Alternate Art: Nightmare in the Fog

Last month, I had the privilege to write a quest review for Nightmare Conflict at the Carrock over on the Vision of Palantir. It had been a few since I played that quest, and as part of researching the article I built a new deck specifically for the article. The deck list didn’t fit in the article, so I’ve decided to post it here with alternate art cards. As always, you can find the full deck list on RingsDB. If you are interesting printing these alternate art cards for yourself, please contact the hall.

The deck is designed to be thematic, which means that it does sacrifice some power for a more narrative approach. Still, with a good start it can become quite powerful. In particular, Gwaihir with Support of the Eagles attached should be able to join Beorn in slaying many troublesome trolls. Messenger of the King doesn’t provide much benefit with Gwaihir, but the extra 3 threat from the hero version would have pushed the starting threat too high for comfort.

Also, the ally version of Gwaihir still readies as normal at the end of the refresh phase. This makes the deck less likely to stall in the middle game if it doesn’t draw enough eagle allies. For those who insist on power decks and are less interested in the theme, feel from swap out Gwaihir for Tactics Eowyn. Beyond the hero lineup, this is a relatively straight-forward eagle deck.

One advantage of the hero lineup is that Radagast and Gwaihir allow us to use Gwaihir’s Debt on turn one. This event allows us to drop Gandalf or Descendant of Thorondor into play during any action window, which is quite powerful. Unlike events like Sneak Attack, the ally stays in play until the end of the round.

One of my favorite combinations in this deck takes advantage of this detail. If you choose to put Gandalf into play with Gwaihir’s Debt, he will return to you hand at the end of the refresh phase. All characters ready at the beginning of the refresh phase, which means that Gandalf will be ready before he returns to your hand. It just so happens that there is a player action window in the middle of the refresh phase. This means that you can exhaust Gandalf to help pay for Word of Command, right before he returns to your hand.

Word of Command is the most powerful kind of card draw: full deck search. It’s perfect for fetching whatever is missing from your setup: Radagast’s Staff, Eagles of the Misty Mountains, or the aforementioned Support of the Eagles. Radagast’s Staff is especially critical for this deck, as it reduce the cost of the expensive Eagle allies which are the bulk of this deck. In the late game, once your army of Eagle allies is fielded, the staff can be used to ready a copy of Eagles of Misty Mountains, no mean feat when they can easily grow to monstrous size.

I hope you enjoy the deck, and the alternate art cards that accompany it. May your quests in Middle-earth, Nightmare and otherwise, end in victory.