Saga Quest 12: Breaking of the Fellowship

Victory on the First Attempt!

The Deck

I wanted to use Tactics Aragorn but was not a fan of the Aragorn/Gandalf/Sam decks I was coming up with. Knowing one hero was likely to be leaving my fellowship at this point, I decided to take the threat bump and switch out Gandalf with Boromir. From there it was a pretty basic Boromir build (Gondorian Fire, Gondorian Shield, Steward of Gondor) plus my favorite ally defending combo of Derndingle Warrior + Honour Guard. Sneaky Gandalf was possible again and the rest was filler to help balance resources, draw cards, and bump certain stats in a pinch.

Bye Bye Boromir

Heroes
Aragorn (The Lost Realm)
Boromir (The Dead Marshes)
Sam Gamgee (The Black Riders)

Allies
Derndingle Warrior x3
Honour Guard x3
Gandalf (Core) x3
Envoy of Pelargir

Attachments
Gondorian Fire x3
Gondorian Shield x3
Celebrian's Stone x2
Steward of Gondor x3
Song of Battle x1
Fellowship of the Ring x1

Events
Feint x3
Foe-hammer x3
Halfling Determination x3
Proud Hunters x3
Quick Strike x3
Captain's Wisdom x2
Sneak Attack x3
Wealth of Gondor x2
Frodo's Intuition x3

Sets Used
Core
The Dead Marshes
Over Hill and Under Hill
Heirs of Numenor
The Steward's Fear
Assault on Osgiliath
The Black Riders
The Road Darkens
The Lost Realm
The Wastes of Eriador
Escape from Mount Gram
The Thing in the Depths
Race Across Harad

RingsDB Link

The Journey & Recap

Going into this blind felt like a mistake right out of the gate. The threat of death by archery damage was pretty constant and the only healing I brought were my Honour Guards. Each of the three copies of Wooded Shoreline spent at least one combat phase in the staging area, with one there for two rounds (due to skipping the travel phase while transition between stages 1 & 2). Damage kept piling on and my threat kept increasing faster than I would like. I really hate Overcome by Grief and was convinced I would be seeing it attached to a hero once I used an ally as an archery soak. Much to my surprise, I actually ended up making it through the entire quest without a single character being destroyed.

While stage 1 is a nice call back to Journey Down the Anduin, with enemies potentially massing along the river, I only had a single Uruk-hai Archer sitting in the staging area by the time I transitioned to stage 2. Most of the enemies I faced throughout the remainder of the game were ones optionally pulled out due to travel effects, allowing me to situate the board to my advantage most of the time.


There was a Gondorian Shield in my opening hand and I chose to add Glamdring, so combat was pretty easy & straightforward throughout the scenario. Three archery damage sitting on Bormir at the end did put a little risk to the final few defenses.

Boromir did not end up falling into evil and the company was victorious, but the big highlight of the quest for me was Seat of Seeing. Did I mention that I hate Overcome by Grief? Because I really hate that card. It was actually a big reason I delayed getting around to playing Breaking of the Fellowship and moving forward with my campaign in general. A permanent condition attachment that significantly affects action advantage. This makes me feel pigeon holed into needing Spirit or Lore to function properly as well as needing steer my deck away from chump blocking. The whole idea of continuing a campaign for 12 more quests did not have an appeal to it. I was hoping the designers eventually included a way to mitigate particularly nasty burdens and, right after a scenario where you are picking up 2-4 of them, here we are!

As with any scenario where Boromir really does his thing, it would be a significant challenge to get through this without him.

Final Scoring
10 Completed Rounds x10: 100
Ending Threat: 44
Total Damage on Heroes: 10 (Aragorn: 4, Boromir: 3, Sam: 2, Frodo: 1)
Threat of Defeated Heroes: 0
Victory Display: -4 (Sarn Gebir, The Argonath, Parth Galen, Seat of Seeing)
Total Score:150

Campaign Resolution
+1 starting threat
Boromir is taken captive.
Boon: Phial of Galadriel attached to Sam.
Burden: Ill Fate added to campaign pool
Removed:  Burden: Overcome by Grief added to campaign pool

Previous Campaign Resolutions

Boon: Mr. Underhill attached to Frodo Baggins
Boon: Old Bogey-stories (added to starting hand)
Boon: Ho! Tom Bombadil! (added to starting hand)
Boon: Noble Hero attached to Sam Gamgee
Boon: Sting
Boon: Mithril Shirt
Boon: Glamdring
Boon: Anduril
Burden: Gandalf's Delay added to staging area
Burden: Panicked added to campaign pool
Burden: Shadow of Fear added to campaign pool