Return to Mirkwood - Progression Series #9

TheHiveTyrant 2559

Description

A pair of decks intended to be played against Return to Mirkwood, for use in the Lord of the Rings: the Card Game Progression Series.

This is a scenario with an encounter deck full of locations, so attempt to get at least one Northern Tracker out as quickly as possible – use Theodred to ensure that this happens, if the combat deck draws one first, and use Steward of Gondor and Song of Wisdom on Eowyn as quickly as possible. Always commit Thalin to the quest, so as to defeat Mirkwood Bats before they surge. Unexpected Courage will allow both Dwarf heroes to quest and attack as necessary. The encounter deck only contains 7 strong enemies, so use Forest Snare and Feint for Hill Trolls, and blocking allies for copies of Attercop, Attercop. Both decks contain threat reduction, so as to help the player assigned to guard Gollum, and note that they begin below 30 threat, to avoid mandatory first round Troll engagement. Some quest phase specific advice:

Phase one: assign the quest deck to guard Gollum more often than not, so as to offset the combat deck’s threat gain in phase two.

Phase two: assign the combat deck to guard Gollum, and allow the questing deck to do its thing.

Phase three: assign Gollum based upon what players have in their hands.

Phase four: ideally, the combat deck should be able to guard Gollum and complete the scenario in short order.

Good luck!

3 comments

Jul 04, 2017 TenraiMugen 90

Would Eleanor be a viable swap for Frodo, with all the nasty treacheries (labled Tantrum) around? Most losses we've had against this scenario is mainly cause of the 'Gollum's Bite' Treachery and the Wasted Provisions and Gollum's Anguish can really turn stuff around in the wrong direction.

Jul 12, 2017 TheHiveTyrant 2559

My perspective is that Return to Mirkwood involves playing against an encounter deck full of locations, with only an occasional nasty enemy and a handful of dangerous treacheries. In my opinion, Eleanor will likely stand around doing a whole lot of nothing, because the only seriously threatening treachery cards are Gollum's Bite and Gollum's Anguish; potentially, you could save A Test of Will for the former, and The Galadhrim's Greeting, etc, for the latter. Alternatively, you can run high-HP heroes such as Gimli or Aragorn that can withstand a treachery each.

Wasted Provisions, to me, seems like a totally ineffectual card. Discarding may "feel" bad, but it doesn't really impact your game much - after all, you may have never drawn or seen those cards discarded en masse in the first place. So, certainly give Eleanor a try, but I don't envision her being able to do much. Perhaps you could buff her defense strength high enough to block the attacks of non-Troll, non-Attercop enemies, if she doesn't need to cancel anything?

Jan 28, 2019 mwhitmoe 1

I would say that if one is not playing with six copies of Test of Will between the player decks that swapping Eleanor for Frodo seems like a very good call.