39 - The Three Trials (Progression Series)

This is another fellowship continuing on in my goal to play through all of the quests in release order to learn how all (or most) of the cards interact with one another. The first fellowship for the quests in the core set can be found here, and it contains a slightly more detailed overview of what I'm going for with building these decks. As always, any feedback is appreciated so that I can continue to learn more!

Other than Shadows of Mirkwood, The Ring-Maker is the only cycle that I have fully played through prior to this progression series. I remember The Three Trials being my favorite quest that I had played up to that point, and after having played through quite a few others it is still near the very top. I love the boss fights, and think the time counters are much more enjoyable here on the boss enemies than they usually are on the quest cards.

I have both decks set up to really take care of very different things, with the Tactics deck rarely, if ever, sending anyone questing and letting Idraen and company take care of everything there. I have pretty much every single location control tool available slotted into this deck to allow for placing a good deal of progress on locations and clearing them out without having to resolve their travel effects. This quest messes up allies pretty badly, so any Willpower for the final push during Stage 3B will come from the heroes and Lay of Nimrodel. A Burning Brand, Unexpected Courage and Song of Wisdom all go over to Beregond to let him be able to handle all of the attacks from the bosses.

The Tactics deck is all about taking defending the big attacks and then dishing damage back out as quickly as possible so that there isn't time for the time counters to deplete. Unseen Strike and Dagger of Westernesse can help quite a bit since all of the Guardians have a printed engagement of 50. Gondorian Fire on Boromir should be able to handle the rest without much issue. Ideally you will want to have a Thicket of Spears and some Westfold Outrider handy for the start of Stage 3, to handle the immediate attacks from traveling to the Hallowed Circle and then to engage any of the Guardians who engaged the locations deck if you can't plan out who gets the keys perfectly during Stage 2.