QOTW - Breaking of the Fellowship - Mildly Thematic

A Fellowship to tackle the quest Breaking of the Fellowship 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 remaining Fellowship members are present: Frodo Baggins, Sam Gamgee, Merry, Pippin, Aragorn, Legolas, Gimli, and Boromir (as heroes or in the decks, or otherwise), as these are the characters who travel together from Lorien before the Fellowship breaks at Amon Hen.

For the most part, hero choices carry over from the previous quest. Gandalf however has fallen, and so needs a replacement. Aragorn joins Pippin and Sam Gamgee. Their abilities synergise really nicely, and Aragorn in particular can do great things in this quest with the separate staging areas.

In the other deck, Glorfindel is joined by Merry, newly promoted from an ally to replace Gandalf, and just in time to get captured by the Uruk-hai. In thinking on how to build this deck, I saw an opportunity to go for a Noldor one. Galdor of the Havens is very capable of stepping into the Messenger of the King role to support this deck type while keeping that hero slot flexible for the next quest.

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

The quest started slowly, both for my setup and what the encounter deck threw at me. Orcs of the White Hand is a great reveal when there's only one enemy who can't even engage you. I did use the time to explore Keep Watch, which does wonders for the rest of the quest, particularly with the unavoidable engagements at Stage 2.

Unfortunately, at this time it became apparent that Merry had Fallen into Evil. This is a bit painful on questing in Stage 1, but thanks to the Noldor deck economy was otherwise not a big deal. Elrond did show his face later to talk some sense back into Merry.

At the move to Stage 2 there were not too many enemies in play, so I got through combat safely. Aragorn in particular was tearing through the enemies and managing my engagements at the same time. I picked Seat of Amon Hen and Orc Hunting as my Stage 3s. In retrospect I should have taken Searching the Woods instead of Orc Hunting, as combat was well in hand and I got a bit flooded by locations at the end. Still, I made it to Stage 4 quickly enough, and Lords of the Eldar allowed the Noldor deck to make it through without too much trouble.

Unfortunately, I missed Seat of Seeing on the first run through the deck, so needed to wait for it to reappear. The extra encounter draws from Stage 4 ended up being a big help for this, but I was still delayed from finishing the quest by at least 2 turns. The last turn was tense as I needed to reshuffle the encounter deck and there was a risk of another hero falling to evil without any way to stop it, but I got lucky.

At the beginning of the quest players are able to choose from among four one-use-only Boons. With two choices to make, I took Three Golden Hairs, as this will always be strong. For the other I decided between Leaf-wrapped Lembas and Phial of Galadriel, eventually settling for the Lembas, reasoning that it is easy to set this one up to reliably get value from it. The likelihood is I will save these Boons for the last 1 or 2 quests and they will serve as disposable attachments until then.

This quest also gives a unique opportunity to choose and remove a Burden from the Campaign Pool permanently. It took a bit of work, but I perservered to explore the Seat of Seeing. Of the four burdens to choose from, I think there is a reasonable arguement for removing any except Panicked. In the end I opted to remove Pursued by the Enemy - this one has probably the biggest potential to end a game early, but also has a bad shadow effect, and even Doomed 1.

Finally, we are required to add a new Burden to the Campaign Pool. Out of Followed by Night and Ill Fate, I think Ill Fate is an easy choice. The downside is really quite minor, and I would generally plan to not have it trigger very often anyway.

In addition to the Boon/Burden changes, this quest also requires each player to choose a non- hero other than Aragorn to be a captive. Luckily I have a likely pair in Merry and Pippin, who can spend the next quest as spectators.

Results:

Boons/Burdens earned: Leaf-wrapped Lembas, Three Golden Hairs, Ill Fate

Boons/Burdens removed from Campaign: Pursued by the Enemy

Score: 163

10 full turns (100)
39 + 34 threat (73)
0 damage on heroes (0)
10 Victory Points (-10)

Campaign Log:

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

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

Burdens - The Ring Draws Them, Panicked, Overcome by Grief, Pursued by the Enemy, Ill Fate

Fallen Heroes - Gandalf

+1 starting threat penalty

Captives - Merry, Pippin