LotR 394 - Temple of the Deceived

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Time to continue The Dreamchaser with my usual heroic collaborator JL.

The following are notes which I took during the play for each games, into my Bishop Fox Moleskine notebook. The handwriting was then processed with OCR via ChatGPT. I have cleaned up the notes with a round of manual post-processing.

1607 LotR Temple of the Deceived — 2026 09 19

Round 1 cleared Cursed Temple one shot; Round 2 did not clear forbidden coast. Round 3 cleared Forbidden Coast, enemies incoming… after travel to lush Jungle, no enemies killed but no damage taken. Round 4! We messed up! Cursed Temple was our initial location but we didn’t bring out Temple Guardian, who has the necessary gate key. Scoping, mistake is too large. We would not have considered the win clean enough to count.

1608 LotR Temple of the Deceived #2 — 2026 09 19

After the scoop, we set it up again. I’m first player this time. Round 1 start at Winding Caverns, did not clear. Round 2, clear Caverns jump to Cursed Temple; Beregond defends for 2 damage from Temple Guardian. Round 3 we survived the Temple Guardian twice at cost of 2 chumps. Round 4 we have gate key on Hirluin, and it turns out the The Grotto’s Entrance is adjacent + untravelled + coast. We can win if careful. Round 5, quest or not? travel or not? Yes! We travel, engage the Temple Guardian again, and Round 6 quest for 30+ just because we can. That provides the 8 Progress for the win, and another quest goes down on the first day of play.

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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.