Saga Campaign 3P (TRD): Pippen Falls into Shadow

My sons and I are reading the books together (their first time) and playing through the Saga after reading the appropriate chapters. Our Black Riders Fellowship arrived safely in Rivendell. This Fellowship continues our campaign.

We swapped out heroes, because (thanks to boons and his ability), Sam Gamgee has become the leadership deck's main defender. This meant that Glóin was rarely taking damage, which limits his usefulness. Théodred stepped in to take his place, as he and Aragorn still make an effective pair from the Core after all these years. Theodred can be buffed cheaply with a Dúnedain Quest + Snowmane from the other deck. That combo, plus Sam's ability, gives this third of the fellowship a ton of action advantage quickly. We also added Heir of Mardil for Aragorn, which isn't essential early but allows him to ready directly from Theodred without spending the resource. Which leaves more for those costly leadership attachments.

The other decks are mostly unchanged since The Road Darkens, with additions due to having picked up new (to us) sets and wanting to experiment with the cards. Haldir has become a ridiculous force thanks to the Valiant Warrior and Glamdring boons, which are +2 each. The player tries to get a Bow of the Galadhrim on him ASAP, which allows Haldir to attack for 8 within the first couple of turns. This gives us a ton of breathing room early in the game, as he can usually pick off one enemy before it attacks each round.

The Ring Goes South

On our first try, we got location locked early. We eventually had enough allies to clear The Redhorn Pass, but by the that time we had amassed a whopping 14 damage on it, which resulted in a full-party kill. On the plus side, it only took about 20 minutes. Our second try was much smoother and we cruised into the 3rd stage feeling well-equipped and only had a few locations stacking up. But we got too cute trying to ensure Legolas's progress-dropping response would trigger, passing up an opportunity for Haldir to pick off an enemy from afar. Instead, it attacked and, surprise! it had a +2 shadow that killed Merry. On the next turn a chump blocker got knocked out by direct shadow damage, so that attack went undefended and killed another hero. Scoop.

3rd try: We learned our lesson: we're ready for a location-heavy quest, and we're not going to gamble with shadow cards. We were fortunate to draw into most of our critical attachments early, stacked our boards, and had no trouble getting to Stage 4. By this time, Gimli was a total monster, and he, Legolas, and Haldir combined to knock Frodo out of The Watcher's grip in the first turn at the stage. The next turn, we quested hard with 30+ (boosted by Fellowship of the Ring) and cleared both active locations in one shot. The win felt a little anticlimactic and cheap, since 1) we had at least 5 locations left dangling in the staging area, and 2) The Watcher was barely a factor. Still, we thought The Watcher's Frodo-grabbing mechanic was pretty cool (though too easy to escape from), and the location effects + treacheries were all wonderfully thematic and appropriately dangerous. Also the Elrond's Council stage was a thematic win. Overall: It is a really solid quest that, for us, was a bit of a let down at the end.

Journey in the Dark

This took us four tries, which is more than any of the previous quests in the campaign. Fortunately, attempt #1 and #3 were both over within the first couple turns as we got hit by some nasty treacheries before we had allies set up to take the fall. Attempt #2 was an epic fail against the Balrog, which entered the game a turn earlier than expected thanks to double Fool of a Took treacheries. / had the first player token, which normally isn't set up to defend unexpectedly, but there were lots of sentinel allies out from the other hands so we weren't too concerned. EXCEPT we got the "blank all characters' text boxes" treachery as well, so...nope no sentinels after all. 2x balrog attack plus the Orc Chieftan thing: I lost all three heroes and we had barely even made progress against the Chamber of Mazarbul yet. So we decided to call it quits.

Attempt #4: I've had a single copy of Fortune or Fate in the deck since our second campaign quest, as a failsafe against losing a hero late in an otherwise winning effort. I was expecting to use it in this quest so we could resurrect our sacrificed hero. It did not quite go according to plan:

Pippin was lost to a Deep Fissure treachery in the Chamber of Mazarbul, before the Balrog even arrived! Other than losing our stout little Took, the party was doing great, having easily chopped through 8 of the 9 required enemies to clear the chamber. Fortune or Fate was deployed to bring Pippin back, and the relieved heroes prepared to flee the chamber as the Balrog arrived. (With a single unplayed copy of Dwarven Tomb still somewhere in my deck, there was still hope we'd end the quest without any fallen heroes.)

The Balrog burst in and immediately chewed through Galadriel's Handmaiden and other unfortunate gentle souls, but the heroes channeled their grief into an overwhelming force: With Haldir, Aragorn, and Gimli, with ranged weapons all, we were able to deplete the Balrog's formidable and land 6-8 damage per turn. (At one point our text boxes were blanked again but Gimli was able to pile onto an attack because his "Ranged" keyword came from an attachment.)

As we escaped the chamber, which we'd yet to do, my sons inspected The Great Bridge card. They became visibly upset upon deciphering how to make the Balrog no longer "Indestructible". Some protesting. I urge them to think of the good of the whole fellowship, and how the additional burdens of leaving the Balrog alive will torment us through the rest of the campaign. They relent, finally, and agree that, when the time comes, we will sacrifice Pippin (who is having a really tough day already). There is a glimmer of hope yet: A single Dwarven Tomb remains in my deck, which could bring back Fortune or Fate. They are skeptical and nervous. But now, we've yet to cross the bridge, and the player must defend against the Balrog: No problem, Gandalf and Winged Guardian are prepared to take hits, and Treebeard can be readied if needed. (Just don't ask me how we met up with the ent in the mines, OK?)

Doom, doom, doom. The Balrog gets TWO CONSECUTIVE "this enemy makes an additional attack" shadow cards. Gandalf, the Eagle, and the Ent all fall. And it is only the end of the quest phase. Meaning (gulp) a hero will need to take the hit from the Balrog during the combat phase. Merry, that brave little Hobbit, charges in and and takes a mortal hit from Durin's Bane. He is gone.

Pippin, blinded by grief, throws himself on the bridge to hold it against the advancing Shadow & Flame. The Balrog is slowed long enough to expose a weakness. As Aragorn, Gimli, and Haldir avenge Merry with an epic attack, the bridge collapses. Both the demon and our beloved fool of a Took are lost to the black depths of Khazad-Dum. The remaining heroes cannot linger, as the rising threat in Moria is now a major risk. The company quests hard for two more turns. In shadow, a light: the Mirror of Galadriel reveals the Tomb, and Merry is miraculously revived. Pippin would have wanted it that way, I'm sure.

Wow, this is a fantastically well-designed quest, in the context of the campaign. (Nitpick: Deep Fissure and a couple other treacheries felt a little cheap in places.) I was worried going in that we'd be "cheating" by using Fortunate or Fate, but it turned out we lost our hero anyway so it was a fitting, satisfying end. My kids were pretty shaken up though, they initially wanted to give it another shot. When I pointed out that our first three tries had gone nowhere and this one took 2+ hours, they still protested. Then appealed to their sense of story: "Isn't it fitting that we lost a hero? Just like Gandalf in the books. We'll miss Pippin, but let's prove he didn't die in vain!" They reluctantly agreed, and we continued onward to Lothlorien.

The Breaking of the Fellowship

I added Éowyn to replace Pippin, giving her Snowmane and Golden Shield. (Having access to also meant that I didn't need to rely on the mono-tactics deck for Bow of the Galadhrim for Haldir, which is good because that deck has ballooned to like 70 cards (mostly allies) and is wildly inconsistent.) I also added Arwen Undómiel so Eowyn can defend without needing to engage enemies, and we threw in a little extra healing since we knew there'd be a lot of direct damage. Finally, as I now own Light of Valinor, we swapped that in place of Wingfoot to make Haldir's combat readiness more consistent.

We lost quickly on our first try due to a bad draw of archery-heavy encounter cards early. The second attempt was much better, with a little less early archery and a great draw for Haldir. He had the Bow, Glamdring, and the Light all by the 2nd turn, and was attacking for 8 into the staging area each combat phase. I honestly don't know how this quest is manageable without Haldir + toys! We were making decent quest progress and Haldir was knocking out an enemy almost every turn, but we were still taking heavy archery damage, and not drawing into any of my healing. Allies started dropping and all the heroes were all getting close to max damage...nobody was getting the cards they needed and it looked like one more turn was going to do us in. Then...the deck drew into Dúnedain Remedy and saved the day! We passed this back and forth like 8x on one turn, solving our healing woes without at all. Whew!