QOTW - Mount Doom - Mildly Thematic

A Fellowship to tackle the quest Mount Doom 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 Frodo Baggins and Sam Gamgee make the final journey to the Cracks of Doom to destroy The One Ring. Sam is the only thematic inclusion necessary, which is just as well as you don't want to be making sub-optimal choices for this quest.

So Sam leads a Bond of Friendship Hobbit deck, with Folco Boffin, Merry and Pippin. This allows a very low threat, but also four heroes for taking Fortitude tests. Hobbits also have good and easy access to readying, making them well suited for this quest.

On the other side I chose the returning lineup of Éowyn, Gandalf and Glorfindel. With Boons, all three heroes have four starting , and plenty of other stats to boot. Given the particular challenges of this quest I also decided to run them as a Forth, The Three Hunters! deck, which should work well for them.

I settled on the Mountain of Fire version of Frodo for this quest, reasoning that he would allow a strong start and in particular aid with resource smoothing for the Hobbit deck. There are a few potential downsides for having the Ring exhausted, but they are not unassailable.

Even with threat penalties, both decks started with 26 threat, helpfully low for this quest. This was further reduced by Three Golden Hairs, which I used to kick off the quest. This may have been a bad decision for a couple of reasons: 1) I immediately drew into The Searching Eye, which I was otherwise protected from thanks to Gandalf's Wizard Pipe. Even though it only revealed a Mordor Road, revealing extra encounter cards is not something I wanted to do. 2) I did end up discarding quite a few cards to Deep Shadows throughout the quest, and maybe wasted some of the card draw in the process.

On the other hand, there were defninitely benefits - on multiple occasions the three threat reduction resulted in lower Fortitude test thresholds. Additionally, with the extra cards drawn I was able to flip the Three Hunters contract on turn 2, even with Frodo requiring attachments. I also had Rosie Cotton in play from turn one, giving additional safety for Fortitude tests.

Mostly I was playing to keep threat low, quest well (very achievable with the Three Hunters Contract), and try to arrive at Mount Doom with sufficient . That said, I had surprisingly good success with combat also, taking out several enemies quite easily, including a Nazgûl, and using Goblin-cleaver to good effect.

I used Ho! Tom Bombadil! on the very first turn to avoid Foul Fumes, which likely would have ruined my chances straight away. I also spent several cards, including Leaf-wrapped Lembas, to pass "cannot fail" Fortitude tests, which luckily worked out. In the end I was able to travel to Mount Doom on the 6th turn, giving me only a single round with which to beat the quest. After all was said and done, my Hobbits tested with 13 , needing to beat 8 cards on the Fortitude test, and winning with 12 Eye symbols revealed and finally The One Ring (card) was destroyed.

Results:

Boons/Burdens: Ho! Tom Bombadil!, Leaf-wrapped Lembas and Three Golden Hairs removed from the campaign pool

Score: 178

6 full turns (60)
64 + 68 threat (132)
5 damage on heroes (5)
19 victory points (-19)

Campaign Log:

Heroes - Éowyn, Gandalf, Glorfindel, Folco Boffin, Merry, Pippin, Sam Gamgee

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, 2x Brace of Conies, Army of the Dead, Esquire of Gondor (Glorfindel), Esquire of Rohan (Gandalf)

Burdens - The Ring Draws Them, Panicked, Overcome by Grief, Ill Fate, 1x The Searching Eye, A Heavy Burden, 2x Wraith on Wings

+1 starting threat penalty (+2 additional penalty for one deck)

Enemies under the Black Gate: 2x Oliphaunt

Resources on the Corsair Fleet: 5

Resources on the Black Gate: 7

The One Ring Card: Destroyed