LotR 389 - Watcher in the Water 1,2

Fourth of July #250! And for me a great day to spend with my usual LotR collaborator JL. He’s been traveling a lot, so it’s been a while since played.

First attempt: First thing we noticed about this quest is that the first stage only requires 4 progress points to pass. However, the initial location requires traveling, and brings out the leader enemies from the Raiders, both of whom swing for enough to kill heros instantly. Then, as we played, the Grapple enemies starting stacking up badly, and while they don’t attack immediately, they contribute threat. We finally scooped when it was clear we were essentially location locked.

Second attempt: We did better on this attempt by controlling the grappled cards more tightly, getting a good tableau on the table, and clearing Stage 1 much faster.

Then after engaging the swarm of enemies which came out, we figured out that we had been playing it completely wrong. We had all the Grapple enemies in play at the start, instead of the Raiders. Having the Raiders the initial enemy is sort of the point, it sets up the alliance created in Stage 2 for flipping the leader cards from enemy to objective. We called the game here as no size of asterisk would salvage it.