Mono Éowyn Into Fangorn 1.0

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• 1.0

Here's an original theme deck designed to tackle a brilliant but far from simple scenario, "Into Fangorn". Éowyn, her horse and an escort of riders, must find the orc Mugash and escape (alive) from the forest of Fangorn which has awakened.

Genesis

The scenario allows deck-building without any fighter. Also, once we know how to advance quickly in quest while avoiding traps, the element of hazard becomes low enough to win regularly and comfortably. However, building a deck that maintains a thematic character, really complicates things.

Often we use an Ent deck here, for thematic reasons - "kind trees" vs. "the evil trees" of the same forest - and mechanical: the Huorns (the villains of the scenario) have impressive resistance (defense + hit points) and attack statistics, which justifies the combos based on Booming Ents + other injured Ents (to increase the attack of the previous ones). The problem is that the scenario, anticipating such remedies, undermined the tactical terrain by penalizing the swarm of allies (location Heart of Fangorn, treachery Low on provisions), severely slowing down quest progression due to the Hinder keyword, and allowing engaged enemies to attack, deal direct damage, or raise your threat level by several additional points (which increases the risk of being engaged by others Huorns), and all that in phase 1. To top it all off, the scenario adds the race against time (keyword Time) to the race against threat, an allied objective which flees as soon as the hero to whom it is attached is wounded, and a large majority of treacheries in the composition of the encounter deck.

Given that the enemies all have the Huorn trait, and the locations have the Forest trait, Rossiel seemed appropriate. However, using Rossiel here is in my opinion a bad idea. Certainly she will be able to quest with 4 potentially from turn 3. But she will only be able to do so if locations are revealed, then chosen as active locations at the end of the travel phase. However, after the first location there are only 8 location cards left in the encounter deck, and most of them have dissuasive travel conditions or quest points. Furthermore, the use of Rossiel instead of any other 4 initial willpower hero is justified when it can easily be straightened out to defend effectively at 4. Here not only would the prospect of defending at 4 require time before being able to materialize (and it would even not be enough to resist the blows of the enemies), but in addition would worsen the consequences in phase 1 of the engagements against the Huorns. Generally speaking, the scenario does not encourage slow or speculative build-ups or combat engagements. It is in your interest to avoid quest 3A/B at all costs. To do this you must ideally be able to quest at 4 with a hero, not conditionally from turn 3, but definitely and from turn 1.

I felt that the spirit sphere was essential, as was a small but qualitative cast of characters. I opted for Éowyn with the The Grey Wanderer contract and The One Ring, a pool of Rohirrim allies, and plenty of horses. We stay in the theme: Fangorn borders the north of Rohan, and the horses are good allies to help us jump over the pitfalls and large roots of Fangorn, and to quickly complete the quest. Spirit Éowyn is an outstanding quester, who can adjust her level of willpower to the card revealed during the staging step, and a heroine who has access to the sphere of Rohan par excellence, a sphere which is also very practical for canceling treacheries and discarding Condition attachments.

Strategy and tactics

The strategy is very simple. You will never fight or deal direct damage to enemies. You will focus on the quest and cancel treacheries sparingly instead. Thanks to the single hero, you will start at a low threat level. Gandalf will help you if necessary to stay below 30 in order to never be engaged by the two most devastating types of enemies (Deadly Huorn and Angry Huorn).

• Attach the One Ring and Strider to Éowyn. Fetch out Power of Command. In first hand, it is good to have cards such as Windfola or Westfold Horse-breeder, Timely Aid and/or Resourceful.

• Do not consider using all of the out-of-sphere copies of the Daeron's Runes, but just one. The duplicates of this card, as well as all the useless cards (Windfola duplicates) or irrelevant at the moment t, will be used to feed the effect of Éowyn and/or that of the Protector of Lórien.

• When the scenario asks you to go find a Huorn enemy and add it to the staging area, always choose The Dark-Hearted Huorn. He will engage you during this turn (a simple Hinder effect), then increase your threat, but this will be a lesser evil compared to the two other types of Huorn enemies who will eat into your life points or decimate your rare allies.

• Gamling's response will only target Háma if able. He will receive the Power of Command bonus too, along with other unique allies. Elfhelm also proves effective in mitigating the effect of Darkheart Huorn.

• Wild Stallion especially brings additional willpower (and life points) here, to unique allies or to small allies such as the Westfold Horse-breeder. In certain cases, it can usefully boost Hama's defense.

• The Riddermark's Finest may benefit from being discarded, especially when it allows one of the quest steps to be completed more quickly.

• Windfola is intended to further improve Éowyn willpower and to counter the treachery In Need of Rest (even two times thanks to Shadow of the Past); the Power of Orthanc will neutralize Off Track. A Test of Will will take care of the other treacheries, except The Forest's Malice.

• Thrór's Key annihilates the text and the constraints of the locations (with the exception of the initial unique location the Edge of Fangorn), and can help you travel to a location that the Riddermark Finest, discarded, will gallop over.

• When you have a copy of A Test of Will in hand, make sure to always keep a resource in order to be able to play it, because there are 14 treachery cards (out of 33) in the scenario... Some will sometimes have no effect or be painless (Turned around), others may be fatal to you (Low on Provisions). The Forest's Malice cannot be canceled by A Test of Will. During stage 1B, Hama can be very useful in saving Éowyn from the triggering of this treachery. During step 2B, have at least two allies standing up (Hama included), ready to defend, even if it means being trashed. However, faced with this treachery you will be dependent on luck: if you draw this card when there are already three Darkheart Huorns engaged against you, it will be difficult to survive, unless you have played The Muster of Rohan during the planification phase of the current tour.

• The Muster of Rohan offers a burst that perfectly responds to the sense of urgency of the story mechanics.

• As a matter of principle, always trigger Éowyn's action after the staging step and just before the resolution of the quest. On the one hand, this will allow you to optimize the management of discarded cards. And on the other hand, if unfortunately you don't have either Windfola or Test of Will in hand when you draw In Need of Rest, you will have at least saved one card.

• Resource generation will be relatively limited if you do not have a copy of Resourceful in play. But even if you have a Resourceful attached to Éowyn, you will have to think about the best way to spend your resources each turn. Multiple copies are present in this deck most often to 1) increase the probability of having one, 2) discard the following ones by increasing Éowyn's will.

• Strider attached to Éowyn is crucial in this scenario, because beyond the +2 (which will be lasting) in willpower, not exhausting to engage in a quest will allow Éowyn to recover Mugash as soon as the 9 progress markers are placed on the quest card. This way we will not lose time because of the hindering effects of the Huorns which would have intervened three phases later.