QOTW - The Road to Isengard - Mildly Thematic

A Fellowship to tackle the quest The Road to Isengard 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.

In this quest we partake in the Ents' march on Saruman's stronghold of Isengard and the subsequent confrontation with the wizard himself. Treebeard is accompanied by Merry and Pippin, along with Ents including Quickbeam and Beechbone. Then when Aragorn and Gandalf arrive, they are joined by Théoden, Éomer, Legolas and Gimli.

The heroes continue from the last quest. Glorfindel switches to his version to enable the Ent deck. He and Gandalf are joined this time by Éomer for his sphere access. Théoden also changes sphere to , giving a boost to starting and allowing an easier time winning over the Ents of Fangorn. He's joined by the remaining heroes Erkenbrand and Sam Gamgee

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

The quest starts with the opportunity to "recruit" some powerful Ent allies, which are incredibly useful for winning the quest. I've tried to make my chances of getting them as high as possible, with 19 among my heroes. It's possible to get all four in two turns, although some not-great luck meant it took me almost three turns worth of actions to do. This means three extra cards revealed, although my luck seemed to return as two of them were ineffective Blasts of Sorcery. This act also earned the QOTW achievement "To Isengard with Doom We Come" for advancing to Stage 2 controlling all four Ents of Fangorn.

The next few rounds were spent building up a board state while controlling the Staging Area. Having the extra Ents makes a big difference. Unfortunately my copies of Treebeard did not show up particularly early, but he wasn't necessary to make progress. As another wrinkle, Aragorn ended up falling victim to Saruman's Voice, and was largely relegated to exhausting to encounter card effects for the remainder of the quest.

In the end I used the Ents of Fangorn to progress during the Quest Phase before Quest Resolution, allowing me to place enough progress on Stage 3, travel to Orthanc, and defeat Saruman in the same round. Better yet, I had just enough resources to play my 15^th Ent ally and earn the QOTW achievement Entmoot.

The campaign awards the Boon Palantír of Orthanc for completing the quest while having three or more cards in hand. I was also able to avoid the Saruman's Voice Burden.

Results:

Boons/Burdens earned: Palantír of Orthanc

Score: 173

9 full turns (90)
45 + 39 threat (84)
0 damage on heroes (0)
1 Victory Points (-1)

Campaign Log:

Heroes - Gandalf, Glorfindel, Sam Gamgee, Éomer, Erkenbrand, Théoden.

Boons - 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), Palantír of Orthanc

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

+1 starting threat penalty