So I just got the new Dwarrowdelf nightmare quests in the mail today and am trying them out in order one by one. I'll give a few overall thoughts on each quest as well as thoughts on each nightmare card faced.

Nightmare Redhorn Gate is absolutely fantastic from my two attempts so far. Won on the second attempt (incredibly narrowly!!) after a very long and grueling game. The very challenge of trying to clear Caradhras (and stage 2 to a lesser degree) as fast as possible is only heightened and improved by the fact that you must do this even faster before any especially nasty nightmare cards appear to seriously hinder you.

Makes the quest a fair bit more difficult but the quest has always been a bit hard for me with decks that aren't exactly powerhouses when it comes to providing huge willpower. This actually stopped a particular nightmare cards effect in its tracks as I don't use very many willpower boosting cards at all and it thus did not stop any of these effects.

I encountered all the new nightmare cards during my two games and their effects were as follows:

This guy can be pretty insane and because I travelled to Celebdil the same turn I engaged him he did a whopping 7 damage to.... A Gondorian Spearman!!! It was very lucky I had this ally around or he would have outright killed a hero. After this effect he was easy to dispatch (Haldir actually killed him before he could attack (he had blade and dagger equipped)) though and did not pose much of a threat. His two threat and surge are pretty nasty as well though so I was very glad that only one of these guys appeared and during a turn I had used Gildors Counsel so that only this guy and Celebdil were revealed during staging.

These guys are pretty nasty too and provide a very nasty shadow effect as well. Using Elrohir to defend most attacks however provided me with a defender with exactly two willpower which kept these enemies attack power at 3 and stopped the shadow effect..... every time but once!! This shadow effect and the shadow effect on Frozen Siverlode "Shadow: Defending character gets -1 Willpower. Deal the attacking enemy 1 additional shadow card." make for a very nasty combo (especially when on Silvertine Marauder himself) and did four damage to an Elrohir with Elven Mail on leaving him on only 2 hitpoints. Luckily I had a Warden of Healing out and was able to remove this after two turns. Still a very nasty combo that would have easily killed him had it not been for the elven mail.

Luckily I did not have any Snow Giants show up in the second attempt of this quest as they are without a doubt the worst new enemy in the nightmare version of this quest. Utterly devastating forced effect (on a level where you REALLY need those high willpower allies!) that you more or less have to cop otherwise you will be defending attacks against it anyway from staging and it will be contributing its heavy 4 threat.

Considering Freezing Cold is one the nastiest cards in this quest (can provide an instant hero death in many cases when you get to Caradhras) this new nightmare card is pretty **** powerful. Not only can it get to a fairly high threat but its travel effect is just evil. Its 6 progress points are no joke either. Luckily I only had one of these appear and only the very last round which meant the travel effect meant nothing. It did however contribute 3 threat as the other two cards (one had surge) revealed during staging were both Snow cards as well (staging area had been empty at the start of the quest phase)

Ahhhh Frozen Silverlode! The three threat and 3 progress location with no effect for my decks other than stopping Elronds Counsel (meh only +1 willpower anyway!). Had two of these appear in the same round during the one or two very dangerous rounds of questing while Caradhras was the active location. As much as their no effect was helpful two more locations in staging both with 3 threat was not helpful while Caradhras was the active location so was still pretty bad.

Blinding Blizzard is a very interesting and cool card with a very cleverly designed effect. Luckily both times I had it appear I was questing with very high willpower and easily got through both blizzards instantly without the resources effect doing anything either time. If this card had or ever does appear during a round that you are struggling to overcome Caradhras (or to a much less severe degree when you quest unsuccessfully) you are more or less completely screwed as it will block your attempts to do so, stops you from clearing other locations and stop you collecting resources until you get rid of it. I'm very thankful the two times it appeared I blasted through it as getting lost in and losing due to a blinding blizzard would have been devastating (but also a tiny bit cool ).

Lastly Caradhras the Cruel!! The very mountain itself! I found this card to be slightly underwhelming (if only because I was expecting more) but only actually encountered it once quite close to the very end. It did however reveal a Wolfpelt Goblin who then surged into another card. Can be fairly nasty but definitely not the worst of the new cards!

Here are the notes from the quest log for my second attempt in which I won (lost the first attempt):

Woah! A combination of luck and strategy won this game!

Incredibly long and difficult game however. The lore/spirit deck ended up on 49 threat from one or two failed attempts at questing on stage 3 raising threat heavily (no light of valinor till the second last turn didnt help either as Glorfindel was raising threat almost every turn) and a few particular attacks came very close to killing Elrohir whom without I would never have survived. A carefully placed unexpected courage on him allowed him to spend resources more freely but still defend more than one attack as well as allowing him to quest certain rounds and still defend. Got lucky and didn't actually face THAT many of the new nightmare cards but the ones I did face were pretty nasty and I was also not able to set up my Caradhras "trick" (putting 2 progress a turn on it every turn with Asfaloth and leaving it on 8 then instantly exploring it the turn it becomes the active location during planning negating its ability entirely) as Asfaloth did not show till the third or fourth last round. This meant even without all the nightmare cards making an appearance I still had the hard slog up Caradhras for a few turns till I was able to clear it with a combination of Legolas's ability and using Asfaloth the turn I drew it to put the last put on and quest to victory not that round but the next easily without the -1 to willpower effect from Caradhras around anymore.
Only had one of the dreaded Freezing Cold appear and used a Test of Will to discard it, was pretty chuffed at saving Test of Will and using it so well.

Awesome and fun game and very difficult. Very surprised I beat this on the second attempt considering my decks are not exactly willpower powerhouses and this quest usually requires very high willpower especially if you are unable to clear Caradhras quickly.

When you make x damage you must to assign it one by one. So you put one damage to spearman and his dead so you must assign other damage to other characters. X damage assign one by one!

ups my bad.... the orc card say to 1 character....sorry

Tell us more about Rivendel and Watcher!

Just played Nightmare Road to Rivendell!

Very fun and improved version of this quest however still very easy thus far. In fact the hardest thing about the game I just played was encountering sleeping sentry 3 goddamn times!!!!!! (one of them got shuffled back in from the new version of stage 2 and came out a second time.... then the other copy came out a few turns later..)

LUCKILY I was able to cancel it twice and the third time there were no enemies in play so it was not as bad as it could have been.... Beat it first attempt which was a little bit dissapointing for a nightmare deck but I do put a lot of work into my decks and do not play blindly either so for a nightmare quest that seems like its more focused on simply improving the quest more so than increasing the difficulty that much it does make sense. Will definitely need to come back to this one as it was very fun (although not that long).

Here are the nightmare cards I encountered:

Fought off two Uruk Elf-Stalkers and killed both. Whilst it does have a fairly high attack and very low engagement and ambush it does not have an ambush effect and so long as you do not chump block against this guy he isn't much more than a 5 attack enemy that isn't too hard to kill. I can imagine if these guys come out too early and you don't have adequate defense/healing out they can pose a problem.

Goblin Trapper is actually REALLY nasty if he comes out as a shadow card as because he enters play by being added to the staging area ambush triggers, he exhausts a character AND then makes his own attack... (hope I am interpreting this right as least). Luckily the only one that appeared was as a shadow card to an enemy that Haldir killed with his special ability. Lucky I decided to make this choice as it wasn't a very dangerous attack and I could ahve easily defended and killed it anyway but decided not to risk a nasty shadow effect which massively paid off. Probably would not have lost but would have had to take an undefended 3 damage (potentially more) attack which may have killed a hero if boosted. This guy can really take you by surprise if you let him. Dangerous card indeed!

Did not encounter this card and was actually wishing I did have to face this card as I love the art, concept and power level of it. Seems like it can be pretty **** strong if two ambush enemies are revealed plus has a strong 5 attack. Pretty easy to damage and not too hard to kill this raiding party though. Next time I play hopefully I have to take on one or two of these roving bands of orc scum!!

Another card with absolutely stellar art. Unfortunately I did not encounter any of these enemies either which was unfortunate. They don't seem too overly powerful other than allowing ambush enemies to more easily engage you and the nasty surge effect. Because of the way my decks work and my happiness to engage and slaughter enemies he has very little effect on my decks. He does make it very hard to simply quest through this stage and avoid numerous engagements which may pose a problem for other decks.

Only had one Treacherous Bluffs come out and because it on the second last turn and on the last turn no enemies with ambush were revealed it did nothing other than contribute 1 threat. I can see this being pretty **** nasty on a turn were 2 or more enemies with ambush engage players as there is no limit on how many times it can receive this threat bonus. It can be easily avoided by making traveling to this location a priority.

Concealed woods seems fairly nasty for a location as surge can be very powerful and 4 threat is no joke either.

So long as you can clear it with Asfaloth/Northern Tracker/other location cards in staging it has no effect and by traveling to it and clearing it the next turn it will only provide a single surge (or perhaps none!) so isn't too nasty really.

Both Tumultuous Assaults that came out during my game had no effect as no ambush enemies were in play... essentially it both triggers ambush effects a second time and because the enemies re engage players as well they count their treat towards staging due to the nightmare setup cards effect. This is a fairly powerful card if 2 or more ambush enemies are in play (and already engaged with players) and have high threat. Otherwise it can very easy fizzle and simply surge to another card.

Overall whilst I really enjoyed this new version of the quest it was fairly easy so I will definitely have to give it another go soon. So far both nightmare decks are really great. More fun, more difficult, great art, great new mechanics and theme. Getting far too late to play anymore and I need to go to sleep unfortunately so I will do Watcher in the Water and Long Dark tomorrow.

sounds cool thanks. Maybe Rivendell you was lucky couse is sounds quite difficult for me. I have same story with Seventh level Nmode : first time win easy but then i play again and was slaughter by orcs all the time...

I've found RtR NM easier than the Redhorn Gate NM and not as much fun. It definitely does make the quest a lot better but overall Redhorn Gate is awesome.

I just beat Shadow & Flame nightmare! It was hard till I found the right deck type. Basically played with Galadriel and kept my threat at 0 the whole game an interesting way to play. He only attacked me twice and both times I had feigned voices ready.

That quest looks really cool for me. I mean Shadow and Flame Nmode. Can you tell me more about?

Just played a few rounds of Nightmare Watcher in the Water! Holy hell is this one difficult!!

SOMEHOW beat it second round..... (should not have but my decks came through big time and I unlocked the doors of durin on very possibly the last turn I could have without losing) very long and difficult game right down to the very last shadow card dealt to the watcher and his final attack! Insane game that went for ages and was somehow beaten by discarding a warden of healing to clear the doors of durin (writhing tentacle was revealed) and by constantly healing every turn with another warden of healing I got out early. Healing is a MASSIVE must in this quest and you will lose without it guaranteed.

The new nightmare cards are pretty nasty but to be honest the real difficulty lies in not only having to win by both clearing the doors of durin AND killing the watcher but also because you can only engage the watcher after clearing the doors of durin instead of when no other tentacles are in play now. This is significantly more difficult and my loss first attempt at this quest was mainly due to discarding so many cards without any success against the doors and losing valuable cards in the attempt. The new watchers health is insane and during my second game on the second last round after engaging and feinting the Watcher I attacked with 27 attack power (two elven archers, boromir ally, haldir with blade, elladan, elrohir, legolas with blade, black arrow) and the watcher survived this MASSIVE attack with 1 hitpoint remaining.... the last round was an utter nail biter as I would have instantly lost had anything raised threat by even 3 (which is very easy in this quest...) as both decks were on very high threat. They were on 46 and 39 even though I had used a Galahadrims Greeting and two Free to Chooses. One deck would have threated out and the other would have fell on its own as two other tentacles appeared on the last round during staging and it was the tactics/leadership deck that was on 46. Had it threated out; without Elrohirs defense the lore/spirit deck would have fallen to the watcher. I actually used a fair bit of new Silvan tactics in this quest in a few different ways early game. I used two Galadhron Archers to weaken two tentacles and then finished one off with Rumil the next turn. I then used two Feigned Voices (one on Rumil and one on an Archer) throughout the next several turns to stop two nasty tentacles from attacking and to then also to deal damage to/kill other tentacles that have nasty "when attacked" effects when I played them the second time. Very fun but crazy hard quest! After the first attempt and then again a few turns before winning the second attempt (right before clearing the doors of durin and thinking I would definitely not be able to clear it anymore) I was resigned to not being able to clear this quest for at least another 2-4 attempts maybe even more but somehow I got through!

Time for The Long Dark next!

For now however here are my thoughts on each nightmare card encountered in this scenario:

The new version of the Watcher boasts an impressive extra 2 attack (7 rather than 5) and a whopping 21 hitpoints instead of 9, more than double! Now it does now take 1 damage whenever you kill another tentacle enemy but this doesn't seem like it would ever equate to much more than maybe 4 or 5 tops (unless you play an absolute bloodbath somehow!) especially considering how nasty it can be to attack several of the tentacle enemies rather than just leave or trap them in ranger spikes. The new watcher is much harder to kill with its extra health and attack and after HAVING to clear the doors of durin first (which is a feat in its own if you aren't playing a deck with excessive card draw) this makes it even hard to kill the watcher before time runs out and you threat out or become overcome by tentacles and their nasty attachment effects.

I only had this card appear once, as the card revealed during my last and successful attempt at opening the doors of durin! I discarded a Warden of Healing and this card was revealed. It has no defense and 4 attack which isn't too bad and a mere 3 health so isn't that bad a card if its forced effect does not kick in. I have found however in this quest almost every time one of these forced effects that reveals encounter cards and triggers if its a tentacle card and/or a card with a shadow effect is revealed a tentacle card or card with a shadow effect is indeed revealed and it almost always triggers. For it not to is a rare exception in fact. This forced effect is not so bad however as so long as you have a good defender you can defend the attack and because you more than likely do not use your defender to quest anyway it has more or less no effect after the attack.

Now this new tentacle enemy definitely seems to be the nastier of the two. I encountered two and after the first one end up attaching to Elrohir for the rest of the game I learned my lesson and used Feigned Voices against the second one and killed it that round. I offset it by using a ranger spikes, two feigned voices and a feint and rarely needing Elrohir for defense thereby not using and readying him each round. After I got a Lembas on him and got a Warden of Healing out with the lore/spirit deck I was able to completely offset this effect. This was lucky as I needed him for a few last attacks at the end of the game including the one attack the Watcher got in. Like previously mentioned healing is a must for this quest for tentacle attachments that deal damage, nasty tentacle effects that make your heroes damage each other and other nasty direct damage effects this quest heavily uses.

Banks of Sirannon is not so bad... so long as you use decks with high attack power heroes and some weapons/attack boosting effects (I use both and can handle combat possibly better than any other aspect of game play) considering most tentacle enemies don't have exceptionally high hitpoints or armor. It is also quite easy to simply travel to this location and quickly clear it nullifying its effect. I encountered this card twice and never had it do much harm. I did however have it show up during the last few rounds and decided to travel to it rather than the other two nasty locations in staging so I could kill the watcher more easily considering it was all I had left to do to win (obviously the doors were cleared and in my victory display and I had 8 or 9 progress counters on the quest card).

Hideous Depths is a bit nastier preventing you from manipulating the encounter deck as well as a nasty travel effect. I luckily only encounter one of this location and simply left it alone considering there is not excessive threat in this quest and questing successfully seemed less difficult than anything else. I can see this card being pretty nasty especially later on in this quest if you have to travel to it or use encounter deck manipulation cards. It also requires a somewhat high 5 progress points to explore. Interestingly as nasty as bringing back a tentacle enemy is it could bring back an enemy that is easy to kill allowing you to do another point of damage to the watcher that may be badly needed.

Pulled Under is a pretty nasty treachery... I only had it revealed once and it did 3 damage to Elrohir who had a Choking Tentacle attached to him. Luckily because I was using above mentioned tactics to use Elrohir as little as possible for defense as well as healing him constantly this was not so bad. Due to Elven Mail he still had another 3 health and was safely healed over a few turns. If several tentacles enemies have attached to your characters (like in my first attempt of this quest!) and you are struggling against this quest and this card appears it may very well be a death sentence killing several characters or at least severely wounding them.
It's shadow effect is possibly even worse instantly killing the defending character if it has a tentacle attachment, had this been a shadow card dealt to any of the attacks Elrohir defended in this game he would have died instantly. The tactics I used to stop as many attacks as possible/kill enemies before they could attack may very well have averted this from happening! Very thematic and nasty card!

Lastly Rippling From Below. When I had this card show up the Watcher was not even in play so it surged and shuffled two tentacle cards back into the encounter deck but did not heal the Watcher. This was fairly inconsequential as although tentacle cards are nasty all it did was return two of them into the deck and essentially replace itself with another encounter card. I can see this card being nasty in four player returning more cards and healing 4 damage from the watcher if hes in play. It could be very nasty at the end of a game when you desperately need to get the last few points of damage on the Watcher to win and he is healed by this card just in time to defeat you with threat or its nasty tentacles and 7 attack.

Hope you enjoyed this post =) It may have been a bit less detailed or more chaotic than the others as it is late and I am tired so apologies for the terrible grammar etc.

After escorting Arwen over the infested and subzero Redhorn Pass to Rivendell after a harrowing kidnapping of Arwen and nasty Orc Ambush after the mountain descent my company of High Elves and Elven Warriors have succesfully opened the magically locked Doors of Durin and slain the foul Watcher, water dwelling nameless one. Now they must journey through the long dark of Moria! Ancient grudges or no the Dwarven skeletons and remains seen upon entering the Doors of Durin and its following hallway by the Elves chills them to their bones but does little to prepare them for the true horrors that await!

Oh and just as a side note I predicted the order of difficulty upon seeing spoilers for the Dwarrowdelf Nightmare Quests and they are as follows from hardest to easiest:

-Shadow and Flame

-Foundations of Stone

-The Watcher in the Water

-The Redhorn Gate

-The Long Dark

-Road to Rivendell

So far I've been correct as Road to Rivendell wasn't very hard but both Redhorn Gate and The Watcher were, the watcher slightly more so. Eager to see how the rest of my predictions pan out and whether or not my decks can even beat nightmare shadow and flame or whether its the sort of quest you simply MUST build your deck around.

The Long Dark was dissapointing, played it twice solo player both times barely encountered any new nightmare cards. Imo they did not take out enough of the easy boring cards from the original.

Sounds cool! Cannot wait for your other reports! Thank you

Interesting read, keep them coming! By the way the artwork on the Nightmare cards is incredible.

Played three rounds of Nightmare The Long Dark last night and beat it on the third attempt. The first two rounds I lost due to nasty lost effects primarily. Fellow user jjenks476 had an easy time with this quest due to not encountering enough nightmare cards. I encountered more than enough to get demolished twice before overcoming this quest so had a very different experience to him. It is a very big encounter deck however, bigger than any other (other than road to rivendell perhaps) quest in this cycle (and nightmare version of the cycle) so I can totally see games of this quest being very easy sometimes if few nightmare cards are encountered.

What I found pretty nasty nightmare cards or not is the new nightmare setup/rules card for this quest. The Lost effect is: The first player must choose and discard an ally in play. This is pretty gnarly! I had lost trigger many times in all three games (especially on stage 2) and so had this discard many allies. The worst thing about the effect is that it does not target only allies under the control of the first player it simply makes the first player choose an ally in play (controlled by anyone!). This can whittle your allies down to nothing quickly if you aren't playing ally heavy decks. Only two of the three new enemy cards have the PASS text printed in their corner whereas the locations and treacheries don't making locate tests slightly harder. I'm pretty sure that a handful of the cards taken out for the nightmare quest also have PASS printed on them. I lost the first two attempts from too many nasty lost effects (mainly the new nightmare setup/rules card and Silent Caverns) which kept exhausting all characters while nasty enemies were in play resulting in dead heroes and also instant discard of many allies, as well as because of one particular card that appeared both times.

Twisting goddamn passage... for some reason after travelling to twisting passage in both the first and second game I failed almost every locate test made against it and ended up getting stuck on it (with locations piling up including ones with nasty lost effects, mainly silent caverns....) for several rounds with it triggering many nasty lost effects and actually defeating me altogether in one of the games.

Although this is probably not necessarily the hardest nightmare quest so far and I got lucky against some of the earlier ones it is the first that I haven't beaten within two attempts. This may have to do more with my lack of card draw (other than daerons runes/gandalf) which stopped me from making more attempts at locate tests and my slight weakness for quests that require heavy consistent willpower (which this quest does because of the +1 threat to locations on stage 1 alone).

Now on to the nightmare cards themselves!:

After seeing one of these enemies decimate a hero by gaining +4 attack from its shadow cards and attacking undefended during my first game I quickly learned my lesson and stopped as many attacks from these enemies in the second two games as possible. His two attack is deceiving as although there are less cards with PASS printed on them in the nightmare version of this quest it seems that one always comes up for at least one of these guys shadow cards! Add in a shadow effect that gives +1 or 2 and he has an attack power of 5 to 6 for most attacks he makes. Luckily they are not that difficult to kill and with a rivendell blade equipped Haldir I was able to dispatch them with ease in my second and third game.

Trapdoor spider is one naaaaaaaaaasty encounter card! Four threat! Five attack and discards any character that takes any damage from it! Three armour and six life for a total of nine points of attack you need to destroy it!

A lost effect that at its worst could potentially kill two heroes! I did not lose specifically due to any of these big nasties but did have to fight 3 of them, one in each game and they definitely contributed heavily to my losses

. In the first game when all characters got exhausted from Silent Caverns lost effect Trapdoor Spider did kill two heroes due to its lost effect but it would have killed at least one anyway with 5 undefended damage. In the second game a handful of allies were sacrificed to a spider and I killed it before it took any heroes down but it made things much harder. In the third game I managed to put a forest snare on the spider that came out nullifying it completely. Probably the nastiest new card with its high attack (higher if boosted by shadow), ability to instantly kill characters if any damage gets through and super nasty lost effect. Ranger spikes would not stop the lost effect so Forest Snare seems like the best possible card to counter the spider other than simply blasting it to death with direct damage somehow or ignoring it and not triggering any lost effects so it was lucky/clever to put a Snare on it in my winning third round.

Due to my little amount of card draw in my decks this card had little effect. When revealed as a shadow card on two occasions however it triggered nasty lost effects and was very harmful. I encountered it twice as an enemy and easily dispatched them like any foe. I can see it really hurting decks that rely on card draw if they aren't able to destroy it quickly.

Another very nasty nightmare card. Eastern Mines has a whopping 6 threat on quest stage 1 (+1 threat to all locations) and 5 on stage 2. Add a super nasty travel effect that returns this locations super high threat back to staging and triggers all lost effects in play if you fail it and you got one hell of a nasty card to deal with...This location strongly contributed to my loss in one game, in the third game I was able to somehow get around it. It is more or less just as bad as Twisting Passage. Even when revealed as a shadow card this card is nasty and instantly triggers a lost effect.

This card I did not encounter in my games at all so cannot really judge but it seems fairly **** nasty considering extra cards are needed to make locate tests and this card makes you discard 6 altogether if you explore it. It has 3 threat and a somewhat nasty shadow effect as well. As I don't chump block very often at all its shadow effect would not have affected me anyway.

This card is horrible.... It can exhaust all characters, discard an ally, result in a trapdoor spider attacking and killed a character/hero or return two goblin enemies back to play. So long as two lost effects are in play it does two of these things!!!!! Easily one if not the nastiest new nightmare card for this quest! I was able to counter it once funnily enough in one of the first two games which I lost anyway. I had it trigger in my third game once and it was pretty devastating but I still managed to just barely stay in there and win a few turns later. It is possibly just as bad if not worse as a shadow card as it can not only return an enemies threat back to staging but triggers all lost effects in play (not just two) if you fail a locate test. Save your test of wills for this card!

The last card and yet another truly nasty and actually nightmarish new card. Considering most of the other new nightmare cards can automatically trigger lost effects and how many more locate tests/opportunities to trigger lost effects in general there are in this version of the quest this card can easily discard the attached hero within the same turn or following few turns that it is attached. It also has surge and a nightmare effect that should potentially rarely trigger but can be utterly devastating if it does. I only had this card come out as a shadow effect and had cards in my hand therefore avoided its nasty effects. Had it come out during my third game I may very well have had another loss on my hands!

All in all I find this quest much much more fun and a fair bit more difficult with the potential to be truly nightmarish or even just as easy as always. It all comes down to how many nightmare cards and the three or four truly powerful cards from the original quest are revealed during your game. It also depends on how much card draw you have (and can spare to pass locate tests) and how much you depend on allies. You will definitely be triggering FAR more lost effects in the nightmare version of this quest than you normally do that's for sure!

Next time Foundations of Stone!

Yes looks like is a good improvement for Long Dark. Im pretty sure with 3 + players is really difficult. Even with solo is cool now

I love second cycle nmode, looks like is much better then first cycle. Cannot wait to get it!

Hey what up? No info about Foundation of stone and Shadow and flame.. .

I've been playing black riders again to try and get better scores and earn less burdens/choose boons better to get ready for the road darkens. Pretty sure I'm not getting it any day now like I thought and will be getting it some time next week =(..
I also downloaded Abes Exxodus on playstation store and have been trying to get a perfect score (save all mudokens)

I didn't realise how popular these would be though so I'll play some rounds of Foundations of Stone tonight (and hopefully beat it!) and do another post for you guys
I'll try get shadow and flame done in the next few days as well. Not sure how long it will take to beat this one though as I used to have a fair bit of trouble against the normal shadow and flame quest.... so might take a while considering how difficult the new nightmare version looks!!

Yes looks like is a good improvement for Long Dark. Im pretty sure with 3 + players is really difficult. Even with solo is cool now

I love second cycle nmode, looks like is much better then first cycle. Cannot wait to get it!

Definitely alot better than the first cycle of nightmare packs so far! I will definitely be playing a couple of them on a regular basis and will probably become amongst my most played quests. A few, like road to rivendell, I may very well only ever play the nightmare version of from now on! I can see The Long Dark being very VERY nasty in three or four player if you don't have good luck for sure, good call.

Ok time for Foundations!

Thanks for the update! Very cool

If you don't mind - can you describe how you are playing? Is it solo or MP? Also which heroes?

In terms of difficulty I find IT depends a lot on solo or maps and the heroes you use. If it's dwarves or Outlands and spirit glorfindel all the time then thebquest may seem easier then it is

Here are the two decks I use and I have been playing these quests two handed, no dwarves no outlands no vilya no draw your whole deck in one go though:

Deck 1: Lore/Spirit

Heroes:
Elrond - 13

Haldir Of Lorien - 9

Glorfindel (spirit) – 5

Starting threat – 27

Allies: (14)

3x - Arwen Undomiel

3x - Galadhrim Minstrel

3x - Warden of Healing

3x - Northern Tracker

1x - Gildor Inglorion

1x - Henamarth Riversong

Attachments: (18)

1x - Wingfoot

3x - Asfaloth

3x - Light of Valinor

3x - Ranger Spikes

2x - Unexpected Courage

3x - Forest Snare

3x - Lembas

Events: (18)

3x - A Test of Will

3x - Elrond's Counsel

3x - Hasty Stroke

3x - Galahadrim's Greeting

3x - Gildor's Counsel

3x - Free to Choose

Sideboard: (3)
3x - Power of Orthanc (replaces forest snare/ranger spikes/free to choose)

3x - Daeron's Runes (replaces forest snare/ranger spikes/free to choose)

Deck 1: Tactics/Leadership
Heroes:
Legolas - 9
Elladan - 10
Elrohir – 10

Starting threat – 29

Allies: (19)

3x - Gandalf (Core)
3x - Envoy of Pelargir
3x - Naith Guide
3x - Gondorian Spearman

3x - Galadhon Archer
1x - Galadriel
1x - Faramir

1x - Boromir
1x - Rumil

Attachments: (22)

1x - Black Arrow

3x - Dunedain Warning
3x - Steward of Gondor
3x - Gondorian Shield
3x - Rivendell Blade
3x - Dagger of Westernesse
3x - Dunedain Mark

3x - Elven Mail

Events: (9)
3x - Feint
3x - Sneak Attack

3x - Feigned Voices

They are powerful in their own way and I have put much effort and time into making them as good as possible. In reality they are almost like one big deck as they are designed to play with each other.

Also many apologies for the extra delay, I'll try and post about Foundations Tonight!

As suspected Foundations is where the REAL nightmare mode begins. So far I've played four games against this quest and have been utterly destroyed every time by nameless ones/intense threat gain! From the way things have gone and how poorly my decks do when separated this quest may take a fair while to beat (im guessing at least 4 or so MORE attempts at least) so I will move on to Shadow and Flame in order to review it and will have to come back to this quest.

The quest does not increase much in difficulty for the first two quest stages (the new enemies in these stages CAN be quite nasty but with appropriate defense/tricks you can easily overcome them) but then when the players are separated it becomes one of the hardest quests I've played unless you get super lucky and are super fast.

I have literally not brought one of my two decks back together with the other deck on a single stage 4 ONCE. Every time I have lost while the decks are separated and struggled to get either back into the staging area of the other. Once I was able to put enough progress tokens on a stage 4 with the tactics/leadership deck to clear it but it was with Legolas during the combat phase so I was not able to join the other player till the next turns travel phase, one deck threated out the next turn before the travel phase so I lost anyway and the decks did not even re unite.

The new nightmare version of this quest features about 13 or more copies of nameless one enemies now and I was actually quite shocked to see that not only are there 3 copies of one of the new nameless one enemies and 2 copies of the other but also that you do not take out any of the old nameless one enemies during setup for this quest...

I have not had a single game where at least 1 to 2 nameless ones have not come out for each player during the initial arrival in separate stage fours. Straight away as soon as you are split up it becomes uber hard. If you rely on sentinel you are in trouble. Same goes for ranged. Both of which I use heavily....

As well I am almost always presented with at least one devastating stage 4, either the tactics deck gets shivering bank and all the armour (shield, elven mail) and weapons (blade, dagger) I was sneakily saving get discarded meaning I can barely defend nameless ones, or the tactics/leadership deck is deposited on a stage 4 that ends up having a crazy amount of threat in staging straight away like 9 or 10 and the deck is unable to quest against this at all and any amount of questing reduces combat ability (usually one of these cards is at least 1 if not 2 nameless ones with crazy high threat) leading to almost immediate defeat, or one deck arrives at the location that removes all resources stopping things like Elrohir from defending multiple attacks or a forest snare being played on a nasty nameless one the following turn after it is chump blocked stopping me from using any cards to try and soften the arrival at stage, 4 or a hero is simply lost and alone and one deck has to try and survive not only on its own but with only 2 heroes....
Also every game but one I've had one deck end up in Old One Lair which is instantly UBER hard to come back from...

Needless to say I am both very impressed but somewhat frustrated with this nightmare quest

I'm glad that it does have some very nasty fangs as some of the previous nightmare quests in this cycle were still fairly easy. Other than say Return to Mirkwood, Escape from Dol Guldur and Flight from Moria most nightmare quests aren't THAT incredibly difficult at all. In my opinion definitely not as difficult as certain saga quests (I'm looking at you hobbit saga boxes!) or quests like Morgul vale, Into Ithilien and Siege of Cair Andros.

This nightmare quest can definitely be ranked among quests like this and unless you are playing Solo or have decks that function very well on their own and are very strong (or dodgy/controversial like outlands or mono dwarves) it is near impossible unless you get lucky when you get to stage 4 and can move quickly.
I did not change any cards from the two decks (posted above in fact) I play with always (other than changing appropriate sideboard cards) and they are not particularly well suited for this quest especially due to how much they rely on each other to be super strong, split up they can be very very weak. I have done fairly decently on two of the four attempts so far (on the other two I was literally instantly decimated) and continued on for a few turns and have even killed one or two of one of the two new nameless one enemies (the other new one I haven't killed one of... its a HORRIBLE enemy..). Within a few turns however.. destroyed. You need to not only save some powerful cards in your hand but also be in a good position with each deck to be able to both quest and handle combat on their own without the other and have good allies and attachments out. This can be hard to do as well as easily countered by certain stage 4 effects (discarding your hand, losing all resources etc).

I bid everyone good luck with this quest when you get your hands on it! If you deck build specifically for quests or use decks more powerful than mine you may not have too much trouble but even with one or both of these advantages over my attempts it may still prove quite a challenge!

For now here are the new nightmare cards for the quest and my opinion and experiences with both.
I just want to open with the fact that the new nightmare cards in this quest are the most powerful of any quest in this cycle so far and a few are game enders if you don't have a powerful counter/combo or setup for them. Other than bosses like Smaug, various versions of the Balrog and the Witch King from the Black Riders Box the new Nameless One enemies are perhaps the nastiest enemies in the game so far! Far worse than Shadow Dwellers from Nightmare Into The Pit or Tunneling Nameless One in Nightmare Emyn Muil! Makes sense thematically as the shadow dweller is nasty but just a big octopus like creature and the tunnelling nameless one although huge is just a giant worm both of which seem somewhat like partially mindless beasts or animals whereas the new nameless one enemies in this quest are very large, VERY vicious and malevolent looking much like the Balrog and are perhaps Umaiar originally created by Morgoth now hiding in the deepest places of the world or even beings from the void or somewhere else like Ungoliant!


Ahhh the Mithril Seeker, a seemingly not too strong enemy that can end up having a higher attack power than most bosses if he is not destroyed quickly. Not only this but he can heavily drain a player/decks resources crippling its ability not only to play cards but also fight back against the Seeker! The trick is to engage him optionally with whomever used all their resources/has the least left and killing him the turn he is engaged stopping him from taking any more resources or getting any stronger. He has a somewhat annoying 5 life but relatively low 2 armor so can be killed as long as you have a few good attackers with an attachment or two. Because you may be saving weapons for stage 4 (they are discarded when stage 3 is revealed) you might not have much attack power out yet however so cards like Dunedain Mark or direct damage like Gandalf, Rumil etc are your friend. I've fairly easily overcome this card every time I've come across it but it does take all your focus for the round so stops you from taking out other annoying enemies first (like cave centipede) which does slow you down in a way. I can see it posing a problem to certain deck types because of its nasty low engagement cost of 18. Its threat of two isn't too bad and it also has no shadow effect but other than these two facts it's a fairly nasty new card, especially if you are using deck/s that do not have strong combat abilities.
Don't think its that thematic... a Goblin shouldn't get that strong just from stealing resources and should if anything get extra defense for hoarding/stealing mithril/resources? rather than attack? Or maybe even threat? Also is he eating/licking the mithril...? Not eating surely just testing it or something.. Considering how strong and impenetrable mithril is supposed to be I cannot see any way an Orc could possibly digest it...

The other new enemy for the first two stages. Amazing art on this new card just like the new nameless one enemies. Not too nasty a card though, nowhere near as bad as the Mithril Seeker as far as I'm concerned. The when revealed is pretty nasty though but if you have cards with equal highest cost in your hand you can choose which to shuffle back into your deck lessening the severity of the effect.. I've only encountered the centipede during the first few stages and never have it appear during stage 4 for either player so have never had the second effect do anything. There are only two copies of this enemy so even if you encounter both early in the game there isn't much chance of encountering one again during stage 4. Nowhere near as much chance as encountering a whole handful of the 13 nameless one enemy cards.... The forced effect could be pretty nasty though providing the last attack against a player that they cannot defend and fall because of if it isn't killed quickly. Its high defense makes it somewhat hard to kill but only has 3 attack so doesn't pose that much threat even if it does stick around a little while during one of the early stages. Also has a fairly low engagement cost like Mithril Seeker so is hard to avoid.

Hereeeeeeeeeee we go, new nameless one enemy number one!

Look at that huge, multi limbed, covered in spikes tail monstrosity.... surrounded by remains and skulls of the lost and devoured (probably orcs as well as dwarves).

Coming across this beast in the dark deeps of the earth would be utterly terrifying even for the Noblest of Elves and would be much like encountering a Balrog, perhaps somewhat less terrifying. It also appears to be blind and may rely on vibrations and touch or even smell or sound to locate prey and move around. This only adds to how fear inducing this beast would be as without being able to see what its looking at or focusing on it is harder to predict its movements and attacks and would also make it appear more alien and monstrous.

Now with that image and concept in mind lets move on to how fear inducing its actual abilities are!!! First off engagement cost of 15.... ok so blind or not it is apparently incredibly aware of its surroundings and an amazing hunter... unless you are running secrecy decks I can think of few situations where a 15 engagement cost enemy will not attack you, especially on stage 4 this far into the quest.
So this nasty huge nameless beast finds you immediately and proceeds to attack your party. Before it does however it also contributes a whopping 5 threat!
When it engages it takes the top card of your deck and attaches it and then when it attacks it attaches another which isn't as many/more cards than other nameless one enemies but if you don't kill it first round the next time it attacks and each time after that another card will attach making it stronger and stronger the longer it stays in play. That huge beast gets angrier and more hellbent on getting to you and probably eating you every turn you don't kill it and are instead running from it (this is all I can possibly imagine the group of heroes doing if they are not valiant standing against and defeating it based on its size and ferocity). The one thing that totally countered this enemy was the abundance of very low cost cards (0 and 1 cost mainly) in my tactics/leadership deck and I was actually able to kill two of these enemies (which I was quite proud of!) the turn I engaged them as they both only got two 1 cost player cards attached to them giving them 2 attack and health. This allowed me even with the 5 defense to kill them both immediately. Neither times did this help me overcome stage 4 as more nameless one enemies appeared and swarmed me or threat was unmanageable. Like the other new nameless one enemy if no cards are attached x is 5 (6 for the other one) so you cannot use Gandalf to instantly kill either unless you use a trick similar to the one I recently used playing A Knife In the Dark in which I sneak attacked Gandalf and used a Galadhon Archer to do 5 damage to Bill Ferny on the very first turn killing him outright. I was not able to do anything like this with Gandalf paired with the Archer or Rumil however as often all your resources or cards are discarded so even if I DID have these cards in hand I most likely would not have been able to use them.
An utterly devilish new nightmare card and enemy that unless quickly destroyed becomes a huge beast that also instantly engages you and hits very very hard.
The ONLY ONLY good thing about both the new nameless one enemies is that neither have shadow effects.

And here is the second new nameless one enemy. Yep that's right 6 threat...
6 defense too and 6 life and attack if cards aren't attached to it yet...

Not only that but it actually can't be any weaker than it is while in staging when it engages a player (unlike the other new nameless one) as it attaches cards to itself when it engages you until x is AT LEAST 6 anyway meaning in many situations it is often 7 or 8 instead!!!! I think I even had it reach 9 at one point.. 11 is probably the maximum it could get to if you attached cards till it reached 5 then the last revealed and attached card has a cost of 6 (Beorn ally). So unlike the other new nameless one this one does not get stronger every turn but instead starts off potentially much stronger and nastier and then stays at that strength. It also has a much higher engagement cost of 45 so could theoretically be avoided however it also has a CRAZY high threat of 6 which when a deck is on its own is a very high amount of threat in the staging area on just a single card. Makes sense.... that beast looks MASSIVE, you can't even see most of it cause its in that huge hole in the wall... depending on what the rest of it is actually like it could easily be as big as or bigger than the Balrog if its Legs are as big or long as those arms appear to be (if it even has legs though I guess..). The long scaly tentacle like appendages also appear to be very thick and armour plated as well as very long and you also can't see the end of any of them... It could block and prevent movement in a very large area of the foundations of stone with the tentacles and long arms. Because the longer you stay on the first few stages the easier the last two stages can be you can often have very high threat by the time you hit stage 4 anyway though so I personally could not choose to leave it in staging a couple of the times I encountered it.
Actual combat against this creature would be insane and would almost be like a cross between or combination of fighting a creature like the Watcher in the Water and a Giant armed and mouthed beast like a huge troll or Balrog etc..... Doesn't sound fun does it?
Did not kill any of these new enemies and had pretty much every one I came across kill a Hero... enough said..... VERY hard new card that unless Forest Snared or constantly Feinted or killed with heaps of direct damage will easily devour any defenders or alternatively very strongly block attempts at questing with its 6 threat.

Good luck getting around this monstrosity, especially two of them which I ended up with once (against one player in a single turn). Also if it seems like I'm over exaggerating about how nasty these two new Nameless one enemies are lets remember this card from the normal foundations encounter set:

Because there are four of this card it often makes these two new nameless ones even stronger. There are also two effects on other new nightmare cards in this quest that have the same effect. One of which is coming up next!

One nasty location the Nest of Horrors is! Not only if you don't travel there does it make nameless ones even stronger by attaching an extra card (this is ESPECIALLY bad in combo with Unspeakable Thing as it attaches a card both when it engages and attacks so both times an extra card will be attached if the Nest is in staging making the nameless beast massive and powerful much much faster, had this happen once and it was just ridiculous...) but if you travel there to avoid this it may very well add an extra new Nameless one to staging, potentially one of the two new ones which I have just covered and are very very nasty customers and incredibly difficult to deal with. It also has a high threat of four....
This card was instrumental to my defeat a few times making nameless ones much more difficult from the get go as well as harming questing attempts.

Very very nasty new card, potentially worse than any of the others except the two new nameless ones. Not a fan of the art however...

Shivering River. Probably the least nasty new card other than the Centipede. It seems pretty bad and to be honest could easily cause you to lose all on its own providing three threat to EACH players staging area if it is in staging as well as having a hefty 7 progress points to clear. Even with all this nasty compared to any of these other new cards it actually isn't as bad... This goes to show just how hard this nightmare quest is. The shadow effect is fairly nasty but +1 attack while the players are separated (when you are at your weakest) is not so bad whereas a plus 3 attack to a nameless enemies attack when the players reunite or are on stage 5 could be pretty devastating especially if it increases an already crazy attack of 7 or 8 to 10 or 11.....

I actually only encountered this card once and then immediately traveled there. I also encountered its shadow effect a few times but because I never got my two decks together on the one stage it only ever gave a boost of +1 attack. Not much else to say about this card. Pretty nasty and straight forward but not as bad as most of the others. Love the art and theme of this card.

Last card and the only new treachery Chill of the Roots. Instant hand discard or if you can't/choose otherwise a slight threat increase (which is already usually high at this point so this can be very bad) and surge which could very well reveal one of the 13 nameless ones or something else very nasty...
This may not be SO bad but the shadow effect is the last remaining new Nameless one boost and instantly attaches an extra card to the attaching enemy if its a nameless one. This could very well attach a 3 or more cost card increasing the enemy's attack by 3 or more not only instantly and for that attack but also for the rest of the game or until defeated. This could be game ending easily and makes the new nameless one enemies even more fearsome if they get this card as a shadow card at any point.

Hope you enjoyed my review/rant and I'll try get Shadows and Flame up as soon as possible (hopefully tomorrow) but may very well be getting The Road Darkens tomorrow so it may also get somewhat delayed again... =/
I'll do my best!!

As Gandalf say: Sauron dont know them (Nameless things) they are older then him. So they should be really brutal. That place is not for elfs or man…

Wow very detailed thanks! Seems like a beast of a quest. May need the new gandalf hero

Wow very detailed thanks! Seems like a beast of a quest. May need the new gandalf hero

Yeah I've actually been toying around with possibly using Gandalf, Glorfindel and Elrond rather than Haldir, Glorfindel and Elrond... I'm gonna post the deck soon

Just tried my first game of Nightmare Shadow and Flame, actually got pretty close!!!! Got to Stage 3 and had 9 damage on Durin's Bane. Was chump blocking/using Elrohir as defender and also used two feints and a feigned voices. Also used two Gildors Counsel and blasted through stage 1 and 2 pretty **** fast. Eventually ran out of options for defense and Elrohir and Elrond both fell, was still able to put another 9 damage on Durin's Bane for a total of 18. If I had an answer for defense and those heroes hadn't fallen and I had another turn or two I might have won! Pretty thrilling game and did far better than any of my attempts at Foundations of Stone! My decks really suffer on their own but are pretty dang powerful when together which is normally all of the time.

I'll post a proper review of Shadow and Flame when I get a few more attempts in.