Quest 55: Escape from Umbar

Victory on the third attempt!

The Deck

Argalad is a hero I have played with before but wanted to use more effectively. I see the key to him as A) keeping enemies in the staging area enough to knock them out over a few rounds or B) having a variety of ways to damage enemies while in the staging area and using Argalad as an additional point of that. Flipping through my binders this weekend, Fastred caught my eye. I know I recently gave him a mediocre review. This was due to feeling his three defense would lead to him being an ineffectual blocker and thus not useful for consistently throwing enemies back to the staging area. Consider me converted to the cause! A little buffing (Gondorian Shield, Captain of Gondor, Ally Arwen) and he works like a charm. While a quick perusal of RingsDB will see Fastred teamed with Dunhere (a great combination), I wanted to use him + Spear of the Citadel to tag-team enemies with Argalad. With the usually low amount of enemies appearing in a solo game, this should take care of attacking. The best offense is a good defense, right? I think that's how it goes.

Now to deal with questing. Argalad "kind of" quests, in removing the threat of an enemy (if there is one). Throw Light of the Valinor on him and he will often be pulling double duty. Since I wanted access to tactics for a few reasons (Fastred's equipment + Bow of the Gladhrim for Argalad), Tactics Eowyn was a no brainer. She can carry a chunk of the early questing and help out if a big attack is needed in a pinch. Add in Silvan Refugee to help with questing (since we hopefully won't be loosing anyone along the way) and Warden of Healing to help with the archery damage, then we're off to the races!

Take You With Me

Heroes
Argalad
Eowyn (The Flame of the West)
Fastred

Allies
Arwen Undomiel (Watcher in the Water) x3
Silvan Refugee x3
Honour Guard x3
Henamarth Riversong x2
Ioreth x1
Ithulien Tracker x3
Warden of Healing x2


Attachments
Ranger Bow x3
Bow of the Galadhrim x2
Captain of Gondor x2
Gondorian Shield x2
Spear of the Citadel x2
Light of Valinor x2
Unexpected Courage x2





Events
Daeron's Runes x3
Secret Paths x2
Goblin Cleaver x2
Hail of Stones x2
A Test of Will x3
Tides of Fate x3
A Good Harvest x3


RingsDB Link

The deck worked as desired. Enemies were fairly neutralized, threat was lowered, and a quest was won. But there are some major changes I would make for attempt #3 with this one. Being tri-sphere, I was very reserved in my resource costs. I ended up with a fairly light hand and some very rich heroes. While I may regret removing A Good Harvest, I would at least take it down to a one-of. In would go two copies of Arrows from the Trees. I would also add one or two high-cost Lore & Spirit allies and replace Hail of Stones with Hasty Stroke. Those changes should help firm up the key Argalad/Fastred strategy. Oh, and OG Gandalf. He is right there with the direct damage theme.



The Journey

My first attempt at escaping from Umbar was done alongside my wife, after a long hiatus of co-oping Lord of the Rings. While we had fun, the enemy swarm + archery damage finally did us in. My two attempts tonight were done IRL without my computer open (on purpose), so this is more of an overview than a true write-up.

On both solo attempts, I went for Port of Harad as my stating location. Hopefully I would have no more than one enemy engaged with me at any time, letting me deal as little damage as possible due to the Port's travel effect. This worked. Umbar Square came up right behind it, several times, and I opted to deal with the travel effect and keep moving forward. Same with Haradrim Estate. My willpower did not have a ton of room for growth so avoiding location lock was a priority.

On my first attempt, I would only keep Fastred up for defense. Then I dealt with a Southron Soldier at the start of stage 2 who made an immediate attack (since there were no resources to remove) and was dealt Enemy Pursuit as a shadow card (granting another attack). Shoot. While Fastred was able to bounce the Soldier back to the staging area, thus avoiding a third attack, I still had the second attack to deal with and no hero who could survive the attack. Eowyn had not used her ability yet, so I readied her (though it pained my heart) and had her defend. She survived, but victory was not to be had that attempt.

I wizened up on the second attempt and always tried to have at least one ally up (a usually strategy for me, but I was getting cocky). It also helped that I drew two Honour Guards, although they primarily served the purpose of removing archery damage and then soaking some up themselves. That was the kicker this time around. I ended up only putting one progress on stage 2 the final quest phase, which is all I needed. If that had not worked out, it was time to start looking heroes to archery damage.

Both quests featured terrible moments with Enemy Pursuit. This card always seemed to come up when I had 13-14 progress on stage 1 and was anticipating strolling onto stage 2. With the squishy heroes and light allies I'm packing in this, removing the progress is the only real choice. The first attempt did feature a satisfying moment where Enemy Pursuit removed all progress and I was still able to progress to stage 2 the following round.

Final Scoring
10 Completed Rounds x10: 100
Ending Threat: 30
Total Damage on Heroes: 7 (Argalad: 3, Eowyn: 2, Fastred: 2)
Threat of Defeated Heroes: 0
Victory Display: 0
Total Score: 137


The Recap

My first gut is that this quest felt very thematic. But how much of that is just in my head? What was really different here than the typical quest? Enemies and locations came out, enemies were fought and locations were explored. This is usually the type of thinking I have before taking a break for a bit (which is not the plan now). Despite that pessimistic viewpoint, this really did feel like the theme was there. Maybe it was the type of enemies (with the focus on archery and removing your progress). Maybe it was the type of locations (bringing out more enemies or temporarily averting the threat while you squeeze through a narrow alleyway). Like most games (such as Halo that I have fired up right now), the core elements of the game are basically the same and it is the nuances and shading that brings out the different themes. Escape from Umbar did this from me and I will look forward to fleeing this city again in the future.