and in the first few rounds. I did find it hard to hold back resources for events, though, but Henamarth helped me know exactly when I should make that call.
A.C.E.
Heroes
Arwen Undomiel (The Dread Realm)
Cirdan the Shipwright (The Grey Havens)
Erestor (The Treachery of Rhudar)
Allies
Elven Jewler x3
Glorfindel (Flight of the Stormcaller) x1
Lindir x1
Sailor of Lune x3
Galdor of the Havens (The Treachery of Rhudar) x1
Gildor Inglorion x1
Henamarth Riversong x1
Lindon Navigator x3
Gandalf (Over Hill and Under Hill) x3
Guardian of Rivendell x3
Attachments
Light of Valinor x3
Silver Lamp x1
To the Sea, to the Sea! x2
Asfaloth x1
Lembas x1
Protector of Lorien x1
Steward of Gondor x3
Narya x3
Song of Wisdom x1
Events
A Test of Will x3
Elrond's Counsel x2
Fair and Perilous x2
Lords of the Eldar x3
Will of the West x2
A Good Harvest x2
Sets Used
Core
Conflict at the Carrock
The Hills of Emyn Muil
The Watcher in the Water
Foundations of Stone
Over Hill and Under Hill
The Steward's Fear
The Voice of Isengard
Trouble in Tharbad
Escape from Mount Gram
Across the Ettenmoors
The Treachery of Rhudar
The Battle of Carn Dum
The Dread Realm
The Grey Havens
Flight of the Stormcaller
RingsDB Link
Song of Wisdom always ended up in the discard pile. I found Arwen's ability + the cost reducing of To the Sea, to the Sea! worked for my lore needs. Will of the West was only played once and is another likely candidate for removal. What to add in? Well, threat is definitely an issue with this deck. I ended all three quests in valour. So maybe a preferred manner of threat reduction would be welcome.
Quest 46: Voyage Across Belegaer
Victory on the First Attempt!
A great mixture of choices vs. luck in this scenario. You can commit as many characters as you want to a sailing test, with an extreme over-commitment almost guarantying you'll get back on course and set up for a rough time the rest of the round. Most likely you will want to commit a conservative number and let the cards fall where they may. Once you're on course, you may have the option of choosing which waters you are sailing in (when it comes time to advance the stage) but you are still at the mercy of nature (as locations are revealed). This theme of options carries through to the end, with the ability to either quest past your enemies or destroy them.
Having an extra phase to get through is rough on the action advantage, but I found the powerful ships more than compensated for it. Narelenya was my second ship of choice (getting two as a solo player), which gave me essentially 5 resources/turn with Arwen (7 once Steward was down). I did let the high high hit points of the ships lull me into a false sense of security and was waiting to pay for it on the last stage. Narelenya ended up with 10 damage and the Dream-chaser ended up with 5. Nothing came out to really make me regret that choice during the final stage (helped by the fact that I purposefully kept a Fog Bank in the staging area to travel to).
Final Scoring
5 Completed Rounds x10: 50
Ending Threat: 44
Total Damage on Heroes: 5 (Arwen 5, Erestor: 3)
Threat of Defeated Heroes: 0
Victory Display: -9 (Depature from the Havens, Cursed Mists, The Star's Guidance)
Total Score: 90
Quest 47: The Fate of Numenor
Victory on the First Attempt!
So I'm setting up the scenario, not having taken a peek at it, and read Calphon's ability. Caldphon + Lords of the Eldar? Yes, please! (It never happened, but it was nice to know it was there.)
I voltroned out Cirdan with most of his kit in round 1: To the Sea, to the Sea!, Narya, Light of Valinor. No Steward yet, but out it came in round 2 and with it came a tough choice. Most of my deck is Spirit, so it makes sense to always drop Steward on Cirdan. But the resources worked out that I could get out Gildor Inglorion if I put the Steward on Erestor. Would I have enough Lore & Neutral cards to make it work or would I end up with a useless pile of cash? I took the risk and it paid off. The last around or two saw a bit of a build up on Erestor, but not to the level that I regretted my decision.
I was regretting not using a copy of Will of the West once I saw my deck run out near the end. Then I traveled to Shrine of Morgoth and read the text: "players cannot draw cards or search their decks." And Glorfindel + all my copies of Lords of the Eldar in my discard? Yes!
Rambling around this lost island felt thematic. I was going blindly from location to location, hoping to discover the path I need and likewise hoping I was not stumbling right into a trap.
Final Scoring
7 Completed Rounds x10: 70
Ending Threat: 47
Total Damage on Heroes: 0
Threat of Defeated Heroes: 0
Victory Display: -5 (Shrine to Morgoth)
Total Score: 112
Quest 48: Raid on the Grey Havens
Victory on the First Attempt!
I am a big fan of scenarios where it feels like the encounter deck is "questing" against you, so the Aflame keyword seemed like it would be an enjoyable (and challenging) mechanic. The strategy right away seemed to be keeping an Aflame location around & exploring it as soon as it was almost lit. I practically did not have many locations to choose from at a time, so this was more of a theory. Two locations went under The Havens Burn relatively early on (at least too early for my taste) and I thought this would end up being the first of several attempts.
Another point of worry for me was the strength of Captain Sahir. Getting 5 due to the damage on The Dream-chaser + 1 from stage 2 + 4 from destroying an ally. In planning out my attack, I was focused on Sahir's 5 hit points and told myself the resources were basically like defense. They are not! His resources can stop you from affecting those hit points, but you are still removing 1 resource for every point of potential damage. I corrected this realization during my second combat phase with the Captain & had to go back and recalculate how many resources I had taken out (when I thought I had done 2 damage to him and yet retained all 10 resources).
The Havens were saved, the Captain was defeated, and Na'asiyah barely escaped with her life.
Final Scoring
7 Completed Rounds x10: 70
Ending Threat: 41
Total Damage on Heroes: 0
Threat of Defeated Heroes: 0
Victory Display: -5 (Captain Sahir)
Total Score: 41
Looking Back: The Grey Havens
The Grey Haven is a collection of three diverse quests telling a tight story and immersing the player in a theme of exploration. Sharing a medium level of difficulty means the quests will have a purpose beyond playtesting while not being so difficult that they are only re-visited when the player really wants a challenge. I'm going to write this one down as my favorite deluxe box so far and I look forward to future back-to-back run throughs.
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