Lord of the Rings 11 - Anduin dreams (4)

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Let's make another attempt at Journey Along the Anduin. We'll be using Beorn's deck, custom built for this scenario using only the cards from a single core box.

The draw is good, I have Forest Snare and Sneak Attack in my hand right out of the gate.

From the scenario, the initial Encounter is a Treachery which has no effect, good luck!

The Hill Troll is out.

Round 1

  1. Resource: 3 total, draw Gandalf.
  2. Planning: saving resources.
  3. Quest: All will commit. Theodred resource goes to Denethor for future Forest Snare deployment. Aragorn spends 1 to ready, in case of problems in the staging area. Draw Eastern Crows, surges for Evil Storm which doesn't apply with Threat < 35. Lucky. Net 2 Progress.
  4. Travel: none.
  5. Encounter phase: Crows and Troll come out at 30. Since I don't have any healing on the board, leaving the Crows in for now, which may be a mistake, but I don't want to take a hit on Aragorn.
  6. Combat: none.
  7. Refresh, Threat 29.

Round 2

  1. Resource: 3 Lore, 3 Leadership, draw Self Preservation. I may have a chance to beat this scenario! Self Preservation is a Lore card, so I'm going to have to be very careful about playing it. Probably need to get the Hill Troll out of the way first. Meantime, need to keep boosting Denethor for resources. May play Steward of Gonder onto Denethor in fact.
  2. Planning: Theodred spend 2 attach Steward of Gondor to Denethor. Denethor exhaust Steward of Gondor (SoG) add 2 resources.
  3. Quest: Commit all, Aragorn spends 1 to ready. Draw East Bight. Net 1 Progress.
  4. Travel: none.
  5. Encounter: Aragorn engages Crows. No other engagement this turn.
  6. Combat: Aragorn takes on the Crows. Shadow is Pursued by Shadow, which since I have no allies deployed raises Theat by 3. Sucks, but could be way worse. Aragorn -1, Crows eliminated. Threat 32.
  7. Refresh, Threat 33.

Round 3

  1. Resource: Lore 6, Leadership 2, draw Erebor Hammersmith.
  2. Planning: Self Preservation to Aragorn, Denethor pays. Exhaust to bring Aragorn to full strength.
  3. Quest: All quest, spend 1 to ready Aragorn. Another East Bight from Encounter deck. No big deal, still net 1 Progress.
  4. Travel: nope, not yet. East Bight is going to be a bitch to get through, with 6 Progress required. Could be what costs the game if it goes into location lock. We'll see. (Played this wrong, see Round 4 Travel below.)
  5. Encounter: Hill Troll rolls out, gets Forest Snare from Denethor right away.
  6. Combat: Aragorn for 3, Gandalf with Sneak attak for 4, -4 on Hill Troll, a good start. If I can get an ally out next round to deal with Hill troll, that would be good.
  7. Refresh: Threat 34.

Round 4

  1. Resource: Leadership 3, Lore 3, that SoG card is paying off. Draw Faramir, excellent, will really help get this questing going. I can't get him into play this round though, will have to save some resources.
  2. Planning: Erebor Hammersmith, this gets Sneak Attack back into my hand! Could I have planned that better? I don't think so. Denethor pays.
  3. Quest: Commit 3 Will, draw Gladden Fields, net -2 for Threat 36, bummer. At least the Hill Troll is toast this turn.
  4. Travel: since there is no active location, I must travel to East Bight which righteously blows. I played this wrong above, but I think the net Progress will work out the same.
  5. Encounter: amazingly enough, no baddies coming along. Looking like an imminent location lock though.
  6. Combat: Aragorn for 3, Gandalf with Sneak Attack for 4, Erebor and Denethor for 1 each, net +6 for 10 hits on Hill Troll. He's toast.
  7. Refresh: Threat 37, need to get Gandy out to reduce that Threat.

Round 5

  1. Resource: Leadership 6, Lore 4, draw Son of Arnor.
  2. Planning: Play Faramir, Play Gandalf for threat reductio, Threat 32.
  3. Quest: Everyone but Erebor, who's going to play the chump if necessary. Draw Banks of the Anduin. Will 12, Threat 5, net 7 for Progress removes East Bight, adds 1 to Quest card. Really was hoping for a bit more. No enemies yet. Got a bad feeling about this…
  4. Travel: East Bight is mandatory.
  5. Encounter, none.
  6. Combat: none.
  7. Refresh: Threat 33.

Round 6

  1. Resource: Leadership 4, Lore 3, draw Miner of the Iron Hills. No idea what to use this dude for, maybe for soaking off an attack?
  2. Planning: Play 2 Guards of the Citadel this will net me 4 Will with Faramir in play.
  3. Quest: Will 11, Erebor stands for defense if necessary. Draw Misty Mountain Goblins, net 5 Progress, dammit.
  4. Travel: already at East Bight.
  5. Encounter: Aragorn engages Goblins.
  6. Combat: Shadow card Dol Goldur Orcs, deal +3 undefended, this puts Aragorn as 5 hits, will heal for net 3 hits. Not sure if this is kosher, but I'll look it up later. If it's not, this would pretty much be the game. Otherwise, Aragorn and Erebor dispose of Goblins.
  7. Refresh: Threat 34.

Round 7

  1. Resource: Leadership 2, Lore 4, draw Snowborne Scout.
  2. Planning: Play the Scout, that gets rid of current East Bight.
  3. Quest: Will 13, Draw Wargs for Threat 6, net 7, Stage 1 is complete. Too bad I can't carry over progress tokens.
  4. Travel: Gladden Fields. Ugh. Should be able to motor through this on the next round though.
  5. Encounter: Snowborne Scout defends! Brave lad!
  6. Combat: Shadow card is Hill Troll! No effect! Snowborne Scout perishes! Brave lad! Aragorn Deals 2 hits, not enough, Wargs go back to staging area. Dammit! I should have left a couple more Allies active from the quest. However, Scout's Valiant Sacrifice yields Another SoG and Daughter of the Nimrodel. This is good. Now I just need to be able to draw a few more cards.
  7. Refresh: 36 (Gladden Fields).

Round 8

  1. Resource: Leadership 2, Lore 7, draw Miner of the Iron Hills. Hrmph.
  2. Planning: Play Daughter and Miner from Lore, SoG and Son of Arnor from Leadership. Son of Arnor engages Wargs immediately.
  3. Quest: Will 13, draw Despair, but there are no Progress on the current Quest card! Lucky! Threat 1 for net 12, Gladden Fields is gone for 3 VP, 9 Progress on Stage 2.
  4. Travel, Banks of the Anduin. This will go back onto the top of the Encounter deck, which is good, I'll know what it is.
  5. Encounter: Dol Goldur Orcs Shadow, no problem, Son of Arnor is already toast, poor dude.
  6. Son of Arnor perishes, Wargs are slain by Aragorn.
  7. Refresh: Threat 35. Bummer, this attracts some Big Baddies.

At this point, I need to be finding another Gandalf, Sneak Attack and whatnot. I have 1 card left in my hand.

Round 9

  1. Resource: Leadership 5, Lore 5, draw another Daughter of the Nimrodel. Good thing there is a lot of these daughters.
  2. Planning: play another Daughter, good for questing.
  3. Quest: Will 17 and let's hope no surge…draw Enchanted Stream. Could be worse. Threat 2 for net 15, definitely overkill, but this clears Stage 2 and puts Banks of the Anduin back on the top of the Encounter deck. Stage 3: Reveal 2 encounter cards per player into the staging area. Draw Enchanted Stream and Dol Goldur Orcs. Skip the Quest Phase for the remainder of the game. Once no enemies in play, players have won the game.
  4. Travel, no, why bother.
  5. Encounter: Engage Dol Goldur Orcs.
  6. Miner of Iron Hills defends, Shadow card no effect, Miner takes 1 hit. Awesome, the defender lives! Aragorn deals the game winning blow!

It's a win!

AAR

Apparently, I forgot to expose 2 Encounter cards during Quest Phase in Stage 2 in this game. I recall reading that, and recall thinking, "Dang, that sucks" but from the writeup, I forgot to actually do it in when playing. I'm ok with that I think, gives me an excuse to play the scenario again. I'd put it out right now if I didn't have DAK 2 already in play. In any case, I'm pretty sure I would have won the scenario anyway. I had a pretty strong hand going into Stage 2. It might have taken me an extra round or two.

I still maintain this would be extremely gnarly to win without having Forest Snare available to bind the Hill Troll. The only defender capable of dealing with the Troll is Aragorn, and then pretty much only once, unless for some reason the daughters and Self Preservation are all in play. So it could happen, but it would be tough.

Score: 118.

  • 35 Threat
  • 0 (dead heroes)
  • 90 (10 x 9 rounds)
  • 0 (damage)
  • -7 Hill Troll and Gladden Fields.

Some questions:

  • How to play Son of Arnor? I think is pretty powerful. In this game it moved Wargs from staging to engaged. The main question is whether Son of Arnor is the defender, or can other Allies or Heroes choose to defend?
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What to play next?

Deciding what to play next is always a tough call when faced with a closet full of games, all of which were purchased with intent to play. Here's one I'm dealing with the decision.

  • Something New: this means both something new to me and a game which has been published recently, within the last two or three years.
  • Something Classic: I've acquired a number of games properly considered "classic" which haven't yet been played. The current example would be PanzerGruppe Guderian.
  • Something Again: mastery requires constant practice, which means playing games many, many times to allow nuance to appear.
  • Something Vietnam: as I'm on a Vietnam binge. I don't have all the Vietnam games ever published, but I can say that I have a lot of them, and probably more than most people.
  • Something Obscure: as it's fun to poke around in the dustier corners of game design.
  • Something Different: break away from the same old publishers and try a game from one of the new kids on the block. Or, conversely, dip into legacy with a classic tried and true.
  • Something Light: once in a while it's nice to actually finish a game all the way through in one sitting, in an hour or two.
  • Something Heavy: if possible, it's nice to set up something big and complicated which can be left out for days or weeks or even months, for a leisurely stroll through a very large or long game.

There are surely many more ways to choose, but the above method keeps me busy enough, helps me get both breadth and depth into my play, and provides me with a sense of progress.

The odd man out

When there is an odd man out:

  • Have a solo game ready to play.
  • Keep score or advise on a game in progress.
  • Referee a game in progress.