QOTW - The Uruk-hai - Mildly Thematic

A Fellowship to tackle the quest The Uruk-hai 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.

For this quest we accompany Aragorn on his pursuit, so the only required characters are the Three Hunters Aragorn (now present in his sphere form), Legolas and Gimli. Merry and Pippin are also present as the captives. I have chosen not to include Éomer and his riders - they will feature plenty in future quests.

The campaign continues with heroes from the previous quest, and is the culmination of the recent hero choices I have made. Aragorn is now only available through his quest specific versions so will need to be replaced. My first instinct was that this is the ideal time to run a Forth, The Three Hunters! deck, keeping true to the source material. So, Legolas and Gimli (and captive Merry) are the heroes for one deck - the two new heroes replace Aragorn and also fill the previous slot held temporarily by Messenger of the King heroes.

The other deck keeps my existing and enduring campaign heroes, Glorfindel and Sam Gamgee (with a captive Pippin). After this quest there will be an opportunity to change heroes without penalty, which will be needed to keep up with the thematic requirements.

For these quests we don't get a choice of Fellowship hero - the Treason of Saruman version of Aragorn is required.

The quest took 2 attempts. The first involved a constant stream of enemies, and even though both Uglúk and Grishnákh were in the victory display, one too many "additional attack" shadows necessitated a risky defense by Aragorn, resulting in his defeat.

The second, successful attempt was also filled with enemy reveals - I barely saw any locations or the treacheries that hinder progress like Unseen Barrier. This time though, Grishnákh was revealed on turn 1, and I spent some time figuring out how to proceed without losing one of my 2hp Hobbit captives the following turn. Luckily it worked out (Aragorn's ability saved the day) and the rest of the quest went relatively smoothly.

It took a few turns for the Three Hunters contract to come online and at that point victory felt inevitable. I progressed to Stage 2 on turn 4 with pursuit value of only 16 and ended the game at 19, which I think is the best I've ever managed. I was only one(!) progress short of winning a turn sooner (should have quested with Bill the Pony!), but the conservative approach still led to a comfortable victory.

At this stage we sadly lose our Mr. Underhill boon permanently. Temporarily, we will also be setting aside the Ring-related Burdens until the Campaign rejoin Frodo a bit later.

At the end of this quest, so long as you have maintained a low enough pursuit value, there is a choice of many differnt Boon options. Either a Skill Boon for each player, or Beyond All Hope to return and empower a fallen hero. The Skill Boons are very strong, particularly Forewarned, and I have chosen them in the past. This time around, however, I threw Gandalf from The Great Bridge in Moria specifically to bring him back with Beyond All Hope and to allow me to use Gandalf the White for the rest of the campaign. So he will be removed from the list of fallen heroes and rejoin the fellowship starting with the next quest.

Results:

Boons/Burdens earned: Beyond All Hope (Gandalf)

Boons/Burdens removed from Campaign: Mr. Underhill

Score: 112

5 full turns (50)
34 + 32 threat (66)
5 damage on heroes (5)
9 Victory Points (-9)

Campaign Log:

Heroes - Glorfindel, Pippin, Sam Gamgee, Gimli, Legolas, Merry Gandalf.

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, Beyond All Hope (Gandalf)

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

Fallen Heroes - Gandalf

+1 starting threat penalty