QOTW - The Ring Goes South - Mildly Thematic

A Fellowship to tackle the quest The Ring Goes South 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.

So for this quest, I need to make sure the whole Fellowship are present: Frodo Baggins, Sam Gamgee, Merry, Pippin, Aragorn, Gandalf, Legolas, Gimli, Boromir, and of course Bill the Pony (as heroes or in the decks, or otherwise), as these are the characters journeying south with the Ring.

This quest gives an opportunity to change heroes without penalty, something I definitely wanted to do. I'm playing fully by campaign rules and don't want the threat penalty, so there will only be limited opportunity for any hero changes within the next 4 quests (more on that below). For my thematic requirements Aragorn is non-negotiable as he only has hero versions. Sam has a fine ally version, but since I've given him the Tireless Ranger Permanent Boon he'll be staying as a hero, possibly for the whole Saga. Glorfindel is the other Boon recipient so he's coming too - he was almost a Fellowship member after all.

For new heroes, I knew I wanted to bring along Gandalf - he has a big moment coming up. I've also not chosen the Beyond All Hope Boon before, so this campaign gives a great opportunity to elevate Gandalf to his full potential. Next I picked Pippin - he's a Fellowship member and his combination of great ability and low threat makes him an excellent addition to any deck.

Finally, I decided to allow myself some flexibilty by reserving my sixth hero slot for a Messenger of the King. Campaign rules in relation to contracts, particlarly the ones that play with hero selection, are at best unclear, but I will not be considering my Messenger a permanent hero (meaning I can freely choose a different ally each quest). Further, adding a new hero to the campaign pool does not carry a penalty if it is not replacing an old one, meaning I can fill that sixth slot with a permanent hero at any time.

With that said, I went with Legolas as my Messenger of the King for several reasons. Firstly, for access to the sphere. Secondly, he has a reasonably low threat of 8. Finally, my strategy involves minimising untimely enemy engagements, which I plan to do with the help of Hands Upon the Bow, so I need a character with Ranged and it may as well be in the form of a hero.

No Nazgûl or other major Ring punishments to worry about so I brought along Mountain of Fire Frodo Baggins for this quest.

The Council of Elrond is a great thematic start to the quest, and a profitable one because it allowed Aragorn to begin the game with his Sword that was Broken. The Campaign card also offers new Boons and I kept Sting to play on Sam early and got great value out of that, including good luck in triggering its Response.

The quest generally went well. One of the major themes with this one is damage being placed on locations and then players being punished for it. I had the good fortune to reveal relatively few such locations and was able to minimise the damage from the ones I did see. My limited location reveals did mean rather a lot of enemies early on, but I was able to manage this with low threat, Sentinel defenders, Hands Upon the Bow and Mr. Underhill. Aragorn with his sword and a first turn Steward of Gondor also helped a lot.

I put quite a few tech cards for this quest into the decks and that paid off well. My favourite sequence was a Quest Phase in which I played each of A Test of Will, Strider's Path and Hands Upon the Bow to end the turn with the board totally free of encounter cards.

When the Watcher in the Water finally showed up it was to face a fully prepared Fellowship. After managing just a single point of damage to Gandalf, it was immediately met with 15 damage in return (earning the QOTW achievement Like Shooting Fish in a Barrel in the process). The game was over next turn.

This quest awards the four Boons Andúril, Glamdring, Sting and Mithril Shirt, which carry forward into future quests. There is a potential Burden in Lust for the Ring, but rather than gamble on this I chose to take the threat raise at the start of the quest instead - I'd rather not take unnecessary Burdens if I can help it.

Results:

0 Fallen heroes.

Boons/Burdens earned: Andúril, Glamdring, Sting, Mithril Shirt

Score: 120

5 full turns (50)
42 + 31 threat (73)
0 damage on heroes (0)
3 Victory Points (-3)

Campaign Log:

Heroes - Aragorn, Pippin, Sam Gamgee, Gandalf, Glorfindel.

Boons - Mr. Underhill, Old Bogey-stories, Ho! Tom Bombadil!, Noble Hero (Glorfindel), Tireless Ranger (Sam Gamgee), Andúril, Glamdring, Sting, Mithril Shirt

Burdens - The Ring Draws Them, Panicked