‘I will follow the Orcs,’ he said at last. ‘I would have guided Frodo to Mordor and gone with him to the end; but if I seek him now in the wilderness, I must abandon the captives to torment and death. My heart speaks clearly at last: the fate of the Bearer is in my hands no longer. The Company has played its part. Yet we that remain cannot forsake our companions while we have strength left. Come! We will go now. Leave all that can be spared behind! We will press on by day and dark!’

Time for the next instalment of my Nightmare Campaign! I have finished all the quests that represent The Fellowship of the Ring and I am now moving on to the first quest from The Two Towers; The Uruk Hai!

This quest takes its name directly from the third chapter of The Two Towers, and it features an epic chase across Rohan as The Three Hunters attempt to rescue Merry and Pippin from the Orcs that have taken them captive. Now in the actual books The Three Hunters do not actually rescue Merry and Pippin and are even led to believe that they may have perished during the Rohirrim’s attack against the group of Orcs that held them captive. Merry and Pippin through their own capability and determination manage to elude the Orcs during the same attack as they escape into Fangorn.

This would be extremely difficult to convey in the game and so instead you actually do end up rescuing the captive heroes when playing this quest allowing you to include them in your fellowship as active heroes once again.

Now as far as the captured heroes are concerned I ultimately decided to allow Legolas and Galadriel to fill this role. I almost chose Arwen instead as with Nenya attached Galadriel can provide more willpower off the bat but this requires Nenya to be played first turn. On top of this I would lose Arwen’s resource acceleration ability which I think will actually be far more beneficial than Galadriel’s card draw and threat reduction.

Now that the captured heroes have been chosen, a few other tough choices must be made. First off Tactigorn is sadly removed from the combat deck as Fellowship Aragorn takes over as the one true Aragorn!! Fellowship Aragorn (the specific one used in this Saga box that is) has a great ability where he can ready any hero by paying two resources. This is fantastic but considering I have so much readying in the decks already I would sort of prefer to still have the -1 defence to all engaged enemies instead. There is no choice in the matter unfortunately and Tactigorn is removed from the deck. One upside is that I get to replace him without incurring any threat penalty for changing heroes.

Now as far as deciding who would be stepping in as the new hero this ended up being quite a hard choice that I spent a fair bit of deliberation on. Ultimately though one hero well and truly stood out as the optimal replacement and new addition to the combat deck. Surprisingly this was a hero that I had never used before yet is extremely popular in the community. Tactics Boss Killer Eowyn joins the fellowship! This is also fairly thematic considering this part of the journey takes place in Rohan, I like to imagine that a Rohan scouting party (with disguised Eowyn in tow) meets up with the Three Hunters and decide to join them in their pursuit of the Uruks. Not Eomer’s group but another smaller group that Eowyn has joined or maybe even convinced to set out with her. Perhaps she is troubled by the poisoned counsel of Grima Wormtongue and hopes to find someone with the power to help combat his treachery or perhaps she simply seeks to flee Edoras thinking there is nothing she can do to help her King and Uncle who has been driven seemingly insane or at the least deluded and complacent.

So essentially due to the fact that Tactigorn is usually predominantly used as a quester and is often readied by Gimli to also participate in combat I needed a hero that could fill his previous role of both questing and helping with combat at times. Eowyn provides a ton more willpower out of the gate and in future quests when I have three heroes on either side of the board again she helps me power quest from the very start of any game. If Nenya sees play first turn Eowyn, Galadriel, Elrond (with Noble Hero) and Arwen can quest for a staggering 15 on their own! 17 if Fellowship Frodo/Aragorn are also contributing! Her amazing “boss killer” ability somewhat replaces Aragorn’s offensive role. She can only use the ability once per game but due to the fact that you can trigger it after exhausting her as an attacker you can get in two 10 attack strength attacks in the single turn! This will decimate all but the absolute hardiest of enemies or bosses. I am also going to include a single copy of Herugrim in the questing deck so that she can consistently attack for 5 once she receives it in any game. This is quite potent indeed and may even outshine Tactigorn’s potential offensive capability! Granted I am only including a single copy so it will probably not see play fairly often, that being said there is a ton of card draw and deck manipulation in the questing deck so it may appear more often than I am expecting! It is actually a better late game play anyway as that is usually when showdowns with boss enemies occur or when you start to see more enemies at once attempting to swarm you.

With Eowyn joining the party right as I arrive in Rohan I suddenly realised that this is easily the most thematic play through I have had of the Saga Campaign thus far!!

Granted my hero line-up deviates strongly from the actual Fellowship but I have had a few really cool moments that have been very thematic and exciting and have not occurred in previous Campaigns I have played.

First off Boromir ally defended a key attack that would have otherwise destroyed a hero and fell in battle when playing Breaking of the Fellowship! Secondly Cirdan valiantly sacrificed himself to give the rest of the party an escape from the Balrog and the deep dark of Moria, sure it wasn’t Gandalf but it was the wielder of Narya as far as my campaign is concerned which is really neat! I like to think that not only is Cirdan one of the few other individuals in Middle Earth who may have stood a chance against a Balrog but also that him possessing Narya is a key reason he was able to stand against the Balrog in Gandalf’s place for my campaign. Now Thirdly Eowyn joins the fellowship at the most appropriate point in the campaign! I am really hoping to see several more of these moments as I continue onwards.

Due to such recent changes to my decks requiring me to publish a new updated Fellowship so quickly after the first I will not be publishing yet another, at least not just yet or without further more substantial changes occurring first. Essentially the decks being used are still identical to the following except Tactigorn is no longer around and is replaced by Tactics Eowyn and single copy of Herugrim is now included in the questing deck:

http://ringsdb.com/fellowship/view/4924



Lets move onto the actual quest now that I have outlined my choices as far as captive heroes and line up changes are concerned. I have actually always had a bit of trouble with this quest that to many others is probably quite tame compared to many other Saga quests. This is because both of my decks definitely lean more towards the slow but gradual build up style of play as opposed to a faster more aggressive playstyle. I like to think (whether I am correct or not is a different story!) that my decks are close in level to what most in the community would consider “power decks”. Even still quests that really require a big burst of willpower out the gate can often stump my decks as they can certainly generate a ton of willpower but it takes a little while for them to be able to do so and they focus more on slowly building multiple areas of the board state instead (combat, card draw, healing, readying etc). This was another reason that Eowyn joining my fellowship seemed like such a great choice at this point in the campaign, her 4 willpower certainly gives a big jolt to how much willpower the decks can generate early game. Further reasons why this quest in particular is especially bad for my decks and style of play is that ‘captive heroes” are a massive blow. Heroes included in my decks and entire fellowship really all serve very specific defined roles and are recipients of specific attachments so the loss of any heroes means that certain attachments or even events lose a ton of power or usefulness. Hands Upon the Bow is a great example especially with Legolas as one of the captive heroes! Yes you can still use it with a Marksman of Lorien but you need to draw one and then have one in play first and with only one tactics hero this is not easy at all.

My plan going in to this quest is to move as fast as possible whilst obviously also trying to keep as much control over combat and locations as I can. Rather than my usual slow approach to questing, not wanting to advance between quest stages until I have begun to set up my various combos and attachment combinations, I will be trying to get to Stage 2 as fast as I possibly can. Any time I can afford to not raise the pursuit value and choose another effect instead (when you are given the choice between the two that is) I am going to do so and only in the most dire situation or when it will seriously impede my ability to progress will I raise the pursuit value instead. At the same time I do need to remember that on Stage 2 you don’t have to raise the pursuit value each round for enemies in staging and even get to reduce the pursuit value whenever you dispatch a foe so in reality I may sometimes need to seriously consider my options. As much as I will need to focus on questing and making progress moreso than combat keeping the staging area clear of enemies while on Stage 1 (except Ugluk who cannot leave the staging area until Stage 2) helps to keep the pursuit value lower giving me more time to actually keep playing before I potentially lose. Finally I also plan to continue playing this quest until I earn the incredibly beneficial boons that you can gain in this quest so a win without earning the boons is not an actual win. As always in my Nightmare Campaign no hero deaths will be tolerated and any hero death leads to an immediate concede and restart of the quest.

Now as far as my actual attempts things began to look grim very quickly after my first few games and subsequent losses. I just wasn’t able to get enough willpower and characters out in play to make much progress at all or even clear the active location at times, the extra overall threat level in the staging area due to the Nightmare upgrade as well as nasty new effects was quickly showing me that this Nightmare Saga quest was not going to be an easy one. The pursuit value would climb and I would struggle with locations and enemies alike. Without as much resources as usual due to captive heroes and the loss of Galadriel’s willpower and card draw and Legolas providing extra progress through his ability the decks just were not functioning as they should and I was floundering badly. Legolas’s Ranged keyword was also sorely missed and enemies that became engaged with the questing deck were very hard to kill. On my second attempt I was actually pretty damn close to reaching stage 2, the pursuit value hit 30 with 25 progress on Stage 1 and The Uruk’s Trail as the active location. I had finally been able to generate enough willpower to combat the ton of threat in the staging area and clearing The Uruk’s Trail would have reduced the pursuit value (which was at 28 at the time) and allowed me at least a few turns at Stage 2 with the possibility of victory. Then Rest by Night? appeared… with enough damage on heroes that would mean choosing the second option would lead to multiple hero deaths and an immediate loss/concede I was forced to end the quest phase and raise the pursuit value by 3 instead. Stuck on Stage 1B just a few progress short of advancing to Stage 2 I lost during the refresh phase with the pursuit value at 33.

Now that I knew how tricky this quest would be for my decks, especially with captive heroes, my third and fourth games led to me conceding during staging on turn 1 or conceding after a mulligan at the start of the game due to sub par hands and/or staging reveals from the encounter deck. On my fifth and final attempt however things went very differently and my decks performed exactly how they needed to in a way that was very out of character for them against a type of quest that certainly messes with their usual strategies and overall playstyle.

I played Vilya on the first planning phase and played Glorfindel ally blind off the top of my deck using Elrond and Vilya! This was an enormous first turn boost giving me 3 extra willpower and a useful ally right off the bat. During the first round of staging I got lucky and revealed two treacheries, Ugluk’s Command and Rest by Night? Gimli defended against Ugluk taking 2 damage in the process and I placed one damage on all questing characters rather than ending the quest phase immediately without placing progress to resolve Rest by Night. Yes this resulted in plenty of damage across the board but there was no extra threat in staging or enemies/locations to deal with! This was a tremendous boost and allowed me to clear Eastemnet and place 6 progress on Stage 1A (Arwen, Glorfindel, Aragorn and Eowyn alone is 12 willpower!). The following turn thanks to an Imladris Stargazer I was able to play Galdor with Vilya further boosting my total willpower. I also played a Galadrim Healer to heal Gimli and Eowyn. Now I forget the exact amount of progress placed during the second round but I know I definitely revealed an Isengard Uruk (I cancelled the when revealed effect with Test of Will as no more healing had been scouted with the Stargazer so far) and a copy of Plains of Rohan. I optionally engaged the Uruk with the questing deck (Galdor took the Archery damage) so that Gimli could defend with Sentinel and I could then destroy it with Aragorn (who was under the questing decks control at that point) and Glorfindel (readying Glorfindel by discarding Elven Light). On turn 3 with only 4 threat in the staging area I made a huge questing push and was able to blast through Stage 1 and progress nice and early to Stage 2! Now having not been able to do this at all on previous attempts this was quite exciting and I immediately knew that I had a very real chance of winning this quest nice and early and with a fair amount of ease due to great/lucky early round plays and lucky encounter reveals.

Now on the third round although I was able to progress to Stage 2 I became swamped by enemies immediately. Before advancing and during staging on the third round I first revealed another copy of Ugluk’s Command exhausting Gimli (but readying him thanks to Armored Destrier) to defend against Ugluk. I then revealed a copy of Orc of the White Hand. By then advancing to Stage 2 I was forced to add Mauhur to the staging area as well as two Uruk enemies from the encounter deck. After some deliberation I added two more Orcs of the White Hand to the staging area to avoid any when revealed effects or archery damage. I then had one intensely close round of combat having to use every possible readying effect in play to only just manage to safely defend against all foes in play. First up I pay four resources from Aragorn’s resource pool to ready both himself and Elrond then I deal Mauhur’s archery damage to Derndingle and Galdor (1 damage each). I then had to defend against Ugluk with Aragorn who already had a point of damage from an earlier treachery (Rest by Night?), he took 3 damage thanks to no shadow boost, had Ugluk’s attack been boosted by a single point I would have lost the game instantly from Aragorn falling in battle! Risky business indeed but it could not be helped as Gimli couldn’t safely defend this attack as he had 3 damage on him already from a boosted attack by Ugluk from the staging area (Ugluk’s Command) and my copy of Derndingle Warrior was already exhausted. Gimli then defends one Orc of the White Hand taking no damage from this and I pay one resource from his pool to ready Eowyn with his ability. Eowyn then defends the second Orc of the White Hand engaged with the combat deck and takes 2 damage thanks to once again no shadow boost, had the attack been boosted by a single point Eowyn would have fallen in battle like Aragorn almost did. On the other side of the board Elrond safely defends against Mauhur taking 2 damage in the process and Glorfindel readies (I forget what I discarded at this point to do so..) to defend the final Orc of the White Hand taking 2 damage in the process. I then use Eowyn’s ability to ready her, raise the combat decks threat by 3, and boost her attack by +9. Her 10 attack strength is EXACTLY enough to take out Ugluk in one hit and destroy him outright. Just for reference he has 1 point of armour and toughness 3 with 6 hitpoints, he absorbs 4 attack strength with his point of armour and toughness 3 and takes exactly 6 damage.

On the fourth and final round I managed to get Gandalf, Naith Guide and Orophin in play at once and quested for as much as I could with every character in play except Imladris Stargazer, Derndingle Warrior and Elrond contributing (Elrond used Vilya to get Orophin in play and Gimli committed to the quest without exhausting thanks to Naith Guide). I quest with a total of 29 willpower which is pretty decent for the fourth turn and manage to place 23 progress after staging during which a copy of Snaga is revealed (who gets +4 threat after discarding Haldir from the questing decks hand) and then a copy of Saruman’s Orders is revealed which was promptly cancelled by a copy of Test of Will. With enough progress to achieve victory as the Pursuit value is only 15 and Ugluk is already defeated I immediately win!

Every hero in play had damage on them and two were only 1 damage away from death! It was certainly both one of the fastest and closest games I have played in a long time and it was quite exciting indeed. I am not used to such quick games given the way my decks usually play and my tendency to stall on quest stages until I am confident that I am well and truly ready to move forward and take on whatever could appear or happen. Ultimately that is simply what this quest requires with its Pursuit value mechanic that forces you to win before it hits a critical number, especially when there are also so many ways for that number to jump up several points at once. I am fairly proud that I did not have to change anything in the decks to overcome this hurdle even if I did get fairly lucky in my eventual win. I may not have encountered much threat in the staging area early game but I certainly handled combat well and also managed to quickly generate the ton of willpower necessary to get through Stage 1 as fast as possible.

This was my final board state upon achieving victory:

BREAKDOWN OF NIGHTMARE CARDS

Now that I’ve gone over my overall experience and victory here is a break down of each individual Nightmare card. First and foremost we have the front side of the setup card. I’m not entirely sure why the “Each Captive is immune to player card effects” text is included as I thought that was more or less already the case but if that helps with certain rulings or situations and makes that fact clearer that is only a good thing. The only other thing the Nightmare setup card highlights is the fact that Mauhur is set aside until you advance to Stage 2A at which point he is added to the staging area. Nothing too complex here but at least there is something as opposed to the last quest which simply read “You are playing Nightmare mode” with no additional text!

Next up we have the backside of the setup card which as always tells you which normal cards to remove when playing the Nightmare version of this quest. The Uruk Hai fighters and single copy of Snaga that are removed are more or less replaced with the four copies of the new Orc of the White Hand. This is interesting as the Uruk Hai Fighters actually have an additional point of defense so are a little bit tougher. The Orcs of the White Hand have the exact same stats as the Fighter otherwise but they do increase the pursuit value when they kill a character instead of returning to the staging area like the fighter. A subtle difference but one that means you have to move even faster in the Nightmare version of the quest and/or need to avoid chump blocking whenever possible. We then see almost every location in this quest that has a beneficial effect removed with the single exception of the one copy of Eastemnet that begins the game as the active location. I found that this certainly made the quest a fair bit tougher as these locations generally give you that little boost that you need playing with only two heroes in each deck (and Fellowship Aragorn as well but he doesn’t help much with resources). Lastly the two copies of Unseen Barrier are removed, while this treachery is actually pretty awful others like Strange Weariness and Rest by Night? can be far worse. Even still it is actually nice to see this particular treachery removed in the Nightmare version and is even a somewhat strange decision and change in my opinion. Overall the changes make sense and even if a few are not really that bad the removal of all locations with beneficial effects is certainly a heavy blow on its own.

Now I am actually going to talk about a few cards that are not even Nightmare cards but are very important cards in this quest that deserve a quick mention before I move on. The cards I am including are ones that certainly contributed strongly to my multiple losses and that are just as bad as many of the Nightmare cards themselves! First off is Strange Weariness, one of my losses was more or less directly because of this card, right when I thought I would be able to finally place a ton of progress and start to get somewhere a copy of this treachery appeared cutting my progress and total willpower drastically and putting me even further behind where I needed to be as far as how high the Pursuit value was vs my board state and amount of progress on Stage 1B. A more or less must cancel unless you can somehow afford to progress slowly or take a big hit to your total willpower when it appears, even the shadow effect is awful especially in the Nightmare version when it could be providing a unique Orc like Ugluk or Mauhur with an additional attack!

Rest By Night? is another truly awful encounter card. It unlike others in this quest cannot be cancelled so is truly a horrid card to see the majority of times it appears. When it appears you either have to end the quest phase immediately AND increase the pursuit value by 3 (both of which are truly terrible effects) OR you must deal 1 damage to each character committed to the quest. Ally swarm decks can get decimated by this treachery and considering my questing deck attempts to build an army of questers some of which only have 1 hitpoint this card can be devastating for my decks. Now there is an interesting flip side to this card however, early game if this treachery appears you may very well be able to take that damage somewhat safely and be able to not only avoid it actually destroying any characters but also having to end the quest phase and raise the pursuit value instead. By doing so you also avoid any additional threat in the staging area or any locations or enemies that you then need to deal with. So long as you even have healing to mitigate some of that damage this can actually be a really tame encounter card to reveal during one of the first few staging rounds of the game. This is exactly what happened to me on the first turn of my eventual victory as I have gone over above. This treachery and the new Ugluk’s Command Nightmare Treachery both appeared on the first turn keeping the total threat in staging at the 3 points it starts off with thanks to Ugluk. So essentially to sum up this Treachery can be a game ender or huge contributor to an unexpected or devastating loss but it can also on occasion be really handy and may help you in certain situations or with certain types of deck to actually make some decent progress when playing this quest.

Ugluk’s Uruk-Hai…. is such a horrible enemy indeed. Four attack is certainly a little higher than the 3 that most non-unique Orcs have in this quest and two threat isn’t that bad but the when revealed effect is just awful. Either increase the pursuit value by 3 (which is way more than you want any one effect increasing it by) or reveal another encounter card in a quest where you need to move fast and reveal as few cards as possible each round. On top of that five hitpoints with 2 defense and Toughness 1 means that they aren’t very easy to kill and Archery 1 means that if you leave them in play they keep contributing direct damage even if it is only 1 point of it each combat phase. There is also the fact that they have the Peril keyword so the when revealed effect cannot even be cancelled by Test of Will if the combat deck reveals them during staging. ! As I’m sure you can tell by now I really hate this enemy… as you would expect all copies of this foe remain in the Nightmare version and during more than one game these enemies were a main factor in either a loss or conceded game.

Now Grishnakh didn’t actually impede me all that much during my games but I think it is definitely necessary to include him in an article about this quest. His mechanic is a really cool one and represents his attempt to kill the captive hobbits in the actual story. Grishnakh is the only unique Orc that represents the group of Mordor Orcs that get involved with the captive hobbits. This group actually want to deliver the hobbits to a nearby waiting Nazgul instead of to Saruman. Ugluk shuts this down by beheading one of Grishnakh’s followers during an attempted apprehension of Merry and Pippin by the Mordor Orcs. Later when the Rohirrim attack Grisknakh instead tries to simply kill the hobbits to avoid them escaping or being saved. I really like that he doesn’t have the Uruk trait (why would he after all as he is not one!) or the signature Toughness keyword Saruman’s Uruks have. He does have a much higher defense value than most foes in this quest though even if he also has a fairly low 3 attack strength (low for a unique enemy especially). You have to kill Grishnakh as quickly as you can if he does see play as he can kill captive heroes if he is not dispatched fast enough. This adds them to the list of fallen heroes if they die so is really an instant loss and restart for me! He saw play in two of the games I played, in one of which Eowyn was able to destroy both him, before he was able to do more than one point of damage to captive Legolas, and another Orc in the one combat phase using her +9 buff which was a great play but I then later lost that game so this didn’t matter much in the end. In the other he appeared during staging on the first round and was part of a horrendous start (his 4 threat was worse than anything else about him at this point) that I then scooped anyway.

Alright now lets move on to the actual new Nightmare cards included in this quest. First and foremost we have Mauhur who joins Ugluk as another unique enemy that cannot be avoided when playing this quest. As soon as you hit Stage 2A Mauhur is added to the staging area. His twenty-four engagement level means he is going to engage the majority of decks very quickly and begin his assault. Not just content with attacking you with his 5 attack strength he also provides Archery 2 and raises the pursuit value by 1 each time he attacks. Essentially Mauhur is an Orc you want to kill very quickly if you aren’t going to be sprinting to the finish on Stage 2. In the story he is the leader of a different group of Saruman’s Orcs that were sent to reinforce Ugluk’s group. I love his inclusion in this quest as it makes perfect sense that he appear later on at Stage 2 in an attempt to reinforce and help Ugluk and his group of Uruks. Even his art depicts him sneaking through the forest to catch up to and reinforce Ugluk’s group. During my winning game I left Mauhur in the dust and only allowed him a single attack. As this was the only time that I reached Stage 2 it was my only experience with him and I never had to really face him properly.

Lugdush is another unique Orc included in the Nightmare version of this quest. Unlike Ugluk and Mauhur however and like Grishnakh he does not always see play and only appears in a game if he is revealed during staging as an encounter card. In the story Lugdush was part of Ugluks group and was commanded by Ugluk to set a guard around the hobbits and not kill them unless the Rohirrim get through when the Rohirrim attacked their group on the edge of Fangorn. Weirdly I did not see him appear once but he did appear as a shadow card a few times in my various games, luckily he never appeared as a shadow card for a unique enemy and I was thankful as he actually has the potential to have blocked Eowyn from killing Ugluk in my winning game if he had been the shadow card Ugluk was dealt! He can similarly stop you from attacking and killing Mauhur quickly allowing him to further increase your pursuit value the next time he attacks or can stop you from killing Grishnakh quickly allowing him to further damage or potentially kill a captured hero! If Lugdush sees play as an actual enemy he is certainly quite hard to kill with 5 hitpoints, 2 armor and Toughness 2 and he hits fairly hard with 4 attack, the worst thing about him is clearly his ability though as he stops any other enemies from taking damage while he is engaged with a player. Just like his shadow card effect he can protect other unique Orcs from taking damage! He is a very interesting new foe and it is somewhat of a shame that I did not ever have to take him on.

The only new Enemy that is not unique the Orc of the White Hand is an interesting one. I have already more or less gone over my thoughts on this enemy above so I don’t have too much to add. I saw this enemy a lot throughout my games and they are certainly not weak or welcome foes thanks to their annoying Toughness 2, decent 3 attack and awful 3 threat but because they are really not that different from the enemies they replace in the normal version of this quest they don’t really ramp up the difficulty that much other than providing additional ways for the pursuit value to increase. Now because I don’t really chump block with either deck this ability never triggered and their toughness value and 3 threat were the worst aspects of this enemy during my experiences with this quest.

The Uruk’s Trail is the first of the new Nightmare locations and is what you could possibly consider somewhat of a replacement to all those locations with beneficial effects for players that are removed in the Nightmare version of this quest. By exploring The Uruk’s Trail while it is the active location you can reduce the pursuit value by 3 which is actually really handy. You do have to search the encounter deck and discard for an Uruk enemy and add it to the staging area but it isn’t each player, only one enemy, and you can choose the enemy as well. This is actually a fairly decent trade so long as you can handle that foe. Six progress points is a lot however so trying to clear this location can really slow down your progress if you can’t clear it quickly and with ease. I very nearly used The Uruk’s Trail during one game to reduce my pursuit value at a critical moment but Rest by Night? appearing cost me the game and I was not able to clear and utilize the effect from The Uruk’s Trail in the end. This was the only time I saw this location appear and in my few other games it did not see play.

Enchanted Land is the next new Nightmare location and one I am certainly familiar with! I saw multiple copies of this location in most of my games and it increased the pursuit value by 1 on a few occasions when I simply had to reveal some nasty treacheries. Three threat in of itself is not very nice either and neither is the fact that this location still provides its effect once you have travelled to it and removed it from the staging area, only once you explore it do you remove the effect from play. Something I noticed when playing this quest pretty early on during my first attempt was that almost every location in this quest now has at least 3 threat whereas many of the locations that have been removed only have 2 threat. One extra point may not sound like much but when so many locations with 2 have been removed and so many with 3 or more have been added it really adds up and makes a difference. The art on this location is absolutely stunning and is probably my favourite new piece in this Nightmare quest.

Speaking of high threat!! Five threat is horrible for this quest and will certainly impede you from quickly making progress and getting closer to capturing the captive heroes. Somehow I never saw this location see play and only had it discard a Dagger of Westernesse from Eowyn as a shadow card during my last and victorious game. I am lucky I did not have to deal with this location as it is really nasty and potentially the worst of the new locations with its high threat, high amount of progress needed to clear it and ability that is really not as beneficial as it might seem considering how quickly pursuit has the potential to spiral out of control in this quest.

Ugluks Command my old friend! A key reason I was able to beat this quest so quickly. Much like Rest by Night? this treachery has the potential to actually really help you out if it appears at certain moments. So long as you have the ability to take an attack from Ugluk without much risk or effort (remember must be a hero due to Ugluks text!) being able to defend this attack means that you don’t have to add any threat to staging or contend with an enemy or location. This can allow you to place quick progress and get closer to beating the quest. The flip side of this is that Ugluk does hit hard and can only be defended by heroes so if you don’t plan for this card or have multiple heroes that can defend and/or ready in play it could mess with your planning and lead to hero deaths during the combat phase when you no longer have enough defenders left. Gimli with Sentinel and readying through Armored Destrier was a perfect candidate to deal with and defend against these attacks with ease although without any healing it did stop him from being a reliable defender later on after the second copy appeared due to all the damage on him. Increasing the pursuit value by 4 is crazy and is certainly not worth choosing unless you really cannot deal with the attack, if you are choosing that option you are either on your way to a loss anyway or playing a deck that can’t handle combat but hopes to instead power quest through within a few turns anyway.

Orc-Draught is the second treachery and final new Nightmare card. Orc-Draught is a nasty card, all it really does is force the player who revealed it to either discard an ally they control or increase the pursuit value by 1 and then it surges into another card. Now as much as I mentioned above while discussing my strategy for this quest that you want to avoid allowing effects to raise the pursuit value whenever possible, discarding a helpful or even possibly vital ally is not worth avoiding the pursuit value being increased by a single point. I don’t think I ever discarded an ally to this treachery and I always took the increase to the pursuit value instead. I could certainly see cases where discarding an ally might be a somewhat easy cost like in decks that can recur cards from discard piles easily or in decks that want to see allies leave play for various effects anyway. As well as this if the pursuit value is approaching 30 (or 25 for the boons!) and you are close to finishing and beating the quest it might also be worthwhile discarding an ally to keep the pursuit value as low as possible. Other than these sort of strategies or situations however I certainly think it is worthwhile avoiding discarding an ally to this treachery whenever possible as you need your allies to quickly progress through this quest and avoid losing due to the pursuit value getting too high from other effects!

Conclusion:

The Nightmare version of this quest may not seem like it adds or changes all that much at first but I found that this was not the case at all. I have enough trouble with this quest normally due to the captive heroes and necessity to progress quite quickly so the Nightmare version was a fair bit of a challenge. To be completely honest I am not the biggest fan of this quest as I don’t really enjoy the captive hero mechanic and the need to move fast. Having one of your three hand-picked heroes (2 of your 6 in two handed play!) unavailable for the entirety of a quest massively neuters your decks power unless you specifically deck build for the fact that you will only have two heroes worth of resources and stats. Being as stubborn and unwilling to make deck changes as I am this becomes a bit of a hurdle for me to overcome. Thankfully it did not actually take all that many attempts for the decks to function in the way I needed them to and to also get some fairly lucky encounter reveals allowing for a quick albeit extremely close victory.

Even with my dislike and bias against this quest I still enjoyed the Nightmare version quite a lot. It was fairly frustrating at times when threat in staging was unmanageable or I just failed to make any real progress or have much success but at other moments it was very enjoyable and exciting. My final game was certainly very exciting but that was more due to my luck turning around and such fortunate encounter reveals and player draws. Overall I did enjoy this Quest even if I was struggling quite a bit at first. I am now one step closer to Mount Doom! Next time join me as my Fellowship travels onwards to Edoras and the subsequent defense of Helm’s Deep!

Campaign Choices:

Now there are no burdens that can be picked up from this quest only some really strong boons that can be earned which is fantastic news. The boons are earned so long as the Pursuit value is 25 or lower once you beat the quest and with a pursuit value of only 15 during my win I easily earn them.

Now for the first time ever I actually have the option of taking just Beyond All Hope instead of each deck picking one of the other four boons instead. I actually have a hero on the fallen heroes list and could use Beyond All Hope to bring back Cirdan and give him +1 willpower, +1 attack, +1 defense and immunity to treachery card attachments. As tempting as this is, considering he would be a 5 willpower hero with 3 attack and defense as well, the entire point of Cirdan joining my fellowship was so that I specifically had someone ideal who could fall to the Balrog and protect my hero line-up. I don’t want to lose or swap out any heroes either especially after having to remove Tactigorn and add Eowyn so recently. Ultimately I decide against this option and instead each deck will pick one of the other four boons.

This set of Boons reflect and improve upon the ones that you earn earlier after beating A Knife in the Dark. The earlier boons earned give the attached heroes an extra trait that then allows them to receive the corresponding boon from The Uruk Hai. I am going to capitalize on this mechanic and my choice for the combat deck is to take the Forewarned boon and attach it to Gimli who can receive it thanks to the Ranger trait given to him by the Tireless Ranger boon. Forewarned is my favourite of these four boons and in my opinion easily the best of them as well. Shadow cancellation or discard is one of the best abilities in the game as Shadow effects can be devastating and have the potential to be game enders. With Forewarned each and every turn Gimli can discard a shadow card from a non-unique enemy he is defending against, combined with Armored Destrier this allows him to defend against two enemies engaged with the combat deck each round without any shadow cards being allowed to trigger.

As for the questing deck it is a hard choice between picking Intimidation and attaching it to Aragorn (it will shift to each subsequent Fellowship Aragorn!) or picking Leader of Men and attaching it to either Elrond or Aragorn. I end up choosing Leader of Men and attaching it to Elrond after some deliberation. Every now and then Elrond is used predominantly for Vilya and does not take part in questing but this is rare and as soon as he has some form of readying he can do both. Placing Leader of Men on Aragorn would have been a great option allowing me to use the various abilities each Fellowship version has far more often however this does seem like a bit of a waste considering there are still going to be a bunch of Campaign Quests where Aragorn is not even around and Frodo is the Fellowship hero. Same goes for putting Intimidation on him.

Elrond is a fantastic choice for Leader of Men. Resources on him are more valuable than pretty much any other hero in my fellowship. He can pay for allies from any sphere and gains the spirit sphere from Vilya allowing him to pay for any card in the questing deck. As he is used to quest almost every turn so long as I quest successfully I should be gaining a resource very often and almost every turn thanks to this Boon.

One last thing I have forgotten to mention is that Mr. Underhill (or Gildor Inglorion if you chose him instead) gets removed from the campaign pool at the beginning of this quest.

My current campaign pool is now as follows:

Boons

– Mr. Underhill (attached to the Ring-bearer during setup)

(Removed from Campaign pool by The Uruk Hai Campaign Card effect)

-Old Bogey Stories (attached to a hero of the first players choice during setup)

– Ho! Tom Bombadil! (placed in the first players hand during setup )

(Used to cancel They Are Coming! during Journey in the Dark)

-Tireless Ranger (attached to Gimli during setup)

-Forewarned (attached to Gimli during setup)

-Noble Hero (attached to Elrond during setup)

-Leader of Men (attached to Elrond during setup)

-Glamdring (shuffled into questing/support deck during setup)

-Anduril (shuffled into combat deck during setup)

-Phial of Galadriel (attached to a hero during setup)

-Three Golden Hairs (attached to a hero during setup)

Burdens

-The Ring Draws Them (shuffled into the encounter deck during setup)

-Fear of Discovery (shuffled into the encounter deck during setup)

-Pursued by the Enemy (shuffled into the encounter deck during setup)

– Grievous Wound (added to the staging area during setup)

(Seat of Seeing used during Breaking of the Fellowship to remove this Burden from the campaign pool)

-Ill Fate (shuffled into the encounter deck during setup)

Fallen Heroes List

-Cirdan the Shipwright

Threat Penalties

+1 Starting Threat for both decks from adding Galadriel back to line-up after Cirdan was added to the Fallen Heroes List.