LotR 109 - Foundations of Stone (2)

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Second attempt at Foundations of Stone. Very curious how my luck will hold.

I'm playing my usual Deeds of Dwarves deck.

Initial hand:

  • Dwarven Tomb
  • Bifur
  • Untroubled by Darkness
  • Narvi's Belt
  • Sneak Attack
  • Longbeard Orc Slayer

Nothing super cool in this hand, but good enough not to mulligan.

Initial encounter: Fouled Well, random discard Dwarven Tomb.

Round 1

  1. Resource: 3, draw Cram.
  2. Planning: play Cram on Thorin.
  3. Quest: Ori for 3 Will, draw Zigil Mineshaft. Urg. Going to pay that down right now. Threat 36. Not off to a great start!
  4. Travel: Fouled Well.
  5. Encounter: none
  6. Combat: none
  7. Refresh: Threat 37.

Out of the gate with a bang!

Round 2

  1. Resource: 6, draw Longbeard Mapmaker
  2. Planning: play Longbeard Orc Slayer. Expensive, but might just save the bacon sooner than later.
  3. Quest: Thorin and Ori for 7 Will, draw Zigil Mineshaft! Will have to deal with it, +2 progress on Fouled Well.
  4. Travel: none.
  5. Encounter: none.
  6. Combat: none.
  7. Refresh: Threat 38.

Round 3

  1. Resource: 5, draw Gandalf.
  2. Planning: Longbeard Map-Maker.
  3. Quest: Thorin and Ori for 7 Will, draw Goblin Follower. Net 1 progress.
  4. Travel: none.
  5. Encounter: Goblin Follower.
  6. Combat: Longbeard defends, shadow Lightless Passage, which cancels combat damage to enemy. Longbeard takes 2 hits.
  7. Refresh: Threat 39.

Round 4

  1. Resource: 6, draw Gloin and Forest Snare.
  2. Planning: Play Gloin, add resources to Ori. Play Bifur draw Dwalin and Gandalf.
  3. Quest: Thorin, Ori, Gloin for 10 Will, draw Burning Low. This makes Zigil 8 Threat, for net 2, which clears Fouled Well.
  4. Travel: Zigil Mineshaft.
  5. Encounter: Goblin Follower.
  6. Combat: Sneak Attack Gandalf as defender, Threat 34, draw Goblin Swordsman and add to staging area. Longbeards and Bifur take out Goblin with Dain boost.
  7. Refresh: Threat 35.

Round 5

  1. Resource: 8, draw Dwalin and Durin's Song.
  2. Planning: Narvi's Belt to Thorin, play Dwalin.
  3. Quest: Thorin, Ori, Gloin for 10 Will, draw Goblin Scout, net 6 Progress. Cave Torch for Zigil draw Goblin Follower. Zigil clears, 3 P on quest (finally). This is going to be a really long game as these enemies could do serious damage to my tableau.
  4. Travel: none.
  5. Encounter: all the orcs
  6. Combat: Goblin follower defended by Longbeard, shadow Fouled Well for no effect, Longbeard is dead. Goblin Scout defended by Dwalin, shadow Goblin Tunnels so Scout swings for 4 (dang!) and 2 hits on Dwalin. Map-Maker defends Goblin Swordsman, shadow Goblin Swordsman, added to Staging and Longbeard Map-Maker is dead. This is not good. Discard Cram to ready Thorin, with Bifur takes out Goblin Follower. Dain takes out Goblin Scout.
  7. Refresh: Threat 36.

Need us some Fili and Kili.

Round 6

  1. Resource: 9, draw Erebor Hammersmith and Miner of the Iron Hills.
  2. Planning: play Erebor and put Cram back into hand. Play Cram on Thorin. Handy!
  3. Quest: Thorin, Ori, Gloin for 10 Will, draw Cave In, which removes all 3 Progress from Quest. But this is net 9 Progress so Stage 1 is passed.
  4. Travel: none.
  5. Encounter: Goblin Swordsman.
  6. Combat: Dwalin defends against Goblin Swordsman, shadow Burning Low for +2 attack but it doesn't matter Dwalin bites it. Erebor defends Goblin Swordsman, shadow Goblin Scout for no effect, add 2 hits to Erebor. Bifur kills 1 Goblin Swordsman, Dain puts a hit on the other.
  7. Refresh: Threat 37.

Round 7

  1. Resource: 11, draw Erebor Record Keeper, Forest Snare.
  2. Planning: Play Dwalin, Erebor RK. Durin's Song on Thorin.
  3. Quest: Thorin, Ori, Gloin, Bifur, Dwalin (and hope there is no enemy surge, I'm overdue for a location…), draw Dark and Dreadful. Bummer, I don't have any healing in this deck. Net 16 Progress discarding Fili and King Under the Mountain. Could be a lot worse. Stage 2 is cleared.
  4. Travel: none.
  5. Encounter: none.
  6. Combat: Erebor defends, shadow Moria Bats, Erebor is dead. Dain adds another hit to kill the Goblin Swordsman.
  7. Refresh: Threat 38.

Round 8

  1. Resource: 4, draw Ancestral Knowledge and Second Breakfast.
  2. Planning: play Second Breakfast to get King Under the Mountain.
  3. Quest: Thorin, Ori, Gloin, Bifur for 12 Will, draw Drowned Treasury. Net 10 Progress… crossem fingers…
  4. Travel: none.
  5. Encounter: none.
  6. Combat: none.
  7. Refresh: Threat 39.

Round 9

  1. Resource: 7, draw Kili and Durin's Song. Kili is currently useless.
  2. Planning: play Gandalf, Threat 34.
  3. Quest: Thorin, Ori, Gloin, Bifur, Gandalf for 16 Will, draw Goblin Swordsman, net 13 Progress, clears Stage 4, draw Nameless Thing for start of Stage 5.
  4. Travel: none.
  5. Encounter: Goblin Swordsman and Nameless Thing.
  6. Combat: Dwalin defends against Nameless Thing, shadow Moria Bats for no effect, whiff. Dain defends Goblin Swordsman, shadow Drowned Treasury, this is a whiff against Dain's 3 defense. Booyah.
  7. Refresh: Threat 35.

Round 10

  1. Resource: 6, draw Dori and Cram.
  2. Planning: Play Cram on Thorin. Forest Snare on Nameless Thing.
  3. Quest: Thorin, Ori, Gloin for 10 Will, draw Deep Deep Dark for Doomed 1 Threat 36, and surge Moria Bats. Yawn. Heh. Net 7 Progress.
  4. Travel: none.
  5. Encounter: Moria Bats.
  6. Combat: Dwalin defends against Moria Bats, shadow Mithril Lode for no effect, no hits on Dwalin. Dain defends against Goblin Swordsman, shadow Elder Nameless Thing for no effect and no hits. Bifur puts a hit on Goblin Swordsman.
  7. Refresh: Threat 37.

This is it, unless there is a stack of surges which blows the quest up. I could have spent Cram and killed one of the goblins, but I'm going to risk the next draw for the win.

Round 11

  1. Resource: 7, draw Gloin and Longbeard Map-Maker.
  2. Planning: play Gandalf. Go big or go home. Draw Henamarth Riversong, Forest Snare, Unexpected Courage. Play Henamarth scry Goblin Follower with 1 Threat. I got this.
  3. Quest: Thorin, Ori, Gloin, Gandalf for 14 Will, draw Goblin Follower and that is that.

AAR

That was a rough start, with Zigil Mineshaft right out of the gate. I could have used Cave Torch to try and get some of the threat down, but with no allies in play, it seemed overly risky.

I was able to control both threat and combat pretty well. Getting a good swarm out by Rounds 3-4 was key, then decent card draw (not too many Spirit cards all in a row) keep it alive.

It could have gone far, far worse. I'm now curious about playing Into the Pit again, which is supposed to be super easy, but took me over 20 plays to figure out.

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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.