QOTW - The Passing of the Grey Company - Mildly Thematic

A Fellowship to tackle the quest The Passing of the Grey Company for the Cardboard of the Rings Quest of the Week.

My "Mildly Thematic" campaign means the only thematic condition for deckbuilding is that the key characters need to be present. That's it. The Fellowship for A Shadow of the Past can be found here and has a few more details on the campaign plans. The other campaign Fellowships can be found by searching for "Mildly Thematic" once they are published.

We rejoin Aragorn and his companions in this quest for their journey through the Paths of the Dead. Legolas and Gimli are present of course, and the party is now joined by the Grey Company, including Halbarad, and the sons of Elrond, Elladan and Elrohir.

This quest gives an opportunity to change heroes without penalty. Gandalf and Glorfindel are now joined by Éowyn. Sam Gamgee is accompanied in the other deck by Denethor and Beravor.

As with all Aragorn quests, it's required to use the version specific to the scenario.

This quest has a really interesting opening, with each player forced to discard their hand after the first planning phase. However, that's barely a concern with Beravor around and she kept the cards flowing for the whole game. A Steward of Gondor and Wealth of Gondor in the opening hand also meant a significant number of starting cards ended up getting played rather than discarded.

There's threat raising everywhere, and initially the Overcome by Fear Burdens to prevent threat reduction, so first order of business was to remove those. Later on I was able to draw and use some threat reduction to keep myself in the game. On one occasion I did tactically re-attach a Burden later in the game, in full confidence I could remove it again the same turn.

By and large the encounter cards were not too threatening overall, partially thanks to Firyal, and I had plenty of other characters able to handle both questing and combat.

In the end the Army of the Dead did not put up much of a challenge, and went down immediately after advancing to Stage 3. I then needed another turn and a half to travel to and explore The Stone of Erech to win the quest. Unfortunately I ended up with just too much threat to earn the QOTW achievement Swift Shadows.

I was able to complete the quest without any copies of Overcome by Fear so avoided adding them to the campaign pool, and came away instead with the Army of the Dead Boon to give a (ghostly) helping hand in the next quest.

Results:

Boons/Burdens earned: Army of the Dead

Score: 135

6 full turns (60)
40 + 42 threat (82)
0 damage on heroes (0)
7 Victory Points (-7)

Campaign Log:

Heroes - Éowyn, Gandalf, Glorfindel, Beravor, Denethor, Sam Gamgee

Boons - Old Bogey-stories, Ho! Tom Bombadil!, Noble Hero (Glorfindel), Tireless Ranger (Sam Gamgee), Andúril, Glamdring, Sting, Mithril Shirt, Leaf-wrapped Lembas, Three Golden Hairs, Beyond All Hope (Gandalf), Palantír of Orthanc, 2x Brace of Conies, Army of the Dead

Burdens - The Ring Draws Them, Panicked, Overcome by Grief, Ill Fate, 1x The Searching Eye, A Heavy Burden

+1 starting threat penalty (+2 additional penalty for one deck)

Enemies under the Black Gate: 2x Oliphaunt