‘So all my plan is spoilt!’ said Frodo. ‘It is no good trying to escape you. But I’m glad, Sam. I cannot tell you how glad. Come along! It is plain that we were meant to go together. We will go, and may the others find a safe road! Strider will look after them. I don’t suppose we shall see them again.’

It has been a while since I have played this marvelous game but after catching up with Adventure Packs and finally getting my hands on Assault on Dol Guldur I have started getting back into it. After playing a handful of different quests over the last week or so, some old and some new, I am now returning to my Nightmare Campaign ready to continue onward to my eventual destination, Amon Amarth! Mount Doom!

As usual I could not help but make further changes to both decks upon returning to the game. I made detailed breakdowns for each deck describing their exact purpose and role and why each and every card is included in each deck: http://ringsdb.com/fellowship/view/4790/three-hunters-two-rings

The next leg of my Nightmare Campaign is the Breaking of the Fellowship. A very momentous part of the tale considering the fellowship crumbles with Frodo and Sam leaving the others and heading for Mordor on their own while Boromir falls in battle after being overwhelmed by Saruman’s savage Uruk-hai.

There are actually quite a few cards in our game, both encounter and player, that depict the tragic death and sacrifice of Boromir!

I find it interesting that the Campaign forces us to sacrifice a hero in order to beat the Balrog yet this quest does not feature a similar mechanic in which there is a possibility that a hero must be sacrificed to achieve victory although I suppose the treachery Fallen into Evil sort of represents this in a way. Much like Gandalf’s fall in Moria, Boromir’s heroic sacrifice in Amon Hen is an important and memorable moment in the Saga. Not only does he buy Frodo and Sam more time to escape unnoticed but he also leads the Uruk-hai to believe Merry and Pippin are more important than they actually are which results in the Orcs thinking they have achieved their goal and have captured the correct hobbits. I imagine it would be a bit too much of a blow to players if they were forced to lose a second hero right after losing someone to the Balrog. Instead the designers capture Boromirs heroic moment within the quest stages themselves.

Each player gets to choose which version of Stage 3 they want to stay at until essentially the end of the quest. Whichever player eventually reveals Frodo’s Choice then moves on to a separate 4th quest stage but every other player remains at their chosen Stage 3 attempting to hold the Uruk-hai at bay and help the hobbits escape! This specific version of Stage 3 below clearly embodies Boromir’s sacrifice the most.

Now before any of this even occurs however and following our last quest and escape from Moria the Fellowship reaches Lorien and meet Lady Galadriel and Celeborn. They are given gifts and Frodo holds council with Galadriel and even peers into her magical mirror. The gifts are represented by the following boon cards:

You actually earn these boons before starting this quest and each player gets to choose 1 boon to attach to a hero they control. Now these boons can be added to the victory display and removed from the campaign pool during a quest to activate a powerful and extremely useful effect. Now as they do not have the permanent keyword they actually can be removed from a hero and discarded during a game to encounter effects. This does not however mean you have lost them without getting to use them as they are still in your campaign pool and are still attached to a hero in play during setup for any subsequent quest. Only once you actually use one of these boons will you lose it for good.

Now I am not exactly proud to admit this but I am going to be choosing the exact same two boons I always pick at this point in the Campaign; Three Golden Hairs and Phial of Galadriel. I simply feel that these two attachments are both the best of the four for the playstyle and decks I employ and also have the most potential out of the four boons. Phial of Galadriel can be used during a huge combat round in which many enemies are attacking the combat deck to amazing effect potentially saving me from defeat while doing so and potentially also allowing me to destroy all if not most enemies in play at the same time (can also safely take undefended attacks from any enemies reduced to 0 attack!). Three Golden Hairs allows each deck to draw three cards and reduce their threat by 3 (very thematic!) which can open up all sorts of possibilities and has the potential to save either or both decks from threating out. Leaf-Wrapped Lembas can admittedly have a similar effect as it readies all heroes in play when used which could allow you additional uses out of heroes with exhaust abilities, allow for a huge safe quest push with all heroes committed or simply give you a massive edge in combat. The main issue with this for my decks is that many of the times you want to ready heroes in my decks you only want to ready one or two specific heroes at a time and readying any others would be more or less useless as they have already fulfilled their role for the turn and have little else to contribute. Often early game an additional ready out of Elrond, Gimli or Legolas (or even Galadriel on rare occasion if I need to both quest with her and use her ability as I desperately need card draw or threat reduction) could be extremely useful but I would then have little to no use for my other now also ready heroes unless I am utterly swarmed with foes. Even when I am swarmed by foes, I have plenty of readying effects of my own and ultimately I find Phial of Galadriel to be far more useful as a combat trick than Leaf-Wrapped Lembas.

Now I actually didn’t have much of a plan going into this quest for two reasons. The first of which is that I have never had too much trouble with this quest and it is certainly on the easier side at least as far as Saga quests are concerned. There is no boss enemy or specific encounter card or combo you have to overcome and unlike other quests that split players/decks up into separate staging areas you are still able to target characters belonging to other decks at a separate staging area and keywords like Sentinel and Archery are still very much valid and usable. My combat deck can struggle to quest when on its own but I am hoping that I can overcome this with both luck and a bit of clever planning. The second and less valid reason why I did not have much of a plan going into this quest is simply that I have only recently started to play this fantastic game on a regular basis once again. Rather than spending time figuring out exactly what I should be hoping to see in opening hands and early draws and how I aim to beat the more threatening aspects of this quest I decided to dive right in somewhat blind! I have seen the new Nightmare cards for this quest in the past but had no real memory of what they do other than bringing a ton more Archery to the table.

Now although I had no plan going in I have played the original version of this quest on quite a few occasions and am very familiar with it. I know that for my decks at least, Archery damage and getting bogged down early due to high amounts of threat in the staging area are the key reasons for defeat and the two things I will need to stay on top of. The reason my decks can sometimes struggle early game against this quest is due to the lack of combat or engagement during the first Quest stage. All enemies remain in staging and cannot be engaged or removed from the staging area. This means that if you don’t clear Sarn Gebir, The Argonath and Stage 1B quickly and efficiently enemies and locations can fill the staging area with ease and generate a ton of threat. Healing is key for the Archery damage as is getting lots of bodies out that can help soak up points of Archery safely. So long as I draw at least some healing and decent starting hands with the potential to get a decent amount of willpower out quickly I should be alright.

Towards the end of this quest once a deck/player arrives at Stage 4 that deck will then be revealing 3 cards during staging while at Stage 4. Although the other deck can engage enemies revealed at this Stage due to its helpful response effect you can become a little overwhelmed at this point if you are not prepared for how many cards you will be forced to reveal each turn. Considering this happens right at the end however you have plenty of time to build your board state to the point where this should not be too difficult.

Let’s dive in to my actual experience playing this quest! I achieved victory on the first attempt after what was quite a weird and unusual game. In all honestly I got both very lucky and unlucky during this game. I was lucky that Encounter reveals were really not that bad and I saw a lot less enemies than I normally do playing this quest and I was unlucky that my decks didn’t really work as well as they usually do and several key combo pieces either did not appear at all or appeared late game at a point where they were somewhat unnecessary. That being said the decks still did very admirably and I was still able to pull out a victory with the tools I did have at my disposal. Treacheries for example were not really much of an issue as I drew into all three copies of Test of Will over the course of the game and was able to re-use a copy thanks to Dwarven Tomb. Similarly healing was kept fairly under control as I made sure to allocate Archery damage to heroes any time I had a Galadhrim Healer ready to play the following round and I also made sure I got an Imladris Caregiver in play as fast as possible. There were actually a few points where I discarded cards I actually wanted to keep to instead heal damage off multiple characters and keep ahead of Archery damage. By also assigning Archery damage to allies with spare hitpoints that are predominantly questers or attackers I was able to minimise its overall effect.

It was weird to see so few enemies but because the decks were not operating at their full potential this gave me breathing room I desperately needed. Had more enemies appeared early game I would have lost for sure as up until a certain mid game point I was only really able to defend a single attack each turn for both decks! Luckily as soon as I did need more defensive measures in place I was able to quickly get a few Derndingle Warriors in play as well as Treebeard and a copy of both UC and Armored Destrier on Gimli who already had very high defense from Dunedain Warnings, Tireless Ranger and Shield+Steward. Now because I saw so few enemies I saw an absolute ton of locations and treacheries but because I was drawing and playing cards more focused on willpower and questing and had so much cancellation available this was not much of a big deal and I was never really at risk of location lock or losing due to game ending treachery effects. Gandalf and Sneak Attack were a little overused during this game as I drew all three copies of both fairly early on and was able to use Gandalf a staggering six times!

What was probably the most worrying and difficult point of the game was when both decks were at different versions of Stage 3 and the Combat deck very nearly got put in a position where it was going to quest unsuccessfully every turn. I simply did not have enough willpower out and kept seeing 3 or 4 threat encounter cards during staging and the combat deck was really struggling to keep up with this. What made this worse is I chose the copy of Stage 3 that allows you to remove a location from play if you quest successfully for the combat deck…. big big mistake!! I needed to quest successfully to remove locations from the combat decks staging area but these same locations were blocking me FROM questing successfully. I also had the new Nightmare location with four threat that moves to the staging area on the left once explored appear multiple times in the Questing decks staging area. Once explored they would move to the Combat decks staging area exacerbating the issue further. I was somehow able to eventually overcome this by both over-committing to the quest and hardcasting Gandalf three times and then discarding locations from the combat deck’s staging area anytime I could from the Quest Stage’s response effect. Once I escaped this potential disaster I power quested with the Questing deck and was able to reach Stage 4 and then clear it within 3 turns. I even got lucky enough to reveal Seat of Seeing and explore it right before questing to victory!! I seem to have some insane luck when it comes to this extremely beneficial location as I have only ever played this quest maybe once or twice where I did not manage to reveal and clear Seat of Seeing. No idea how I see it as often as I do but I am certainly not complaining! I will go over what Burden I removed from the campaign pool later in the Campaign Choices section.

I usually choose The Seat of Amon Hen and Orc Hunting as my two copies of Stage 3 so it was interesting that I chose Searching the Woods instead just to discard copies of locations instead, mainly Langflood River. Although this seemed like a stupid choice especially once I was struggling to quest successfully with the combat deck once I was able to overcome this hurdle Searching the Woods was instrumental in discarding several locations from play and allowing a smooth and easy finish on Stage 4. It is certainly a great option when considering which copies of Stage 3 to advance to.

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 off we have the front side of the setup card that simply reads “You are playing Nightmare Mode”. No extra rules or mechanics for this one so on to the backside of this card!

So now we have the always interesting back side of the setup card that includes what cards are removed from the quest to make room for the new nightmare cards.

Honestly this quest is a very weird one as far as what is removed and what is added for the Nightmare version. First off the removal of Uruk-Hai Archer is honestly a little baffling to me. Forcing a player or deck to discard an ally is no joke and can be a very nasty effect indeed especially if that player or deck doesn’t have an ally hanging around that they can safely afford to discard. Now because there are normally four copies of Uruk-Hai Archer in the encounter deck you often see this effect multiple times and it helps the encounter deck whittle away at your board state discarding characters from time to time. The Archer even has 4 attack, a decent amount of hitpoints and both a threat level and Archery value of X where X is the amount of players in the game! I would have thought it far more likely that an enemy like Uruk-Hai Hunter would be removed in the Nightmare version. Yes the Hunter has the potential to make an additional attack when he appears but he has the least hitpoints, toughness value and threat value of any enemies in the encounter deck (excluding Uruk-Hai Tracker but he has surge so is awful regardless of stats) and is unable to simply discard an ally altogether like the Archer.

Secondly we have Black Feathered Arrows! Late game this treachery can do an absolute TON of Archery damage (had it been revealed by the questing deck on one of the last turns of my game for example it would have done a whopping 12 damage!) and the shadow effect is not particularly pleasant either (potential to give +2 attack). This treachery much like Uruk-Hai Archer strangeley gets the chop! Now one copy does remain but a single copy of an encounter card is unlikely to see play in most games and I did not see it during my single playthrough.

The other cards that are removed make a lot more sense; Slopes of Amon Hen is one of the least threatening locations featured in this quest and only one copy is removed anyway, similarly River Anduin, which is not exactly harmless but is certainly not among the worst locations in this quest, gets chopped down to only two copies instead of four. A last point worth mentioning is that only nine encounter cards are removed from this quest while twenty new ones are added! This means the overall encounter deck is a fair bit larger and varied in the Nightmare version of this quest.

Isengard Archer is the first of the new Nightmare cards and is clearly a replacement for Uruk-Hai Archer. The Isengard Archer has an extra point of defense and has 2 threat and Archery 2 instead of X for both. He has the same attack, hitpoints and toughness however and his forced effect does not seem as bad as the when revealed effect on Uruk-Hai Archer. During earlier stages it does inflict damage to both of my decks but because you can place this damage on a character of your choice it will rarely destroy or discard a character unlike Uruk-Hai Archer who immediately discards an ally from play. At later stages once players/decks are split up the Isengard Archer is only going to damage a single character instead getting weaker as the quest progress rather than stronger… odd… I can see one clear idea behind this though as there are plenty of effects that can move encounter cards between the staging areas which means the Isengard Archer can potentially trigger his ability multiple times. I saw a few copies of this new enemy throughout my game and made sure to destroy them quickly to avoid taking their Archery damage over multiple rounds or allowing them the opportunity to move across staging areas.

Next up we have the Isengard Tracker who in my eyes certainly has more bite than the Isengard Archer. He may not have much defense or hitpoints (toughness 2 is decent though and certainly protects against direct damage) but his 5 attack, 3 threat and nasty ability certainly make up for this. Remember how earlier I explained that during the early to mid game I had almost no defensive measures set up and could only really afford to defend a single attack each round? At one point I actually had to chump block in a pretty nasty situation against an Isengard Tracker that was also boosted by a copy of Orcs of the White Hand that had appeared that round. Boromir ally was the only option for chump blocking duties and he fell heroically defending against the Tracker allowing it to move back to the first players staging area in the process. As awful as this desperate play was it perfectly captured Boromir’s heroic sacrifice at this point in the tale! I have never really recaptured this moment before so it was really cool managing to do this as accidental and forced as it may have actually been. The Trackers shadow effect is almost as bad as the enemy himself and it triggered once or twice during my game allowing foes to survive another round and contribute their threat to the first players staging area once again. This enemy fits the Nightmare quest perfectly and helps give it a new edge and new way of slowing down whichever deck/player ends up at Stage 4.

Langflood River is like River Anduin’s big brother and somewhat of a replacement for the two copies of River Anduin that are cut from the Nightmare quest. Like River Anduin, Langflood River can really stick around and cause a headache. Any time it is explored you add it to the staging area to the left which means it just keeps coming back and anytime it is in the staging area it blocks more than 4 progress from being placed on the main quest. The four threat doesn’t exactly help either…

Honestly the main reason for me choosing Searching the Woods as Stage 3 for the combat deck was so that I could start discarding copies of Langflood River from play.

Western Emyn Muil is the other new Nightmare location and while not quite as annoying or frustrating as Langflood River it can certainly cause some real issues if it appears at the wrong time. Every single enemy in this quest already has a Toughness value so Western Emyn Muil is only going to boost that Toughness value and make it even harder to inflict damage on enemies. If this were to appear during a key point where you are overwhelmed by foes and trying to fight your way out it could potentially spell your doom by making foes that little bit tougher and harder to kill. If you want to travel to this location and get it out of the staging area to neutralize it’s boost a player must engage the highest toughness enemy in the staging area. Now because none of the foes in this quest are really too different from each other with similar stats and overall combat capability I don’t actually think this is much of a setback, as well as this the enemy engaged will actually lose a point of Toughness as Western Emyn Muil will no longer be in the staging area. Even though I saw a ton of locations I actually did not encounter any copies of this location during my single game.

The first of the new Nightmare Treacheries is Arrows in the Night. An additional 6 archery damage is certainly nothing to laugh at! That being said because Archery damage can be assigned as you wish so long as you have a plan in mind or plenty of healing in general this card can easily be teched against or worked around. Early game for example I had a Galadhrim Healer in hand so specifically did not cancel this treachery as the Healer could remove all 6 points of damage the following turn with ease. I had the option to cancel the treachery altogether but then I wouldn’t be getting the most value out of my Healer! I saw a second copy a little later in the game that was a little more troublesome as I had plenty of damage spread across characters already. No one fell to the additional archery damage but it certainly put me behind the curve of trying to heal more damage than archery deals each round. Now you can also discard cards from your hand to lessen the effect and reduce the amount of Archery damage this card provides. Honestly I would be extremely reluctant to do so in any situation as discarding 1 card to avoid 1 point of damage does not even come close to a fair trade. This treachery certainly has some bite, especially in a quest that already features so much Archery damage, but it can also definitely be avoided, teched against or simply cancelled if need be.

Honestly I think one of the card types I hate more than anything are condition attachments that attach to quest stages. They are simply horrendous and often have an effect you simply cannot avoid or overcome until you clear that current quest stage. Now thankfully Hunting for the Ring is a single use condition attachment for quest stages as it discards itself after triggering its nasty effect. This is substantially better and easier to deal with than condition attachments that just sit on a quest stage constantly contributing their awful effects. Hunting for the Ring essentially forces the decks/players at the stage it is revealed to raise their threat by 1 for each enemy in the staging area at the end of the round and then move each of those enemies into the first players staging area. A thematic home run considering Saruman’s Uruk-Hai were specifically tasked with finding Hobbits and taking them prisoner. Late game when a player is at Stage 4 this card can be especially nasty as Stage 4 can already be overwhelming enough and having a slew of extra foes in the first players staging area could very well be the nail in the coffin. Now you can actually avoid this cards effect altogether so long as you do not let enemies remain in staging areas, engage and dispatch them as soon as you can instead. Again this treachery is not one you should underestimate but it is also something you can both plan for or avoid altogether with a bit of strategy and luck. This was the other Nightmare card (alongside Western Emyn Muil) that I did not see appear in my game and did not have to contend with.

The final Nightmare card for this Saga quest is Discord and Distrust which is one hell of a horrid treachery! Much like how Condition Attachments that attach to quests are one of my most hated types of cards, effects that stop players from triggering action or response effects are easily one of my most hated treachery effects. In fact the only type of effect I can think of off the top of my head that I might hate more than this one is blanking characters text boxes. Discord and Distrust can completely and utterly mess with your plans and playstyle and considering my decks feature so much readying this treachery can really throw a spanner in the works for them if it appears at a critical moment or cannot be cancelled. Essentially during my playthrough I cancelled two copies of this treachery as it is simply not an effect I can really work around. Because so much of my defensive capability relies on readying effects (all of which are action or response effects) this treachery has the potential to completely shut down my defense and cause multiple hero deaths!! The one time I was not able to cancel this Treachery there were no enemies in play that entire round and so I was somehow safe from its effect! Sure it stopped me from using Galadriel’s ability that turn but that was an extremely small price to pay for how lucky I had been, had this treachery appeared during one of the two or three turns towards the end where there were several enemies in play at once it may very well have sealed my fate or at least made the victory a much closer one!

Conclusion:

To be completely honest this is without a doubt one of the weaker Nightmare Saga quests. Now I mean this both as far as the actual difficulty as well as the mechanics. Nothing too special or unique is added in Nightmare mode as there are no new mechanics, no new boss enemy and there isn’t even an additional effect or trigger on the front side of the Nightmare Setup Card. I think that one of the main reasons for this was probably the fact that this quest is already unique and complex enough to begin with. Only one player or deck can actually advance to Stage 4 and achieve victory for all decks or players, everyone else has to simply help that deck or player survive the avalanche of encounter cards that appear each staging phase. The whole mechanic of discarding encounter cards from the encounter deck as a form of pseudo questing until you reveal Frodo’s Choice is also unique to this quest and really sets it apart from the rest even other quests that also feature separate staging areas.

Sometimes I really enjoy this quest and other times I feel like it is a little bit on the boring side. I have to admit I really enjoy boss enemies or an epic showdown at the end of a quest and there is certainly none of that in this quest. The toughness keyword which is heavily featured in this quest can also be a pain in the ass as it more or less shuts out direct damage effects or builds and makes dealing with enemies a bit more of a chore. That being said it is certainly a thematic home run and gives Saruman’s fighting Uruk-Hai an edge over normal Orc foes which is very fitting considering their superior stature and strength as well as their ability to travel or fight unhindered by sunlight. This time around I did have a great time playing the quest but it was certainly not very exciting or tense especially for Nightmare. I did not have too much difficulty beating it on the first attempt even with somewhat subpar starting hands and several key cards or combos not coming together until late game. Now this was due to a combination of good luck (few enemies appearing early and mid game and overall fairly tame encounter reveals for the most part) and selective cancelling. My decks may not have performed at their best but I certainly had a ton of treachery cancellation available and put this to extremely good use. On turns where treacheries could be weathered or they would have little to no effect I would let them trigger so that at other key moments I would be able to easily cancel effects that would indeed affect my board state quite badly. I ignored a copy of Discord and Distrust that appeared on a turn where there were no enemies in play for example as I simply did not need to activate responses and actions in order to ready heroes for combat. I also ignored an early copy of Arrows in the Night as I had a Galadhrim Healer in hand and knew that if I spread the damage across the combat deck’s heroes I could then immediately heal it all the following round cheaply and efficiently. It actually gave the Healer a purpose and valid targets for the enter play ability.

Overall I did enjoy this quest but nowhere near as much as I have enjoyed the rest of the Nightmare Saga Campaign thus far. I am excited to move on and experience greater challenges especially as I approach the upcoming Helm’s Deep which is sure to be an absolute blood bath and doozy of a quest. It is certainly not going to be a first attempt win and I expect to play it many times before achieving victory. Next up and before I reach Helm’s Deep however is The Uruk-Hai which could prove quite a challenge in of itself due to the captive heroes.

Campaign Choices:

Now the campaign choices for this quest are a little different than usual considering you actually earn the Boons before starting the quest. Considering I did not use either of these new Boons they are added and remain in my campaign pool for the time being. Other than this however it is business as usual forcing the players to make a choice between Burdens.

Luckily the only time Fallen from Evil appeared I promptly cancelled it avoiding its horrible effect so I will not be adding any heroes to the Fallen Heroes List. I need to either add Followed by Night or Ill Fate to my campaign pool. I am going to go with my usual choice of Ill Fate. Now there are a few reasons for this: first off my decks are focused on strong built up defenders and I rarely if EVER chump block unless I absolutely have to and even then I may choose to forfeit instead and start the quest over if it doesn’t look like there is much chance of winning anyway. This means that the effect on Ill Fate is rarely going to trigger as I am constantly trying to keep all characters alive and well. Due to the fact that Ill Fate also reads “destroyed” and not “discarded” any effects that simply discard allies from play will not trigger Ill Fate and only characters who die to Archery, direct damage or enemy attack damage will trigger the effect. The second reason is the potential that Followed by Night actually has, now yes most of the time it will simply return some lowly Orc from the discard pile back to the staging area but it could also return something as nasty as a dreaded Nazgul back to the staging area which honestly is not something I am really willing to risk. I have only ever chosen Followed by Night once and during that campaign I had it bring some truly terrible foes back from the discard pile on several occasions and vowed never to take that burden again.

Now as well as this because I managed to explore the Seat of Seeing I am also able to remove a burden from the campaign pool as well! You are technically forced to do so as soon as you clear the location whilst playing the actual quest which I did, I have just saved my report of this until now. I ultimately decided to remove Grievous Wound from the campaign pool. Although the various burdens that are added to the Encounter deck can often be far worse than Grievous Wound there is a decent chance you won’t see them at all during a game whereas Grievous Wound starts in the staging area and is going to see play in 100% of games because as soon as any hero takes any amount of damage it attaches to them. I don’t like that this is unavoidable and starts the game in the staging area so I cannot help but remove Grievous Wound from my campaign pool.

As far as the captive heroes are concerned I am going to leave this decision until I take on The Uruk-Hai. The decision will actually be quite complex and will change my hero line-up drastically as I cannot choose Aragorn to be a captive and also cannot use Aragorn for the next three quests due to campaign restrictions! Legolas or Gimli will need to be chosen as a captive and I will need to replace whoever is chosen with Aragorn’s replacement. I am quite unsure of who will fill this role and will need to figure this out before I decide who will be a captive! Once I rescue the captives and moving forward through the Campaign I will still be able to run The Three Hunters as I will still be using Gimli and Legolas and will have one of the Fellowship versions of Aragorn in play who you could argue is potentially better than Tactigorn considering each Fellowship version has a unique and powerful ability. Only Tactigorn’s replacement will be a new addition to my line-up.

My current campaign pool is now as follows:

Boons

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

-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)

-Noble Hero (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.