Thanks for the comments - and I do see where you're coming from. Yes, you can stick Master of the Forge on Lothlorien, and in doing so, you'd save a few resources but would have to be strictly thematic and play a Silvan/Noldor deck as to control Lorien you have to have a Silvan and a Noldor Hero.

So the restriction of playing thematically along with raised initial threat doesn't balance out a few resources?

Beravor is one of my core set Heroes, but as a solo player I wouldn't want her just to be a card engine all the time. But the thought of her being at The Prancing Pony in Bree and sending news to my Heroes at the start of the quest ticks my 'story' box!

As a solo player who loves theme above power and with a desire not to get pummelled to the ground by the quests unless I stick 'such and such' a card 3 times in!

I'm just here to have fun!

And enjoy the wonderful world of Middle Earth!

Thanks to Gizlivadi for these lovely Havens:

And another Haven from Giv and a few support cards from JC:

‘Conflict at the Carrock’

For my starting company I decided to do tri-Sphere again and keep my 3 favourites Heroes of Aragorn, Legolas and Beravor, for Leadership, Tactics and Lore, thinking that questing wasn’t so important in this quest so I could leave out Spirit. You have to have Leadership cards to ally Grimbeorn and I think ‘Forest Snare’ would be handy for those trolls so Lore is a must! It would be good to have a way of reducing your threat though, so I’m going with ‘Leadership’, ‘Hidden’ and ‘Dodge’ as my starting Boons.

I’ll also start with ‘Beorn’s House’ as a Haven as Beorn is in my deck plus his beekeepers! I have also included my new Haven support card ‘Beorn’s Ponies’ for more thematic play. I am taking a big risk however as my starting threat is therefore 32 – far too close to those nasty trolls, so perhaps I need to play ‘Hidden’ straight away!
My starting hand contained both Beorn and Gandalf, plus a Forest Snare, so I decided not to Mulligan and chose, as ever, ‘Riversong’ as my 7th card.

It didn’t go well!

Even with Grimbeorn coming out on the first turn, my lack of questing power meant that locations in the staging area overwhelmed me and my Threat just shot up and I lost the game. Never one to give up with a deck, I tried again with the same deck and I got a bit further and to encounter the trolls this time - and got soundly beaten up as they all descended on me!

Third time out with the same deck and I got so close! The trick I think is to keep your threat low and pick off the trolls one by one – so I used all my Gandalfs not to draw cards or damage enemies but to reduce threat and then quest. Take things very slowly during the first Quest phase to build up Resources, get some allies (including Grimbeorn), then once you get to the second phase, quest quickly to clear ‘the Carrock’ out from being the active location and lose the troll bonus attack and defence.

It was fourth time lucky and what a final battle! I managed to get Grimbeorn, Beorn in the party and the Beekeepers at my Haven, along with my 2 Forest Snares to pick off those trolls. I was lucky with my card draw this time and the other troll in the deck (the Hill troll from the Core set) didn’t make an appearance either. It matters what order you go for the trolls too with – I went for Stuart, Morris, Rupert and definitely Louis last!

A fantastic quest – but I’m glad I used my Easy Mode plus Havens otherwise with the early card pool that is thematically played (remember – no ‘Steward of Gondor!’) I’d have no chance!

But, what's that falling from the sky.....?

“The Road Goes Ever on...”

I have been following this threat since day one and I have to say I'm loving the direction the Havens are taking. Tying the allies travel to the quest is brilliant and really thematic. Adding cards that support that theme is even better. I love both JC and Giz fan made stuff (printed a bunch of it) and having them supporting this makes me really happy.

I wanted to ask you a few questions and make some suggestions. I know you are doing this for fun, but it scratches many of my most wanted new mechanics that I can't help myself.

Havens

How many times do you usually use the Haven's extra abilities per game?
How often do you recruit allies on a Haven?
If Havens were to be used in multiplayer, would each player choose one or would they share the same?

Have you found that allowing the Haven resources to be used to recruit out-of-shpere allies unbalanced? Is the option to recruit allies more benefitial than using the Haven resources for their skills?

I agree with Seastan that allies/heroes shouldn't be able to use their skills from a Haven and that the threat manipulation is a huge risk that might cause serious problems down the road when you expand your variant to other cycles. So I would like to know a little bit more about it to see if it could be changed without breaking the Haven concept as I might want to expand it even further (see wilderness).

How often did you start your quests with a hero in a Haven? Did you move them back to the party afterwards or did the hero spend most of the time in the Haven?
Was the reduction of the initial threat key to your success on the quest or did it not matter that much?
Would you say that allowing a hero to gain resources while in a Haven was too powerful or it balances out by the fact that you lose a body for questing/attacking/defending?
Isn't the the explosive threat boost you get when the hero reaches the party a huge detriment for the travel mechanic?
In your playthroughs, how often did you use the allies/hero skills while on a Haven instead of using them for travelling/Haven skills?

I understand that starting with one less body on the field makes quesing/attacking/defending a lot harder during the first rounds, but the reduction in threat doesn't seem to balance that out, as while enemies might stay on the staging area longer, questing becomes progressively harder and once the hero reaches the party to help, the explosion in threat might make the enemies swarm you in one round. How did that work for you?

Havens supporting cards

Those were a nicely surprise and I really like that the Havens is expanding into them.

What was the reason behind their creation? Where the Havens too weak on their own?
Do the supporting Haven cards perform as normal player cards (added to your deck and played from your hand)? If so, do they count to the 50 deck limit?
Would you and JC condier toying with the idea of token cards instead? I know JC was working on it in another fan-made project, but I felt it had room for improvement. I think tying them to the Havens might be an elegant solution and could strenghten both project.

Wilderness

If I undertand it right the wilderness is the travelling area between the Haven and the Party/Quest were allies with progress tokens are, right?
What are the rules for what you describe as "Wilderness"?
Are characters in this area able to use their habilities or can they only travel?
Was keeping them in them in the Haven creating balancing issues or is this new area just for thematic pourpuses?
What was the reason behind the rule that prevents heroes to gain resources while in the wilderness? Was the extra resources too unbalancing?

Have you thought about expanding the travel mechanic to allow allies/heroes in the party to enter the Wilderness and travel to the Havens? I know that doesn't make sense right now, but I was thinking about a couple of options that would make the wilderness area stronger.

Option A) I was thinking that, by your Havens definition "Havens are cards that represent the famous locations in Middle Earth where the heroes gain equipment, allies and rest." The resting portion of it is not really explored. A way to integrate that into your clever wilderness mechanics I would toy with the idea that characters can travel back to Havens (same restrictions as when allies are travelling to reach the party but backwards). The main goal for doing so would be to heal all damage taken upon entering a Haven. That would emulate the resting theme of the Havens and give you extra flexibility/choices on how to approach the quest.
Option B) From your quest reports it seems like you prefer to tie the Havens to the quest instead of the decks, which makes thematic sense, but limit their interaction with the deck. That made me think about the inclusion of some neutral Havens tied to the quests. Those Havens would start the game in play (per quest set up rules) but you would not add their threat like the ones you choose as your main Haven. Instead that number will reflect the travel distance to reach them.
For example, Beorn's House could be a quest specific Haven that allows you, upon entering it (flipping it), to search for a Beorning ally and put it into play on that Haven or something like that.

Revisiting/rehauling cards

Were the changed cards useful for you now?
Have you looked at JC rehaul project? Some of the changes you mention are also in his rehaul project.

I see that you changed how Escape from Dol Guldur quest works. Do you think that the introduction of the Haven mechanic and the extra boons were not enough to ofset it's difficulty? What do you feel your deck needed to prevent those changes?

Boons

How have the boons been performing for you?
Have you find them too strong or perfectly balanced? Would you make any changes?
Do you think they are key components in your variant or have them been eclipsed by the Havens?
Do you think starting the game with them in play instead of drawing them is key to their permormance success?
Have you playtested the quests without them? If so, have you missed them? If not, would you be willing to try it out and see how the game performs (I don't own the Mirkwood APs, so can't really playtest all your stuff yet)?
How about making them random instead of picking the ones you like/think will work best? Would that make them less appealing?

I'm trying to asses if the boons could be changed into treasure cards with a mechanic revolving around victory points instead, as I would prefer for boons to be related to the quest campaign instead (a fan made project that I'm hoping someone else would be willing to work on, as I lack the needed LotR knowledge).

Thanks again for your work. It's really inspiring!

14 hours ago, xchan said:

Many thanks for the kind words –I’m really enjoying the marathon and the creative project too. That’s a lot of questions, but I’ll see what I can do!

Havens

In my games, a Haven’s ability can vary the number of times it is used – depending on your card draw, but on average twice per game? It’s the same with allies. I usually get 1 or 2 allies on there per game. In a multiplayer game each player would choose a Haven.

Allowing the Haven resources to be used to recruit out-of-sphere allies doesn’t seem unbalanced. Getting the option to use them to recruit allies is about the same as using the resources for the abilities on the Haven cards.

I think that allies/heroes should be able to use their skills from a Haven –otherwise the theme of having allies there like healers, weavers, craftsmen etc is a bit lost. I do realize there could be problems later on though, which is why perhaps allies should be normal cost and not -1 cost?

I haven’t actually started any quests yet with a hero in a Haven!! It’s something I plan to test out when I’ve got through the first cycle as all the quests in the first cycle seem to be continuous

Havens supporting cards

Glad you like these. The reason behind them was to enhance the Haven concept without having it all on 1 card and giving a player options. At the moment I’m planning 1 per Haven but I could easily do more. I see them as part of your normal deck so not to get too complex with side-decks etc

Wilderness

Yes, the ‘wilderness’ is the travelling area between the Haven and the Party. There are no rules as such except that it is a ‘neutral zone’ so that no allies/heroes can use or do anything whilst there – including generating any type of Resources. This is because it was overpowered if a Hero generated Resources whilst at a Haven so I changed it to haven resources whilst there. In the wilderness, they get nothing and their Threat is added when they join the party.

I don’t see why a Hero or ally couldn’t be ‘sent back’ to the Haven, with the rule that when you enter a Haven, you heal 1 damage at the start of each round?

I’m tying the Havens to the quest instead of the decks because I’m trying to mirror ‘what might have been released’ as the game goes through the cycles and releasing 1 Haven or 1 Haven support card per AP with 2 of each in a deluxe expansion. As the havens and their cards are released, just like all player cards, there is nothing to stop players going back and playing quests with Haven that match their decks –I’m just trying to be thematic!

Revisiting cards

I try to change as little cards as possible as I find that too much to remember. My revisits are for solo purposes only, not to ‘balance’ out cards and address shortfalls etc. Dol Goldur should NEVER have been released as it stood as it turned players off the game as it was far too difficult. I really enjoyed playing through the quest with my tweak however as it gave me a chance to play through a really thematic quest.

Boons

I see my starting Boons as very much ‘bicycle stabilisers’ for new players as they started out on their adventures and to smooth the available actions from a very small card pool – especially, again, for solo players. They have done their job and as I go through the game I might not use them. In terms of strength, I think I got them about right and don’t need to change them. They haven’t been eclipsed by the Havens. Starting the game with them in play instead of drawing them is absolutely key in early games. Making them random would undermine their purpose – they are there to prop up missing elements in a sphere (such as a bit of Willpower for Tactics), rather than as a random bonus – choosing them gives player options and control. Making Boons Treasure or earned Campaign cards again is not their purpose. However only having them at the start of a Campaign (like Mirkwood or whatever) would make sense and then having a Boon earned at the end of each quest (like a ‘level up’) would be nice –I think I’ve seen a few of those about

Hope I’ve answered your questions. Thanks again for your interest and please feel free to drop comments or help with any card ideas or rules.

‘The Road Goes Ever On’

‘Journey to Rhosgobel’

In the end, I stuck to my dream team of Aragorn, Legolas and Beravor with starting Boons of ‘Leadership’, ‘Hidden’ and ‘Far Sight’ respectively and started off with my new ‘Eagles Eyrie’ Haven. I reduced the number of Leadership/Spirit cards, took out any Beornings and put a lot of Eagles in my Tactics cards. Lore stayed pretty much the same but with added ‘Haldir’ and I added Radagast and the Song of Wisdom to my Neutral cards. With great luck I had ‘Celebrian’s Stone’ in my opening hand and could get ‘Riversong’ as my 7th card.

The first time out went really smoothly and even though I saw no sign of any eagles (apart from poor Wilyador), Radagast or Haldir, and thus my Haven saw no action at all, I still beat the quest with no real problems. I think the encounter deck was really kind with no nasty enemies such as ‘Ungoliant’s Spawn’ appearing and a few early copies of Athelas that were guarded by nice locations. I also pulled out a ‘Lore of Imladris’ quickly so could heal a bit of Wilyador as I entered the second stage of the quest and only needed to find 2 Athelas to win. Getting out Gandalf to help me quest meant that stage 2 went by easily too and stage 3 is just a non-event.

Playing it a second time, I swapped the Leadership Boon onto Legolas figuring that I would need some more Tactics resources. This time the starting hand was poor, but I did get some eagles in and got the Eyrie up and running and Landroval entered the game. Radagast made a fairly early appearance too so could heal Wilyador as I went through stage 2 of the quest. Still no sign of Haldir though! Another lucky ‘Lore of Imladris’ came out, so this time, again with a gentle encounter deck, I only needed to find 1 Athelas to heal the wounded eagle.

One of the easier quests for me then, but enjoyable and very thematic to boot!

Now I think I'd better get my walking boots on....

“The Road Goes Ever on...”

Marathon Update

Boons
I’ve tweaked these a little with them losing their Sphere bonuses which I think with hindsight was a little overpowered. They now all give straight bonuses of 2. I also changed some of the names so when I made proxy cards I can use existing Boon cards and just change the text. So ‘Far Sight’ became ‘Go Ever on’ and uses ‘Mr Underhill’ from ‘The Black Riders’ (and is also a nice wink to the name of this blog!). So the current list is:

1. Bold Strike (Valiant Warrior) – discard to gain +2 Attack until end of the phase.
2. Warned (Forewarned) – discard to gain +2 Defence until end of the phase.
3. Go Ever On (Mr. Underhill) – discard to gain +2 Willpower until end of the phase.
4. Hidden (Tireless Ranger) - discard to reduce your Threat by 2.
5. Healing Balm (Hans of a Healer) – discard to heal up to 2 damage on 1 Character.
6. Wisdom (Noble Hero) – discard to draw 2 cards.
7. Inspiration (Intimidation) – discard to add 2 resources to attached hero’s resource pool.
8. Resolve (Beyond All Hope)– discard to ready 2 heroes.

Havens
I’m really enjoying playing with Havens but as I’m playing through the quests I’m not sure if, as the card pool expands, that having the -1 Cost rule of allies played to a Haven is now balanced (yes, people who said that can say ‘I told you so’!!).
I made that rule to make Havens viable for allies to play there, but since we now put Haven Resources on them at the start (and possibly more being put on through the Support cards) it could be too much of a good thing! This is particularly true as when you put an eagle in the Eyrie, you generate a Haven resource so a ‘Winged Guardian’ was effectively zero cost! I have been playing a few games now without the -1 Cost and it doesn’t seem to make it underpowered so I think I’m going to remove the -1 rule.

I’m also thinking of allowing characters to return to Havens in the middle of a Quest (a bit like a generic player side quest). If you exhaust a character X times during the Travel phase (where X equals to the current Quest card number) then he may return to a Haven. A character in a Haven removes 1 damage token at the start of each Refresh phase. There may be some quests, or part of quests, where this won’t be allowed such as ‘Escape from Dol Goldur’ where thematically it makes no sense at all (‘Excuse me Gandalf, I’m just nipping back to Lorien’)!

A Short Rest
I’m also thinking of introducing a rule that if a character is not exhausted in the Refresh phase (so they have not quested, attacked, defended or used an ability that caused them to exhaust) then they may remove 1 damage token. This simulates them ‘camping down’.

I’d appreciate people’s thoughts on those 2 tweaks?

Playing the Quests
My current play mode (as of ‘Hills of Emyn Muil’) is to play each quest 4 times. If I succeed with the quest, I notch up the difficulty for the next play. The first ‘notch’ is to remove the Boons, the second ‘notch’ is to replace the Boons but put back all the removed cards from the Encounter deck for ‘Easy’ Mode, and the third ‘notch’, (if I EVER get this far!!) is to remove the Boons and play all the cards in the Encounter deck!

We’ll see how I get on!!

Preparing for a trek through ‘The Hills of Emyn Muil’

A new adventure pack and new cards to play with! As the card pool grows, it’s great to see themes start to come together and deck possibilities start to coalesce. The new Hero is from the Tactics Sphere: ‘Brand, son of Bain’ and although he has fine stats, he’s a bit high-Threat and limited with an ability that is useless in solo play. For sake of solo balance, I’ll tweak his ability for my games so it reads:

Brand, Son of Bain –After Brand, son of Bain attacks and defeats an enemy with a Ranged attack, choose and ready a Hero you control (limit once per round).

Other cards in the set are again a mixed bunch, with the very expensive Lore ally ‘Gildor Inglorion’, the fairly useless Leadership ally ‘Keen Eyed Took’, another Tactics eagle with ‘Descendant of Thorondor’ and our first Horse (although the ‘Mount’ keyword has yet to be introduced) with ‘The Riddermark’s Finest’. The events are pretty small league in this pack, but for my solo games, I’m going to tweak another 2 cards from this pack:

Gildor’s Counsel – remove the (to a minimum of 1).

Meneldor’s Flight – Gains the keyword ‘Eagle’

I also have a new Haven support card to be introduced for last week’s ‘Eagles Eyrie’:

Messengers of Manwe Cost 1. Unique. Eagle. Attach to Eagles Eyrie.

“The Road Goes Ever on...”

‘The Hills of Emyn Muil’

This quest was a Location monster so I’m glad I put some Northern Trackers in to get rid of some of them clogging up the staging area. The problem is that I wanted to keep my tri-sphere deck with my usual heroes of Aragorn, Legolas and Beravor and thus Leadership/Tactics/Lore. Looks like I can put in a few handy ‘Song of Travel’s to get those Spirit Resources! My chosen Boons were Go Ever On, Inspiration (on Legolas to afford those Tactics eagles) and Resolve. As ever, if I didn’t get Riversong in my opening hand, I would choose him as my 7^th card, and if I did get him in my hand then it would be ‘Celebrian’s Stone’ for Aragorn.

It’s a fairly boring quest isn’t it? It’s very thematic though as it does seem like you’re trudging through the endless wastes and hills of Emyn Muil, the Treachery cards with rockfalls and chasms are a nice touch, but not a lot actually happens! I did like the art of the new Location cards however.

The quest actually did beat me twice with all those Locations forcing my Threat up and up. It’s rare that I ever get to 50 Threat and lose the game – if I lose, it’s usually because I get killed! The key card, of course, is ‘Northern Tracker’. In fact, unless you were playing a full-on Spirit deck, I think it comes down to ‘if you get ‘Northern Tracker’ out on the table’, you win, and if you don’t, you lose!

My dream team did win through though after 3 fails! It was all a matter of getting a way for Spirit cards to enter play –either from ’Song of Travel’ or from ‘Celebrian’s Stone’. I did manage some nice Eagle synergy with the Eyrie Haven and the Haven support card ‘Messengers’ of Manwe’ and Havens are still performing well even though I have now removed the -1 Cost. I’m happier that these are a bit more balanced.

I also started ramping up the difficulty if I do win a quest and thus played 1 game here without the starting Boons. I think this is a fairly easy quest though so even without the Boons I still won this one.

I must say though that I’m getting far too reliant on ‘Riversong! It will be a real loss when I lose him from the deck (which I will force myself to do when we go underground or go down to Gondor...).

Now as for my trip, that ground looks a little marshy and there’s a nasty smell too...

“The Road Goes Ever on...”

Preparing for a trudge through ‘The Dead Marshes’

Another week, another adventure pack, more player cards to add to the growing pool and I think the cards this week are amongst the strongest collection so far. The Hero in this one is an absolute star – Boromir! With an Action to ready him and an Action to deal loads of damage to engaged enemies, I think he could be really fun to play with lots of options and a good set of stats to boot.

Other new cards in the set are also strong. ‘Fast Hitch’ is great for hobbits, it’s nice to see more Silvan allies (even if ‘Silvan Tracker’ is a bit expensive), ‘Dunedain Watcher’ has great Shadow cancellation for Leadership, ‘Vassal of the Windlord’ is good for cheap ‘hit n’ run’ damage’, and we have 2 Songs too!

Since I tweaked a few cards last week, this week I won’t touch any for a Solo tweak.

My new Haven is a bit of a return to a previously visited location – even though it wasn’t a Haven as such when I rescued Wilyador the giant eagle a few weeks ago- Rhosgobel:

I don’t go through the encounter deck before I play a quest so I’m not sure quite what to expect. I’ll keep my usual heroes and Boons and perhaps add some more eagles with ‘Vassal of the Windlord’ as it’s so cheap.

“The Road Goes Ever on...”

The Dead Marshes’

This was another enjoyable quest with some very atmospheric Locations and treacheries – loads of fog, mist, gloom and tricksy lights. Gollum is a slippery little devil isn’t he? I really liked the Escape test mechanic even though those resource tokens mounted up on Gollum really quickly!

This quest is all about speed and questing (!) and the more Willpower you have, the quicker you get through it and the less resource tokens get put on Gollum. Spirit decks would make short work of this and the more allies you get out the better chance you have of clearing the staging area and handling the relentless escape tests. My tri-sphere deck worked well even though on the first 2 attempts I had no access to Spirit cards. I did manage to get a fair few allies on the table however including Gandalf. On my first attempt there were 6 resource tokens on Gollum when the final Escape attempt came and I was really lucky to have only 1 card with an Escape value in the 6 drawn.

Your threat can rise very quickly in this quest too and on my second attempt a hill troll lumbered out of the fog to engage me. Luckily a Feint managed to slow him down for a round before I snagged him with a Forest Snare.

My first 2 attempts were both successful, albeit with some luck and close-calls, so I tried a third time with no starting Boons. This time I was still successful, although it was a close-call with a very lucky final Escape Test with 7 cards from the encounter Deck. On my last attempt of the quest, I added all the removed Encounter cards from the Adventure Pack and with all the extra Encounter cards with ‘Escape’ on them, Gollum soon vanished into the marshes and I couldn’t find him again before my threat went over 50!

Although I used ‘Eagle eyrie’ and ‘Messengers of Manwe’, the Haven didn’t see much use in this quest, although I have to say ‘Vassals of the Windlord’ is such a great card!

I’m coming close to the end of the first cycle and my road is turning back to Mirkwood...

“The Road Goes Ever On...”

Preparing to ‘Return to Mirkwood’

I can’t believe that I’ve nearly come to the end of the ‘Shadows of Mirkwood’ cycle already! The new Hero introduced in this pack is the first Dwarf since the Core Set (could be handy soon...) and is ‘Dain Ironfoot’. Dain is a stellar Hero for dwarf decks and will no doubt see a lot of play of my games in the next few weeks.

The other new cards in this pack are fairly consistent, if not top notch. The Leadership cards are a bit weak, Spirit cards adds more Rohan flavour which I quite like and the Tactics cards are more Eagle-goodness, and I’m very fond of ‘Eagles of the Misty Mountains’. My favourites are the Lore cards though with ‘Rumour from the Earth’ being fantastic solo and it’s always nice to see another Silvan ally with ‘Mirkwood Runner’. The Neutral card ‘Shadows From the Past’ is an odd one though and very expensive at 2 Cost for a very situational card.

Once again, I’m pleased to say that the player cards in this pack don’t need any Solo tweak.

My new card this week is a Haven Support card for Rhosgobel:

Since I’m going back into Mirkwood, I’m keeping the theme by saying goodbye to my Eagle cards as they really shouldn’t be in there. I have also returned to use the original Core Haven of ‘Thranduil’s Halls’ together with the support card ‘Defenders of the Woodland Realm’. I’ve added some more Silvan allies too and chosen to use the Boons of Hidden (Legolas), Go Ever On (Aragorn) and Inspiration (Beravor)

“The Road Goes Ever On...”

‘Return to Mirkwood’

I found this quest really enjoyable, if a bit ‘bipolar’. It seemed that there were loads of mechanics and cards that punished the solo player, most importantly as you have to guard Gollum every turn! This means a massive threat increase of 4 each turn (!) so including my ‘Hidden’ Boon was a good idea, plus always using Gandalf for threat reduction. Other cards included the Locations ‘Woodman’s Glade’ and ‘Wood Elf Path’ – both which help multi-player but do nothing for the poor solo player! On the other hand, the Quest cards seemed to cut me a bit of solo slack. Like other quests, speed was of the essence so I used ‘Go Ever On’ pretty quickly!

But even so, my first attempt was successful. I was very lucky however and the encounter deck just gave me lots if easy locations and few enemies. Questing quickly, I managed to get to Thranduil’s Halls in 5 turns with no enemies in the staging area so no last battle!

My second attempt lasted exactly 4 turns. This time I had a few enemies straight off the bat that kept me busy. Then I drew ‘Gollum’s Anguish’! Dear me, what a card – a threat increase of 8! With no handy threat reduction coming from my deck and a threat increase of 4 per turn (thanks Gollum!), my threat just soared to 50! (In fact, all the nasty Gollum ‘Tantrum’ Treachery cards in this pack just scream: ‘play ‘Test of Will’ or use Elanor’)!

Third time out was similarly quick with a rocketing Threat plus a horde of 2 Mirkwood Bats and a King Spider making a nasty bite out of my party! My last attempt was successful again, although only just with a final Threat of 45, and fairly gentle Encounter deck cards. I was fortunate to get ‘Celebrian’s Stone’ in my opening hand and then a few Gandalf’s out to reduce my Threat. My ‘Thranduil’s Halls’ Haven also played really well with lots of Forest locations in the Encounter deck so with my ‘Defenders of the Woodland Realm’ I managed to spring a Silvan ally out for 2 cost (great when that ally is cost 4 Haldir).

So that wraps up my trek through Mirkwood looking for tricksy Gollum and my heroes sit back and enjoy the hospitality of Thranduil (when are we going to see him in the game FFG??). But what’s that? I hear that old Balin hasn’t sent any emails back from Moria! Time to go underground...

“The Road Goes Ever On...”

Going Underground

So one complete cycle done and it’s a very exciting time for me as I begin a brand new cycle which I remember to be rich in theme. ‘Khazad-dum’ brings a totally different feel to the game from ‘Shadows of Mirkwood’ and leafy glades and paths get changed to darkly lit mines and twisting underground passages.

In this expansion we get two new Heroes – Bifur and Dwalin. Bifur is our first Lore Dwarf Hero and is only Threat 7 which is a nice low cost. Dwalin is our first Spirit Dwarf Hero and has a terrific orc-slaying/threat reduction ability which I can only foresee being totally useful in the depths of Moria!

There are also 11 other new cards in the set, nearly all of which are dwarf-themed. I love the Tactics ‘Khazad, Khazad!’ attack bonus and the ‘Dwarrowdelf Axe’ is a fantastic new weapon! The Spirit sphere gains a great questing bonus card in underground Locations with ‘Untroubled by Darkness’ and of course the infamous ‘Zigil Miner’. Lore’s ‘Ancestral Knowledge’ is a cheap way of clearing active underground or mountain Locations and ‘Erebor Record Keeper’ is a way of readying dwarves. Leadership gains the handy ‘Narvi’s Belt’ and ‘Durin’s song’ but ‘Ever onward’ seems to be expensive and below par. ‘Boots of Erebor’ is also a cheap Neutral boost.

All the cards in this set are ‘solo friendly’ so once again, we don’t need to have any solo tweaks

I have included two new Havens and support cards for this expansion and tried to maintain the dwarf theme:

This new cycle means I have to totally change my deck to maintain the theme. So out go all the elves (no more Riversong!), rangers (goodbye to my favourite – Beravor) and lastly the Eagles (who shouldn’t be underground).

“The Road Goes Ever On...”

Preparing to go ‘Into the Pit’.

To begin this cycle I literally started from scratch with my deck. With all the Songs available to me, plus the new ‘Narvi’s Belt’ I’m going to stick with a tri-Sphere deck as I feel solo play benefits from a breadth of abilities from the different Spheres.

I decide to go for a Lore/Spirit/Leadership deck with Bifur, Dwalin and Dain as my heroes. I wrestled over not having a Tactics hero and both Gimli and Thalin had a close chance to get in for a long time, but Dain had to be an automatic include. Since using my rules I get to choose my 7th card, this could be ‘Narvi’s Belt’ and put it on Dain who could then do double duty as Tactics/Leadership resource generator. I did think that since I have only 1 Core Set, and I only have 1 copy of ‘Unexpected Courage’, I could make this my 7th card and put on Dain, but my Erebor Haven can do some readying once I get some allies there.

My deck was exclusively Dwarf themed and had a fair balance of the different Spheres. I had 12 Spirit cards that included ‘Zigil Miner’, ‘Untroubled by Darkness’ and ‘Dwarven Tomb’. My 12 Lore cards included ‘Ancestral Knowledge’, ‘Erebor Record Keeper’, ‘Erebor Hammersmith’, ‘Longbeard Map-Maker’ and ‘Miner of the Iron Hills. My 12 Tactics cards included ‘Citadel Plate’, ‘Dwarven Axe’, ‘Dwarrowdelf Axe’ and ‘Khazad! Khazad’. Then lastly my 8 Leadership cards had ‘Durin’s song’, ‘Narvi’s Belt’ and ‘Longbeard Orc Slayer’. Then 6 Neutral cards filled out the deck – 3 Gandalf of course, plus 2 ‘Wealth of the Mountain’ and a ‘Boots of Erebor’ for Bifur!

My starting Boons are going to be Wisdom, Inspiration and Healing Balm on Bifur, Dain and Dwalin respectively. I chose these as Lore dwarves have little card draw or healing available to them and some more Resources for Dain are always a good thing since he has to pay for 2 Spheres!

“The Road Goes Ever On...”

‘Into the Pit’

What a fantastic themed quest this was! So different from the Mirkwood quests and you really feel like you’re exploring the dark and twisting mines of Moria with Goblins jumping out at you at every turn. I feel the designers really did a good job and the mechanics of the massing hordes of goblins in the shadows was cool.

My first attempt ended in defeat. Although I got through the fixed Locations of ‘East Gate’, ‘First Hall’ and ‘The Bridge of Khazad-dum’ and into the second quest card, the nasty Patrol Leader Goblin plus a few of his goblin pals soon finished me off. The staging area got full of nasty Locations and quests ended unsuccessfully!

It was really strange working with a new set of Heroes and knowing how they operate together (and not having Beravor to draw more cards). It was the same with totally new deck of cards. I had to take it much slower, and really had to take my time reading the cards and thinking through my strategy which meant that the quest felt fresh and exciting. I really missed not having ‘Riversong’ to rely on at the start of the turn too!

Without changing my deck at all, my second attempt went a bit further than before but despite getting ‘Narvi’s Belt’ in my opening hand and thus opting for ‘Unexpected Courage’ for my 7th card, I still succumbed to the hordes of goblins that came at me. My draw deck wasn’t that kind however with very few allies or good bonus events forthcoming. I didn’t read the second stage of the quest right however and that didn’t help.

Third time lucky? Not really as I never even got past the East Gate this time before the staging area was over-run by nasty locations and goblins and my threat hit 50 before I knew it. The same was true for my fourth attempt although I did last a little longer but still didn’t get into the mines at all!

So one last attempt and I swapped out ‘Healing Balm’ for ‘Hidden’ for a bit of Threat reduction and this time I managed to beat the quest! It was a close call though with a final threat of 47 and with all my heroes dripping wounds from the goblin patrol attack before I finished the final nasty quest stage where you don’t generate resources– and that was with 2 last minute ‘Cave In’ cards!

Still no sign of Balin though? Perhaps he’s sent me a text...?

“The Road Goes Ever On...”

Getting to ‘The Seventh Level’.

This was the easiest preparation in the world as there were no more new cards from a new adventure pack! I think my dwarf deck from last time worked quite well but I noticed that there were no nasty Treachery cards that were ‘Condition Attachment’ type (like ‘Caught in a Web’), so I swapped out my two copies of ‘Miner of the iron Hills’ and replaced them with another ‘Erebor Record Keeper’ and a copy of ‘Ever Onward’. I think I might have underestimated this last card because the combination of goblin swarms and nasty locations can ramp up the threat quite a bit in one round. It would have been nice to have one round where I could have concentrated on just clearing out the goblins and ignored any questing.

I put another ‘Erebor Record Keeper’ as it worked so well on my Erebor Haven to ready Dain when needed. It’s very thematic imagining this little dwarf recording all the heroic exploits of his pals as they adventure through Moria, and if I can get a couple of them there then I can ready Dwalin for some good Attack strength and then Threat reduction.

Erebor was working well as a thematic Haven although I didn’t get my ‘Wealth of the Mountain’ into play last time, so I’m hoping it will appear in this quest

Apart from those tiny tweaks, my deck remained the same as did my Heroes of Dain, Dwalin and Bifur. However I swapped the Boons around with Bifur having ‘Inspiration’, Dain having ‘Wisdom’ and Dwalin with ‘Hidden’.

Now, what happened to Balin? Where’s that dead goblin?

“The Road Goes Ever On...”

‘The Seventh Level’

This quest is just a fast run through Moria where you have to quest as much as possible so that the goblins don’t have time to swarm out of the tunnels and overwhelm you. In that way, the quest was very thematic although once you’ve figured that speed is of the utmost importance, it’s fairly easy to beat.

Of course, since I don’t look at the encounter deck beforehand, I didn’t realise the first time out and even though my final Threat was really low with Dwalin’s Threat reduction when he kills an orc (handily almost all enemies in this quest are orcs), the swarming mechanic of those pesky Goblin Spearmen and Goblin Swordsmen meant that I had a huge swarm of goblins coming at me that just overwhelmed my dwarves. I also made the mistake of not exploring the ‘Goblin Tunnels’ Location that made any progress neglible!

The ‘Book of Mazrabul’ Objective card is a great help on the first stage and is a natural card for Dain so that he always stays ready in the Quest phase. Dain rarely attacks so the attack restriction is not a problem. For this quest I also put ‘Narvi’s Belt on Bifur as I realised that it was more efficient with his card ability.

For my second attempt I added another copy each of ‘Untroubled by Darkness’, ‘Ancestral Knowledge’ and ‘Durin’s Song’ to get more Willpower for questing. I also swapped the ‘Hidden’ Boon (Threat reduction isn’t needed with Dwalin here) for ’Go Ever On’, again for more questing power.

This time I was very successful and finished the quest in 5 turns! I went as fast as possible, got quite a few allies out and just went for total questing. I think I was a bit lucky with my encounter deck however.
Third time out and to make it more of a challenge I removed the Boons. Unfortunately I didn’t really get going. With a terrible hand of cards and absolutely no allies in sight at all, my 3 dwarf heroes soon got overwhelmed again by hordes of nasty goblins who stuck me with spears until the dwarves expired by round 6!

Unfortunately, my last attempt, with no Boons again, was again unsuccessful for much the same reason – not being quick enough off the bat – even if I did get onto the second quest card this time.

Overall, a fun quest but a bit hit and miss that depends on the amount of allies you can get out quickly.

But can I hear drums? Perhaps it’s best to get out of here...??

“The Road Goes Ever On...”

Preparing for a ‘Flight from Moria’.

Another really easy preparation as I didn’t change a card from my deck, kept the same heroes, the same Boons and the same Erebor Haven too!

Now I could be heading for a quick defeat, but since I don’t look at the encounter deck beforehand, I’m trying to maintain my ‘campaign’ play with the same Heroes. I did consider swapping out Dwalin and replacing him with Thalin. I could still use ‘Narvi’s Belt’ to access Spirit cards and my logic behind this was all the low hit point goblins that were coming out of the encounter deck in ’The Seventh Level’. If Thalin were questing, he would do a point of damage to them as they were coming off the deck so if you equipped him with ‘Unexpected Courage’ and then a ‘Dwarrowdelf Axe’, he could do another point of damage and kill the goblin before it drew its spear or sword. This could be useful in this scenario too but I have a feeling that Dwalin’s threat reduction might be even more important in this scenario with that nasty ‘Nameless Fear’ lurking in the shadows...

Those drums are getting louder! Time to get my running shoes on I think...

“The Road Goes Ever On...”

‘Flight from Moria’

My first thought with this quest is how unique the Quest card mechanic plays. It is completely different from the usual setup which gives a really fresh feel and it also means that the tactic this time is not just to rush through the quest cards as quickly as possible (as i first thought). Unfortunately, the random nature of the quest deck means that you can either have a breeze-through or a real toil in getting out of the Mines!

The first time out with this quest was successful although it almost wasn’t for two good reasons. As I’ve said before, I don’t read through the encounter or quest deck before I tackle it so when I started through the quest, I wasn’t at all sure of what could turn up, so when my second 2B quest card was ‘Escape from Darkness’ I thought that this was the ONLY way out. So my logic was to stay with this card and try to get the ‘Abandoned Tools’ Objective card from the encounter deck. Luckily, it didn’t take too long to come out (and also fortunately it didn’t appear as a Shadow card as that would’ve meant another trawl through the encounter deck a la Gollum escaping in ‘The Dead Marshes’). I was just chipping away with my Tools (and exhausting Bifur twice per round as I had an ‘Erebor Record Keeper’ at Erebor) when ‘New Devilry’ appeared and shuffled ‘Escape from Darkness’ back into the quest deck! I was aghast, and thought this could add another half hour to the game as I trolled through the quest deck again, but with an enormous amount of luck, it popped out again even after the shuffle (which was NOT fixed in anyway – honest!!).

My second attempt, I changed none of my cards and exchanged my ‘Go Ever On’ Boon for ‘Resolve’. I kept my Boons in case my first attempt success was just due to pure luck. I guess it was as this time I got stomped on properly! An early ‘Hasty Council’ going into the Victory Pile meant that ‘The Nameless Fear’ had a Threat of 4 from the first turn and I just never got enough Willpower on the table before the locations piled up and then the goblins swarmed out of the tunnels and engulfed me – and a ‘Foe Beyond’ killed off Dwalin too!

The third time out was a ‘worst nightmare’ scenario – even though I won! An early ‘Escape the Darkness’ quest card meant that I trod steadily through the Encounter deck waiting to get the ‘Abandoned Tools’ until, yes, you guessed, it came out as a Shadow card! Not looking forward to going through the Encounter deck again, I chose to bypass the Quest card and after a ‘Heading Up’ got ‘Blocked by Shadow’. Risking it, I didn’t get a Treachery card ‘instant lose’ but instead with my ‘Longbeard Mapmaker’ finished the quest card in 1 round!

For my final attempt at the quest, I removed my starting Boons for a bit more challenge. This was a fun and successful play-through where everything went according to plan – this time to get as many Quest cards out in the Victory Pile! However by the end, ‘The Nameless Fear’ had a Threat of 7 which was a bit (appropriately) scary. Thank goodness I didn’t draw ‘A Foe Beyond’!

So I managed to escape Khazad-dum and am looking forward to more dwarf-themed quests...

Hang on, it seems like Arwen wants an escort over the Misty Mountains? Since when do dwarves escort elves...?

“The Road Goes Ever On...”

Preparing for a trek up to ‘The Redhorn Gate’

So a new cycle begins and, rather strangely, the narrative means that we’re out of the mines again! This new Adventure pack and cycle also introduces the new ‘Secrecy’ mechanic which is a cool rules addition.

Our new hero for this pack is Elrohir. He’s a bit high cost until (Spoilers!) his twin brother enters in the next pack but it’s always nice to have another Noldor hero. Other new player cards include ‘Good Meal’ for any hobbits and lots of cards that play off the Secrecy mechanic like the useful ’Needful to Know’, ‘Timely Aid’ and ‘Taking Initiative’. The new ‘Bofur’ ally is very useful and ‘Keeping Count’ is incredibly thematic.

My new Haven card for this Adventure pack is the most famous Haven of all – and thematic too:

We haven’t needed any solo tweaks on player cards for ages, but there’s one in this pack, which now reads:

Renewed Friendship - Response: After you play an Item or Title attachment on a hero you control, you may ready 1 of your heroes, draw 1 card, or lower your threat by 2.

Caradhras calls and it’s getting chilly. Come on Arwen, get your snow-boots on...

“The Road Goes Ever On...”

‘The Redhorn Gate’

For this quest I decided to initially try the secrecy mechanic and fuse that to putting a Hero at a Haven – and keep some theme to the quest too! To this end, I played a mainly Leadership deck with Aragorn and Elrohir and then put Glorfindel in Rivendell. My starting Boons were ‘Hidden’, ‘Go Ever On’ (on Aragorn) and ‘Inspiration’.

My first and second attempts both didn’t get very far before lots of enemies with high Defence swarmed over me. Even though I put Glorfindel in Rivendell, the amount of questing needed with Carhadras in the staging area is so high each round that Secrecy just didn’t work as I didn’t have enough allies out either. I also found out that ‘Taking Initiative’ is a rubbish card so swapped it out for ‘Lore of Imladris’.

Third time out and what an epic game! The first encounter card was ‘Bitter Wind’ which got rid of all my resources in one stroke and I thought I was doomed from the start! But I struggled on and made some headway, getting onto the second quest card where ‘Freezing Cold’ got attached to Elrohir. Then when we got to the third quest stage the ‘Freezing Cold’ killed him off! Again I thought I was doomed (especially when a close escape from ‘Falling Stones’ almost killed Aragorn) but a quick appearance by Gandalf managed to save my skin and just in time, with 4 damage on him, Aragorn got Arwen over the mountains!

I had once last attempt at the quest and kept my starting Boons. I did really well all the way through and got to quest card 3, cleared out Carhadras and got 7 progress tokens on the quest card before a nasty Mountain Warg got lucky and killed Aragorn! Too many locations in the staging area just made it impossible to go further...

I thought this was a very enjoyable and thematic quest that starved you of resources (which I likened to warmth or provisions) and which really played up the treacherous weather and freezing cold in a dangerous trek across the mountains. The enemies and locations helped the theme too.

But my road to Rivendell is in sight...

“The Road Goes Ever On...”

Preparing to go along ‘The Road to Rivendell’

Another new exciting quest this week and one that I remember has some really nasty Treachery cards...

The new hero for this pack is Elladan, brother of Elrohir, and what a combo the two brothers make! With both in play, their Threat cost is much better value and if they’re escorting their sister then those resources flow! Other new cards from this pack include the excellent ‘Rivendell Blade’ and ‘Lure of Moria’, the useful ‘Out of the Wild’ and ‘Hail of Stones’ together with the fairly useless ‘Bombur’ and very expensive ‘Dunedain Wanderer’.

But with the Spirit cards there is not one, but two solo tweaks from this set:

Rider of the Mark - Action: Spend 1 Spirit resource to discard a shadow card dealt to an enemy you are engaged with. (Limit once per round).

Song of Earendil - Attach to a Spirit hero. Response: After Song of Eärendil enters play, draw 1 card. Response: After you raise your threat, discard Song of Earendil to reduce your threat by the same amount.

My Rivendell support card for this pack is:

My Heroes for this quest are going to be the twins Elladan and Elrohir plus Aragorn – so no Secrecy for me this game - with Rivendell as my Haven, my starting threat is 35!

“The Road Goes Ever On...”