Lord of the Rings 7 - Mirkwood with Spirit
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As the title states, playing the Mirkwood scenario with only the Spirit deck, and on the Easy setting.
On first glance, this looks like a tough deck to play, as there is not much combat, and few allies. There is pretty good quest though, so will have to concentrate on that.
Round 1
- Resource: gain 3
- Planning: Attach Favor of the Lady to Eowyn for 2 R, Power in the Earth to Old Forest Road for 1. Resources 0 now, bummer.
- Quest phase: everyone, kind of risky, but could pay off well. Will is 4 Eowyn + 1 Favor + 1 discard + 1 Eleanor + 1 Dunhere for 8. This seems ok because Forest Spider Threat is 25, and we're starting with 24, so it won't come out until next round. Mountains of Mirkwood comes up for 2 threat, so, net 4 Q.
- Travel to Mountains of Mirkwood, Treachery deals 1 D to everyone, but at least there is no T revealed.
- Engagement, nothing.
- Attack, nothing.
- Refresh.
Round 2
- Resource, gain 3 for 3.
- Planning, nothing this round.
- Quest: Eowyn for 5 total, we'll try to stay even this round and get Gandalf into play next round. Draw Forest Gate, which is good, can get two cards going there. Net 1 P on Mountains.
- Travel, still at Mountains.
- Engagement, Forest Spider comes down, Eleanor will defend, takes 2 D and is killed. Bummer.
- Attack: Dunhere, does 1 D on Forest Spider.
- Refresh.
Not looking super great, didn't get much progress last turn.
Round 3
- Resource: gain 2 for 5.
- Planning: Gandalf comes out for 5 R, will deal 4 damage to Forest Spider, just get that creep out of the way.
- Quest: Eowyn and Dunhere for 6, draw Dol Goldur Orcs for 4 T total, net 2, Mountains cleared.
- Travel: Forest Gate, draw 2 cards.
- Engagement, Dol Goldur Orcs, Gandalf defends.
- Attack, nothing.
- Refresh.
Round 4
- Resource: gain 2 for 2.
- Planning, nothing.
- Quest: this is going to be a tough one, and probably where the game is decided. I'm only at 27 Threat, with nothing in the Staging area, so I can afford to not quest this round, and build some resources. Draw Treachery for 1 T in staging, lucky, net +1 T.
- Travel, at Forest Gate.
- Engagement: Eowyn defends takes 1 D.
- Attack: Dunhere takes care of the Orcs.
- Refresh.
Round 5
How far can we go here? I need to get a lot more resources, but I also need to protect the Heroes.
- Resource: gain 2 for 4.
- Planning: Northern Tracker for 4, really need to have the defense here.
- Quest: Eowyn for 5 Q, draw Forest Spider for 2 T, Eowyn discard for + 1, net 4 and Forest Gate is cleared.
- Travel, no place to go.
- Engagement, Forest Spider, Shadow forces Favor attachement discard, bummer. Northern Tracker defends, no damage.
- Attack, Dunhere, 1 D.
- Refresh, Threat 30, still doing pretty good if I can keep the Heroes alive. Need to fish Eleanor back out of the discard.
Round 6
- Resource: gain 2 for 2.
- Planning: Spend 1 for Dwarven Tomb, return Eleanor to play. This is probably not legal, but reading the card literally it's allowed. Other cards cost 5 to get a hero back into play. I'll read up on this deck later.
- Quest: Eowyn and Dunhere with discard for 6, draw Dol Goldur Beastmaster, sucks. Net 4 and Flies and Spiders is cleared.
- Travel, no place to go.
- Engagement: both defend, Dunhere for 0 D, Northern Tracker for 1 D, very lucky on Beastmaster, neither shadow card had an effect!
- Attack, nothing, bummer.
- Refresh, Threat 31.
Round 7
- Resource: gain 3 for 4.
- Planning: Save resources.
- Quest: Eowyn for 4, draw Enchanted Stream for 2, net 2, A Fork in the Road is cleared. Stage 3 is "Beorn's Path" and will need 10 Q to win. Hopefully Ungoliant's Spawn will not appear, but I think it will.
- Travel: nothing.
- Engagement: Eleanor takes a 1 D hit from Beastmaster.
- Attack: Dunhere puts 1 D on Beastmaster.
- Refresh, Threat 33.
Gandalf comes back into play next turn. If I can get one or both enemies cleared, and 4 P on the quest, I might be able to win this one. Really depends on what comes out of the deck next.
Round 8
- Resource: gain 3 for 7.
- Planning: Gandalf for 5, save for 3 cost ally next turn. 4 D on Beastmaster, it's done.
- Quest: Eowyn, Dunhere and Gandalf for 9, draw Forest Gate, +1 for discard, net 6. Getting there!
- Travel to Enchanted Stream, hope we don't stuck there.
- Engagement, Eleanor 0 D from Forest Spider.
- Northern Tracker deals 1 D to Forest Spider.
- Refresh, Threat 34.
Round 9
- Resource: gain 3 for 5.
- Planning: Attach Favor to Eowyn for 2 R.
- Quest: Eowyn for 4 + 1, Dunhere + 1, draw East Bight Patrol, Eowyn discard Lorien for + 1 net 2, Enchanted Stream is cleared.
- Travel: Forest Gate, pick up two cards.
- Engagement, East Bight deals 1 D to Northern Tracker. Next round will need to not quest I think.
- Attack: nothing.
- Refresh: Threat 35.
Round 10
- Resource: gain 3 for 6.
- Planning: Lorien guide for 3. Weak card, total road kill here, hopefully buys me another round to get a load of quest points. Also play Wandering Took for 2.
- Quest: Eowyn 5 + 1 discard + 1 Dunhere, draw Great Forest Web, net 4, clears Forest Gate. Need to make some progress on quest card, need 5 more P to win it. And UG Spawn probably about to appear.
- Engagement: Eleanor defend Forest Spider for 0 D, Northern Tracker nets 1 D.
- Attack: 1 D on Forest Spider. Dammit.
- Refresh, Threat 36. I think I'm going to need to kill off a hero to get this won soon.
Round 11
- Resource: gain 3 for 4, draw Gandald, pity I don't enough to get him in play, this would win it I think this round.
- Planning: nothing.
- Quest: 6 draw Mountains of Mirkwood, net 2 P on quest card. Good.
- Travel: none. Risky, but Gandalf will be coming in next turn…
- Engagement: Bight takes out Lorien.
- Attack: Took and Tracker on East Bight for net 2, killed.
- Refresh: Threat 37, this game is going slow!
Round 12
- Resource: gain 3 for 7.
- Planning: Play Gandalf for 3 card draw, play Wandering Took, 0 R, need to win it this round or get super close, like 1 P.
- Quest: Eowyn 4 + 1 Favor + 1 discard + 4 Gandald for 10, draw Dol Goldur Orcs (2 D to Gandalf), total threat is 6, net 4, 11 P on quest card, and that's the game if I can get through the final stage.
- Travel: no need.
- Engagement: Eleanor defends on Forest Spider, Wandering Took on DG Orcs, that's curtains for that Took. Shadow card exhausts the other Took, and I have no resources to negate it.
- Attack: Dunhere takes the Forest Spider. Northern Tracker deals 2 D, but need 3 D to kill.
- Refresh: Threat 38, booyah.
That worked out pretty well. I could have probably won it a bit faster had I allowed a little more threat to build.
Score: 164. Not very good I guess. Better to end with high Threat than a large number of rounds. I don't really care much about score I don't think.
AAR
Something I'm not really sure about: The card above which costs 1 and gets a Hero out of discard and back into hand. I haven't seen anywhere in the rules where that's prohibited, but it doesn't seem right. I played it anyway. I may have been able to win this game without playing that way, as long as the cards came up exactly how they did here.
I'll be on the lookout for an answer to this question.
For a next game, I really ought to play the full Encounter deck with a mixed deck. Since there are 4 decks, and I can play two of them together, there are 4 choose 2 combinations. 4 choose 2 is exactly 4!!, which is 2 x 4 = 8. That's a bunch of games. And that's just for the Mirkwood scenario.