“A Wizard is never late. He arrives precisely when he intends to.” – Gandalf
Hi there! It has been awhile hasn’t it? I haven’t posted since the beginning of March despite having content and adventures to post about. I want to apologize for this. I could make excuses about all the different board games I have, I could go on about the time I am currently spending playing Monster Hunter: Rise or Total War: Rome Remastered. I’m not going to do that. I know that LOTR is something I don’t get to the table enough. I know I should play it more, but it just doesn’t work out that way. If you’ve followed me from the FFG forum posts, you know my posting and playing is sporadic. That’s not why we are here today, though.
I am here to tell you that my previous post about defeating the Blood of Gondor needs to be redacted. After I made that post I was ecstatic to go to reddit and post the results in a weekly LOTR sub with a “what did you play this week?” thread to share with others in my joy and success. Much to my surprise others had also been playing this quest, and in reading their accounts I realized one crucial thing I had done wrong: At the start of The Blood of Gondor, the Black Numenorean and The Crossroads are two cards in the staging area. When I played solo I completely forgot that the Crossroads adds siege to the current stage of the quest. My win was invalid, and I once again realized that the Rohan Hunters could not accomplish this quest on their own.
In mid-April I found myself with some LOTR inspiration, and I promptly built a new deck to support the Rohan Hunters. I actually haven’t named the deck and I built it old school, looking at the cards instead of going to ringsdb.com. In fact I still haven’t uploaded the deck! It’s quite fun though. This deck allies the strength of Gondor with the grace of two unlikely paired Elves. We have spirit Beregond, spirit Glorfindel and Lore Haldir. The deck relies on several things that would pair well with these cards – Desperate Defense for Beregond, Wingfoot for Haldir, and Light of Valinor for Glorfindel. The deck utilizes a couple scout combo cards – Coney in a Trap requiring a scout and a warrior, and Well Warned which needs a scout and a noble. In short, the deck has everything needed to complement and protect the Rohan Hunters.
The first attempt to play the decks together did not go well. In hindsight, the Rohan Hunters had an ok opening hand but horrible draws after that, and the Gondor/Elf dispatch just had a bad draw. Additionally, this attempt was played in the late hours of the night, at a time when it is too easy to forget triggers and hidden cards. There is a lot to keep track of in this quest. The second attempt went much better, and I can happily report that I have officially played and beaten this quest properly. It was a great feeling. We saw the return of old strategies (Eowyn killing the black numenorean on turn 1) combined with the combos we didn’t see before, including Glorfindel’s trusty mount Asfaloth keeping locations under control. The second stage of the quest is a battle quest, and the final turn of the game saw us quest for 23 attack against 3 threat. There were still some tense moments, and each combat phase had to be carefully managed. In the end, it felt good to finally get that win, and I look forward to attempting the Morgul Vale and completing this cycle!
All That Shuffles Is Not Dealt 