At our last stop on Beorn’s Path, we successfully cleared the Carrock of trolls. Continuing on the path, we are now making A Journey to Rhosgobel, the home of Radagast the Brown. While traveling the Anduin valley, we discover Wilyador, an eagle that is gravely injured. Our goal is now to bring Wilyador to Rhosgobel as quickly as possible, with the hope that the wizard can save him.
This scenario is quite different in terms of the specific challenges that it presents. Wilyador starts the game with 2 wounds and at the end of each round he receives two more wounds. While the eagle possesses an impressive 20 hit points, we need to be able to heal him completely by the time we pass the second quest stage. Otherwise, Wilyador will be too far gone for even Radagast’s skills in healing and we will lose the quest.
Many treacheries in the encounter deck will specifically single out the eagle and the 2 damage he receives at the end of each round is effectively a game clock. Unless we find other means of healing our eagle friend, he will die in 9 rounds. To add to the difficulty, we cannot play attachments on Wilyador so Self Preservation will not work to mitigate the damage he takes each round. Of cards in the core set and the three available Adventure Packs, only Lore of Imladris can target Wilyador, so we will definitely be including that in our revised deck.
In addition to healing, questing quickly will be one of our priorities so that we can keep damage to the eagle to a minimum. Without access to the Spirit sphere, we cannot cancel any treacheries that come from the encounter deck, so we will quest aggressively and hope for a bit of luck. Besides awful treacheries, this scenario is unfortunately very dependent on luck in a number of other ways.
Athelas leaves can be found as an objective in this scenario. Aside from Lore of Imladris, they represent our only option for healing the eagle. These cards can easily end up on the bottom of the encounter deck, or be discarded as shadow cards from attacking enemies, which is where a lot of the luck of this scenario comes into play. In any case, we will be taking full advantage of Denethor’s ability to try and maintain some semblance of control over this random factor.
With Wilyador limited to being healed 5 damage from each Athelas or Lore of Imladris, we will need to find multiple copies of these two cards to have any chance of saving the eagle’s life. While card draw can help us find our Lore of Imladris, we are left to the hands of fate for how many of the healing leaves we can collect. Ultimately we have no choice but to quest aggressively; the fewer the rounds of automatic damage and exposure to nasty treacheries, the more likely we are to be able to heal Wilyador completely.
One last concern that we must keep in mind is the several copies of flying enemies that can only be defended or attacked with ranged characters. Coupling with these enemies, many shadow effects in the encounter deck require that damage from undefended attacks be applied to Wilyador instead of a hero. For this reason we will want to avoid undefended attacks at all cost. Accordingly, our deck will include more ranged characters, and attachments that grant the ranged keyword.
As far as changes to the deck are concerned, we will focus on healing and the ranged keyword. Since the mix of cards is shifting more towards the Lore sphere with these changes, we will also be adding a song to help with resource-smoothing. In addition to having ranged, Haldir of Lorien has excellent willpower, making him the perfect ally to recruit for this quest.
To make room for these changes, we will be removing some of the more expensive leadership allies as well as stat-boosting events and attachments. Assuming we can get one or two characters with ranged into play, the enemies in this quest are not particularly formidable. The treacheries, on the other hand, are much more likely to pose problems. The allies that we remove have low willpower, so their absence should not negatively impact our ability to quest.
With that in mind, we will add the following nine cards to our deck: Lore of Imladris x3, Haldir x3, Lórien’s Wealth x1 and Song of Wisdom x2. To keep us at 50 cards, we will be removing the following cards: Son of Arnor x2, Guard of the Citadel x2, Dunedain Mark x2, For Gondor x2, Self Preservation x1. The updated deck can be found on the Decks page.
Setup and Opening Hands
Because of the special nature of this scenario, our priorities will be a bit different. While resource generation and card draw are as important as always, healing is of the utmost importance for saving Wilyador. Specifically, Lore of Imladris will allow us to heal the eagle, even if we cannot find enough Athelas. Our opening hand is Haldir, Protector of Lorien, Faramir, Song of Wisdom, Erebor Hammersmith, Dunedain Warning.
Lacking card draw, resource generation or healing, we have to take a mulligan and hope for a better hand. Our new hand is better, though we still haven’t seen the desired Lore of Imladris. In any case the hand that we will play with includes: Song of Kings, Steward of Gondor, Forest Snare, Haldir and two copies of Snowbourn Scout.
Round 1: Stage 1B (0 of 8 progress)
28 threat (First Player)
Hand: Song of Kings, Steward of Gondor, Forest Snare, Haldir, Snowbourn x2
— Aragorn: 1 resource, 0 damage (5 of 5 hit points)
— Theodred: 1 resource, 0 damage (4 of 4 hit points)
— Denethor: 1 resource, 0 damage (3 of 3 hit points)
Staging Area: Rhosgobel
Wilyador: 2 damage (18 of 20 hit points)
After collecting resources we draw Protector of Lorien. This is actually a really good card for this quest, especially if we can find some card draw to help fuel the ability. Questing is going to be of the utmost importance to completely this scenario quickly. For planning we will play Steward of Gondor on Denethor and exhaust it to give him an impressive first-turn total of 3 resources. We will pay 1 of those resource to attach Protector of Lorien to Aragorn. Because of his ability to ready after committing to a quest, we may even be able to get double duty from this card, boosting both his willpower and defense.
For questing we will commit Aragorn, Theodred and Wilyador. We will use Theodred’s ability to add 1 resource to Aragorn. While it is dangerous exhausted Wilyador to quest, we are going to take the risk to help complete the first stage as quickly as possible.
For staging we reveal an Athelas guarded by Swarming Insects. All in all, this not a bad outcome. Wilyador and Theodred each take 1 damage for not having attachments, but we make 3 progress on stage 1 and we now have one of the precious Athelas, unguarded in the staging area.
With no enemies in sight, we will exhaust Denethor to scry the encounter deck. The top card is Dol Guldur Beastmaster, an enemy that we should be able to handle without too much problem. Given the far worse alternative, we will keep this card on top of the encounter deck and plan our next round accordingly. As the round ends, we add 2 damage to Wilyador and raise our threat.
Round 2: Stage 1B (3 of 8 progress)
29 threat (First Player)
Hand: Song of Kings, Forest Snare, Haldir, Snowbourn x2
— Aragorn: 2 resource, 0 damage (5 of 5 hit points)
— Theodred: 1 resource, 1 damage (3 of 4 hit points)
— Denethor: 3 resource, 0 damage (3 of 3 hit points)
Staging Area: Rhosgobel, Athelas (unguarded)
Wilyador: 5 damage (15 of 20 hit points)
With resources collected, we draw a Daughter of the Nimrodel. While this card will help keep our heroes at full strength, we really want to find a copy of Lore of Imladris to help our ailing eagle friend. Hopefully we can find some card drawing effects to help us find the healing that we so desperately need. For planning we will attach Song of Kings to Denethor, then play Haldir and a Snowbourn Scout. Triggering the scout’s response, we will add 1 progress to Rhosgobel.
With the Beastmaster in our future, we need not fear a treachery from the encounter deck this round. So we will remain aggressive and quest with Aragorn, Theodred, Wilyador and Haldir. We will ready Aragorn with the bonus resource from Theodred. For staging we reveal the Dol Guldur Beastmaster and prepare for a fight. Before resolving the quest we do have an action to take as we will discard Forest Snare and Snowbourn Scout to Protector of Lorien which gives Aragorn +2 willpower until the end of the phase. The result is five progress on stage 1 which pushes us on to stage 2. Now we can finally heal our eagle ally, if only our deck would cooperate.
For the encounter phase we will optionally engage the Dol Guldur Beastmaster, to get his 2 threat out of the staging area. In combat, our Snowbourn Scout is going to fulfill his destiny as a human punching-bag and defend against the Dol Guldur Beastmaster, who is dealt two shadow cards. Since we did not let the attack go undefended, neither Great Forest Web or Mirkwood Flock has any effect, but the Beastmaster’s 3 attack is more than enough to make mincemeat of our scout.
So the Snowbourn Scout goes to Scout heaven, where the encounter decks consist of nothing but locations with 1 quest point. In a noble attempt to avenge our poor scout, Aragorn counter-attacks the Beastmaster, netting 2 damage. Before the end of the round, Denethor again scries the encounter deck, this time spying Forest Grove. This location is precisely what we need to find more Athelas, so we will keep it right where it is on the top of the encounter deck. With the round over, we raise our threat and add 2 more damage to Wilyador. The eagle now has 7 damage so we need to hurry up and find some more healing effects.
Round 3: Stage 2B (0 of 12 progress)
30 threat (First Player)
Hand: Daughter of the Nimrodel
— Aragorn: 2 resource, 0 damage (5 of 5 hit points)
— Theodred: 1 resource, 1 damage (3 of 4 hit points)
— Denethor: 2 resource, 0 damage (3 of 3 hit points)
Active Location: Rhosgobel
Engaged: Dol Guldur Beastmaster
Staging Area: Athelas (unguarded)
Wilyador: 7 damage (13 of 20 hit points)
After collecting resource we draw our card for the resource phase. Faramir is a welcome sight; his ability will make our strategy of aggressive questing that much easier to execute. For planning we are going all-in and playing both Faramir and Daughter of the Nimrodel. We need to try to clear this stage in the next few rounds and hope for another Athelas or Lore of Imladris to help us out.
For the quest phase we do need to keep some character back for combat, so we will commit Aragorn, Theodred, Wilyador and the Daughter of the Nimrodel. We will again ready Aragorn with the resource from Theodred. After adding the expected Forest Grove to the staging area we are able to explore Rhosgobel and add it to our victory display. Finally, we will travel to Forest Grove. As long as we successfully explore this location next round, we should be able to retrieve another Athelas from the encounter deck.
With travel complete, we are ready for combat. Faramir is going to block the Dol Guldur Beastmaster and we will hope for no nasty shadow cards. Our wish is granted as the shadow cards: Black Forest Bats and Mountains of Mirkwood have no additional effect. Faramir takes 1 damage and gives the Orc a dirty look. Aragorn and Haldir are on hand to help their friend, and kill the Dol Guldur Beastmaster on the counter-attack.
Scrying with Denethor, we find another Athelas, which we will obviously keep. We are getting very lucky so far, but luck is sadly somewhat of a requirement in this scenario. If Athelas ends up in the discard pile from either of the Beastmaster’s shadow cards, we would be in much worse shape. After raising our threat, we add 2 more damage to Wilyador. The eagle’s condition continues to worsen as he now only has 11 hit points remaining.
Round 4: Stage 2B (0 of 12 progress)
31 threat (First Player)
Hand: Empty
— Aragorn: 1 resource, 0 damage (5 of 5 hit points)
— Theodred: 1 resource, 1 damage (3 of 4 hit points)
— Denethor: 1 resource, 0 damage (3 of 3 hit points)
Active Location: Forest Grove
Staging Area: Athelas (unguarded)
Wilyador: 9 damage (11 of 20 hit points)
Instead of drawing the Lore of Imladris that we had hoped for, we instead draw another Snowbourn Scout. Apparently word has reached the Scout School that we have been mistreating their graduates. What do they expect, all of their graduates are so squishy? In any case, we will give this scout a chance to succeed where his brother failed. After playing this Snowbourn Scout we will trigger his response and add 1 progress to Forest Grove.
For questing we will send Aragorn, Wilyador, Haldir, Daughter of the Nimrodel and the Snowbourn Scout. After readying Aragorn thanks to the resource from Theodred, we will trigger Faramir’s ability. For staging the Athelas that Denethor saw in his Palantir is guarded by Driven By Shadow.
This is one of the fun little edge cases in the game. Although they have no threat, objectives technically count cards in the staging area, so Driven By Shadow does not surge. Again, we are getting very lucky with the encounter deck. Our 11 willpower against no threat in the staging area allows us to explore the Forest Grove and add 9 progress to stage 2 of the quest.
We also trigger the response on Forest Grove and then add a third Athelas to the staging area. This copy of Athelas is guarded by Eyes of the Forest. We have no events in hand, indeed we don’t have any cards in our hand, so this treachery is discarded with no effect and our third Athelas is left unguarded. This is the luckiest encounter deck draw that I can remember having in a long time, but I am not a bear to turn down free honey-cakes.
Aragorn and Theodred each exhaust to claim an Athelas. While we could exhaust the Steward of Gondor to claim the third objective, we must be wary of game-ending treacheries, so will save him for his ability. Denethor scries the encounter deck and finds King Spider, which we will keep on top of the encounter deck. With victory in reach, we will raise our threat and add 2 more damage to Wilyador (he now has 9 of 20 hit points remaining).
Round 5: Stage 2B (9 of 12 progress)
32 threat (First Player)
Hand: Empty
— Aragorn: 1 resource, 0 damage (5 of 5 hit points)
— Theodred: 1 resource, 1 damage (3 of 4 hit points)
— Denethor: 3 resource, 0 damage (3 of 3 hit points)
Staging Area: Athelas (unguarded)
Wilyador: 11 damage (9 of 20 hit points)
Once again, our deck lets us down as we Henamarth Riversong. No matter, we have what we need to be able to defeat this scenario. For planning we will play Henamarth Riversong; might as well let the elf join in the victory celebration. Before entering the quest phase, we will exhaust Denethor to claim the third copy of Athelas.
With victory assumed, we will commit Aragorn, Theodred, Wilyador, Haldir, Daughter of the Nimrodel and Henamarth Riversong. We will ready Aragorn with Theodred’s help and trigger Faramir’s ability. This brings us to a total of 14 willpower committed to the quest.
For staging we reveal the King Spider, which forces us to exhaust the Snowbourn Scout. Oh what a lot in life, when our scouts aren’t getting slaughtered by Orcs, they are being scared half to death by giant spiders. With 14 willpower against 2 threat in the staging area, we make 12 progress on stage 2 and we move to stage 3. With three copies of Athelas claimed, we can heal all 11 points of damage on Wilyador and we win the game!
Score and Recap
Though our deck was decidedly unhelpful in providing any copies of Lore of Imladris, we were still able to complete the quest and save Wilyador’s life. Some fortuitous draws, and help from Denethor, we were able to scrounge enough Athelas that we didn’t need any other healing effects. Because we forgot to heal Theodred with Daughter of the Nimrodel, he still had his 1 damage from those pesky insects. By moving quickly, we completed the quest after only 4 rounds (rounds tally during the refresh phase) with only 32 threat. Exploring Rhosgobel was worth 4 victory points, so our final score is:
32 (threat) + 40 (rounds) + 1 (damage) – 4 (victory) = 69
While this is an excellent score, particularly limiting ourselves to the core set and three adventure packs, this does feel like somewhat of a hollow victory. The fact of the matter is that we were very fortunate to find 3 copies of Athelas as quickly as we did. Sure, we could have draw a copy of Lore of Imladris to save us from having to find and claim the last objective, but things still played out nearly perfect for us. Having faced this scenario several times, it rarely plays out so smoothly. The random factor can be very frustrating as it is quite possible to lose this scenario horribly, even without making any play mistakes.
FFG, recently announced Nightmares packs for the first 3 adventure packs of the Shadows of Mirkwood cycle, including this scenario. While I would certainly not suggest these high-difficulty versions for new players, there is one change that it worth noting. In the Nightmare version of A Journey to Rhosgobel, Athelas now has a response that allows you to shuffle back into the encounter deck, any time it would be placed in the discard pile. This small tweak is an excellent fix to what I have always felt was a design oversight with this scenario. Now, having Athelas discarded as a shadow card for an attacking enemy does not have to be a game-ending bit of bad luck.
For any new players having frustration with this scenario, I definitely recommend that you play with this bit of errata on the Athelas objective. Other than that, quest aggressively, include three copies of Lore of Imladris, and hope for the best. It may be that none of this advice is satisfying for those who prefer to use one deck for all scenarios, or those who do not include Lore in their decks, but A Journey to Rhosgobel has always been a bit off the beaten path, as scenarios go. Good luck fellow adventurers, and check back soon as we roam the Hills of Emyn Muil.
Hall of Beorn 
In first round, you have played the Steward of Gondor and exhaust it to give 3 resources to Denethor. Then you have payed 1 of those resource to attach Protector of Lorien to Aragorn.
I think you can’t play in this way because to gain the two resources from the steward you must do the “action” On steward card. But a player can make an action only at end of the planning phase, so you couldn’t play the card “Protector of Lorien” at first round.
Is it correct?
The player action window during planning for playing allies and attachments stays open until a player “passes” or decides not to play any more allies or attachments. Players can still take other player actions (play events, trigger effects such as the one on Steward of Gondor) during this window, the only limitation is that the active player is the only one who can play allies or attachments from their hand during this window. It is even allowed, in a multi-player game, for another player to play effects like the Campfire Tales event, or triggering his ability to send Bifur a resource, all while it is the active player’s turn to play allies and attachments. Once the active player has passed on playing allies and attachments the next player to their left becomes active player and it is now too late for the previous active player to play allies or attachments. Since, in the above game, I had not yet passed on playing allies or attachments, it was perfectly legal to immediately use the resource that I gained from triggering Steward of Gondor’s effect. The player action windows in Living Card Games can be kind of confusing, so hopefully this explanation helped explain it in more detail. You also may want to consult the chart at the end of the game rules, which you can find here:
Click to access LOTR%20Rules.pdf
Specifically, I am referring to this section on the Planning Phase:
2. Planning Phase
• Player actions.
• *First player plays ally and attachment cards.* <– This is where I triggered the Steward of Gondor, Because it is marked in green, it means that any player can take actions and trigger effects. Only the active player can play allies or attachments, but a non-ally/attachment effect does not automatically mean that you have left this step of the planning phase. Only the active player "passing" on playing more allies/attachments makes you leave this step of the planning phase.
• Player actions. <– I would not be able to play more allies during this step (if for example another player had played it on my hero during their, later, "play allies and attachments step".
• Next player plays ally
Ok! Thank you for the explanation and congratulations for your fantastic blog
May I suggest the Hills of Emyn Muil drinking game:
– Drink every time a location is revealed
– Drink every time a location is cleared
– Call in sick the next day
Wow, that sounds amazing. By amazing, I of course mean terrible. By terrible, I of course mean, eh… why not? 😀
quick question: i seem to remember that you could exploit cards like northern tracker and snowbourn scout to ‘travel’ through Rhosgobel before stage 2, and make healing wilyador a bit easier with glorfindel, or daughter of nimrodel. It’s a long while since i played the quest but just wanted to ask.
I like what your’re doing with the re-visiting old scenarios with the cards available. I am thinking of doing something similar with a twist that allows you to collect cards like grimebeorn, athelas, and add them to your deck as neutral cards – make the game more like an rpg
Yes, because Rhosgobel is not immune to player card effects it is possible to explore it before progressing to stage 2. Since Leadership/Lore doesn’t give me access to the Northern Tracker, my strategy here was just to quest aggressively and then hope for Lore of Imladris. The first strategy worked like a charm, the second one, not so much. I have always liked the idea of treating each scenario like a quest and “leveling” your heroes as in an RPG. At some point, once I have worked out the details, I will post my thoughts on a variant that uses this concept,
And with entry into a Scout Heaven of endless Oakwood Groves and Market Squares, the life cycle of the Snowbourn Scout is now complete.
Thanks for another enjoyable session report!
Ha, that would be the funniest episode of a Nature show ever.
Thanks for the report! My fiancée and I were playing through all the scenarios in order and hit a roadblock with this one. To be honest, we haven’t played since trying to get through this one three or four times. I wanted to try the ‘one deck’ for every scenario road, but even when I decided to tweak for specific scenarios this one was a nightmare. I think the Athelas errata will help out, but we had the most trouble with the Treachery/Shadow Effect cards. I’m having trouble recalling the specific card names now, but there were ones that damaged practically everyone in your company and then another one that hit the wounded people on top of that. I guess with two people the Treachery/Shadow effects are more difficult to control, since you’re going to be hit with at least two cards each Quest Phase. Denethor helps a lot, but again, since you’re going to be hit with at least two, it’s more difficult to manage them. Any tips for brave adventurers facing this scenario as a team??
Assuming that you have 1 core set, definitely include both copies of A Test of Will and the one copy of Dwarven Tomb. For this scenario, you may even want to include Eleanor as one of your heroes. Having to deal 2 damage to each exhausted character (Exhaustion) or dealing additional damage to wounded characters (Festering Wounds) can make this scenario very challenging when you are revealing two encounter cards each round.
A Spirit/Tactics deck including Eowyn, Eleanor and Legolas would probably pair very well with the Leadership/Lore deck above, Eowyn quests, Eleanor is held back to cancel The Necromancer’s Reach, Exhaustion and Festering Wounds, and Legolas is there to kill the bats and birds that can only be attacked with ranged characters. As you mentioned, Denethor can also help by putting especially bad treacheries on the bottom of the encounter deck. Good luck!
Thanks for your response! I have two copies of the Core set, and every expansion that was released prior to On the Doorstep. Imagine my dismay when, despite access to all these cards, we still couldn’t seem to get through this one! My fiancée was playing a Dwarf Leadership/Tactics/Lore deck and I was running Lore/Spirit support. I tried an Elrond deck but couldn’t bear to watch my entire setup of allies be wiped out by a single Treachery or Shadow Effect. 😦 I’d like to run it again with Denethor and Eleanor in there. The only thing stopping me was my persistence in trying to create two decks that we could run through every scenario. 😛 As you point out, revealing two Encounter cards really hurts on this one. Thanks again!
As you are finetuning this deck by adding more Lore Cards in the mix, why not replace a leadership hero, say Theodred with a lore hero, like Glorfindel.
Threat management is not much of a problem in this quest, so you can handle the higher starting threat. And as you need all the healing you can, add Radagast in the mix. As I find not much use for Erebor Hammersmith or Faramir (allies die quickly anyway in this quest , either by chump blocking or by treacheries, so for Faramir to be useful..) Replace the copies of Songs of Wisdom with Song of Kings and put Steward, if it comes out, on Glorfindel (Also considering the fact that the lore cards are more expensive!) I would say that this way you have a better chance of success.
Must say, because I’m relatively new to this game (purchased the game somewhere by the end of last year), your blog keeps up perfect pace with me buying the expansions! Great experience!
These are all really good ideas, especially Steward of Gondor with Glorfindel. One of the things that I was trying to do with this series, is see if it was possible to use a deck with the same starting heroes through the core set and all of the Shadows of Mirkwood scenarios. This quest makes that goal a particular challenge, as it is just so different from all of the others.
As far as removing Faramir, I’m not sure that would work very well, because you need to be able to quest very aggressively, and Faramir is one of the best cards in the game to facilitate that. He also helps get around cards like Exhaustion, because you can wait to trigger him until after staging, but before quest resolution.
Thanks for the great ideas, and I’m glad that you are enjoying the blog. When I am not so busy with orc-slaying, I will be posting the next article for The Hills of Emyn Muil.
Well, our parties entered Mirkwood and headed to Rhosgobel once more in an attempt to rescue the (damned) bird and…emerged victorious! Denethor was a HUGE factor with his ability to look at the top card of the encounter deck. Interestingly, I didn’t end up using Eleanor’s ability a single time. However, her resources were invaluable in paying for the Test of Wills and Hasty Strokes that cancelled nasty treachery/shadow effect after nasty treachery/shadow effect. There was only one moment in the second-last turn where, on account me not getting my Burning Brand into play in time, we faced four shadow effects (two from the damn Orc that gets two shadow effects per turn!). I ended up sacrificing Denethor because I was certain we would win next turn and wanted to keep Eleanor around for her own ability, and, more importantly, her ability to pay for Test of Wills and Hasty Strokes.
One question…how are Elrond decks faring these days? I love the concept of the deck but am not sure if I am just running it on scenarios that aren’t a good match or if these kinds of situations are a risk on any scenario. Here is what I mean: on Escape from Dol Guldur, Elrond was randomly selected as the prisoner which really crippled me. Then, I tried it on a Journey to Rhosgobel. After getting a perfect setup with Viya, Imladris Stargazer, and Master of the Forge, we got hit with the card that damages EVERY character without attachments. So, my entire board was essentially wiped out. Anyway, I’m looking forward to giving the Elrond deck another shot on Hills of Emyn Muil and just wondering if there are certain scenarios where it is less viable, or there are ways to tune it to succeed on any quest. Thanks again for your awesome posts and advice!
Excellent blog, I am enjoying going through and using cards just from the sets that are released during an adventure. With that in mind, Dunedain Cache wasn’t released until The Dead Marshes AP, so I am going to try it without to see if the deck will hold up.
Thanks, Onesiphorus! I’m glad that you are enjoying the blog. I did recently notice that Dúnedain Cache was not available as of Journey to Rhosgobel, but I decided to let sleeping dogs lie. This scenario is not one of my favorites, and I have little desire to try it again any time soon. If I was to go back and play it again, I would probably replace the two copies of Dúnedain Cache with two copies of Campfire Tales. Good luck to you – may your attempt to save the wounded eagle be a success!
I’ve been going through the quests in order and this one is kicking my backside. I’ve blown up my decks and going to try it with the one you used. Wish me luck!
As I mentioned in this article, this quest can be very luck dependent – even with a deck that is designed with a lot of healing effects. I know first hand just how frustrating A Journey to Rhosgobel can be; it took me several attempts to survive it, the first time I played it. Good luck!
First time I pass this Quest was with a hobbit deck on the 7th try. I think back then I promised never to play it again. Now with your “Path” I thought I start from the beginning and with limited card pool so I can play those cards I never touched before. It has been a lot of fun until this Quest. After the third fail, Im just going to skip it because its just to play until the Stars are in right position and let the right cards come. No fun when its all about luck and very little skill that matters.
I agree, this quest is very dependent on having a specific deck, and even then you need to get lucky drawing Athelas. This is not a quest that I go back to and play for fun.
Dunedain cache doesn’t come out until the dead marshes. Is that the card you meant to include in the deck?
You are correct, Dunedain Cache was not available as of A Journey to Rhosgobel, but I included it because our deck needs a bit more ranged to deal with the Black Forest Bats. I only realized after the article was posted that I had mistakenly included a card was from a later AP. If you want to play truly progression-style then I would recommend adding in two copies of Silverlode Archer instead of Dunedain Cache – that card should fill a similar role in the deck and help to deal with those pesky bats. Good luck!
I have had this for over a year and finally played it. I won the first try and it was uneventful. I tried it again with some eagle cards for giggles – I lost as I watched two Athelas fall into the shadow. It was funny being hopeless, reminded me of my early days vs Escape from Dol Godur.
I have to agree this quest is not very fun. But for RPG players perhaps it’s worth saying that you get one chance to beat this quest; in the event of a loss you can never call on an Eagle for the remainder of your quests.
On that note, the Fellowship almost failed many times. So I don’t mind losing it makes me feel the tension to some degree.
Well put. My favorite games are the ones where I am right on the brink of defeat, only to have a bit of ingenuity and luck save the day. That also feels thematically appropriate.
I love your site Beorn. Easily the best LOTR resource for learning players such as myself. Thank you!
Thanks, Son of Durin! I’m glad that the site has been of benefit to you.
It is reassuring to know that you also found this scenario’s dependence on luck to be frustrating. Though perhaps it is good to have a chaotic scenario coming straight after Conflict at the Carrock, which can be controlled by the player very precisely. It keeps us on our toes!
I’m curious to know your thoughts on Radagast’s including in this AP, and his usefulness to the quest? It seems like his card effect is designed to heal Wilyador, but in practice he would need to hit the table very early in the game to generate enough resources to be of much use. I notice that you didn’t include him in your deck. I did, but he never saw play, and it was Lore of Imladris that saved the day.
Yes, Radagast would help in this quest, but his cost is prohibitive. Thanks to later cards like A Very Good Tale and Elf-stone it is much easier to get The brown wizard into play early. In a progression-style deck like the one, which does not have access to newer cards, Radagast’s high cost is prohibitive.
In one of the later rounds, you successfully explored the Forest Grove, giving you access to an Aletha, which you added to the staging area, as Forest Grove directs. You then mentioned you guarded it with Eyes of the Forest. (Eyes of the Forest in this instance was not a problem and the Objective was free’d up instantly, which was nice)!
My query is whether the Athela card in this instance gets a guard card ? It was not revealed to the staging area as such, but ‘added’ (by Forest Grove). Should it still receive a guard card?
You are correct, the guarded keyword is only resolved on cards that are revealed from the encounter deck. Because Athelas was added to the staging area by Forest Grove, I should not have guarded it with Eyes of the Forest. In this case adding a guard card had no impact on the outcome of the game, but it is a good point. I will go back and update the text to note the error.
It certainly makes acquiring those herbs that bit easier , which in this game is welcome ! 😉