Vision of The Palantir Guide Volume 1 - The Early Days

The Early Days
A Strategy Guide to The Shadows of Mirkwood

And The Dwarrowdelf Cycle from LOTR: LCG
A Strategy Guide to The Shadows of Mirkwood
And The Dwarrowdelf Cycle
By Daan Prins, Durins_Father, host of the Vision of the Palantir blog.
Edition 1, 2019
Disclaimer
This guide is not produced, endorsed, supported, or affiliated with Fantasy Flight Games.
The copyrightable portions of The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game and its expansions are
© 2011 – 2018 Fantasy Flight Publishing, Inc. The Lord of the Rings, and the characters,
items, events and places therein are trademarks or registered trademarks of The Saul Zaentz
Company d/b/a Middle-earth Enterprises and are used, under license, by Fantasy Flight
Games. Living Card Game, LCG, LCG logo and Fantasy Flight Supply are trademarks
and/or registered trademarks of Fantasy Flight Publishing, Inc. All Rights Reserved to their
respective owners.
I do not own any of the art featured on this guide. Please support the original artists who are
making such excellent artwork for this game.
Card Images are courtesy of the Hall of Beorn http://hallofbeorn.com/LotR
Community difficulties are courtesy of the LOTR Quest companion: http://lotr-lcg-quest-

companion.gamersdungeon.net/
LOTR LCG Guide to The Shadows of Mirkwood and Dwarrowdelf cycle
Vision of the Palantir
Preface
The Vision of the Palantir blog has been my project since January of 2018. On the blog, I and my co -
authors describe the various scenarios that can be played in Lord of the Rings Living Card Game. The
early days of the blog had me go through these scenarios at lightning speed, meaning that the
individual entries are shorter than the more recent ones. But as the blog grew, it became more
popular and got used by more players who were struggling with this game. After all, it is not the
world’s easiest game by a longshot.
With the blog currently at a great place, I decided to make some copies of the articles that have
been put out over the last years for offline use. These guides can be printed and used when playing
the game with the physical cards or to keep next to your collection.
The guide will cover the first two cycles of expansions, as that makes for a good balance between
the number of volumes I have to write, and the length of each guide. The full analyses of the
scenarios are still available on Vision of the Palantir and aren’t going anywhere, so see this as an
addition to the blog, instead of a replacement. The guide will not be featuring the links to the
playthroughs and will have some changes to the original articles to make the entire guide more
coherent. The early articles of the blog weren’t the most in-depth though, so future guides will be
considerably longer. There might be a remastered version of this guide once the first cycle is re -
analyzed on the blog to be more in-depth. In the early days, I was busy getting out a lot of content,
so the article length suffered for it.
I would like to thank the community for supporting the blog throughout all this time. But even more
I would like to thank those that have supported the blog though Patreon, allowing me to keep the
blog online without costing me too much. Another big shout-out goes to those helping me in the
early days of the blog with writing the articles and leaving feedback in order to improve upon them.
This is written for those people and anyone else who needs some help with these scenarios.
Guide books for the next few cycles are also in the make, with the next cove ring the Against the
Shadow and the Ringmaker cycle. After that, the Angmar Awakened cycle and the Dream-chaser are
up, and volume 4 will cover the Haradrim cycle and the Ered Mithrin cycle. Plans for Nightmare
guidebooks and Saga guide books will likely depend on the reception of these regular books, and will
be written after the original articles have been posted on Vision of the Palantir.
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Table of Contents
Preface ..................................................................................................................................... 3
Passage Through Mirkwood ............................................................................................... 5
Journey Along the Anduin ................................................................................................. 10
Escape from Dol Guldur.................................................................................................... 15
The Hunt for Gollum.......................................................................................................... 22
Conflict at the Carrock ................................................................................................... 27
A Journey to Rhosgobel .................................................................................................... 35
The Hills of Emyn Muil........................................................................................................ 43
The Dead Marshes................................................................................................................ 49
Return to Mirkwood ........................................................................................................... 55
.................................................................................................................................................. 63
Into the Pit............................................................................................................................. 63
The Seventh level................................................................................................................ 72
Flight From Moria................................................................................................................ 79
The Redhorn Gate ............................................................................................................... 88
Road to Rivendell .............................................................................................................. 96
The Watcher in the Water.................................................................................................105
The Long Dark .....................................................................................................................113
Foundations of Stone .......................................................................................................120
Shadow and Flame ..............................................................................................................129

Closing statements ............................................................................................................139
Passage Through Mirkwood
The first quest that every player of this game plays is Passage Through Mirkwood. The
objective of the quest is to get through the forest alive, as you bear a message to Galadriel
from Thranduil. Yes, the first quest has you doing the work of a carrier pig eon, but I digress.
This quest is often counted as the easiest of the game, but some new players may struggle
against it. Some of the enemies can be very nasty if they come out early (Ungoliant’s Spawn)
or if they come out during the late game, when your threat is high and you have to engage
them (Hummerhorns).
General Information
• Found in: Core Set, Scenario 1
• Official difficulty: 1
• Community difficulty: 2.2
• Encounter sets: Dol Guldur Orcs, Spiders of Mirkwood, Passage through Mirkwood
• Quest cards: 3, with 2 stages 3A/3B to pick at random
• Play if: You are new to the game, If you have been beaten to a pulp and want to win against a
scenario at the end of a session, If you want to relive the nostalgic first quest, If you want to
test a deck against an easy quest.
• What is different about this quest?: Split between 2 different final stages, boss level enemy
that can be avoided
• Solo or Multiplayer?: No real preference, multiplayer makes for a shorter game but there is
no scaling for the amount of players in this quest.
• Can I run Side Quests for this Scenario?: Yes, there is plenty of time to stall and build up.
There are no real side-quests to focus on in this quest, so play whatever you like.
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The Quest
Setup
During Setup, you are to search the encounter deck for 1 copy of Old Forest Road and 1 Copy
of Forest Spider for a total of 3 threat in the Staging Area. The game starts you off with both a
location and an enemy, so you will have the option to engage and travel during your first
round. The spiders can be difficult to manage if you don’t have a very combat heavy deck.
Most early game decks won’t be able to kill the spiders on turn 1, but that is OK. They
become milder as you progress. The Old Forest Road is one of the few beneficial locations in
the game (don’t get used to that), and will allow you to quest with a Defensive or Offensive
type hero.
Quest card 1: Flies and Spiders – 8 quest points
Nothing but flavor text from the Hobbit who were travelling in the opposite direction. The
quest card itself takes 8 progress tokens before you can advance, depending on your player
count, this takes 1-4 turns. You will want to take this time to build up your board state and
get ready for the next few turns. During your first travel phase, you can go straight to the Old
Forest Road that was revealed, allowing you to have an extra hero ready for your combat
phase which will likely include the Forest Spider added during setup.
Quest card 2: A Fork in the Road – 2 quest points
Nothing to note about this quest card, besides the fact that the 2 required progress tokens
can be placed by Tactics Legolas during the Combat phase. This could lead to you winning the
quest in 1 turn if you have the right decks. But for normal decks, you will beat this quest card
in the next turn if you can clear your location.
Quest card 3A: A Chosen Path
There are 2 quest cards with this name, so you’ll have to choose 1 of the A sides as your next
quest card. Depending on that choice, you will either have to fight your way out, or quest
your way past the final card. I recommend using a coin toss to decide where to go.
Quest card 3B: “Don’t Leave the Path!” – 0 quest points
Well, you’ve chosen the way of … PAIN. If you have managed to avoid the Ungoliant’s Spawn
during this quest, your luck has run out. This quest stage forces each player to search the
encounter deck and discard pile for a Spider of their choice. These spiders get added to the
staging area. Usually you will want to choose Ungoliant’s Spawn in order to beat the scenario,
but if you aren’t ready for it, you can pick a different spider and mill the encounter deck until
you encounter the spawn. Heed my warning though, if the Spawn appears as a Shadow card,
you are out of luck and will have to wait a long, long time before it appears again. If you have
already encountered the Spawn before you advanced to the quest, you can pick a different
spider. However, if you encountered and killed the spawn on stages 1 or 2, you will have to
fish it out of the discard pile and fight it again.
If you happen to run Out of the Wild and thought: “hey, Ungoliant’s Spawn is nasty, let’s put
that in the Victory Display” and you run into this quest card, you are stuck in an infinite loop
where you cannot win. Reset and pick a different card to remove next time.
If you manage to beat the Spawn, you immediately win, you don’t need any progress on the
stage to win, only a dead spider. Congratulations, you just beat the easiest quest in the game!
Quest card 3B: Beorn’s Path – 10 quest points
This is the more willpower heavy stage of the scenario. By this time, you should have got a
decent enough board state to beat this stage in 1 or 2 turns. However, there is still a chance
that it won’t be enough. Beorn’s Path has the additional text that players cannot defeat the
stage while Ungoliant’s Spawn is in play. If you have the spider in the staging area, or
engaged with a player, you will first have to beat it to win the scenario.
The Encounter deck

Global
• There are 36 encounter cards in Normal mode, 25 in Easy mode
• There is a 36% chance of a Shadow Effect in Normal mode, 48%
chance in Easy mode (Who said Easy mode was easier?). Shadow
effects rely mostly on increasing attack, discarding attachments,
and dealing direct damage.
• The average Threat per card revealed is 1.6 (treacheries count as 0
Threat), this roughly equal for the two modes
• Surge is only present on 1 card if the conditions aren’t met
• The Doomed keyword is not present
• No cards in this encounter deck are immune.
The Encounter deck has a good balance between Location and Enemy cards, with only a few
treacheries added to the mix. Side Quests have not been invented at this point in the game.
Locations
The locations of this quest are mostly Forest traited, with a couple of
Mountains added in the mix. This makes cards like Cloak of Lorien and
Woodland Courier more powerful. The average amount of quest points on
the locations is just below 3, with plenty of locations requiring 2 progress to
clear. This makes Asfaloth a good card to include when placed on Glorfindel.
Some of the locations actually benefit the players when they travel to them.
Old Forest road allows the first player to ready a Hero they control and Forest
Gate lets the first player draw 2 cards.
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Enemies
The spiders and insects are not the only evil you will encounter during the passage, Orcs also
inhabit these parts and will cause you a lot of problems. The major enemies to look out for
are:
• Ungoliant’s Spawn: The “boss” enemy of this scenario. Her When

Revealed effect can be nasty if you were planning on questing a lot this
round. The 5 attack is also a problem for most players, as it will have you
take a lot of damage if you don’t chump or have a dedicated defender.
• Hummerhorns: These nasty, nasty insects have caught many players off
guard when they are venturing into threat levels of 40 and higher. The 5
direct damage to a Hero will result in you losing that hero in most cases.
Exceptions are Beorn, or heroes with extra hitpoints from Citadel Plate,
Hardy Leadership, or Ent Draugth to name a few. It is advised to either
Straight Shot the Hummerhorns, or do what ever you can to avoid them
engaging you.
• Chieftain Ufthak: This Orc mini boss has the nasty effect that he gets
stronger as he attacks more often. The initial 1 or 2 attacks might be
reasonably easy to defend, but a 7 attack+ shadow card is often enough
for him to kill heroes. The strategy on taking him down is to do it on the
turn you engage him. If your math fails you, you still have an additional
turn before he gets really nasty.
• East Bight Patrol: Beware ye Secrecy players. East Bight Patrol has an incredibly low
engagement cost and will surprise you with a 3 Attack strength if you are not prepared. His 3
threat is also tough to swallow during early rounds. However, you can be sure to finish the
patrol off after 1 attack, as his defensive stats are poor.
Treacheries
Not a very common threat, but very dangerous should you encounter a treachery card. The 4
different treacheries will harm you in different ways.
• Eyes of the Forest: Honestly, I forgot this one excised until I had to discard
half my hand to it. It can be nasty enough to discard all your Events that
you were planning to play. If you happen to have a Test of Will in hand,
just cancel the effect, otherwise you’ll have to discard that too.
• Caught in a Web: This one is really painful as there are 2 copies of this in
the deck. The attachment will hinder your readying during the refresh
phase unless you pay resources to ready the hero. Note that you have to
pay those resources from the attached hero’s pool, so this basically
negates your Steward of Gondor. Run Condition Discard cards to cancel
the attachment or wait for a Shadow effect that forces you to discard an
attachment. Alternatively, you can run Tactics Boromir or another hero
that can ready at will in order to bypass the effect.
• The Necromancer’s Reach: This card deserves an applause as it is capable
of destroying my entire questing army and leaves me with a broken board
state. Tips to limit the effect of this card is to run Hero Galadriel, ready your heroes before
the Staging Step, and run allies like Lindon Navigator or Sailor of Lune who are mostly
immune to the effect.
• Driven by Shadow: This can be a horrible treachery, or a whiff. It all depends on how you
manage your board state. If you get locked with locations, this treachery can really up the anti
by adding 5-6 threat or more to the staging area. If you manage to keep a clean staging area,
this card can either surge, or add only 1 threat to the staging area.
Tips and Tricks

• Don’t bother with easy mode, sure some of the nasty enemies are removed, but you should
be able to deal with them if they ever come up. Shadow card effects will be more common
and you will have to recycle the encounter deck more often, you might end up revealing
Ungoliant’s Spawn twice.
• Don’t bother with Secrecy. There are many enemies with low engagement cost, which will
harm your progress. Secrecy decks are also not likely to survive Ungoliant’s Spawn if you
choose the wrong path.
• Do not put Ungoliant’s Spawn in the Victory Display, I speak from experience. There are
plenty of other cards that will be better prices.
• Keep your threat below 40 to avoid the Hummerhorns or raise their engagement cost.
• Be ready to defend a 3 attack Forest Spider on turn 1, you will probably have to engage it
early in the game.
9
Journey Along the Anduin
After many players finally manage to beat the first scenario in the Core Set, they move on to
the second. They have high hopes to continue the winning streak and set up the second
scenario. That is where most of us players met our very first nightmare of the game: The Hill
Troll.
The second quest in the life of the game is far from easy, with nasty enemies, a lot of combat,
and more encounter cards than you can handle as a new player. Fasten yourself to the raft, it
is time for a Journey Along the Anduin!
General Information
• Found in: Core Set
• Official Difficulty: 4
• Community Difficulty: 5.3
• Encounter sets: Dol Guldur Orcs, Sauron’s Reach, Wilderlands, Journey Along the Anduin
• Quest cards: 3
• Play if: You are on the nostalgic train and want to experience your early game nightmares
again
• What is different about this quest?: Requires you to kill the Hill Troll, does not force you to
engage, reveals a lot more encounter cards than usual
• Solo or Multiplayer?: I would advise multiplayer, as this quest forces you to do well in
combat and questing. More players will allow you to handle the Hill troll easier. However, 4
players may be too difficult as a lot of cards will be revealed. Stick to 2-3 players.
• Can I run Side Quests for this scenario?: Yes, but I would advise going there after the 8
progress on 1B, or during the final stage.
The Quest
Setup
The Setup on quest card 1A has every player reveal 1 card from the top of the encounter deck
and add that card to the staging area. This is always a good place to see treachery cards pop
up. Most of them do nothing or have a very limited effect. It is always nice to have dealt with
say, a Necromancer’s Reach without dealing any damage. It is also nice to see the Hill Troll
pop up during this time, as that saves you from revealing him later. The worst case scenario is
that you draw another enemy, you will be having plenty of combat in the following rounds,
an extra enemy doesn’t help. Drawing 2 Hill Trolls in multiplayer is also a challenge, but at
least you have removed both of them from the game afterwards.
After that setup, it is time to search the encounter deck for a Hill Troll if it isn’t already in
play. You add him and his 1 threat to the staging area and pass on to the first turn.
Quest card 1: To the River – 8 quest points
This is the quest card where a lot of players have either lost a hero or found themselves
scooping after a few turns. The quest card itself cannot be beaten if there are any Hill Trolls
in play. The 8 progress is usually not a problem, killing the Hill Troll is. His 6 attack can
wipe out some heroes if you don’t draw your defensive attachments first. Chumping is also a
bad idea, any excess combat damage from the troll is assigned as an increase in your threat.
This makes chumps like Snowbourn Scout and Squire of the Citadel poor defensive options.
Better options are allies like Defender of Rammas, who have a higher combined defence and
hitpoints.
Attacking the troll back will also prove to be a challenge. His 3 defence is not as high as
future trolls, but his 9 hitpoints will take a while to chew through. Having Ranged support
from a second player will be incredibly useful.
If you manage to survive the first attack, you have some breathing room. The oldest trick in
the book is to wait for the Hill Troll to engage until you have drawn Forest Snare. After the
attack, you are able to trap the troll so that it won’t attack you again. however, you will still
have to kill him to advance.
Having 8 progress on the quest before the Hill Troll is dead is quite important. You
immediately advance once the troll dies. You don’t want to risk revealing another one.
Quest card 2: Anduin Passage – 16 quest points
After all of the trolls have been slain and added to the Victory Display (yay, bye bye Trolls),
it is time to board your raft and float down the Great Anduin river. While orcs have no love
of water, they will continue to harass you and your board state. So be wary, as Lorien is a
long way away still. By this time, the staging area will become flooded with encounter cards.
Stage 2B forces the players to reveal an additional encounter card during each quest phase.
This is where the quest is also easier with more players. It is less stressing to reveal 5 cards
among 4 players, than 2 cards per 1 player.
The quest also states that enemies do not make engagement checks against the players.
Players may still optionally engage 1 enemy during the encounter phase. This is a good place
to start running Arrows from the Trees, which will clear out the staging area of enemies.
However, the locations in the staging area are a larger threat. You will only be able to travel
to 1 location a turn, and if you keep revealing more than 1 per turn, you are in danger of
entering Location Lock. Bring some location control for this part of the quest. Evening Star,
Northern Tracker, and Asfaloth will help you clear the locations, and keep the threat in the
staging area low.
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During this stage, it is important to prioritise Willpower and Questing over combat. The
threat in the staging area can become too much to handle for many players, and some
encounter cards will have you remove the precious progress on the quest as well. Be sure to
also get your board state ready for the next quest.
Quest card 3: Ambush on the Shore – 0 quest points
At long last, you have made it to shore. This is where the quest flips again from willpower
focussed, to combat focussed. The first thing you have to do is adding 2 encounter cards per
player to the staging area (as if it wasn’t full already). This is a dangerous moment, as a lot of
triggers from the encounter deck will happen at once. However, the silver lining of this is that
this is the last time you are revealing cards. You will skip the staging step of the quest phase
for the rest of the game. This means that you must still quest and overcome the threat in the
staging area, but will not reveal any more cards. This is where you can also clear a lot of the
locations in the staging area.
This is where you will confront the enemies you’ve collected in the staging area. You must
kill all enemies in order to finish the quest. Fortunately, this is all the enemies you will have
to face, however, chances are that a new Hill Troll has reared its ugly head and brought some
friends to make your job harder. Again, you will have to finish that Hill Troll off in order to
win.
Congratulations, you have now held your own against a tough quest and have had a taste of
what LOTR LCG is all about.
The Encounter deck

Global
• There are 47 encounter cards in Normal mode, 32 in Easy
mode
• There is a 38% chance of a Shadow effect during Normal
mode, 41% during an easy stroll down the Anduin
• The average Threat per card revealed is 1.2 (treacheries
count as 0 Threat), this roughly equal for the two modes
• Surge is present on 10% of all cards during Normal mode, 5
cards in total
• The Doomed keyword is not present
• No immunity for any cards.
The encounter deck is focussing more on enemies than during

the previous quest. There are also a lot more Treacheries to keep in mind. The overall size of
the encounter deck has also increased, making cards like Ranger of the North and Wind from
the Sea less likely to show up.
Important to note about this encounter deck is that you will turn over a lot more cards than
usual. Not only because there is a lot more Surge added to this encounter deck, but also
because the final 2 quest cards are forcing the players to reveal more cards. Cards like Wait
no Longer and Gildor’s Council will greatly help you in keeping the cards on top of the
encounter deck.
Locations
There are a couple of nasty locations that you might encounter during your Journey.
• The East Bight: Oh no, what is this, a Forced buffer of 6 quest points
before you advance? This location might not have a big impact on your
threat in the staging area, but you are forced to travel there if you have
the option. Bringing location control tech that lets you either blank the
text of the card or swap it out from the Active Location slot is advisable.
• The Brown Lands: A 5 threat location is never nice to see revealed from
the encounter deck. Even worse, it only has 1 quest point, and you
explore it when you travel to it. To counter the insane increase of threat,
bring Warden of Arnor, Sneak Attack+Snowbourn Scout, or Asfaloth
(doesn’t even have to be attached to Glorfindel).
• Gladden Fields: Another high threat location, but 3 is more manageable
than 5. I would advice bringing Warden of Arnor and Strength of Will.
This will allow you to clear the location before you have to raise your
threat by an additional point during the refresh phase.
• Banks of the Anduin: This one deserves some special mentioning, as it is
recycled on top of the encounter deck after you’ve explored it. Since it has no Shadow
Effect, it is a good location to travel to and explore. The first enemy will not get any
additional effect during combat. If you do not have any combat that round, you will see a 1
threat location next round, let me tell you, there are worse things to reveal!
Enemies
Speaking of worse things to reveal, the enemies in this scenario are quite brutal for the
second quest in the Core Set. Creatures, Orcs, Trolls, and Goblins inhabit these shores and
don’t like visitors.
• Hill Troll: I’ve mentioned this bad boy a couple of times already. But this is an
enemy that you will encounter, so be warned about him. His 6 attack plus
excess-damage-is-threat effect will cause you to defend with your heroes
during the early game. Keep your threat below its engagement cost until you
are certain you can tank the attack and either kill or Snare him. You can also
check out this article for more tips on dealing with the Hill Troll.
• Eastern Crows: They surge, they suck. However, if anyone brings Thalin to the
quest, they are killed before they can trigger their surge effect. They are
recycled into the encounter deck, but at least you have killed an enemy and
made sure they don’t drag anyone else out.
• Wolf Rider: Though he himself is not a big threat, his Shadow Effect sure is. He
will engage you and make an immediate attack. Afterwards, he is put on top of
the encounter deck so that his surge will come into play next round. My advice
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against him, bring shadow cancellation so that he doesn’t have to attack and be placed on
top of the encounter deck.
• Wargs: Oh those puppies pack a punch. They only stay engaged with you if their attack e nds
up having a shadow effect. Let me remind you that those chances are less than 48% as they
themselves have a shadow effect that you won’t reveal. Use Direct Damage to kill them in
the staging area, or pull them back to you with Tactics Aragorn.
• Goblin Sniper: See here the birth of the Archery Keyword, 2 years before it is put on a card.
The Sniper is a very nasty card as it will deal 1 damage to a character from each player at the
end of combat. However, you are not able to optionally engage him if there are other
enemies in the staging area. If there are 2 snipers in the staging area, they keep each other
protected from optional engagements. Use Direct Damage or Hands upon the Bow to
destroy those pesky little Goblins.
• Marsh Adder: This enemy is bad in several ways. First, his high threat will make you want to
engage him to clear the staging area by 3 threat. However, his 4 attack is strong enough to
chew through quite a few allies. His Forced effect will have you raise your threat by a
minimum of 1. And to cap it all off, he requires 8 attack to break his combined defence and
hitpoints. He is a nasty piece of work and will require a couple of attacks before you can add
him to the Victory Display. Only one copy though.
Treacheries
There are more treacheries in this scenario than the last. However, you can
avoid some of the nasty effects if your threat is below 35. The Pursuit by
Shadow and Necromancer’s Reach combo will have you damage all your
exhausted characters, and raise your threat for all of those that haven’t been
committed to the quest out of fear for the Reach. Massing at Night is another
terrible card to reveal if you are not playing solo. It will replace itself with X
cards, where X is the number of players. Reveal this on Stage 2 with 4
players, and you will be facing 9 cards, with a 10% chance any one of them
surge to number 10!
Tips and Tricks

• Don’t start with a threat higher than 30. Not only will this save you from treacheries like Evil
Storm and Treacherous Fog (that start becoming horrible past 35 threat), but it also saves
you a couple of turns before you have to engage the Hill Troll.
• This quest is incredibly swingy between questing focus and combat focus. Prepare your
board state for the next quest card before you advance.
• Always travel, you will get stuck in a location lock if you don’t.
• Try and engage as often as possible during stage 2, this will make the last stage easier.
• Thalin is a good hero to send to the quest, he can kill the crows and deal 1 damage to most
other enemies. If you have any other Direct Damage effects, make sure to use them to
minimise the number of enemies in the staging area.
• The Hill Troll will be the biggest obstacle in the early game, so having ways to deal with him
will be important. Direct damage is a nice way to deal with him, but I will also recommend
Ride them Down if you can make a good deal of progress on the quest. This will allow you to
discard the Troll without having to engage him.
Escape from Dol Guldur
When new players want to play the game, they usually don’t have a lot of quests to play. So
they turn to the final quest in the Core Set. It is a mistake that they soon learn to regret.
Escape from Dol Guldur is one of the quests that I have beaten once, after many attempts,
and never looked back at. The Setup alone can cause some people to scoop and reset until the
right hero has been captured. Since this quest is often regarded as the toughest for a long time
in the games life, it is important that I write an analysis of it.
A quick note before we begin. If you are a player who is new to the game but you do have
some additional expansions besides the Core Set, play those first and get a better feel of the
game. The added player cards will also make this scenario a bit easier as it is near impossible
to beat with just the Core Set.
General Information
• Found in: Core Set
• Encounter sets: Spiders of Mirkwood, Dol Guldur Orcs, Escape from Dol Guldur
• Quest cards: 3
• Play if: You have really nothing else to play, you enjoy the pain of resetting over and over
again
• What is different about this quest?: Captured Hero, Player cards become enemies,
restrictions on allies, Nazgûl
• Solo or Multiplayer?: Tough call, in multiplayer you still have fully functioning decks as you
only have to capture 1 Hero, however, the restriction on the allies is more painful than in
solo. I would suggest 2-3 players.
• Can I run Side Quests for this scenario?: You can try, but this is a quest where you want to
rush through the quests. If you find yourself with enough progress but missing the
objectives, you could try and go for a side quest.
15
The Quest
Setup
The setup on the very first quest card will have you search the encounter deck for 3 objective
cards: Dungeon Torch, Gandalf’s Map, and Shadow Key. You must also search the deck for
the Nazgul of Dol Guldur which is placed out of play. All objectives are guarded by
encounter cards that are placed on top of them. If you are lucky, these will be mostly
treacheries that will do their thing, and leave the staging area afterwards. This leaves the
objectives ready for the taking. This will be important later. With the guarded objectives in
the staging area, we are ready to proceed to the first round.
Quest card 1: The Necromancer’s Tower – 9 quest points
“Randomly select a hero blablabla this hero is turned facedown blablabla and can now not
be- NOT BE USED??!? Are they serious?” This sums up part of the frustration that is found
at this early point of the quest. Another part is that you will probably have randomly selected
your key hero around which your entire deck revolves. Or it may be the only hero of a sphere
in your dual/tri/quad sphere deck and you just happen to have drawn half your hand with
those sphere’s cards. Too bad, better luck next time. There have been a number of cases
where players have scooped over and over again until a certain hero has been captured.
The way around this might be to have a mono-sphere deck, perhaps with access to other
spheres via Song attachments. This will still allow you to play the cards in your hand, you
only lose a resource per round thanks to that captured hero.
To add insult to injury, the quest card informs players that they are not allowed to play more
than 1 ally card each round. This only limits allies played using the traditional methodes,
either from your hand or your discard pile (or top of the deck with Gandalf). It does mean
that you are able to cheat allies into play with Sneak Attack, A Very Good Tale, or Timely
Aid if somebody already played an ally that round. This will strengthen your board state a
little, but the restriction is still punishing for multiplayer games. This will require some
coordination between players on which allies to play. Swarm decks perform very poorly
against this quest because of this effect.
To beat this quest card, players have to make 9 progress, this can be difficult due to the lack
of allies and the fact that you will need your heroes to be ready for combat as well. Readying
effects can be quite important, as you will need to use your heroes more often. Bringing Spirit
Eowyn to the quest is also a good idea, as you can fuel her effect by discarding ally cards that
are not important enough to play these first few turns.
Besides the 9 progress tokens, players need to control at least 1 of the 3 guarded objectives in
the staging area. It is a good idea to have the 9 progress tokens on the quest before you take
control of an objective. I will go into more detail about them later on. Just capture one of the
objectives, leave the other 2 in the staging area for now.
Quest card 2: Through the Caverns – 15 quest points
After there is any progress placed on this quest card, you have regained your lost hero. It is
like you have just pulled off a Houses of Healing or Landroval, as your hero will be rescued
with one damage on him/her. This is usually not a problem unless you brought a Hobbit deck.
The same ally restriction is still in place so you will have to endure a while without the full
support from your allies. Make sure that the allies you do play are useful enough, so you can
build up your board state for the final stage.
The 15 progress on the stage should be easy to obtain now that you have your board mostly
set up. The stage now requires players to have all three objective cards before they can
advance. Again, make sure that you first place the progress, then claim the objectives. This
will make the negative effects on the objectives easier to endure.
Try and put as much progress onto the quest as possible. Since the Nazgul will enter the
staging area once you place any progress, it is good to suffer his base 5 threat for as few
rounds as possible. Try and burst through the quest in 2-3 turns. Alternatively, if anyone has
their board state in such a good position that they can take the Nazgul, try and kill it as fast as
possible. This will be required of you anyway during the next stage.
Quest card 3: Out of the Dungeons – 7 quest points
The first thing you will have to do once you arrive at this stage is to place a card from the top
of your deck in front of you. This card will act as an enemy with 0/1/1/1 stats. This is a
precursor to the reanimated card we will see in the Dread Realm Adventure Pack in the
future. These Orc Guard are not a real threat, as they can be handled by even a single
Gondorian Spearman.
Now is the time to get your allies out. All this game your hand has probably become clogged
with ally cards. Now is the time to play them. This will result in an easier game from here on
out.
The stage only requires 7 progress to be placed on it which is easy enough. However, just like
the Passage through Mirkwood quest, you are required to kill the “boss” enemy of this
scenario: The Nazgûl of Dol Guldur. If you have not killed him during the previous stage,
you will have to kill him now. Once you do, you can pat yourself on the back. You have just
won against one of the toughest scenarios in the early life of the game.
17
The Encounter deck
Global
• There are 37 encounter cards that can be revealed in
Normal Mode, 26 in Easy mode
• There is a 35% chance of a Shadow effect during
Normal mode, 46% in Easy mode
• The average Threat per card revealed is 1.4 in Normal
mode, 1.5 in Easy mode
• There are 2 cards that surge in both modes, this is a
chance of 5% and lower.
• 4 cards have the Doomed 1 keyword.
• Only the Nazgul of Dol Guldur is immune to
attachments, not to all player card effects though.
The statistics above do not include any of the Objective

cards or the Nazgul of Dol Guldur.
This scenario really depends on if you are playing easy

mode or not. If you are, you will see a lot more locations than treacheries or enemies being
revealed from the encounter deck. This can lead to another case of location lock if you are not
clearing a location every turn. I would advise bringing at least some location control in order
to clear out some of them.
Objectives
I feel like it is time to address the objectives of this quest. You are forced to control at least
one of them to progress to stage 2. You must have all three to continue on to the final stage.
There are 3 objectives to choose from, and none of them has the intention of helping you. All
of them are restricted and are guarded when they enter play during setup. All objectives force
you to raise your threat by 2 in order to claim the objective. If you lose the hero on who the
objective was attached or the objective is otherwise detached, the objective is returned to the
staging area.
1. Gandalf’s Map: This map is probably the best objective to pick for your first objective. The
map limits the use you will have of your hero, as it will make the attached hero unable to
attack or defend. Put this on one of your questing heroes (like the aforementioned Spirit
Eowyn) and you should be ok. You were not going to attack or defend with her anyway.
2. Dungeon Torch: The torch will have you raise your threat by an additional 2 points at the
end of the round for a total of 3. It is wise to hold off on getting this objective until you have
to pass stage 2. It is then your job to either clear the quest as soon as possible or bring
enough threat reduction so you do not threat out after coming so far.
3. Shadow Key: This is, in my opinion, the nastiest of the bunch. The key will damage the
attached hero at the end of each round. This will cause you to lose a hero if you do not have
enough healing. Attaching a Self-Preservation on the hero is usually enough to make sure
that the hero lives. Again, this objective is worth stalling for until you have to pass stage 2.
Now, there is a trick you can use to get rid of these nasty attachments
if you are close to losing a hero, or threating out. However, it only
works on stage 3. The stage does not require you to have the
objectives in order to win. So once you pass stage 2, you are free to
lose them. There are a couple of encounter cards who help you with
this, but you can also detach them yourself.
In a ruling made by Caleb Grace (the lead designer for the game, and
the guy you want to bug with any questions), you can place a third
restricted attachment on a hero. You will have to discard one of them
immediately afterwards. So if you can get your heroes with 2
restricted attachments, and then place a third on them, you get to
discard the objective. Note that this only works on the final stage,
since you will have to own all three objectives to pass on. With the
new Dale synergy, more options may be possible in the future.
Locations
The locations of this scenario are not really special, most of them you
will have seen before during Passage through Mirkwood. However, some
of the new locations might surprise you if you are not ready for them.
• Tower Gate: This Dungeon location has the same Forced effect at the last
stage of the quest. Once you travel to the Tower Gate, you have to place the
top card of your deck in front of you as an Orc Guard. The fact that each player
has to fulfil this requirement can be a bit tough, especially for decks that are
not set up for combat. The best tech for this card is to bring location control. It
only has 1 quest point so Warden of Arnor will take care of it, no problem.
• Endless Caverns: This location has both Doomed 1 and Surge on it. This
makes it a tough card to reveal, as it will likely surge into another location.
However, at 1 threat I would not advise you to travel to it if there are other
options. It is easier to overcome that single point of threat than clear the 3
quest points on it.
Enemies
Some of the nasty enemies from Passage through Mirkwood have returned. I will not analyse
them again, so check out that article here. Enemies like Ungoliant’s Spawn, Chieftain Ufthak,
and the Hummerhorns are still nasty and will provide you with quite the challenge.
• Cavern Guardian: This is again a very low engagement cost enemy, so Secrecy decks are not
to be tested in this scenario. The enemy itself is not really a problem. The 2 attack can be
blocked by most characters, and his combined 3 defence and hitpoints makes you kill him
quite fast. He is more nasty if you encounter his Shadow effect. If you defend the attack, you
must choose and discard an attachment you control. However, if you let the attack go
undefended, because you need an attacker against him, you lose all your attachments. This
19
is horrible to many decks that rely on attachments over allies for this
quest. If you are at stage 3, feel free to discard your objectives, you will
no longer need them. To protect your other attachments, use Armoured
Destrier or Hasty Stroke.
• Nazgûl of Dol Guldur: This is the “boss” enemy of the scenario that you
will have to defeat in order to win. He is added to the Staging Area the
moment any progress is placed on it, so be careful. You will get your hero
back, but will also gain a 5 threat increase in the staging area. The Nazgul
is not able to be Forest Snared, so that trick you learned against the Hill
Troll is of no use to you. However, the Nazgul is not unique, and not
immune to player card effects. There will be many amongst you who can
think of some nice effects to trigger off of this design flaw. Revealed in
Wrath and Straight Shot+Rivendell Blade are some of my favourites.
When dealing with attacks from the Nazgul, if any shadow effect resolves,
you are forced to discard a character you control. This means that the
engaged player must have at least a couple of allies in play, otherwise
they will be forced to feed Heroes to the Fell Beast.
Treacheries
Besides the Necromancer’s Reach and the other treacheries, we have

come to know and hate by now, there are a couple of new treacheries
that impact the players.
• Under the Shadow: Damn, the art on this card is amazing. The effect on this
card is an easy +X threat to the staging area depending on the number of
players in the game. This is a really good card to get, as you will not have to
deal with a location of an enemy. The threat will just leave the staging area
after the quest phase. The Shadow effect can spell trouble for Dunedain
decks. You will have to raise your threat by the amount of enemies e ngaged
with you. This is usually no more than 3, but be careful with your threat,
especially if you control the Dungeon Torch.
• Iron Shackles: I really like the flavour of this card, though its effect is not
really that troubling. You will have to attach Iron Shackles to your deck and
discard it the next time you would have drawn a card. In any deck with a bit of
card draw, this shouldn’t be a problem.
Tips and Tricks

• Do not bring a Swarm deck. Outlands, Dwarves, and Gondor swarms rely on you pumping
out allies each round. However, quest cards 1 and 2 do not allow you to play more than 1
ally card each round. Try instead bringing hero focussed decks that rely on events and
attachments.
• Pack readying effects, Unexpected Courage and Light of Valinor will help you to send more
willpower to the quest during the early stages of the quest.
• The Nazgul is not immune to player card effects. You can use this to your advantage by using
2 Rivendell Blades and Straight Shot to finish him off. He is also not unique and does not
have any victory points, there is plenty you can do to it without that kind of text armour on
him.
• Unfortunately, you do still own the third hero once it is captured. Effects like Strider and
Vanish from Sight do not work here, so don’t bother.
• Remember that you can discard the objectives if you are about to lose a hero to the key or
threat out because of the torch.
• Be sure to have enough allies to discard for the effect on the Nazgul. You don’t want to be
caught with your pants down and forced to discard a Hero.
21
The Hunt for Gollum
With the Core Set covered, it is now time to dip into the first cycle of adventure packs. This
pack was for most of the original players their first purchase and holds some sentimental
value because of that. And a good thing too, because this quest can be considered quite a
doddle when taking modern decks up against it.
The Hunt for Gollum will kick off this cycle in which your group of adventurers are to track
down Gollum and capture him. This is one of the instances where the game borrows its story
from the books. There, Aragorn has this same adventure and eventually captures the creature.
Let’s see how you can try and follow in his footsteps.
General Information
• Found in: The Hunt for Gollum Adventure Pack, Shadows of Mirkwood cycle, pack 1
• Community difficulty rating: 4.1
• Encounter sets: Journey along the Anduin, Sauron’s Reach, the Hunt for Gollum
• Quest cards: 3
• Play if: you want to feel nostalgic about playing the first AP ever, play if you haven’t beaten it
(in a while)
• What is different about this quest?: Objectives, resetting quest cards, enemies scale with the
number of Clues
• Solo or Multiplayer?: I will recommend playing this Solo, or with as few players as possible.
This will have you reveal fewer clues and makes stage 3 a lot easier.
• Can I run Side Quests for this scenario?: Yes, if you are passing through these stages faster
than you are revealing clues, it is a good idea to explore some side quests instead of
resetting the quest deck over and over again.
The Quest
Setup
The setup for this quest is not as complicated as previous quests. Each player reveals the top
card of the encounter deck and adds it to the staging area. Keep in mind that triggers like
surge and Doomed still go off during setup. The only really punishing card that you can
reveal during setup is Old Wives’ Tales. Since none of your heroes has resources at this point
(first resource phase hasn’t kicked in yet) you will have to exhaust all of your heroes (with
the exception of Leadership Denethor). This is usually enough to scoop before the quest has
started proper. Having readying effects that you can play from your hand or from the abilities
of heroes is recommended to counter this. Think of Cram and Tactics Boromir to have at
least a few characters ready. The other way to get past this is to accept you are playing this
quest in sleazy mode. To those of you who are unknown with this, sleazy mode has the same
number of cards in the encounter decks, but your heroes start off the game with an additional
resource during setup. This is the resource you will lose due to Old Wives’ Tales. Besides
this treachery, there are not many terrible cards you can reveal. You will probably encounter
some locations, hopefully, a clue objective, and maybe an enemy.
Quest card 1: The Hunt Begins – 8 quest points
This part of the quest is fairly easy, just make 8 progress to pass the quest. This shouldn’t
take too long. The only thing different from a regular quest is that this stage will have look at
the top 3 cards of the encounter deck if you quest successfully. The first player may then
choose and reveal one of the 3 cards. The other 2 cards are discarded. This is a good way to
find the objectives and avoid the nasty enemies and treacheries. If you do reveal a clue, be
sure to guard it with the next card on the encounter deck. This kind of scrying will make sure
that it will not be long before you reveal the first clue.
Quest card 2: A New Terror Abroad – 10 quest points
This stage is almost identical to the previous one. However, you need to reveal these cards
before staging instead of afterwards. This will result in a bit more threat in the staging area,
so bring enough willpower. This stage also requires you take to make 2 more progress, for a
total of 10. The scrying effect from the previous stage is also tweaked so that you can only
choose between the top 2 cards of the encounter deck instead of the top 3. This will make you
less likely to find any clues, but at this point, you should already have encountered one.
Quest card 3: On the Trail – 8 quest points
This is a more interesting stage, as this requires the players to have found enough clues about
Gollum. Any player that has no clue attached to a hero they control, are unable to commit
characters to the quest. This is where a smaller number of players really helps, as you only
need to find fewer clues in order to commit everyone to the quest. WIth 4 players, you will
have to find all 4 in order to commit everyone to the quest. Fewer clues also benefit you
against the Hunters. However, if there are ever no clues attached to heroes, the stage is failed
and everyone is forced back to Stage 2. If there is enough progress on the quest, and there is
at least 1 clue card in play, the players have won the quest. It is not required that every player
controls an objective, 1 is enough to win.
23
The Encounter deck
Global
• There are 48 encounter cards that can be revealed in
Normal Mode, 34 in Easy mode
• There is a 50/50 chance that your enemy will have a
Shadow effect, be on the lookout for that! This holds
true for Easy mode as well
• The average threat that you reveal per card is around
1.2 for each mode. However, there is plenty of surges,
and some cards gain a threat boost based on the
number of allies in play.
• Seven cards have the surge keyword. However, there
are a lot of cards that add more cards to the staging
area without having surge. Massing at Night is such a
card.
• Only Flooding has the Doomed keyword. There are
some other effects that will have raise your threat, so
be sure to have at least some threat reduction.
• None of the cards are immune to player card effects
on their own. However, while Eaves of Mirkwood is in
play, encounter card effects cannot be cancelled. Be
sure to clear this location in order to cancel
Treacheries.
The encounter deck is very heavy on locations and treacheries. The enemies included are
usually not a problem for even a mono-spirit deck. The chances of finding more clues in easy
mode are higher, so be prepared for a heavier hitting Hunters from Mordor.
Objectives
The Signs of Gollum are 4 objective cards that are in the encounter deck. It is the goal of the
quest to make sure that you find at least 1 clue. They are not harmful objectives like those
found in Escape from Dol Guldur, but they are harder to keep a hold of. The objectives get
discarded when the attached hero is damaged or killed. This returns them
to the top of the encounter deck. You will probably see them again during
the next turn. However, their Guarded Keyword will go off again so you
will have to kill the enemy or explore the location to claim them again.
The clues can only be claimed by heroes that have committed to the quest,
keep this in mind when distributing the clues between players. Be sure to
put the clue on a hero with preferably more than 3 hitpoints. The Shadow
effect of the Hunters from Mordor could kill that hero if the attack goes
undefended.
There are a couple of effects that will have people discard the clues.
Having them in the discard pile is bad, as you won’t find them again for a
long time. Use cards like The End Comes (wait, what?) or Shadow of the
Past to return those clues to the encounter deck. This also works if you
ever reveal a clue as a shadow card.
Locations
Lots of locations in this quest again. Most of them do have the same Riverland trait, which
comes in handy for some decks. The locations do really punish you for playing cards from
your hand.
• The Old Ford: We have come to know Forest Battleground from Attack on
Dol Guldur, but this is the root of that evil. The Old Ford has X threat,
where X is the number of allies in play. This can be devastating in a lot of
later game reveals. If you and your fellow players have set up an army of
Outlands or Dwarf allies, this location can become a 20+ threat
immediately. The tech to cancel this? Asfaloth or The Evening Star. The
location has only got 2 quest points, which means that you can clear it
before you tally up the total threat in the staging area. There are 2 copies
of this location in the deck, but the chances of you revealing both are
slim, good luck if you do though! The Shadow effect on this location is
also a tough one to swallow, you need to discard all allies with a cost
lower than the number of Riverland locations in play. Since there are not
many 0-cost allies, 1 location is not too bad. It gets worse if you have 2 or
3 locations, meaning you’ll have to discard all your allies up to a cost of 2.
Bring a Hasty Stroke to disregard this effect.
• The West Bank/The East Bank: These two Banks of the Anduin can really
screw with your plans to play cards from your hand. In my opinion, the West Bank is worse,
as you need to pay an additional resource for both events and attachments. This makes A
Test of Will or Feint more expensive, and you will have to look at other options to help your
board state. It helps to communicate closely on where you want to travel since it will
probably limit your Planning Phase next turn.
Enemies
Alongside the enemies from the Journey of the Anduin quest (besides the nastiest ones), there
are just two new enemies in the encounter deck.
• Hunters from Mordor: These guys are on the same mission as you are,
finding Gollum. As you gather signs, they become stronger. Their attack and
threat values can get out of control if you reveal a lot of those clues in the early
game. Note that they don’t require the clues to be claimed by you, they just
have to be in play. This includes them if they are in the staging area, even when
they are Guarded. The 2 defence on the Hunters do not get boosted, and their
6 hitpoints aren’t increasing either. Bring some characters that can handle
combat to deal with these enemies.
• Goblintown Scavengers: These Orcs are pretty harmless in combat, but can
be a threat when they are revealed. Every player will have to discard the top
card of your deck (Dwarves rejoice). They gain +X threat, where X is the total
cost of the cards discarded this way. The increase in threat depends greatly on
your deck, if you play a lot of 0 cost events, you should be fine. However,
Murphy’s Law dictates that you can, and will, discard a copy of Gandalf. Their
low engagement cost can also be a problem for Hobbit and Secrecy decks, as
they will have to engage the enemy without getting bonuses.
25
Treacheries
The developers have come up with some nasty treacheries to aid the
Hunters for Mordor in their search.
• Flooding: Thinking on bringing a Location Control deck, well, be sure to

pack some Tests of Will for this one then. It will remove all progress on
Riverland locations ánd surge ánd add a point of threat on your threat
meter. In order to make full use of your location control cards, wait
after staging to clear locations, or only do it if you are sure it will clear a
nasty location.
• False Lead: In any game where you must find objectives, there is always
a card like this. It will shuffle one of your collected clue cards into the
encounter deck, making you search for it again. However, it also makes
Hunters from Mordor less powerful, so silver linings I guess. If you draw
this early enough before you have any clues, it just replaces itself with
Surge.
• Old Wives’ Tales: It feels like this one should be in Druadan Forest, but it
isn’t. This treachery will remove one resource from every hero that can.
If they can’t, they get exhausted. Readying effects are important here, as you can send just
every hero to the quest that doesn’t have a resource on them. That way you win some
willpower and don’t have to exhaust them halfway through staging. Having enough
resources on heroes is also a way to avoid this, though you normally want to use those
resources for the inflated prices for your cards due to the West/East bank locations.
Tips and Tricks

• Distribute the clues between the players, try and make sure that as
many players have a hero with a clue objective attached. This will allow as
many people as possible to commit to the quest.
• In order to make sure that each clue stays attached to the hero, do
not put the clues on your defender. Your questing heroes will be less likely to
take damage or be killed. If you do not have a dedicated quester, use your
main attacking hero.
• Be careful in bringing swarm decks, the Old Ford can really become a
big threat if you don’t clear it directly. If multiple people are bringing swarm
decks, the location can quickly rise to 20 threat or higher.
• Location control is quite useful in this quest, but be prepared for
Flooding. This will have you waste your progress on locations. Only trigger
these effects after Staging, or if you are sure you can clear a locati on.
Conflict at the Carrock
A huge thank-you to Joseph Forster (bgamerjoe) from the LOTR Deck Test blog for writing
the very first guest article. Be sure to check his blog out at https://lotrdecktest.wordpress.com/
where he analyses submitted decks against some scenario’s. For his recommendations on
Conflict at the Carrock, see the original post on the blog for decks to bring against this
scenario.
The first time you blindly advance to stage 2 in Conflict at the Carrock has probably stuck
with you! The quests in the first cycle tend to focus in on a certain element of the game and
this 2nd adventure pack of the Mirkwood cycle highlights the boss fight, except instead of
one boss you get 4, Louis, Rupert, Morris and Stuart. This quest is bound to leave players
with some lumps and bruises and hopefully some great tales of victory.
General Information
• Found in the Conflict at the Carrock adventure pack.
• Rated at a 7 difficulty level by FFG and currently rested at 6.3 by the community on the LOTR
Quest Companion.
• This quest uses the Conflict at the Carrock, the Wilderlands and the Journey Down the
Anduin encounter sets.
• 2 quest cards
• Play if: you want to experience a dramatic battle against some hefty trolls.
• Unique elements of the quest include interesting engagement mechanics, rewards for
keeping threat low and rewards for careful and precise questing.
• Solo or Multiplayer? Since there are 4-6 nasty trolls that you will have to face, more players
generally makes this quest easier, but it is certainly viable as a solo quest provided you bring
the right type of deck.
• This quest is the perfect quest for player-sidequests, although it can make it too easy if you
choose to play a lot of them.
The Quest
Setup is simple with the unique Carrock location added to the staging area. This location is
immune to player cards and will become the active location as soon as quest stage 1B is
27
completed. All 4 unique trolls are also removed from the deck along with 4 of the 5 Sacked!
treachery cards. After those cards are removed you shuffle 1 additional Sacked! card back
into the deck for every player in the game.
Stage 1 – Grimbeorn’s Quest 7 Progress Points
The first stage is a bit of a trick. The only effect on the quest forces the Carrock to become
the active location as soon as the 7th progress is added to the quest card. The standard
strategy for stage 1 is to carefully quest to make minimal progress for several turns so you
don’t progress to stage 2 until you have some cards on the board and feel ready to handle all
4 unique trolls one way or another.
Carefully questing can be trickier than it sounds since the encounter cards range from all the
way from 0 to 5 threat. In a four-player game, you could reveal up to 16 threat worth of
locations or down to just a couple threat if you reveal treacheries, some gentle locations or
the Grimbeorn objective ally. If you over quest, you’ll be forced to face the trolls sooner, but
if you under quest, you face the possibility of raising your threat which may spell disaster for
you when you reach stage 2. This is where sidequests can almost break the quest. With
another quest card in play, players don’t have to worry about the possibility of moving on to
stage 2 before they’re ready. As long as you have a sidequest to quest against, you can safely
build up your board without fear of unexpectedly advancing to stage two and running across
the troll party. The nightmare version of the quest prevents this “cheat-code” by forcing you
to put one progress on the quest every turn if no progress was placed during the quest phase.
It’s always good to see the Grimbeorn objective come up early on stage one so you have a
chance to earn him and enlist his aid against the trolls later in the game. Grimbeorn is actually
a “canon” character and he’s mentioned in the Fellowship of the Ring at the Council Of
Elrond. He is the son of Beorn and shares the shapeshifting ability of his father. Gloin reports
that Grimbeorn is the “lord of many sturdy men” who keep the land between the Mirkwood
and the Mountains clear of Orcs and wolves.
Stage 2 – Against the Trolls 1 Progress Point
When this stage is revealed all 4 unique troll enemies are added to the staging area and the
fun begins! This quest stage only needs 1 progress to complete but you can’t complete it if
there are any trolls in play.
Your best chance of success here is to selectively engage one troll at a time so you aren’t
swarmed and so all their punishing effects down trigger at once. Each unique troll has an
engagement cost of 34 so you should aim to start this stage well below that number unless
you have brought a super combat deck that fights tons of enemies better than it quests.
If you don’t engage all the trolls, you may face a staging area with an excessive amount of
threat in it for a few turns if you have let any locations build up there.
Once you destroy all enemies in play and put one progress on the quest card, the players win
the scenario.
The Encounter Deck

• The encounter deck contains 52 cards including the unique trolls, the Carrock location and
the 5 Sacked! treacheries. The deck is split into 19 enemies, 13 treacheries and 20 locations.
Only 16 enemies 10-13 treacheries and 19 locations will begin the game in the encounter
deck.
• 20 cards have shadow effects ranging from +1 attack to negating the defender’s entire
defensive stat which can be devastating!
• The single copy of Wolf Rider is the only card in the deck with the Surge keyword and his
shadow effect will make sure you’ll see him during the game.
• There are no Doomed cards in the deck, but the 3 copies of Frightened Beast can increase
your threat by massive amounts if you aren’t careful.
Objective Card
Grimbeorn the Old is a stout ally and can really help you survive the trolls’
first attack. He is expensive to gain as he takes 8 leadership resources to
bring him to your side as an ally, but he can potentially defend against all 4
trolls in a turn. With a defence of 3 and 10 hitpoints, he will withstand
several blows from the trolls, but his biggest strength is that he doesn’t
exhaust to defend against troll enemies! The trolls’ basic 4 attack wouldn’t
put much damage through his defence, but while the Carrock is active, the
trolls attack for 5 and while any player is engaged with Morris, all trolls get
another +1 attack! It would be nice to be able to buff his defence a little, but
with no trait but “ally,” most attachments aren’t viable for him. Cards like
ally Arwen, Ent Draught, Honor Guard and Narya keep him alive longer and
he can be healed to extend his life as well. Grimbeorn‘s hitpoints run down
fast if he’s defending against trolls with 6 attack, but he’s still worth earning
if you can spare the resources. If you don’t happen to be running Leadership
heroes there’s a location that will let you spend any resource as a Leadership
resource and bring this Werebear over to your side.
Enemies
The enemies are varied and interesting in this quest.
• The smallest enemy in the deck is the Wolf Rider. He surges which is annoying but
he’s even worse as a shadow card. If revealed as a shadow card, he engages you,
attacks, then returns to the top of the encounter deck if the players don’t kill him by
the end of the combat phase!
• The other super-annoying enemy is the Warg which we all know and “love” from
Journey Down the Anduin. He can take forever to actually kill if his forced effect
constantly returns him to the staging area. Direct damage like Gandalf or Hail of
Stones can be a quick way to finish off this plague of an enemy.
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• The Misty Mountain Goblin is one of the most generic enemies in the deck but with
an engagement level of 15, even the sneakiest of Secrecy decks will have a hard time
avoiding him. He removes a progress from the quest every time he attacks which can
actually be a good thing if you’re trying to camp at stage 1 for a few turns. With only
2 attack, 1 defence and 3 hitpoints, the Misty Mountain Goblins
is pretty easy to take out.
• The tiny Goblin Sniper can either be an extremely fortunate
draw in the early game or a troublesome draw later in the game
when more enemies are in the staging area. He’s usually not too
brutal in this quest, but if you’re concerned about him or play to
leave enemies in the staging area, either bring some healing to
counteract his sniping or some direct damage.
• In addition to the 4 unique trolls, 2 copies of the generic Hill
Troll are included in the quest. Effects in stage 2 have the
potential to increase his already high stats of 1/6/3/9 to even
uglier levels, so it’s good to defeat them and add them to the
victory display during stage 1 if you can manage it. Nothing is
worse than fighting a pitched battle against 4 big trolls and
having another bigger troll join the party! He has the potential
to attack for up to 10 during stage 2 so don’t let him hang
around unless you have tons of willpower and a safe low threat
level.
• The last enemy from the Wilderland encounter set is the Marsh Adder which
contributes 3 threat to the staging area if you don’t engage him but raises your threat
by 1 each time he makes an attack. With 4 attack and 7 hitpoints, he’s no slouch, but
he’s not the biggest enemy in the game. If you can reduce his defence by 1 with an
effect like T Aragorn or Rivendell Blade, you can just discard him with the Straight
Shot event card.
• The only non-unique enemy in the Carrock encounter set is the Muck Adder. While
he has low stats and doesn’t look like much of a threat, he can cause major grief if
Sauron wills it. If he ever damages a character that character must be discarded from
play. With only 2 attack, he doesn’t look too dangerous, but there is that shadow card
that removes the defender’s defence stat so be careful when defending with a hero or
valuable ally. With 0 defence he can be removed with Straight Shot as well.
This brings us to our charming troll friends, Stuart, Rupert, Morris and Louis. These English
names are obvious imitations of William, Bert and Tom which Thorin and Co meet in The
Hobbit. Each of these trolls has an engagement level of 34 so if you’re playing solo, do
everything you can to prevent yourself from engaging all four at once. Each has a punishing
effect when engaged with a player and if you’re engaged with all four at once, you’re
unlikely to survive more than a round or two even if you have the defenders to withstand
their onslaught. Either keep your threat low or at least try to prevent one or two from
engaging with cards like Fresh Tracks, Advanced Warning, Noiseless Movement or Ranger
Spikes. These trolls aren’t immune to player cards so Feint, Coney in a Trap, Andrath
Guardsman, Entangling Nets, and Forest Snare can also help you in the fight. With a base
level of 4 attack, these trolls aren’t the worst trolls in the game, but they often come in attack
at 6. The Carrock location gives all trolls +1 attack and defence while it’s active and the
effects on the trolls themselves can buff them to another +1+1 bring them to 6 attack, 4
defence and 10 hitpoints. If at all possible, avoid engaging all 4 trolls at once!
If you aren’t forced to engage all of them at once, you will need to decide which one to
engage and dispatch first. While engaged with you, each troll has a special ability. When
Rupert attacks, you must shuffle a Sacked! treachery back into the encounter deck. While
Stuart is engaged he gives all trolls +1 defence (in addition to the possible +1 the Carrock
gives the trolls). While Morris is engaged with any player, he gives all trolls +1 attack (in
addition to the Carrock’s +1). Louis might be the worst! He makes each troll-attack raise
your threat by 3 as well! If you’re forced to engage all 4 at once, that means you have a
potential threat spike of 12 points just from their attacks!
If I have a way of stopping an attack (Feint etc), Louis might be a good troll to kill first. Then
you won’t have your threat skyrocketing while you try to deal with the large enemies. Then I
like to destroy Morris so their attack doesn’t get too intense. The order in which you decide to
kill them will likely depend on what kind of deck you’ve brought to the quest. As you destroy
trolls, you can discard one attached “Sacked!” treachery if they are in play.
While the Hill Troll is added to the victory display after you destroy it, the unique trolls don’t
have victory points so they’re discarded a may come back up during the quest phases if you
recycle the deck at the wrong time or if the game goes long.
Locations
We have some of the core set standards here. The East Bight is 1 threat, takes 6 quest points
to complete and forces you to travel there when you have the option to travel. This is a good
location to see in the early game to give you a buffer so you won’t complete quest card 1 too
early. It can be a pain in the late game if you’ve cleared the Carrock and want to get rid of
one of the higher threat locations. If you don’t want to have to quest all the way through the 6
travel points, you could use something like the Mariner’s Compass to swap it out for
something that’s easier to quest through.
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• The Brown Lands is almost the mirror-image of the East
Bight. With 5 threat it can disrupt a quest phase if you reveal
it with any other higher threat card. It automatically “explores
itself” when you travel to it and cards like Northern Tracker,
Asfaloth and even the Rhovanian Outrider can easily explore
this location from the staging area.
• We also have the Banks of the Anduin, one of the gentlest
cards in the game with 1 threat, the progress points, no
shadow effect. It’s an easy card and it returns to the top of the
deck when it’s explored letting you either plan for the next
quest phase or be sure that the first enemy has no shadow
effect during the combat phase.
• The Gladden Fields is the other high threat location and it
raises your threat by an additional point during the refresh
phase. With 3 progress points needed to explore, it’s a good
one to knock out in the staging area if you can. You shouldn’t
have to deal with it again since it will be added to the victory
display.
• Two of the non-unique locations in the Carrock encounter set
have beneficial effects as well. Apparently Grimbeorn the Old likes to hang out in his
Bee Pastures! When you travel to this location you can search both the encounter deck
and discard pile for Grimbeorn and add him to the staging area.
• The Oak-Wood Grove lets you convince Grimbeorn to join your forces more easily.
As noted earlier, you need to spend Leadership resources to gain him as an ally.
While this location is active, resources from any sphere can be spent as Leadership
resources.
• The most deadly location in this encounter set is the River Langflood. It’s fairly
harmless during stage 1, but it quickly balloons to 5-6 threat during stage 2 when the
trolls appear. If you have more than 1 of these locations in the staging area when you
progress, you may have trouble questing successfully and getting off the Carrock.
these locations appear pretty frequently since there are 4 copies in the deck but you
should really Clear these locations as promptly as possible. Thror’s Key could turn
one into a harmless 2 threat location. If you don’t have other location control, the new
Heirs of Earendil event could discard this event for a mere 3 threat added to one
player’s threat dial.
Treacheries
• The signature treachery of this quest is Sacked! These Condition Attachments attach
to the first player’s heroes and make them nearly useless. “The attached hero can’t
attack, defend, commit to a quest, trigger their effects or collect resources.” This
treachery can’t even be cancelled so bring your condition removal cards! Miner of the
Iron Hills is the only core set option but a complete collection
has options like Power of Orthanc, ally Elrond, Athelas and the
“almost released” (as of 1/26/18) Bulwark of the West.
• Not only is Sacked! bad, but this next treachery makes it even
worse! The morbid Roasted Slowly treachery discard all heroes
with Sacked! attached and then you get to shuffle Roasted
Slowly back into the deck. This is the treachery to save your
cancellation for (if you’re unable to keep your heroes out of the
sacks).
• The other treachery that’s worth saving your Test of Will for is A
Frightened Beast. In solo play, it can be fairly harmless if you
keep your staging area clean, but it has the potential to raise each
players threat by massive amounts, even ending a game halfway
through a session. You have the option to cancel this treachery
by discarding a Creature ally so options like Eagles, Bill the
Pony and the Riddermark’s Finest are good allies to bring along.
Also a bit morbid… “Sorry Bill but you’re just making too much
noise!”
• In general, this quest should be easier in a four-player setting but Massing at Night
can help the encounter deck catch up if the players have gained the upper hand. It
reveals one additional card for each player in the game. While playing solo it just
replaces itself, but in a larger game, it can be worth cancelling. Its shadow effect can
make an attack spiral out of control in a larger game as well.
• The last card in the deck to cover is Despair. It can be a very encouraging card to
draw while at stage two since it can give you a couple more turns of safety before
advancing. It doesn’t hurt while at stage 2 either since you don’t need more than 1
progress on the final quest card. The shadow on this card negates the defender’s
defence stat, so hope you draw this during the quest phase and not as a shadow card!
Strategies, Tips and Tricks

• Sidequests work really well in this quest. Almost too well in fact! Don’t overdo it or
you might give yourself too big of an advantage, but if you’re itching to play
Thurindir or play some of those shiny new sidequests that some of the newer quests
don’t give you time for, this is your opportunity. Double Back, Prepare for Battle,
Send for Aid, Gather Information, Explore Secret Ways and Scout Ahead will all give
you good results here. Keep Watch, one of my favourite sidequests won’t help much
since it only nerfs non-unique enemies and all the worst enemies here are unique.
• Keep your threat low. Elrond’s Counsel, The Galadhrim’s Greeting, Double Back,
Well Warned, Galadriel etc. You’ll be thankful for any threat reduction that can keep
you below 34, especially if you’re playing solo or even two player. Staying below 30
will keep you safe from a random Hill Troll that may come out of the encounter deck
as well.
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• Try to have either some scrying like Henamarth Riversong or some flexible
willpower. Any ability that can change your final willpower number after the staging
step will be helpful during stage 1. Protector of Lorien, Song of Hope, Elrond’s
Counsel, Hobbit Pony, Rosie Cotton, Galadriel with Nenya, Don’t be Hasty and any
other effects that can bump your willpower up or down before the quest resolution
will give you an advantage. Cards like Radagast’s Cunning can also help manipulate
your quest resolution to a satisfactory number.
• Make a plan for defending against the trolls. You have several options since you can
enlist Grimbeorn, build up a “super defender” like Beregond, or even chump block
with some Snowborn Scouts since there aren’t any shadow effects that punish chump
blocking. If you’re planning to defend with a hero, plan for defending attacks that
start at 6 and could get boosted up to to 7 or even 8 for the generic Hill Troll. Also,
remember those 2 copies of Despair that can entirely negate the defender’s defence.
Make sure both copies of that card are in the discard pile or have some shadow
cancellation or discard in hand.
• Have a plan for killing the trolls. This is obvious, but you should really have at least 9
attack available from the first turn you spend in stage 2. With 9 attack, you can at
least knock out half the hitpoints of troll and kill it on the second turn. With 13-14
attack you can take down a troll in one stroke. If you go with the low-threat strategy,
the Dagger of Westerness is solid and if you go with sidequests, the Legacy Blade
will be your best option. If you included a lot of resource acceleration to make sure
you get Grimbeorn, Gondorian Fire might be a good way to roast some troll. Nuclear
options like Straight Shot and Fierce Defense won’t work well here since the worst
enemies are all unique.
• Location control is your friend. These early game locations have fairly few progress
points (with the exception of Brown Lands) so a little location control will go a long
ways. Even just Glorfindel on his horse will be enough for a 2 player game to keep
the worse of the locations out of the staging area.
Final Thoughts
The Conflict at the Carrock was the biggest baddest boss fight out there when it was released.
Anyone exploring this quest for the first time will likely find themselves in a world of hurt if
they haven’t looked through the quest before playing. There are many
more options in the modern card pool for working around the challenges
presented in this quest so it can feel fairly easy if you build for it, but the
quest can still combo on you and you just might end up with a troll fist to
the face no matter which deck you bring!
If it becomes too easy on standard mode, the nightmare cards are truly
horrific! It adds removes Grimbeorn altogether, adds four more ‘”little”
trolls, replaces all the unique trolls with tougher version and adds a two-
headed super boss at the very end! Each troll gets stronger as you kill off
trolls which makes for great pacing if you can keep up with it.
A Journey to Rhosgobel
This quest answers the question what happens to the Eagles when they fly too far East. They
get shot down. This quest is one of the more controversial quests in the game, in that it has a
very special way to resolve the quest in the final stage. The Quest has you escorting the
wounded Eagle Wilyador to the wizard Radagast. While you take the Eagle to Rhosgobel, it
is slowly starting to lose hitpoints. Your task is to find Athelas plants in order to heal the
Eagle completely before you finish the quest. Whether or not you win the quest is decided at
the very end, based on the damage on Wilyador. This is where a lot of frustration about this
quest is born, as people invest a lot of time on the quest, to lose eventually to a late reveal or
poor math skills.
General Information
• Found in adventure pack 3 of the Shadows of Mirkwood cycle
• Community difficulty: 6.1
• Encounter sets; A Journey to Rhosgobel, Spiders of Mirkwood, Orcs of Dol Gu ldur
• Quest cards: 3
• What is special about this quest?: Objective ally needs to be fully healed, Objectives to be
collected in the encounter deck, Eagle heavy quest, You do not know if you win until the
very end
• Play if: You have a Healing deck that likes a challenge, you want to test your Eagle deck, you
haven’t played this quest in a while and want to be kept in suspense until the end.
• Solo or Multiplayer?: In multiplayer you are far more likely to encounter the Athelas
objectives, making healing easier. Be careful with the progress you make though, you don’t
want to progress the stages too quickly
• Can I bring Side-quests?: I wouldn’t recommend it. Only if you are able to stall the game .
Wilyador is losing health after each round, so playing The Long Defeat on side quests can be
worthwhile.
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The Quest
Setup
Stage 1A has you search the encounter deck for the Wilyador objective ally and the unique
Rhosgobel location. The location starts with 1-4 threat, depending on the number of players
in the game. The location prohibits the players from healing Wilyador while the location is in
the staging area. However, players are not allowed to travel to Rhosgobel while they are at
stage 1 of the quest. The ways around this will be discussed later.
Wilyador starts in the staging area under control of the first player. He enters play with 2
damage already on him, and he suffers an additional 2 damage at the end of each round. This
gives the players 9 rounds before the Eagle is dead and the players have lost. You can stretch
this by including healing effects of your own.
Quest card 1: The Wounded Eagle – 8 quest points
There is no game text on this quest card, so there is really nothing special about this part. Be
on the lookout for Athelas objectives and Forest Grove. If you are able to clear Rhosgobel in
the staging area, you will be able to heal Wilyador already. If not, preserve your healing
effects for the next stage. Scrying the encounter deck for Athelas is also a valid strategy. use
Scout Ahead, lore Denethor or Risk Some Light in order to put the Athelas on top. You might
also be able to pick the best card to guard it with. The 8 quest points shouldn’t be too hard to
overcome, so by turn 3, you should have passed on to the next stage. Hopefully, you have
found at least 1 Athelas objective by that time.
Quest card 2: Radagast’s Request – 12 quest points
Now you are able to travel to Rhosgobel if you haven’t cleared it already. The moment it
becomes active, players are able to heal the eagle with everything they have. I personally like
to include Lore of Imladris, as it heals the full 5 hitpoints on the creature. Note that you can’t
heal more than 5 hitpoints per effect. Stage 2 instructs the players to remove every card that is
used to heal Wilyador from the game. This does include Elrond, as he targets the character
that is healed itself. Restrict Elrond’s healing to your own characters, it is a response, so you
get to choose whether or not yu trigger it.
The effect will also include characters like Lorefindel, Ioreth, Warden of Healing, and
Imladris Caregiver. Attachments and events are also removed from the game the moment
they heal even a single hitpoint off of Wilyador. They are not just discarded, that would allow
you to recycle the events, but they are removed from the game entirely.
The quest card also gives the players a moral dilemma. The scrying effect on the quest stage
says that players may deal X damage to Wilyador in order to peek at the top 3 cards. From
these cards, you must reveal 1 and discard the other 2. This can only be triggered by the first
player at the start of the Quest phase. In solo, this is a good way to find more Athelas for only
1 damage. However, since the scrying doesn’t scale up to the number of players in the quest
(unlike Scout Ahead), it is normally not worth the 4 damage. You are not guaranteed to
reveal Athelas, and you might have to stomach a nasty treachery or enemy. Since you have to
reveal the card at the beginning of the quest stage, the threat of the revealed card will still
count towards the total in the staging area. So I would not recommend using this ability
unless you have stacked the encounter deck in such a way that you know what is coming up.
The 12 quest points on this quest shouldn’t be explored as fast as possible. Try and find
enough healing herbs in order to heal Wilyador completely before you advance. Timing is
key here, if you have any other healing abilities, make sure to use them before you advance.
Quest card 3: Return to Rhosgobel – 0 quest points
Now we come to the most stressing part of this quest, the final stage. There is no progress to
be made as the quest resolves once the final effect on the stage has been completed. The
When Revealed effect on this stage has you heal Wilyador 5 points per Athelas objective you
have claimed. The number of objectives you need will depend on how long you’ve taken to
get to this stage, what encounter cards you have revealed, and if you have healed Wilyador in
the meantime. The safest bet is to have claimed all of the objectives, but that is difficult to
find in such a large encounter deck.
After this effect has resolved, the moment arrives where players win or lose. If Wilyador has
any damage on him after the Athelas heals, the players lose. This can be frustrating to the
players, as you have worked hard to keep this eagle alive, but he ends up with 1 damage left
on him causing you to lose the quest. Know that you are not able to take actions after this
effect has triggered. Your own healing effect will have to be played during stage 2.
If your eagle has regained all of his 20 hitpoints, you win the quest and are free to move on to
Emyn Muil.
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The Encounter deck
Global
• There are 53 cards to reveal in Normal mode, 37 in
Easy mode, a lot of treacheries get cut.
• There is a 51% chance in both modes of revealing a
shadow card.
• The Average Threat to be revealed per card is 1.1 in
Normal Mode and 1.3 in easy mode.
• Chances of you getting Athelas or Forest Grove
revealed is 15% in normal mode, and 21% in easy
mode.
• Only Driven by Shadow can get Surge, this really
isn’t the quest that reveals more than 1 card per
player each round.
• Doomed is not a keyword that can be found on this
quest. You are free to bring your own.
The new expansion adds a little variety to the quest, but

not a lot. The only cards added are 2 types of enemies,
2 types of location (of which 1 is unique), and 3 types
of treacheries. You will be seeing a lot of these though,
with a lot of these cards having 4 or 5 copies in the
encounter deck. If you really find yourself struggling,
try easy mode. It removes a lot of the nasty treacheries and makes it more fun to play.
Objectives
Wilyador
This Eagle objective ally ranks among the toughest of creatures in the game. 20 hitpoints are
the same level as Smaug, and even stronger than the ship objectives you get in the Dream-
chaser cycle. However, despite his massive pool of hitpoints, Wilyador is
not a character you want to be defending with. At the end of each round,
he will take 2 points of damage, resulting in you fighting to keep him
alive. I find this technique more thematic than the Time keyword that got
introduced during the Ringmaker cycle. The other stats on Wilyador are
not great, 1/1/1 stats make him a mediocre ally to use for defence or
questing. You really don’t want to be questing with him though, as
certain treacheries will deal more damage to him. If he is exhausted to
quest, treacheries like Exhaustion and Necromancer’s Reach will cause
you to find more Athelas in order to help him survive.
Instead, try using Wilyador as an attacker, his 1 attack strength might not
count for much, but the fact that he is an Eagle makes him more likely to
attack a Mirkwood Flock or Black Forest Bats. In a pinch, you can also
defend one of these enemies with Wilyador, though I must recommend
you do not do this during the later stages of the game. That single point
of damage that you take from the attack, might prove fatal during stage
3.
Athelas
This item is what you are really digging for in the encounter deck.
While it might not look important based on its text, in the hands of a
healer, it will help Wilyador immensely. The effect on stage 3 of the
quest instructs players to heal 5 damage per Athelas off of Wilyador,
this could have you heal him completely, as you are able to find 4
objectives in the encounter deck. It is a good idea to try and scry a
little for these objectives and make sure you find enough before you
finish stage 2. This might mean that you have to stall a little before
you advance to stage 3 in order to find an additional copy. Be aware
that this does mean that Wilyador is going to take more damage, so
try and quest through once you are certain you have enough healing
herbs.
The only text on Athelas is the Guarded keyword, which makes

players reveal the next card of the encounter deck and place it on top
of Athelas. If it is a location, the players must first explore it. If it is
an enemy, the players must first kill it. If it is a treachery, the players
must first endure the effect of it or cancel it. In case you reveal
another copy of Athelas, the official ruling is that the second copy
doesn’t get guarded, and you first claim the top Athelas in order to be able to claim the
bottom one. This is extremely rare but will be amazing if you were looking for Athelas.
Claiming these objectives will require players to exhaust 1 hero and attach Athelas to that
hero. Readying effects are important here or just bring Tactics Boromir.
If the Athelas Objective is dealt to an enemy as a Shadow card, you must discard it. This can
be terrible if you needed that final objective to pass to the final stage and win. Consider using
Shadow of the Past to put the objective back into the encounter deck.
Locations
Since the new expansion of this scenario doesn’t include a large

variety of new cards, there are only 2 new locations for players to
explore. With one of them being a unique location that starts in the
staging area, and the other being a fetch-location, it is important to get
to know these locations.
• Rhosgobel: This unique location starts off in the staging area during
setup. Its threat scales to the number of players in the game, with a limit of
4. The 4 quest points on the location can be put on Rhosgobel while it is in
the staging area since it is not immune to player card effects like Northern
Tracker. Players are also able to put attachments on the location in order to
explore it. Think of Hithlain and Explorer’s Almanac for these effects. You
will want to clear the location as soon as possible in order to start healing
Wilyador. The location restricts this while it is in the staging area. Once you
pass stage 1, you are free to travel to it and get rid of it that way. Since
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Rhosgobel has 4 victory points, you are guaranteed to never see it again halfway through the
quest.
• Forest Grove: The only new location you can encounter during this quest is actually a
beneficial one. Forest Grove lets the players find an Athelas objective once they explore the
location. They add the objective to the staging area and guard it with the next card off of the
encounter deck after it has been shuffled. This location is always worth it to travel to, as
more Athelas can be found, even when it comes up as a Shadow card on an enemy. There
are 4 copies of this location, to pair the 4 objectives in the deck. This doubles the chances of
you finding an objective, so be on the lookout for this card.
Enemies
Just 2 new enemies are added to the card pool in this scenario, but they will be a common
threat as there are 4-5 copies of each in the encounter deck. Not only that, but the enemies are
also quite similar to each other in art, shadow effect, and restrictions. Besides them,
Hummerhorns, Chieftain Ufthak, and Ungoliant’s Spawn are back to make your quest more
miserable.
• Black Forest Bats: The weaker enemy of the two, but at a lower
engagement cost, you are more likely to encounter this one. The 0 defence
on the enemy and just 2 hitpoints make it very vulnerable to
Thalin/Argalad and Straight Shot. Try adding some direct damage to your
decks in order to prevent these enemies from engaging you. Even cards
like Fresh Tracks and Expecting Mischief can be useful against these
enemies. Once engaged, the Bats can only be defended by Eagle
Characters or by Characters with Ranged. Pro tip: Add some Winged
Guardians to your deck to have a solid defence option against the bats.
You might also want to consider taking the attack undefended, but this can
lead to nastier shadow effects and more damage on your heroes. Ranged
Characters are often not really defensive so you might not want to risk
that if it isn’t needed. Attacking the Bats is easier, as Ranged characters
often have 2 or more attack power to handle them. Be sure to add Ranged
Characters in your deck in order to get rid of these enemies immediately.
• Mirkwood Flock: CTRL+C, CTRL+V of the Black Forest Bats, only that
the Flock has a higher engagement cost, a slightly higher attack, a point of
defence, and an additional hitpoint. The strategy remains the same: Kill
them with direct damage, or have enough Ranged Characters ready to deal
with them. 4 combined defensive stats may be more difficult, but combine a couple of
archers with some weapons and you should be fine.
A thing about the shadow effects on these enemies, you really don’t want to take undefended
attacks as the shadow effects on the Bats and the Flock have you placing the damage on
Wilyador. This can cost you an additional round before the Eagle dies. If he has plenty of
hitpoints, it becomes less of a problem. However, Murphy’s Law dictates that you will end up
with just that final point of damage on him at the end of the game, causing you to lose.
Treacheries
3 new treacheries are added to the pool, all with the idea to make Wilyador suffer as much
damage as possible. They end up trying to deal a lot of damage to your own board state.
These treacheries are really old testament before de developers had a clear sense of balance.
Each treachery is also actively trying to kill off a lot of your allies and can potentially kill a
Hero as well. These treacheries are really powerful and are one of the reasons this quest is
less enjoyable to people.
• Swarming Insects: This effect is brutal, while designed for

Wilyador (as he can’t have attachments) it will end up
clearing your board of allies within a couple of reveals. This
Treachery will probably be countered best in a future Dale
deck, which focusses on having more attachments on allies.
Be aware that this can target your heroes as well. Be sure to
include some attachments for your key characters to get
out early. Spare Hood and Cloak for your allies and Cram for
your Heroes makes sure that they at least have an
attachment on them. The shadow effect on the treachery is
also worth cancelling. Dealing 3 damage to the most
damaged character on the board will be tough to deal with.
You could try and have Beorn on the table with more
damage on him than Wilyador, but it will require quite
some setting up for this to work. Just bring Hasty Stroke.
• Festering Wounds: This treachery ranks in my mind as one
of the most brutal in the entire game. You will have to make
sure that you heal every point of damage off of your allies
and heroes, or otherwise, they suffer an additional 2
damage. This will kill off any character with 3 hitpoints.
Fortunately, there are only 2 copies of this card in the deck
in Normal mode, so you won’t probably chain into these.
The Shadow effect on this card is the same as if you would
reveal it, only slightly less damage (unless you take it undefended).
• Exhaustion: The big bad brother of Necromancer’s Reach. This one scales up the damage to
2 points to every exhausted character in the game. Drawing this late in the round can wipe
away your questers and any other character that managed to get exhausted. Bring Dwarv es
or Ents to deal with this much direct damage (this is no guarantee that they’ll live though).
To make matters worse, there are 4 copies of this card, and they all have shadow effects.
The shadow effect will have you do the exact thing that Necromancer’s Reach does, only
later in the round. This might cause you to take more damage on your defenders and
characters that exhausted for combat phase abilities.
41
Tips and Tricks
• Bring healing of your own. At least one player should play Elrond to boost any healing effect
that is played. Effects like Lore of Imladris, Waters of Nimrodel, and The Long Defeat are all
good options to include. Ioreth and Wardens of Healing will be able to target Wilyador,
maintaining enough hitpoints on him in order to heal him with the Athelas. The Athelas
player card is not the same as the objective so you won’t be able to sneak your way through
quest stage 3 that way. The damage can also quickly pile up on your other characters, make
sure to spread the healing to those in need before a treachery wipes your board clean.
• You might not be allowed to travel to Rhosgobel, but you are able to place progress on the
location. Clearing it on stage 1 will allow you to keep the damage on Wilyador in check and
heal him when possible.
• Since some enemies and effects target one Eagle or Creature card, you should definitely
think about bringing some Eagle cards of your own. This will have you handle the Black
Forest Bats and the Mirkwood Flock much better. You can also include more Ranged
characters in order to defend and attack the enemies. Combine this with plenty of direct
damage, and you should be able to handle combat quite nicely.
• Try and heal Wilyador during the game to his full 20 hitpoints, this will prevent you have to
deal more damage to him with Festering Wounds.
• The treacheries are a real pain, so bring Eleanor or A Test of Will to cancel as many as
possible. This will help Wilyador and your board state survive a bit longer.
• Damage cancellation or redirection does not count towards the discarding eff ect of stage 2.
This makes Honour Guard and Vigilant Guard good options to include in tactics. You can heal
the hero with Vigilant Guard attached with effects like Galadhrim Healer or Self
Preservation.
The Hills of Emyn Muil
Just writing the title of this article gave me flashbacks. This is a quest that you beat once, and
not visit ever again. Although I have to admit that I sometimes take a location control deck up
against this quest because I know that I won’t face a lot of enemies.
This quest is often regarded as the most boring, and just plain bad quest in the cycle. It has
you explore a number of locations, without really any problems. This makes for not a very
exciting game to most people, but it is a personal favorite of mine as I am more of a location
control player.
General Information
• Found in Hills of Emyn Muil Adventure pack, Shadows of Mirkwood cycle, pack 4
• Community difficulty level: 2.7
• Encounter sets: The Hills of Emyn Muil, Sauron’s Reach, Orcs of Dol Guldur
• Quest cards: 1
• Play if: you really, really haven’t got anything else to play, you have never beaten this quest,
you want to test your supportive deck against an enemy light quest.
• What is different about this quest?: Gather victory points to win, lots and lots of locations
• Solo or multiplayer?: You don’t want to bother your friends with this quest, but if you do, try
and go for a 2-3 player game. You will finish it faster than in solo, and you may have some
enemies to kill. 4 players will result in location lock, as your setup will be tougher.
• Can I run Side Quests for this scenario?: YES, Absolutely bring your side quests to this
scenario. The only quest card in the game requires 1 progress so you will be free to clear as
many of your own in this scenario. They also build towards your victory points, so that helps
you as well.
43
The Quest
Setup
1A has you searching the encounter deck for 2 unique locations: Amon Hen and Amon Lhaw,
The Hill of Sight and the Hill of Hearing. These locations are worth 5 victory points, so it is
definitely worth it to clear them. Based on the number of players, you start the game with a 4-
16 threat in the staging area. This is quite a lot, but you can quest with most of your
characters during the first stage.
Quest card 1: The Hills of Emyn Muil – 1 quest point
This is the only quest card in the game and requires but 1 quest point. However, to beat this
scenario, you have to also have 20 victory points. These can be obtained by clearing a lot of
Emyn Muil locations. Alternatively, you can also attempt to explore a couple of Player Side
Quests to put them into the victory display. An even crazier idea is to use cards like Black
Arrow, Red Arrow or Justice Shall Be Done to bump those points up even more. Be careful
with the last one though, as you can only win if you have 20 points and there are no more
Emyn Muil locations in play. You can also kill Chieftain Ufthak for his 4 victory points,
which is 20% of what you will need.
The rest of the quest card instructs you to not clear every location in the staging area because
if there are no location cards there, every first treachery card revealed gains Surge. Be
reminded that Surge is a keyword and can therefore stack. So if the first treachery already has
Surge, it surges into 2 additional cards. This can be the case with Driven by Shadow.
The Encounter Deck

Global
• There are 53 encounter cards that can be revealed in Normal
Mode, 32 in Easy mode
• There is a 36% chance of a Shadow effect in Normal Mode, this
rises to 40% in Easy mode
• The average threat per card revealed is 1.13 in Normal mode and
1.2 in Easy mode.
• Surge is present on the Eastern Crows, which are a 3 off in Normal
mode and 1 in Easy mode. The treachery Impassable Chasm can
surge if you do not have an active location in play. Remember the
quest effect that gives each first treachery revealed surge if there
is no location in the staging area.
• Doomed is only present on the Orc Horse Thieves, which are a 3 off
in Normal mode, and 2 in Easy mode
• None of the cards are immune to player card effects, this allows for
a lot of location control to be had with the locations in this quest.
The encounter deck is mostly made up out of locations and treacheries. The chances of
revealing an enemy are about 1 in every 4 to 5 cards, which in solo isn’t too bad. These
chances get even smaller when playing easy mode. Be sure to watch out for the number of
treacheries in this deck though, bring A Test of Will or Eleanor to counter an untimely reveal.
Locations
This is the type of card the quest is all about. The locations included in the adventure pack all
have victory points so you will have to clear at least 6 of them in order to win. Let’s take a
look at the locations you may encounter.
• Amon Hen: This location starts in the staging area and is a unique Emyn Muil location worth
5 victory points. The threat value is equal to twice the number of players in the game. This
can get up to 8 threat, so be careful in bringing a lot of players to this quest. The 5 quest
points it requires to clear can mean that you might not clear it in 1 turn. The location has an
effect when it is active. You will not be able to play events while it is active. This will prevent
you from playing A Test of Will to cancel a treachery or playing Evening Star to put a lot of
progress in the staging area. There are a number of ways around this.
1. Time when you travel. Careful planning of when you go to Amon Hen is important.
You want to make sure nobody wants to play any events while it is active. After you
make it active, try and clear it in 1 go.
2. Clear the location in the staging area. Whether you use Backtrack, Explorers
Almanac or an army of Northern Trackers, you can still clear the location in the
staging area without making it active. This will mean that you will leave a lot of
potential threat in the staging area, but at least you can use your events. Making
these locations not immune to player card effects opens up a lot of options.
• Amon Lhaw: This location has the same statistics as its western twin, but the effect when it
is active is different. Amon Lhaw will have you blank every attachment you control. The
same strategy as Amon Hen apply, but I would advise traveling to Amon Lhaw during the
early game when not a lot of attachments have been played yet.
• The Highlands: More like the bye-lands, I have had so much luck with this location and
Warden of Arnor. Since it is only a 1 threat, 1 quest point location, it can be removed by a
host of effects. You can also decide to leave it in the staging area since
the 1 point of threat is no real problem. It is only worth 1 victory point,
alas, but that is still 5% of what you will need. You will probably never
have to pay for its travel cost. The location will have you reveal the
next card on the encounter deck and add it to the staging area.
• The East Wall of Rohan: Yikes, a 4 threat location can really put a dent
in your progress this round. However, it is only 2 quest points, so it is a
fine target for Asfaloth and Evening Star. If you decide to travel to it,
you will have to pay an additional matching resource to play for any
non-Rohan allies. This might prevent you from playing another Ethir
Swordsman or a Galadriel’s Handmaiden next planning phase. You can
always opt to include some cheap willpower with Escort from Edoras.
The 3 victory points are nice to get once you finally clear it.
• The Shores of Nen Hithoel: This mouthful of a location will require you
to dump 1 event card from your hand in order to travel to it. Noldor
decks can benefit from this by discarding Elven Light. The stats of 2
threat, 2 quest points and 2 victory points make this quite a vanilla
location to reveal.
• The Outer Ridge: Again the stats are 2/2/2, however, the Outer Ridge will boost the threat of
all locations in the staging area by 1. Don’t bother to travel to this one, better to expl ore it in
the staging area or travel if you have only 1 other location in the staging area.
• Rauros Falls: Now here is an interesting location. While it is active, you will have to send
every character you control to the quest. This makes your board state very vulnerable to
Necromancer’s Reach and Rockslide, plus the fact that you won’t have any characters left
45
standing for combat. Try to widdle this one down in the staging area, even if it has 4 quest
points.
• The North Stair: This 3/3/3 location is a good one to travel to during the first round. There
will be no cards in the discard pile for its effect to trigger. If you must travel to it outside of
the first round, try and find the perfect card to return to the staging area. Slick Footing,
Driven by Shadow and Treacherous Fog are good treacheries to return to the staging area.
Since you have to trigger a When Revealed effect, you might not want to trigger
Necromancer’s Reach or Dol Guldur Orcs.
Enemies
The encounter deck only features one new enemy card so there won’t be a lot of new
surprises during combat. The only real threat to watch out for is Chieftain Ufthak. He has
been mentioned before, so you should know by now how to get rid of him. He has become a
much more juicy target because of his 4 Victory Points. The Eastern Crows also make a
return in this quest. Their counter remains Thalin, get him to commit to the quest, and kill the
birds before they ever get the chance to surge into something nasty. The Dol Guldur Orcs can
have a nasty When Revealed effect when they are revealed, especially if a damaging
treachery has just gone off, be sure to always send at least 1 ally to the quest with more than 3
hitpoints. You should be able to heal off the damage after questing.
• Orc Horse Thieves: These enemies are the only new ones in the
encounter deck. With a threat of 3, they can certainly put a dent in your
questing capacity, though you really don’t need to make so much
progress. Their Doomed 2 is also something you don’t want see often,
though it is manageable if you can keep your threat under 35. Their main
strength lies in the attack boost that they get. For those of you that have
suffered from Location lock before, these guys get stronger as the lock
(and your misery) intensify. They get plus 1 attack to their stats for each
location in the staging area. This can make them quite fearsome, but if
you clear out a lot of locations, or don’t reveal any, they should be
manageable. You can also always travel to one of the locations to
remove them from the staging area. Their defensive stats are not
terrible, the 6 hitpoints are even enough to trigger rare effects like
Sword of Numenor. You should be able to take them down within 2
turns. As long as you can keep clearing locations in the staging area, the
orcs shouldn’t be a problem
Quick bit on the Shadow Effects here, there are a couple that are really nasty. The Shadow on
Rockslide will have you receive the attack undefended, even though you declared a defender.
If this is a Chieftain or the Horse Thieves, the attack can get out of hand and you might lose a
hero. A lot of the other effects return the attacking enemy to the staging area, Wargs style.
There is no real problem with the enemy engaging you unlike the Brigands in the Against the
Shadow cycle, so you should be fine. You will have to take care of more threat in the staging
area next round though.
Treacheries
There are actually quite some treacheries in this deck, so you are bound to see some of them
come off. Be careful when questing, as Necromancer’s Reach is in this deck as well. You
might want to quest with everyone, but this can lead to the death of some of your allies.
• Rockslide: Easily this is one of the worst cards to reveal during staging.
The Hazard has you dealing 2 damage to each questing character,
regardless of whether they were exhausted or not. This leads to the
death of many questing allies, which makes you vulnerable. With 3
copies of this treachery in the deck, it is paramount that you bring some
healing. Having Elrond and Wardens of Healing on the table will ease the
pain a little before you have to discard a hero. Draw this one back to
back, and you just lost nearly your entire board state. Cancel this one at
all costs. The best ally to send to the quest to counter this effect is Sailor
of Lune, provided that there is an event on the top of your discard pile.
• Impassable Chasm: This treachery removes all progress on the active
location and returns it to the staging area. This can hurt if you were
planning on finishing the quest when that location would be explored.
However, if this is all you reveal, things aren’t so bad. At least it’s not
Rockslide. Drawing another copy of this will have it surge into a new
card. You can reliably call Location or Treachery with Minas Tirith
Lampwright to cancel the surge.
• Slick Footing: Mind your step, this treachery discards all of the hard-earned progress on
locations in the staging area. This can be painful as you just wanted to clear them in the
staging area. To make things worse, you have to discard a card from the top of your deck for
each progress token discarded. To benefit from this, bring a Noldor or Dwarven mining deck,
you might profit. Drawing a second copy of this is a whiff.
Tips and Tricks

• Try and keep your threat below 35. This is the engagement cost of most enemies, which will
allow you to choose your own battles. It also makes treacheries like Evil Storm and
Treacherous Fog less of an issue.
• Bring Northern Trackers, these rangers will allow you to place progress on all locations in the
staging area and will allow you to explore locations without the need of travelling to them.
The more you get, the faster this quest will be over.
• Dunedain Pathfinder is a good ally to get out. He is sure to hit with nearly half of the
encounter deck being locations. He also lets you find a way around the surge trigger on the
quest card. Other scrying effects like Scout Ahead and Risk Some Light can also be useful to
put locations on the top of the encounter deck. That way, the first treachery revealed won’t
surge and you will get those victory points faster.
• This should go without saying, but be sure to pack enough location control. Warden of Arnor
lets you discard The Highlands if they are the first location revealed. Asfaloth can allow you
to pop a location with a lot more quest points than usual like Rauros Falls.
• There are quite a few direct damage to questing characters. Be sure to bring some healing to
prevent your entire questing board to be wiped. Effects like Rockslide can be very dangerous
as it targets every questing character, not every character that exhausted to commit to the
47
quest. Sailor of Lune is a good counter against it, provided you can have an event on the top
of your discard pile.
• With a lot of treacheries, cards like Eleanor and A Test of Will are also very useful. They will
prevent you getting destroyed with an untimely Rockslide or Necromancer’s Reach.
Alternatively, you can experiment with the Door is Closed if you manage to put a treachery
into the victory display.
• Victory Display decks can work against this quest. Not all cards are viable targets though,
Leave no Trace is practically useless against Emyn Muil locations. Out of the Wild can only
work on cards without victory points, so try and fish out some tre acheries. Rossiel will
almost immediately quest for 4 willpower since the victory display will be stuffed with
locations.
The Dead Marshes
Ah yes, the first, but definitely not the last time we get a test during our scenario’s. This first
adventure into the Marshlands just north of Mordor is all about trying to capture Gollum.
This quest has the tendency to be either over in a few rounds or dragging on forever as you
try and find Gollum in the encounter deck, only to have him escape into the discard pile over
and over again. The Escape tests will be discussed in detail later, but let us first take a look at
the smelly, stinking bog that are the Dead Marshes
General Information
• Found in Shadows of Mirkwood cycle: Pack 5
• Encounter sets: The Dead Marshes, Wilderlands, Sauron’s Reach
• Quest cards: 2
• Play if: You want to capture Gollum by means of lucky draws from the encounter deck, you
haven’t played this quest in a while, you like tests.
• What is different about this quest?: Escape tests, Gollum objective, resetting quest deck
• Solo or Multiplayer?: Multiplayer would be best. That way you can have enough willpower
to commit to the quest, and pass any tests that come up. Be sure that every player can beat
an Escape test.
• Can I bring Side Quests for this scenario?: No, if you do, you will be forced to make more
tests, which will inevitably put more resources on Gollum. Not only will this make the second
stage more difficult, but you also run the risk of shuffling Gollum into the Encounter deck.
49
The Quest
Setup
At the start of the quest, players are to find the Gollum objective card in the encounter deck
and add him to the staging area. Then, each player reveals a card from the top of the
encounter deck and adds it to the staging area. This will result in a couple of points of threat
in the staging area at the start of the game. If you are unlucky, you will have to make an
escape test during setup if you reveal any of those treacheries. This can limit your questing
power during the first turn, especially if every player has to make such a test. After this setup,
players flip the quest card and move into stage 1B.
Quest card 1: Into the Marshes – 12 quest points
There is quite a lot of flavour text on this side of the card, but nothing else that changes the
quest. Remember that Gollum himself will force you to take Escape tests at the end of each
quest phase so it would be a good idea to leave a couple of characters ready for these tests.
Characters that do not have to exhaust to quest, like from effect of Light of Valinor,
Galadriel, and Lindon Navigator will be able to both quest, ánd be ready for the test. You
would want to pass this stage before the resources on Gollum get out of hand. I would
recommend questing hard from the moment he gets over 4 resources. Otherwise, the second
stage will become more difficult and your game can last forever. The 12 quest points
shouldn’t be much of a problem if you have plenty of willpower to pass the quest and the
tests.
Quest card 2: The Capture – 3 quest points
This stage will first require you to place 3 progress on it. Remember to make Escape tests at
the end of the Quest phase on this stage as well! Once you make the progress (probably the
following turn), the First Player may choose a player to make an Escape test. You will want
to choose a player who has the most willpower left standing. Therefore, it might be a good
idea to discuss beforehand who is going to do this test. That player should commit as little
willpower as possible to the quest. For this Escape test, you must deal X cards off the top of
the encounter deck, where X is the number of resources on Gollum. Hopefully this is around
5 or lower, otherwise, this test can prove to be difficult. If you manage to win this Escape
test, you have successfully captured Gollum and are now ready to escort him back to
Mirkwood.
However, it might be the case that you fail this test. In that case, the quest deck resets to stage
1B. This will drop you right back where you were at the start of the game. This has a couple
of disadvantages.
1. The quest will take longer than you might have intended. Be sure to sit there for at least
another 15-30 minutes depending on the number of players and the speed with which you
play the game.
2. More resources on Gollum. You will have to make more tests which can cause Gollum to
gain more resources. This makes the second stage even harder.
3. Gollum can get over 8 resources. Worst case scenario here. Gollum gains 8 or more
resources and flees into the encounter deck. You will have to find him again and pray to
everything holy that he doesn’t come up as a shadow card. If he does, you will sit there for a
long, long time revealing every card of the encounter deck before reshuffling and hoping
that he shows up as a regular card again. Bring Shadow of the Past if this happens.
4. Combat. You may have put all your eggs in one basket when you committed to the escape
test, even though you have a Hill Troll engaged with you. This combat phase will be horrible
and can cause some heroes to die. You can prevent this by having enough 0 willpower
combat orientated characters ready in case you fail the test.
The Encounter deck

Global
• The encounter deck starts with 53 cards in normal
mode, 36 in Easy mode
• Chances of a shadow effect are 19% and 17% in Normal
and Easy mode, this is quite low when compared to
previous quests.
• The average threat per card revealed in this deck in 0.8.
• Surge is printed on 4 cards, giving you 7.5% chance of
revealing extra encounter cards.
• Doomed is not present on any cards, but you may be
raising your threat because of failed tests.
• No card is immune to player card effects or
attachments, go nuts.
• The average Escape value on a card that you reveal is 1.4
and 1.3 in Normal and Easy mode. Be aware that these
values go up to 2.4 and 2.3 per card if Heart of the
Marshes is the active location.
The quest has quite a lot of treacheries in the encounter deck, so bringing cancellation will be
a sure way to cancel over 30% of all cards in the encounter deck. The average threat is
because of this quite low. There are also very few Shadow effects that will go off, so be
prepared for bouncing Wargs back and forth.
Objectives
Gollum is finally found and is the only objective in this scenario. He is not
an ally, as he will be during later quests, so he cannot take damage or be
used for any action. Gollum will force you to make Escape tests at the end
of each quest phase. You will have to deal 1 card per player for this test.
However, the entire party may commit characters to this test, which makes
it easier. If you fail the test, you are forced to put 2 resources on Gollum.
Between this effect and a couple of treacheries and locations, resources tend
to pile up on Gollum. If he ever has 8 or more resources on him, you will be
forced to shuffle him into the encounter deck. You will now have to find
him again. If he happens to be revealed during staging, he loses all his
resources. This makes the second stage of the scenario very easy.
51
Enemies
While there is only 1 new enemy included in the Dead Marshes expansion, there are plenty of
nasty enemies to make your life difficult. The Hill Trolls are back, and if you reveal them
during staging, you really have to watch out that your threat stays manageable. The Marsh
Adder feels right at home in this quest, but can be a real pain for the unprepared. Drawing
any of these enemies during setup or when your board is unprepared can be dangerous.
Wargs can also provide you with problems. The number of shadow effects
in this deck is quite low, so it may take a while before you can kill them.
• Giant Marsh Worm: Yep, you won’t be battling undead spirits in this
scenario, but more Creatures. The worm will stay in the staging area, for
the most part, contributing just 1 threat to the total. However, in combat,
this worm may prove hard to kill. The 6 hitpoints will be regenerated by 2
at the end of each round. It is vital you kill it in 1 go, or you will have to
face its 3 attack strength again and again. The 2 defence opens up options
for Straight Shot if you are packing Marksmen of Lorien, or any other
defence reduction.
Locations
The scenario has got a couple of locations which will stretch the game out
longer than it should. This is done by having a crazy amount of quest points on them. A good
example of this is The East Bight. These locations will also make the tests harder and will
provide Gollum with more resource tokens.
• Impassable Bog: This bog sure is impassable, 12 required quest

points is more than a lot of quest cards in the entire game. For those of
you who want to stretch the game in order to find Gollum, this is your
go-to location. For everyone else, don’t bother travelling here. The 1
threat in the staging area isn’t that hard to overcome. The When
Revealed effect on this location is punishing, as you are forced to put 1
resource on Gollum for each location in the staging area. This will
ensure that he has a healthy amount of resources on him at all times.
This also means that location control is vital to win this quest. Having to
put 4/5 tokens on him at once can be enough to shuffle Gollum into the
deck. Try to cancel this When Revealed effect with A Test of Will. For
those of you who keep score, 7 victory points is quite nice, especially
since this means that you won’t reveal the card again after you have
explored it.
• Fens and Mires: A standard 2/2 location that is easy fodder for
location control decks that might have a hard time with the previous
location. The forced effect will have you place 1 resource token on
Gollum if you travel to it. This implies that you really shouldn’t travel to
this location, as more resources spell trouble in the later phases of the
game. Use location control to get rid of this one, it’ll save you a lot of
problems.
• The Heart of the Marshes: This location is tricky. At 3 threat it is worth travelling to, as there
are multiple copies in the encounter deck. However, the boost to all escape values can mean
the difference between winning or losing. The effect will not trigger on the Gollum test if
you manage to clear it in the next round. But it will make any test from a treachery more
difficult. The choice is yours.
Treacheries
The new treacheries all revolve around making more Escape tests. This can be troublesome
as you will struggle to pass at least 2 tests and make some progress on the quest. The other
treacheries put resources on Gollum, so be prepared to cancel some of those. The regular
treacheries will punish players harder if they have a threat of 35 or higher, keeping your
threat below this is advisable.
• Nightfall: This is probably the most basic of the new treacheries. Only
the First player must make an Escape test revealing 2 cards off the top
of the encounter deck. If you fail this test, you must raise each players
threat by 2 and put 1 resource on Gollum. This treachery will mean
that the first player will likely not contribute much willpower to the
Gollum test at the end of the Phase.
• Through the Mist: This is the same as Nightfall, only this time the first
player contributes attack strength instead of willpower. The rest of the
test remains the same. If this test is failed, you add 1 resource to
Gollum and raise the threat of each player by 1.
• The Lights of the Dead: This is probably the worst to reveal in a 4
player game. Not only does the first player have to make an Escape
test, every other player must make a test too. If any player fails one of
these tests, they add 1 resource to Gollum and raise only their own
threat by 1. Revealing this card for an Escape test is also tough, as it
has a value of 5 (6 with Heart of the Marshes).
• A Wisp of Pale Sheen: I believe this is one of the community’s most
hated artwork, though I think it is not too bad. This treachery does not require the players to
make a test but instead puts 2 resources on Gollum immediately. Any player is able to
exhaust a Lore Hero to reduce this effect to 1 resource, which in my opinion is definitely
worth it. That hero will not be contributing to the game a lot this round, but it did prevent
another resource on Gollum. The escape value of 4 on this card can be tough to swallow at
times, but at least you don’t have to resolve the When Revealed effect on this card.
The Test
This quest introduces the players to the many tests that are in this game. The Escape Test in
the Dead Marshes is meant to represent Gollums attempts to escape capture. The test will
take place at the end of the questing phase if Gollum is in play. You can also be forced to
make an escape test because of a treachery card that got revealed during staging. In order to
perform an Escape test, players must first commit characters who are using their willpower
for this test (or attack power with Through the Mist). For Gollum‘s effect, every player may
commit characters to the test. But there are some tests where only the first player may
commit characters. Be sure to leave some characters ready if you are the first player. Even if
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you are not the first player, you must still have at least some characters ready in case Lights
of the Dead get revealed, forcing every player to make a test.
Then, players are instructed to discard a number of cards from the

top of the encounter deck. For Gollum, this is equal to the number
of players in the game. Players then compare the commited
willpower to the Escape value on the revealed cards. Not all cards
have this keyword, so they are considered to be Escape: 0. This can
get boosted with The Heart of the Marshes. When comparing the
values, if the players have committed more willpower than the
Escape Value, they pass the test and nothing happens. If they
manage to get willpower lower or equal to the Escape Value, they
fail the test. Each card that forces you to make a quest has an effect
that resolves if this happens. Usually, this means that you must
place resources on Gollum, and in some cases raise your threat.
Try not to commit everyone to these tests, unless it is the final one.
If you happen to reveal a treachery during staging which forces you
to make a test, do not send every character you have. You will have
to make another test at the end of the quest phase as well.
Characters that work well with these sort of tests are: Galadriel
(both her effect and her high base willpower), Cirdan the Shipwright (high base willpower),
Spirit Eowyn (you are able to increase her willpower accordingly), Lindon Navigator (can
quest and test), Rider of Rohan if there is a side quest in the Victory Display (can quest and
test). Also, consider using ally Faramir to boost your characters for both the quest and the
test. Readying effects like Light of Valinor and Unexpected Courage are good attachments to
have in case you need to do multiple tests.
Tips and Tricks

• Bring a lot of high willpower characters. Characters that do not have to exhaust to quest are
also highly advisable, as they can help with the quest ánd with the test.
• Do not commit everyone to the escape test if you have to make one because of a treachery.
Remember that you have to do another test at the end of the questing phase. Each player
should have characters ready to commit to these tests in case a treachery comes up.
• Plan for the final escape test who is going to attempt it. That player should keep as much
willpower back from the quest in order to pass the test.
• Bring Shadow of the Past if you manage to lose Gollum and he gets revealed as a Shadow
card or is discarded with another effect. This will allow you to save a lot of time milling the
encounter deck for him before shuffeling the discard pile back in. Scrying for Gollum, in this
case, can also be very effective.
• Location control is important to limit the effect on Impassable Bog. Try to clear as many
locations to prevent resources piling up on Gollum. Bring a Test of Will for the Bog to cancel
the When Revealed effect.
• Galadriel shines in this quest with her high willpower and ability to keep allies ready when
they commit to the quest.
Return to Mirkwood
This is the concluding scenario of the Shadows of Mirkwood cycle. It is also one that I
personally come back to every once in a while. It features a lot of strong enemies, brutal
treacheries, and enough quest cards to make you stay in Mirkwood for a very long time. The
quest is also very memorable if you have ever attempted it solo. I believe many of us did not
make it very far. With all of these lovely effects and a whiny Gollum who keeps throwing
Tantrums, it is time to close this chapter of the story with:
General Information
• Found in Return to Mirkwood Adventure pack, Shadows of Mirkwood cycle, pack 6
• Community difficulty level: 7
• Encounter sets: Return to Mirkwood, Wilderlands, Spiders of Mirkwood
• Quest cards: 4
• Play if: you enjoy a challenge against tough enemies while escorting Gollum, you want to
play a 4 player game that is exciting and has varying effects going off, you want to
experience the end of this cycle once again.
• What is different about this quest?: Lots of tough enemies, Gollum objective that increases
threat, very punishing treacheries, large changes of pace between stages
• Solo or multiplayer?: I dare you, double dare you to try and win this quest solo. This quest
was designed to pass Gollum between players at least every round. As you add more
players, the game will become easier.
• Can I run Side Quests for this scenario?: Not really, you have quite a few stages to go
through before you complete the scenario. If you stall, your threat will become very hard to
control and Gollum will throw more Tantrums. This quest will rely on speeding through to
the end.
55
The Quest
Setup
The setup portion of this scenario will have players looking for Gollum in the encounter deck
and discussing who is the best candidate to start guarding him. This usually tends to be the
player with the lowest amount of threat, who wasn’t planning on running Secrecy (don’t
bring Secrecy to this quest). Then, that player gains control of Gollum as an ally. To start the
game off, each player must reveal an encounter card from the deck and add it to the staging
area. The worst thing to reveal now would be a tough enemy, as you will probably not be
outfitted to handle heavy combat during round 1. From here, the quest continues as normal.
Quest card 1: Through the Forest – 12 quest points
Nothing special about this part of the quest. Try and get a questing army off the ground to
prepare for the next stage. The 12 progress tokens will require some time to clear so you can
take it slow. Do not just sit on your ass though, as your threat will start to rise quickly. Take
this time to avoid higher engagement cost enemies and build up your board state.
Quest card 2: Escape Attempt – 3 quest points
I thought we left the escape tests in the Dead Marshes? Oh well, Gollum tries again to escape
during this part of the quest. This causes the player guarding Gollum to be unable to commit
to the quest unless he is the only player in the game. In 2 player, this is the more difficult
part, as you lose half of your questing power, but still, need to reveal at least 2 cards.
Coordination between players is key here, as the person with the least questing capability
should be guarding Gollum at this point. During the stage, if ever the players quest
unsuccessfully (threat is higher than committed willpower) Gollum escapes and you have
failed the game. This is an early defeat and will allow players to face a different scenario with
the spare time they have left. If the players are successful in questing against this stage, they
are quite likely to make all 3 progress required for this stage and pass on to the next.
Quest card 3: To the Elven King’s Halls – 7 quest points
This is where solo games tend to hit a brick wall. The only text on the quest card is that the
player guarding Gollum cannot play cards from his hand. This does not include playing stuff
off the top of your deck with Gandalf or Vilya, nor does it limit you playing cards from the
discard pile like Glorfindel and Elven-Light. Every other player in the game can play cards
like normal. Make sure to switch control of Gollum between players to have everybody play
what they have in hand. The 7 quest points required for this stage are quite easy to gather if
you are playing multiplayer. This allows players to pass to the final hurdle.
Quest card 4: Ambush – 2 quest points
Not really an ambush if you managed to kill every enemy in the game, but otherwise the
player who is guarding Gollum better get his defenders ready. At the beginning of the combat
phase, all enemies engage the player who is guarding Gollum. You will be able to choose
who to have all of these enemies engage if you have a Wood Elf Path in the staging area
where you can travel to in the Travel Phase. Dunedain decks will be good options as they
benefit a lot from having enemies engaged with them. Having a lot of Mirkwood Bats in play
at this point can cause the player guarding Gollum to lose at this point, try to kill these bats
with direct damage before they engage. The rest of the quest is simple, kill everything in play
and make 2 progress to win. However, you will have the chance of revealing more enemies if
you need another round of staging. Having Tactics Legolas in play to put 2 progress on the
quest is important to prevent this. It is also thematically a home-run (literally, as you are near
his home). Having sufficient ranged and Sentinel characters on the board will allow the
player guarding Gollum to survive the onslaught of enemies engaged with him.
Once every enemy is dead, you have won the game and have delivered Gollum to Thranduil.
This brings an end to your adventures in Wilderland for the next 6 cycles.
The Encounter deck

Global
• The Encounter deck contains 53 cards in Normal mode, 35 in
Easy. This does not include Gollum
• Shadow effects are on 38% and 34% of the cards between the
two modes
• Average threat ranges between 1.3 and 1.5 between Normal
and Easy mode
• Surge is present on 5 cards, this is a chance of around 1 in 10
cards that adds additional cards to the staging area
• Doomed is again not present on any cards. Be careful that
there are enough other effects that raise threat though
• No cards are immune to player card effects
The deck contains a high number of locations, be sure to bring

some location control for these. They usually don’t have many
quest points on them, so you should be able to clear it instead of
travelling. Shadow effects are on about 1 in 3 cards, this can make
the Wargs a bit of a problem where they return to the staging area
after they attack. When playing Easy mode, a lot of the treachery cards are removed, but at
least 1 of each Tantrum remains in the deck. Attercop, Attercop is only a threat if you are
playing Normal mode, the 3 copies get removed in Easy mode.
Objectives
Gollum returns as an objective in this scenario. This time, however, he is a fully fletched
objective ally that is incapable of questing, attacking, and defending. Besides that, he is able
to be targeted with effects and is under the control of the player guarding him. This means
you are able to exhaust him for effects like King Spider. He has no willpower, attack strength
or defence strength, which will not allow you to increase those numbers. He does have
hitpoints though, which are able to be healed.
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Damage from undefended attacks must be dealt to Gollum. This means that if you find
yourself swarmed with little enemies, you will have to defend them all or risk Gollum taking
damage. If he ever has 0 hit points, he is dead and the players lose the game. Alternatively, if
all the heroes of the player guarding Gollum die, that player is defeated and the game is also
lost. All in all, the player guarding Gollum has to be careful not to
die, which is a real possibility with effects like Gollum’s Bite and
Attercop, Attercop
The final Forced effect on Gollum is one of the reasons why you
should run this scenario in multiplayer and change the player
guarding Gollum on a regular basis. At the end of the round, when
you would normally add 1 threat to your threat meter, you must raise
your threat by an additional 3 points. This is a total of 4 threat each
round. That is one Elrond’s Counsel and a Galadriel ability per
round worth of threat. To lower your threat consistently, you will
have to play the Galadhrim’s Greeting time and time again. The
increase in threat will make Combat more difficult and presents the
players with the real threat of getting to 50 threat quickly. Getting
higher threat cost will have enemies like the Hill Troll and
Hummerhorns engage you early, making things very difficult for the
players. I would advise starting below 25 to buy yourself some time
and run some threat reduction effects. Lore Aragorn can really shine
if he is timed right.
Locations
Mirkwood is a big forest, and easy to get lost in. The scenario adds 4 different types of
locations to the mix to make the quest more difficult. However, there are a couple of silver
linings for the players if they manage to find certain locations. The locations do not require
much progress and they are not a big threat in the staging area as well. However, The East
Bight and The Brown Lands are also included, providing big buffers in terms of threat and
quest points.
• Dry Watercourse: Definitely the worst location out there. The Dry Watercourse has the static
effect when it is active where all treachery cards that target the player who guards Gollum,
target every other player as well. These tantrums are game-changing, so having these go off
on as few people as possible is definitely a good idea. Ergo, don’t travel to this location and
clear it with location control. 2 quest points should be easy to overcome. If you are playing
solo, you are free to travel to this location, as the effects will target you regardless.
• Woodman’s Glade: Another 2/2 location that we have come to know during this cycle.
Woodman’s Glade is a beneficial location if you are playing with multiple people. Once it is
explored, every player who is not guarding Gollum gets to lower

their threat by 2. While this isn’t very much, it might just save you
from threating out for a turn. In solo, this location does nothing
besides requiring you to exhaust a hero to travel there. However,
the location doesn’t have to be active and then explored to lower
the threat, you can perfectly clear it with Asfaloth in the staging
area and lower your threat by 2 (as long as you aren’t guarding
Gollum).
• Wood Elf Path: Have a lot of enemies or treacheries crippled your
board state while you are guarding Gollum and is someone else
better equipped to handle him this turn? Travel to Wood Elf Path.
Though the 1 threat doesn’t mean that you absolutely have to
travel there, it is nice to have the option during the travel phase.
This will make sure that Attercop, Attercop doesn’t engage you,
but another player. Again, in solo, the response is useless as
there are no other players who can guard Gollum.
• The Spiders’ Ring: This is the exact opposite of Wood Elf Path. As
long as this location is active, the player guarding Gollum cannot
change. This means that that player has to raise their threat for
at least another turn and will be subject to all the terrible effects that focus on that player.
However, the keen-eyed among you have already noticed that this location has 2 quest
points, which means that it is very easy to get rid of. You will probably not have to travel to it
unless you are playing solo.
Enemies
There are plenty of horrible enemies in this encounter deck. Most of them you will have seen
before like Ungoliant’s Spawn and the two Hill Trolls. But this encounter deck has also got a
couple of smaller enemies that tend to provide the players with a lot of trouble since they
can’t be left undefended by the player guarding Gollum. To illustrate the difference between
these two types of enemies, the expansion features 1 for each type:
• Attercop, Attercop: Yes it has a base 8 attack strength, yes it has a 4

defence and 6 hitpoints, no it is not the final boss of this scenario. Even
worse, this spider has 3 copies in the encounter deck which can make the
final stage of the quest very difficult. The best bet to defend this massive
spider is to use chump blockers or an incredible defender with perhaps Blood
Of Numenor. Be careful that you have Shadow Cancellation in your hand if
you decide to block the attack, as Despair will absolutly wreck the defending
character if it comes up as a Shadow card. Try to pile all the damage onto this
spider at once so that its high defence has only to be conquered once. The 6
hitpoints make it strong enough to withstand a lot of direct damage, so
unless you play a dedicated direct damage deck, you will have to suffer at
least 1 attack from these spiders. Remember that you will be able to use a
Forest Snare to prevent them from attacking you. Its forced effect will make
it engage the player guarding Gollum at the beginning of the encounter
phase. Drawing this enemy during setup or the early rounds of the game
might be enough reason to scoop and reset the game. if you can’t handle
these spiders, try the scenario in Easy mode. All the Attercops are removed
and you may enjoy the game a bit more.
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• Mirkwood Bats: Though the spider is annoying, the Mirkwood Bats are fearsome in their
own way. Their stat line of 1/1/1/1 is nothing special, but they surge into more cards and
have a devastating forced effect. If the Mirkwood Bats engage any player, the player
guarding Gollum must deal 1 damage to each character he controls, including Gollum. If one
of his heroes has barely survived a Gollum’s Bite, that hero is now dead unless you have
healed him in the meantime. The low engagement cost of the bats will mean that they will
be coming down the turn they are revealed unless you can kill them with direct damage
(Thalin comes to mind) or if you use Ranger Spikes. However, they will still surge if you
manage to get the trap on them. Thalin is your best bet against these Bats.
Treacheries
Gollum doesn’t like the fact that he is captured (who’d guess?) and will throw a tantrum on
occasion to make matters more difficult for the players. These Tantrum treacheries are very
much worth cancelling, as they are potentially game-ending. Each of the Tantrum cards also
has a Shadow effect that is the same as the treachery, but at half the threat, cards or damage.
• Wasted Provisions: This is probably the best out of the 3 to reveal.

Wasted Provisions will cause you to discard the top 10 cards of your
deck, losing access to the cards unless you can bring them back
somehow. Back in the day of pre-patch Caldara, this effect benefitted
the players, as you were sure to discard some handy allies that you
can revive. Nowadays, Dwarven mining decks and Noldor will greet
this effect and actually benefit from it.
• Gollum’s Bite: Yeah, not a lot of heroes can take this amount of
punishment from Gollum. Out of the 106 heroes released at this date
(up to Crossings of Poros), only 21 are able to take the 4 damage and
live if they have no other damage on them (not counting alt art and
Fellowship Aragorn). Only Beorn will comfortably take this damage.
You will need to bring damage cancellation or healing in order to
survive multiple bites.
• Gollum’s Anguish: Doomed 8 for the guarding player, plain and simple.
It should be noted that players are forced to choose another player to

guard Gollum after any Tantrum. This is to prevent somebody from emptying his deck,
threating out, or losing a couple of heroes. However, if Dry Watercourse is active during any
Tantrum, all players will have to resolve the effect.
Tips and Tricks

• Gollum is a Creature ally and can, therefore, be healed by Radagast. This will prevent Gollum
dying from a lot of undefended attacks. Other healing options are also good to include.
Make sure you take as few undefended attacks as possible to prevent damage on him.
• Try to change the player guarding Gollum whenever you can so that all players raise their
threat evenly. The increase of 4 per round will really hurt if a single player happens to be the
player guarding Gollum at the end of every round. However, if that player brings Lore
Aragorn, he can drop his threat to the starting level at the refresh phase. This will keep
everyone’s threat low enough by having 1 player take all of the threat and then dropping
back down. Adding Desperate Alliance to the deck will allow this effect to be repeated
between players.
• A lot of locations have 2 or fewer quest points before it is explored. Bringing Asfaloth or
Evening Star will clear a lot of these. This will prevent you from getting swarmed with
locations in the Staging Area.
• Thalin has got some great targets for his ability with the Mirkwood Bats, they will not surge
if you kill them straight away. You will also not have to engage them so no damage will be
dealt to your characters.
So ends this first cycle of the game. Overall these quests are not often played on a regular
basis by people who have an extended card pool. However, it feels good to return to the roots
of the game every once in a while to discover the birth of ideas in the developer’s heads.
These ideas are later expanded upon or improved. The time mechanic from the Ringmaker
cycle originates from the Rhosgobel quest where you have limited time before you lose the
game.
All in all, the cycle is not perfect, but some difficulty and the fixing of mechanics is done
with the Nightmare packs. I do not own any so I will not be able to do reviews on them
anytime soon. If you would like to analyse a Nightmare version of a quest, contact me.
Now our paths bring us closer to the looming mountains of mist. What secrets lie beneath the
snowy peaks in eternal darkness? Only the Dwarrowdelf cycle will reveal this to us. Next
time we travel Into the Pit!
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Into the Pit
We start off this brand new cycle with one of my personal favourite quests. I often return to
this quest to test my new decks against. The quest requires you to handle combat, quest
enough to pass locations, even have a solid board state (or resource generation) during the
last stage. This quest doesn’t have a lot of special gimmicks to it, though the Cave Torch and
the 3 unique locations bring a really good theme to the quest. But all of these will be
discussed in more detail as we analyse the first scenario of the Dwarrowdelf cycle:
General Information
• Found in: Khazad-Dûm deluxe box, Scenario 1
• Encounter sets: Into the Pit, Twists and Turns, Hazards of the Pit, Goblins of the Deep
• Quest cards: 3
• Play if: You want to start a playthrough of this cycle, you have a deck to test against a
tougher scenario than Passage, you want to play another game with new players after
beating Journey along the Anduin
• What is different about this quest?: Not much, I’d say this quest gives a good indication of
what the quests underneath the Misty Mountains will look like. You get access to Cave Torch
and will have to fight a beefy enemy mid-way through the scenario. Besides that, it isn’t
much different as future quests.
• Solo or Multiplayer?: I have played this scenario plenty of times solo, and it is pretty
beatable. Multiplayer adds a bit of difficulty during the second stage, but it shouldn’t
become too much of a challenge. Just play the scenario with however many players you
have.
• Can I run Side-Quests for this scenario?: Yes, I would like to think that you could clear some
during the game. Stage 1 can only be defeated if all unique locations are explored, which
gives you some time to clear out the quest card and some potential side-quests. Stage 2
doesn’t require you to make progress on the quest card, so exploring another side -quest can
help.
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The Quest
Setup
The scenario starts by making East-Gate the active location and having the first player attach
Cave Torch to one of his heroes. The players also set the other 2 unique locations aside, out
of play. These get added in after their predecessor has been explored. This gives this first part
of the quest a really thematic flavour, as you can track your progress through Moria on an
actual map. After these locations have been set aside, you can flip over to 1B.
Quest card 1: Entering the Mines – 7 quest points
This When Revealed effect is one of the most common ways a quest can begin in this game.
Not only will it scale according to the number of players in the game, it also gives the players
something to work with during the first round. Revealing Burning Low, Sudden Pitfall or
Dark and Dreadful during this step is a nice way to get them out of the deck early. However,
if a 4 or 5 threat location gets added, the players may struggle to overcome the threat in the
staging area during the first round. Other bad cards to reveal during this stage are Goblin
Scout, Watchful Eyes, Dreadful Gap, Crumbling Ruins and Goblin Follower. Depending on
the cards you reveal, you will start the game with an average of 1.25 threat per player in the
staging area (considering the Surge keyword).
A quick note at the beginning of the first round: If you are the first
player, be sure to play an ally and quest with that ally. DO NOT
SEND YOUR HEROES IN ALONE. Too many times have I faced
the terrible effect of Sudden Pitfall where you have to discard a
questing character when I only quested with heroes. There is only 1
copy of it in the game, so once you’ve seen it, you should be fine for
a while.
In order to pass this first stage, you have to explore the 3 unique
locations. They enter play when you explore them. The first one,
East-Gate, starts off as the active location during setup. You will
explore this location during the first or second turn, as the 7 quest
points on it may be difficult to muster in solo. Its high threat makes
it a less than ideal target for West Road traveller, just leave it as the
active location. Ghan-Buri-Ghan is a very good ally because of this
threat, he will be questing for 7 willpower. That is good value for a
2 cost ally. While the East-Gate is active, you will probably not face
a lot of combat. No engagement checks are made and players are
unable to optionally engage enemies. This will not stop combat
altogether though. Goblin Follower will still engage the last player, and player card effects
like Dunedain Hunter can drag out even more enemies.
Once the East-Gate is explored, you move into the First Hall. It gets added to the staging area
once you explore the previous location. However, you do not have to make the location
active to pass through. The 2 quest points on the location make it a good target for some
location control cards. Mirkwood Explorer could just get rid of this location if you have
quested successfully during 2 previous turns. If you do decide to travel to First Hall, you will
have to raise the threat of each player by 3. Between this effect and the Signs of Conflict, you
will be raising your threat a lot during this quest. Note that all enemies
that couldn’t engage because of the previous location will be able to be
engaged at this point. Be ready for combat.
Finally, we move to a familiar location: The Bridge of Khazad-Dûm.

This 3/3 location is harder to clear with location control so you could
decide to travel to it. However, while the bridge is the active location,
you are unable to play any cards. This includes from the top of your
deck and from your discard pile. This might make it worth it to include
Tighten Our Belts for even more resources after you have cleared the
location (you are unable to play it while the Bridge is active). Try to
clear the bridge in one turn, otherwise, you might find yourself with a
full hand of cards, and no way to play them.
Once the Bridge of Khazad-Dum is added to the victory display,

players will have to place 7 progress on the quest card. Usually, this
progress has been spilling over from clearing the locations, but
sometimes you still have to place a couple more points before you can
advance. You can also decide to stall at this point, removing some
threat from the staging area and clearing some side-quests. Keep a
good eye on your threat though, you will still have a couple of rounds
to go until you have won. The pit can raise your threat very fast. Best
advice is to move on to the next stage once the bridge has been cleared
and you have enough progress on the quest.
Quest card 2: Goblin Patrol – 11 quest points
Now that the questy side of the scenario has been covered, you will
have to face the enemies of Moria. Goblin Patrol will have the players
pick one enemy each from the discard pile or the encounter deck. Your
best place to find enemies is probably the discard pile, as any enemies
that are revealed from the encounter deck this turn, get discarded right
away. One of the players must find a Patrol Leader and add him to the
staging area if able. There might be a case where both of the leaders have been revealed
early. If any of them died, a player must fish him out of the discard pile. For the rest of the
enemies, Goblin Scout might be the best bet if any player is above the engagement cost of
that enemy (or below 25, but that requires some work). Otherwise, pick Goblin Swordsman
over the Follower.
The stage will have you discard any enemy that gets revealed from the encounter deck. Wait
No Longer and Dunedain Hunter will still go off, as those enemies will immediately engage
you. The Cave Torch can now be used every time without repercussion. This can lead to an
emptier staging area and easier questing. The stage can be defeated in 2 ways. Either you
continue with questing and fulfil the 11 quest points on the stage or you decide to kill each
enemy in play. Once all enemies are defeated, you immediately progress to stage 3. This is
usually the way I pass the stage. The questing phase can still be used to good effect if you
quest against side-quests. You might be able to clear 1 or 2 of them before the enemies are
dead.
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Quest card 3: A Way Up – 12 quest points
Now that there are probably no enemies in play and the Cave Torch has cleared a lot of
locations, it should be easy to place the 12 required progress and win the scenario. In order to
make this stage more difficult, players will no longer gain resources during the Resource
Phase. Include some resource acceleration of use cheap cards in your deck in order to
continue to play cards. With very few cards remaining in the staging area at this point, you
can usually progress past this stage and win against the scenario in 1 turn. Just send everyone
to the quest and hope that Dark and Dreadful doesn’t come up. If you have placed the final
progress on this stage, you have won the game and are at the Seventh level of Moria. Now it
is time to see what happened to Balin.
The Encounter Deck

Global
• The number of cards to reveal in Normal mode is 50 and 33
in Easy mode. This excludes the 3 unique locations and the
Cave Torch
• Shadow effects are quite common on 56 and 64% of cards,
bringing cancellation will definitely help
• Average threat on cards revealed is 1 and 1.18 per card,
there are a number of cards that will add more cards to the
staging area though
• 12 cards have the potential to surge, with 6 cards surging in
any case. This is 1 in 4 cards that will surge, bringing
Lanwyn is a very good decision for this quest.
• Doomed is only on the 5 Signs of Conflict, this will raise
your threat with a potential 10 points.
• Only Sudden Pitfall is immune to player card effects, you
are unable to cancel this treachery. Some shadow effects
and enemy effects can make enemies immune to damage
this turn.
• Chances of revealing enemies for Cave Torch is 28% in
Normal Mode, and 40% in Easy mode.
Easy mode in this quest is not really beneficial to the Cave Torch and to the Shadow effects.
You will remove a couple of very nasty cards though. It is a good way to get a feel of this
quest before attempting it on Normal mode. The Normal mode has a lot more treacheries,
where Easy mode has a higher density of enemies.
Objectives
Cave Torch is the only objective in this scenario. It is attached to a hero from the first player
during Setup. Note that it counts as a Restricted attachment, so be sure to keep that in mind
when deciding on who to attach the torch. Your combat heroes will usually need both of their
restricted slots for weapons or armour.
The Torch has the ability to put 3 progress tokens on any Dark location. This can either be in
the staging area or the active location. This effect alone will only clear Branching Paths, other
locations will need additional location control or two activations from the Torch. The Cave
Torch can also be used to cancel Burning Low. This treachery might
make the threat in the staging area higher than the willpower of the
questers, so exhausting the Cave Torch to cancel this is a good idea.
The exhaustion of the Cave Torch comes at a price though. Players

must discard the top card of the encounter deck after exhausting the
torch. If the discarded card is an enemy, it gets added to the staging
area if the players aren’t on stage 2. Players will have to make the
decision to risk another enemy for the use of the Cave Torch
carefully. Another enemy might disrupt the way you were going to
deal with combat for this round. The chances of revealing an enemy
with this effect are 28% in a Normal game, and 40% in an Easy
game.
The timing of the Cave Torch should always be after the staging step
in order to cancel Burning Low. Perhaps the best time is directly
after staging if you can clear a location and thereby remove its threat
out of the staging area. Be aware that you will have to add the threat
of the enemy in the staging area if you reveal one. Another good time
is probably after combat if you can’t handle another enemy that turn.
Locations
The locations in this scenario are a lot tougher than during the previous cycle. These have a
lot of quest points, in order to protect them against the Cave Torch. They can also pack a lot
of threat, making Location Lock a real problem for the unprepared. Bring a Northern Tracker
to chip away at these locations. I have covered the 3 unique locations during quest card 1 so I
won’t repeat myself. Goblin Tunnels will be discussed during The Seventh Level as it is
much more of a threat there.
• Stairs of Nain: A non-Dark location, so you can only clear it by other location control effects
or by travelling to it. If you feel that you won’t be facing combat this round, feel free to
exhaust a character in order to travel here. A very mild location to reveal, to be honest.
• Dreadful Gap: This isn’t mild at all. During the later stages of the game, this location can
have more than 20 quest points that you have to clear before you can even put progress on
the quest card. There is also no use in using Cave Torch, as the location isn’t Dark. The When
Revealed of this location is one that I would like to cancel, just to have it not active during
resolution. If you manage to put it in the staging area because of this cancellation or because
of effects like West Road Traveller, there is 1 great tech piece that can help you to put this 1
off location in the Victory Display. Heirs of Earendil will trigger on the printed quest points. It
is ruled that printed X is considered to be 0, making you have to raise your threat by 0 in
order to discard the location. When discarding the location, keep in mind that it has Victory
Points so you won’t face it again.
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• Fouled Well: Revealing this location gives players the chance of discarding extra copies of
uniques in their hands. However, you will have to discard a card from your hand regardless,
or it gains surge. If one player doesn’t want to discard cards, none of the players will, but
they still can in order to fuel their discard pile (looking at you Noldor
and Caldara!). The surge on this card isn’t great, as you just revealed 3
threat. Cave Torch on this location will require 2 activations, or an
activation and an Evening Star.
• Branching Paths: This location is quite thematic from the books and
movies. you come up to a non-threatening location that requires you
to explore 3 quest points. While you are not exploring this location, the
threat of the other Dark location is boosted by 1. This effect stacks with
more Branching Paths that get added to the staging area. A Cave Torch
activation will clear the location, removing potentially a lot of threat
from the staging area. Once the Branching Paths have been explored,
players get to look at the top 3 cards of the deck and choose one of
those cards to reveal. The other 2 cards get placed at the bottom of the
deck. This is a great way to get rid of effects like Dreadful Gap,
(another) Patrol Leader or Sudden Pitfall. What you will want to choose
depends on what you have in your staging area. Another location is
good if you have nowhere to travel, an enemy is good if you are ready
for combat and you haven’t drawn any enemies this turn. Burning Low
is a really good card to reveal, as the increase in threat doesn’t matter as the quest has
already been resolved. Enemies during the second stage will be discarded immediately, so
that is another great option.
• Zigil Mineshaft: This location is a tough one to reveal. 5 threat on one card can really flip
your quest from progress to an increase in threat.However, you can choose to raise each
players threat by X to place X progress on the Mineshaft. This feels a bit like Heirs of
Earendil, but then for the entire party. Cave Torch on this location will reduce the amount of
threat you have to take to 2, which makes exploring it easier. You can also travel to the
Mineshaft to get the threat out of the staging area. The buffer of 5 quest points might make
the next quest phase a bit harder though. If you do decide to travel, note that Ghan-Buri-
Ghan is excellent tech as he will quest for 5 willpower while the location remains active.
• Lightless Passage: Just looking at the art gives me a dreadful feeling about what lies in wait
behind that archway. No wonder this is a 4 threat location. It is a pretty heavy hit to your
questing capabilities if this one is revealed alongside Zigil Mineshaft or additional copies of
the Passage. Note that you will have to exhaust the Cave Torch in order to travel here. You
will be able to also exhaust the Cave Torch to place 3 progress if you decide not to travel to
the Lightless Passage. If you manage to get an additional progress on the location from say,
Warden of Arnor, you have explored the location without the need to travel there. If you do
decide to travel, note that Ghan-Buri-Ghan is excellent tech as he will quest for 4 willpower
while the location remains active.
Enemies
Most of these enemies will be seen in future scenario’s as well, but I’ll cover them here since
there will be plenty of enemies to cover in the next scenario. Most Goblins have very few
hitpoints, making them susceptible to Thalin and other direct damage effects. Having a
Gondorian Spearman in play to do your defending, might kill a lot of enemies before you can
even fight back. Consider Quick Strike as well if you do not have enough defenders in play
and want to kill the Goblins.
• Patrol Leader: The only enemy unique to this scenario. It is also the strongest enemy around
with a beefy 3/4/3/4 stat line. The strength of the Patrol Leader lies in his Forced ability,
however. If the Patrol Leader would be damaged from an attack or direct damage, you will
have to discard the top card of the encounter deck. If that card is an
enemy, you will have to cancel all damage dealt to Patrol Leader. The
best strategy is to have multiple points during the round in which
you damage him. That way you will have a higher chance of dealing
damage to him. Heavy Stroke is a very good card if you are able to
damage the Patrol Leader, as it deals even more damage, potentially
killing him. He is able to cancel the damage from this effect though.
However, you will be milling the encounter deck for enemies, which
will leave fewer in the deck. This makes future combat easier and
makes the risk of revealing an enemy with Cave Torch smaller.
• Goblin Scout: This enemy is not a big threat in combat, but is adding
a lot of threat to the staging area. To make matters worse, you are
unable to engage the Goblin Scout if your threat is between 25 and
its engagement cost (usually 37). Don’t bring a Hobbit deck that
increases engagement cost for this one, unless you can keep a low
threat. Try to find these enemies with Dunedain Hunter and Wait No
Longer, as it will come into play engaged with you. It is also very
vulnerable to direct damage with only 2 hit points.
• Goblin Swordsman: This is a Goblin that we will encounter often. Its
static effect of +2 attack makes it a 5 undefended attack, which will probably kill a hero or a
decoy like Barliman or White Tower Watchman. Try to defend this one and deal with it
during the round it engaged you. The Shadow effect on this one contributes to the Swarmy
nature of these Goblins, and it will not be the last time we encounter this effect.
• Goblin Follower: This one requires a bit of explanation about who is the last player. In
multiplayer, this is quite obvious, as it is the player who take s his actions last. However, in a
solo game, you are considered to be the first ánd the last player. The When Revealed effect
from the Follower will, therefore, cause it to engage you. This removes his threat from the
staging area but will force players to deal with him during combat. The 4 hitpoints will make
this enemy the most interesting target for a (Sneak Attack+) Gandalf.
A lot of shadow effects will make these goblins have a higher attack value. Bring a good
defender and/or Tides of Fate to increase defence.
Treacheries
There are some really nasty treacheries in this scenario that we will encounter in the future as
well. I will cover Watchful Eyes in the next scenario, as it will be present there and much
more of a problem.
• Signs of Conflict: This is the only treachery unique to the scenario and has the tendency to
work on my nerves. The Doomed 2 is bad enough, but the fact that it surges just adds insult
to injury. There are 5 copies of this card, so they just might surge into each other, raising
your threat even more. There is also no point in cancelling this card, as there is no When
Revealed effect on it. Bring Lanwyn to benefit from the surge and endure is my advice.
• Burning Low: This is the return of the Driven By Shadow treachery from the previous cycle,
but with a twist. All Dark locations get an added +3 to their threat, potentially raising the
threat of a location to 11 (3 Branching Paths in play boost a Zigil Mineshaft to 8, 8+3=11).
Players are able to cancel this effect by exhausting the Cave Torch. This might replace the
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treachery with an enemy, and you will not be able to place the 3 progress on a location this
turn. If there are sufficient locations and enemies in the staging area, it is worth to cancel
this effect.
• Dark and Dreadful: This is where you use your Test of Will. Chances are that your active
location will be Dark. This buffs the effect of the Necromancer’s Rea… I mean Dark and
Dreadful up to 2 damage on each exhausted character. This can cause you to lose a lot of
your questing allies, and potentially a hero. Revealing 2 back-to-back is usually a scoop.
• Sudden Pitfall: I would save my cancellation for this one, were it not that this card cannot be
cancelled. This 1 off treachery will influence the way that the first player has to quest each
and every round. Out of the Wild and Scout Ahead will be good tools to remove this card
from the game. Otherwise, you could also scry the card and remove it wi th Cave Torch. Note
that the Shadow Effect is able to be cancelled, so bring Hasty Stroke or lose your defender.
• Crumbling Ruins: This treachery is quite difficult to deal with, especially if it comes up early
and you don’t have a lot of characters to exhaust. There are a
couple of ways around this effect:
1. Don’t add expensive cards in your deck. Forget 5 and 4 cost
cards and play a cheap deck that relies on low-cost cards.
Chances that you will have to discard a character will be
slim.
2. Exhaust an ally you don’t really care about. Squire of the
Citadel and Snowbourn Scout won’t impact your play too
much if they get discarded.
3. Scry your own deck. You will be able to discard a cheap
card that you weren’t really looking for anyways, perhaps a
copy of a unique card. Hero Gandalf works well with this,
as do Imladris Stargazers.
4. Cancel the treachery. This saves you the trouble of having
to exhaust a character.
5. Quest with everyone. Ok, this is a bit unlikely, but you can’t
fulfil the treachery if there is nobody to exhaust.
• Cave In: Resets the stage and the active location by removing all of
your hard earned progress from them. This isn’t too bad, as you
won’t need any progress on the quest for stage 2, and can cle ar
stage 3 in 1 turn probably. However, during stage 1 this can be a big deal.
• Many Roads: Honestly the Surge on this card is the worst of it. Reshuffling the locations in
the discard pile back into the deck will make Cave Torch hit more consistently. You keep
your defeated enemies and treacheries in the original discard pile and will end up with a
location-heavy encounter deck. This will bring the risk of location lock in the future, be
aware of this.
Tips and Tricks

• If you are the first player: DO NOT SEND ONLY YOUR HEROES TO THE QUEST!!! Sudden Pitfall
will have no mercy and discard one of your heroes straight away. If you are only able to
bring out a 0 willpower ally, bring it with you on the quest.
• Direct damage is a good way to deal with the Goblin Scouts in the staging area, they are
quite weak but contribute a lot of threat to the staging area. Poison Spikes or Hands upon
the Bow will come in handy against them.
• Ghan-Buri-Ghan is a great ally to get out while East-Gate is active, 7 willpower at 2 cost is
great. Even after that location is explored, he will help in questing if you have a Zigil
Mineshaft or Lightless Passage active. He can also deal with any nasty travel effects on
locations.
• Your Cave Torch is most useful in stage 2 of the quest, any enemy that it would reveal is
discarded. Make use of this by clearing out locations during that stage.
• Most of the locations are Underground, this gives Dwarf decks a distinct advantage with Ever
My Heart Rises and Untroubled by Darkness. Bringing a Dwarf deck is not only thematic, but
it can really benefit you during the quest. This holds true for most of the cycle in fact.
• The scenario tends to raise your threat a lot. In order to avoid unwanted combat, play threat
reduction or make the enemies unable to engage you with Advance Warning. To avoid
threating out, it is advised to move past the stages as fast as you can. A chain of Signs of
Conflict can make your situation dire in the blink of an eye.
• There is a lot of surge in this quest, so Minas Tirith Lampwright and especially Lanwyn are
good inclusions for once.
• The locations in this scenario can really pack a punch. Explore Secret Ways would be a good
way to lower the threat in the staging area if you are able to clear it early in the game.
• The enemies in this scenario are pretty weak on the defence. Try direct damage to finish
them off in the staging area or before they can attack. Gondorian Spearman and Thalin will
come in handy during this scenario.
• A good ally to deal with the Patrol Leader and the Goblin Follower is Skinbark. This Ent will
stomp on any orc through their defence. This will outright kill the Follower, and could kill the
Patrol Leader if his ability doesn’t discard an enemy. Definitly bring Skinbark on your quests.
With the first steps into Moria taken, our heroes will now face the hordes of Goblins that call
this pit their home. Next time we will see what the Seventh Level has in store. Lets just hope
they don’t have a Cave-Troll.
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The Seventh level
This is another one of those quests that I frequently come back to. I usually play this quest
solo with a combat heavy deck. The number of enemies that can be revealed in this scenario
is crazy, which makes it the perfect quest to bring Tactics Legolas and other combat-related
cards. The Seventh Level is also a quest that focusses on not much else than killing Goblins
and Trolls. If you want to test your combat prowess, this is the quest to play.
General Information
• Found in: Khazad-Dûm deluxe box, Scenario 2
• Encounter sets: The Seventh Level, Plundering Goblins, Goblins of the Deep
• Quest cards: 2
• Play if: You have a combat deck to test solo and you are not really focussing on willpower,
you want to introduce players to a combat heavy quest, you want to say that they have a
Cave Troll.
• What is different about this quest?: Book of Mazarbul objective, heavy enemy focus
• Solo or Multiplayer?: Any number of people will do, though I find that games with fewer
people tend to take a bit longer. More people with Ranged and Sentinel can make for
surprisingly fun gameplay across the board.
• Can I run Side-Quests for this scenario?: You can, but I wouldn’t recommend it. You are free
to clear the two stages at your own pace, the sooner you are through them, the sooner you
finish the quest. If I would recommend any side quest, it would be Keep Watch, as that
makes combat a lot easier.
The Quest
Setup
The quest starts off easy with the first player taking out the unique Book of Mazarbul (Book
of Records) and attach it to a hero he controls. This Book has a benefit to the hero, as it
doesn’t have to exhaust in order to commit to the quest. This is the same as Light of Valinor,
only this time it doesn’t have to go on a Noldor or Silvan character. However, the hero is also
not able to attack while the book is attached to it. The best characters to attach this book to
are high willpower heroes that you would like to keep ready for their ability or to use them as
a defender. Optimal characters for this are Elrond (3 willpower and a Vilya activation if the
Ring is attached to him), Cirdan the Shipwright (high willpower and Narya), Argalad (can
quest and use his ability), Dain Ironfoot (Ability and he makes a good defender) and many
others. Note that the Book is restricted, keep this in mind if you want to put it on your
defender. You may want to attach Armour attachments on those characters instead of the
book.
After the book has been attached to a hero, the stage is flipped over and the scenario can
begin.
Quest card 1: Search for the Chamber – 15 quest points
We start the quest off with the standard When Revealed effect where every player has to
reveal a card from the top of the encounter deck before Planning. Good cards to reveal during
this step are Undisturbed Bones (no allies in play), Plundered
Armoury (get weapons/Armour out faster, save you resources for
other cards), and Hidden Threat (little to no enemies in the Staging
Area, last player probably hasn’t got an attachment yet (unless you
play solo)). There are also enough cards that will be horrible to
reveal early in the game, these include a Cave-Troll, Orc Horn
Blower, Goblin Archer, and Watchful Eyes. After this step, there is
around 1.5 to 6 threat in the staging area before the planning phase.
The rest of the quest is pretty straightforward, there are no

additional triggers or effects on this side of the stage. The 15 quest
points should be easy to acquire, as most of the enemies will move
out of the staging area during the engagement step. Still, in solo,
you might have to take a few turns extra in order to pass to the next
stage. Luckily there are not a lot of locations in the encounter deck
to soak up your progress. Bringing cards like Tactics Legolas and
Blade of Gondolin will also help with placing progress on the quest.
The blades will prove very useful in this scenario with a lot of Orc
enemies.
Quest card 2: The Fate of Balin – 17 quest points
After you have successfully passed the first stage, you move to stage 2. The When Revealed
effect from this stage will have you removing the Book of Mazarbul from the game. This
frees up a Restricted slot on your hero, but that hero is no longer able to commit to the quest
without exhausting. You will be able to use that hero for attacking again though!
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The rest of the stage is mostly the same as the previous stage, only this time there is an
additional trigger after the staging step. After staging, players are forced to reveal an
additional card per player. From this second batch of cards, only the enemies get added to the
staging area. All of the other cards will get discarded. Careful planning and scrying can result
in this effect whiffing, especially in low player counts. Remember that the quest is resolved
after this effect so any threat on the enemies added to the staging area will be considered
during the quest resolution. This effect can cause a significant rise in threat between the first
and second stage of the quest. It can also bring out a lot more enemies to handle with, making
characters less likely to commit to the quest. Be prepared for this step up in difficulty by
having enough willpower to commit to the quest and ways to deal with enemies in the staging
area to reduce the threat that way. Playing Ranger Spikes or Followed on enemies is also a
nice way of reducing the threat in the staging area.
The rest of this stage is pretty standard, players need to battle through all of these orcs and
make 17 progress on the stage. They immediately win after the last progress token is placed.
Enduring the hordes of enemies and fully committing to willpower is a strategy that can
work, but it has a high risk. You will have to endure multiple attacks, some undefended,
which can lead to the untimely death of a hero.
The Encounter deck

Global
• There are 34 and 26 card to reveal in this encounter deck
between Normal and Easy mode respectively
• The chance that an enemy has a Shadow effect when it attacks is
47% (normal) or 50% (easy)
• The average Threat on cards revealed from the deck is 1.5
(normal) and 1.8 (easy)
• Surge is only present on the Hornblower
• Doomed 2 is present 3 times on each Upper Hall location
• No cards are immune to player card effects, none of the enemies
are unique, which opens up possibilities.
The encounter deck is quite small so you will cycle through it a few
times if you are stalling or playing with a lot of people. Note that
over half of the deck are enemies, so sneaking through the scenario
is a no-go. Easy mode removes a couple of hard cards but makes up
for this by increasing the chances of Shadow effects and increasing the average threat per
card revealed.
Objectives
The Book of Mazarbul is a helping hand during the first stage of the quest. The Artifact
makes sure that you can commit some willpower to the quest whilst keeping your defender
up. Like I mentioned, there are a couple of good heroes to attach the book too. You should
either pick your defender if they have high willpower or a character that has to exhaust to use
an ability (Argalad, Spirit Merry). If ever the Book of Mazarbul is detached from the hero,
for instance, if that hero dies or if Hidden Threat makes you discard the attachment, the book
is returned to the Staging Area. There is can be claimed by a different hero by exhausting that
hero. I would recommend claiming the objective after the combat

phase, just in case you need a ready hero to defend the attack or add
their attack to kill an enemy. Killing Goblins takes priority over this
attachment. You are not required to hold on to the book, it gets
discarded during stage 2 anyway.
Locations
While you are at the Seventh Level of Khazad-Dum there are a couple
of locations you will have to clear. Though there will be many cases in
which there is no option to travel, as locations are rare in this encounter
deck.
• Goblin Tunnels: The 7 quest points required to clear this location will
be tough to get through. However, it is still worth it to travel to this
location as soon as you can. The Goblin Tunnels will remove a progress from the current
quest card (could be a side-quest) each time a Goblin is revealed from the encounter deck.
This effect will stack with additional copies of the location, making it hard to keep your
progress on the cards. Ways around this without travelling involve over questing during you
last-ditch effort to overcome stage 2. The 7 progress make the Tunnels less than ideal to use
location control on, but you might be able to whittle down the progre ss tokens on there
over time. Having multiple Northern Trackers commit to the quest is a good way to clear
these locations.
• Plundered Armoury: This is a location you must get out of the staging area at all costs. Either
travel to it or use some easy location control to get rid of it. DO NOT LET THIS BE IN THE
STAGING AREA DURING COMBAT! This location will boost the attack strength of each enemy
by 1. This effect will stack between the 2 copies of this card in the deck. This boost to attack
can be the difference between a successful, and an unsuccessful defence, killing allies and
(mortally) wounding heroes. Add this to an undefended attack from a Goblin, and you
discarding heroes left, right, and centre. In solo, this location is perhaps
the most innocent, as there will not be a host of enemies waiting for
you. But make sure that this location gets travelled to, or explored when
you are about to battle a large horde of orcs. There is a silver lining to
this location though: after it leaves play, players get to play a Weapon or
Armour attachment from their hand for free. This will only be relevant
for a couple of decks, in a couple of cases, but it is still a nice touch to
the location. It might even save you 4 resources for a Citadel Plate.
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Enemies
The scenario focusses a lot on getting a host of enemies in front of you. Not only are there
cards that surge multiple times to reveal more enemies, but shadow effects add new enemies
to the staging area. These will make questing next round harder unless you can engage them
with for example Tactics Aragorn. Most of the enemies are wimpy Goblins, but there a
couple of heavy hitters in the deck as well!
• Cave Troll: Say it with me now: “They have a Cave Troll!”. Actually, they have 2 of these
heavy hitting Troll enemies. They share a couple of things with the dreaded Hill Troll from
the previous cycle. The Cave Troll has a higher than average attack, and an ability that
prevents chump blocking. Any access damage dealt beyond the hitpoints of the defending
character must be dealt to another character you control. If you block enough damage, you
could redirect 1 or 2 points to characters you would like to take some damage like Ents,
Gloin or Gimli. For defenders, I would recommend tossing a Winged Guardian or a Defender
of Rammas. These have a very high defensive stat, making sure that you don’t have to take a
lot of excess damage. The trolls have Victory Points, so if you can kill them, you won’t see
them again during the quest. Note that these enemies are the only non-Orc enemies in the
deck, so direct damage from Firefoot or Mighty Prowess is not applicable to these enemies.
• Chieftain of the Pit: All of these Orcs need some leadership among their ranks and the
Chieftain fulfils that role. This 1 off enemy will be the toughest in play, besides any Cave
Troll. He is also one of the reasons why you might want to keep your threat low. The
Chieftain of the Pit gains a plus 3 to his attack stat during the round he enters play. Note that
the Chieftain is not a unique card, so he is vulnerable to effects like traps and events.
Trapping this enemy with Ranger Spikes is the most luck you will ever have. It negates his 2
threat completely and allows you to ignore the Chieftain during the rest of the game.
However, if this enemy gets revealed during the late game, you will have to face his 7 attack,
as he will engage you during the same round. A chump blocker is the best way around this,
or a beefy defender if you have that setup. Killing the Chieftain isn’t too difficult, his 2
defence is easily overcome, and his 4 hitpoints even makes him vulnerable to a Sneak Attack
Gandalf.
• Goblin Spearman/Swordsman: These swarming enemies will make up the bulk of the
enemies you will face during the scenario. They appear pretty innocent on the outside, with
mediocre stats and relative few hitpoints. However, there are a lot of these buggers in the
deck, which will clog up the staging area. Their low engagement cost will make sure that you
have to engage every last one of these enemies, making Secrecy decks not viable against this
scenario. Once engaged, you must defend all of these attacks or face a +2 attack to the ir
stats. This makes you deal 4 to 5 damage directly to a hero, killing most of them unless you
bring effects that redirect damage or increase hitpoints. Think of Dori, White Tower
Watchman, Ring mail, and Close Call (Very thematic!). Once all the attacks have been dealt
with, you are free to kill the enemies with whatever characters you have left ready. It
doesn’t take a lot to kill these pests, most heroes with weapons on them can take care of
them. Note that these enemies will get added to the staging area if they are revealed as a
Shadow card. This will make sure you have plenty to fight with during the next turn. In case
you are wondering, there are 5 copies of each of these swarming Orcs, though it does feel
like a lot more.
• Orc Horn Blower: He is the closest thing we have ever come to a
Surge 2 card. The Hornblower is a 1 off copy but will drag out 2 extra
cards if you reveal him. My tip with him is to let him sit in the
staging area. The encounter deck gets recycled a lot during this
quest, so if you kill him, you might see his Surge 2 again sometime
later in the game. His 45 engagement cost will keep him sitting in
the staging area for most of the game, so don’t bother killing him.
• Goblin Archer: We’ve seen this style of enemy before during the last
cycle. The Archer will sit in the staging area, unable to be brought
down by optional engagement. With an engagement cost of 48, you
must be living extremely close to the edge in order to drag these
guys down. While they are alive, the Archers will ping a character for
1 damage each time an enemy is revealed from the encounter deck.
This effect gets out of hand during stage 2, where there are 2 phases
where enemies can get revealed. The Archers do have a weak spot
though, they can be targeted in the staging area by Ranged
characters. Bringing a couple of these characters with you on the
scenario is a very good idea, as you will have a good answer to these
terrible enemies. My personal favourite is still Legolas with a Blade
of Gondolin on him. Note that you can also play Revealed in Wrath to clear their text box,
making them able to be optionally engaged.
Treacheries
Though there are only 8 treachery cards in the deck and only 3 different kinds, the treacheries
can hurt your board state. They can either make you reveal more cards outside staging, they
can raise your threat or they can hurt (and probably kill) an ally.
• Watchful Eyes: This is probably the treachery you want to cancel out of all 3. Watchful Eyes
attaches to a hero controlled by the first player as a Condition attachment. The attachment
will only trigger if that hero is exhausted at the end of the combat phase. If that is the case,
he will have to reveal the top card of the encounter deck and add it to the staging area. This
probably adds another enemy to face during combat next round. There are a couple of ways
around this effect:
1. Discard the attachment. This can be done by Hidden Threat if it targets the right
player. You can also bring some condition discard effects of your own. Power of
Orthanc, Bulwark of the West or Miner of the Iron Hills will make short work of the
attachment.
2. Don’t have that hero exhausted at the end of combat. The game gives you the
perfect tool for this during the first stage: The Book of Mazarbul. The attached hero
can still commit to the quest, but won’t trigger the effect after combat. Other
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readying effects might also come in handy if you have multiple copies of the
treachery on your heroes.
3. Don’t care. If your board state is strong enough to reveal an additional card every
round, then just go about your business like you would normally do. However, if you
are facing multiple copies of this treachery, the effects
will stack, adding a new staging phase at the end of
combat almost. Be careful with this treachery, as it
might bite you harder than you might initially think.
• Undisturbed Bones: Basically this card makes you discard an ally
during the late game. In swarm deck you can easily need to deal
10 or more damage to an ally, so you might as well play a single
ally you don’t really care too much for. This card is ideal to draw
during setup, as nobody will have played an ally yet. In the early
game, you might be able to save your allies as you will only
control a small number of them. Bringing healing effects could
make sure that the ally is saved from near death at the hands of
this treachery.
• Hidden Threat: This card isn’t too bad if it is revealed as the first
(or only) card from the encounter deck. By that time there
shouldn’t be too many enemies in the staging area to raise your
threat by. Perhaps a couple of Archers or a high engagement
cost enemy you want to avoid. The increase in threat doesn’t
really matter too much unless you were trying to avoid a Cave
Troll. In that case, I would recommend cancelling this treachery.
The second part of the treachery reads that the last player (in
solo the first player is also considered to be the last) has to discard an attachment he
controls. Perhaps have some decoy attachments ready that you don’t care too much for, or
if you have another copy in hand to play next turn. Note that the Book of Mazarbul counts as
an attachment, so you could discard that one and place it in the staging area.
Tips and Tricks

• Bring Direct Damage to the quest. With so many enemies in the deck, you won’t be able to
defend them all. Better to kill them before they kill you first. Thalin does amazing work in
this quest as a lot of enemies have very few hitpoints.
• Placing progress on the stages by killing enemies is a good way to progress through them.
Adding a few Blades of Gondolin or Tactics Legolas will really help against this scenario.
• A lot of enemies share the same trait, this makes Firefoot and Mighty Prowess very useful to
take care of multiple enemies in 1 attack.
• Bring Ranged characters. This will not only help your fellow players with killing their enemies
but will also help you against taking the damage from the Goblin Archers by killing them. A
single Marksman of Lorien is enough to kill the Archers.
• Try to travel whenever you can. The locations are not to be left in the staging area for too
long, having location control can only do so much against the Goblin Tunnels.
• Traps are sure to go off on enemies in this scenario, bring Ranger Spikes to negate at least 1
enemy from engaging you. Forest Snare on the Troll or the Chieftain is also a good way to
make sure that they don’t get recycled again.
• Try to defend your attacks with heroes first, there are a couple of shadow effects that will
discard your allies, making the attack go through undefended. I have had this happen to me
on numerous occasions.
Flight From Moria
Flight from Moria is an outrageous quest. It may not be precise, balanced and perfect game
design, but it gives you the panicky, rushed, and uncertain feel that seems to perfectly
represent the flight from the unknown Shadow and Flame. Unlike The Journey in the Dark
and Shadow and Flame which also feature the Balrog, you never come face to face with the
monster, but it chases you, grows stronger, and slowly picks off members of your party one
by one until there is no one left or the remnants of your group finally escape from the
Dwarrowdelf.
For some reason, the third quest in a deluxe box seems to be the most neglected and that
holds true here. This quest is much less “standard” than Into the Pit or The Seventh Level but
it can still offer some challenges and enjoyable games.
General Information
• Found in the Khazad-Dum deluxe box
• Best for multiplayer
• Play if you want to have a thematic but possibly punishing and very uncontrolled experience
trying to escape an angry Balrog
• Unique Elements: numerous stage 2 quest cards that you can’t always plan for, an invincible
enemy, dramatic choices and cinematic moments.
• Are sidequests appropriate? They can function here, but thematically they don’t make much
sense and they work against you since the Balrog grows based on points in the Victory
Display.
• 25-28 of the 50 cards in the deck have a shadow effect.
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The Quest
Setup
Stage 1 merely sets up the quest and the players will get their first turn at a random stage 2.
Stage 1 shuffles 1 copy per player of the terrible A Foe Beyond treachery Into the encounter
deck and removes the rest from the game. 1B reveals 1 card per player, then stage 1 is added
to the Victory Display which gives the Nameless Fear a 2/2/2/27 stat
line at the beginning of the game.
Stage 2 is where things get interesting. There are seven stage 2 cards
that all look the same on the 2A side. Each is unique on the 2B side
and has a different effect with only 2 offering the possibility of
escape. During the quest, you will be attempting to find your way
out by finding one of the two stages that gives you a chance of
escape. One of the trickiest and most unique elements of this quest is
that after you change quest stages, you don’t reveal the B side until
after you’ve committed characters to the quest during the quest
phase. So you have to blindly commit characters no knowing what
effect will be in play that round! You might be running upstairs
trying to get away from the Nameless Fear, or you might be forced
to remove nearly all your characters from the quest as you squeeze
your party across a narrow ledge.
Before we look through the 7 stage 2 cards, we have to look at the

central enemy and treachery in the encounter deck. The Nameless
Fear enemy card represents the Balrog which can’t leave the staging area and is immune to
player cards. The Nameless Fear has an X/X/X/27 stat line where X is
the number of victory points in the victory display. Each quest stage has
between 1 and 2 victory points so as you complete stages, the Balrog
grows usually reaching somewhere between 5-8 threat, attack, and
defence by the end of a game. The threat can be manageable, but the
attack becomes difficult when you consider the central treachery card in
the encounter deck: A Foe Beyond.
When Revealed: The last player deal damage equal to The Nameless
Fear’s attack to a hero he controls. This effect cannot be cancelled.
As the game progresses, this effect will certainly start to kill heroes as
The Nameless Fear starts to incinerate the stragglers. This treachery
encourages you to not complete quest cards so the Balrog’s attack will
remain at a reasonable 2-4. Once it hits 5, it’s hard to survive a hit like that on a hero.
The encounter deck only includes 1 copy of A Foe Beyond per player in the game. In a solo
game, that means you may never see that single copy of that treachery, but in a 4 player
game, you’re bound to see these come up pretty often. The scaling isn’t perfect and it can
lead to some “feel bad moments” if more than one copy of this treachery is revealed in one
quest phase, but if you go into the quest knowing that you don’t have control and you might
see you heroes gobbled up one by one, its actually pretty fun.
Now let’s look at various stage 2 quest

cards! First, we have the two most generic
and most often seen quest cards: Heading
Up and Heading Down. These quest cards
are basically wasted energy. They can be
completed, but they always return to quest
deck at the end of the quest phase if they’re
in the victory display. You still don’t want
to complete these stages since
you shuffle them back into the quest deck.
If you don’t complete the stage you
can bypass the quest card at the end of the
combat phase and put it on the bottom of
the quest deck. If you bypass enough quest
stages, you can ensure that you eventually
find the quest stage you want, but if you
shuffle it back into the deck, that desirable
quest stage might end up at the bottom of
the deck again. After completing or
bypassing a quest card (in most cases),
instead of revealing the next stage, as usual,
you draw a new stage 2, but don’t reveal its
B side until you start the staging step on the
next turn. This gives you the wonderfully
torturous decision of how heavily to quest
every turn. You have the decide how many
characters to send before you know where
you’re going!
Hasty Council is a double-edged sword. You get to

look at the B sides of the next two quest cards and
choose one to quest on, but after your council, you
add those 2 victory points to the display making the
Nameless Fear stronger and you shuffle any copies of
that dreaded treachery that might be in the discard pile
back into the encounter deck!
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A Wrong Turn is another terrible quest card. It reveals a
whole new batch of encounter cards and only takes 1
progress point to complete. If you quest lightly, you
may be “fine” and not complete it since you’re
revealing more encounter cards, but if you quest heavily
and clear it, you’ve added 2 more points to the victory
display.
The Narrow Paths is the quest card you want to see

fairly early. It hurts when you reveal it since it removes
all but one questing character per player, but after you
place the first progress on the stage, you can fetch the Abandoned Tools objective card from
the deck and add it to the staging area. This objective is the best way make your escape if you
can make your way to the next quest card: Escape
from Darkness.
While questing against Escape from Darkness, you

can’t place progress conventionally but can only place
progress by slowly and painstakingly digging your
way out with the tools. It provides a refresh phase
action where can exhaust the hero with the tools to
place one progress. With 4 progress points needed,
you can place one progress per turn, or you can load a
hero up with Unexpected Courage to make an
Unexpectedly Vigorous Digger and dig your way out
in one turn. There are treachery cards that force you to shuffle your current quest card into the
deck which could remove 3 turns worth of progress and make you
start all over again, so using some readying for that digging hero is a
good idea!
This brings us to the last and most

controversial quest card, Blocked by Shadow.
Here the first player gets to decide if they are

going to continue running and move to the
next quest card or try to race past the Balrog
one at a time and see who survives. It’s a crazy
effect, relying on the luck of drawing a card
that has around a 50% chance of eliminating
you from the game, but I really enjoy having
that option. If you’re a careful player, you can
run the other way, but if you’re getting up
towards your threat elimination level and you
want to make a desperate attempt to win, or
you just feel lucky, or want to see some of
your friends get toasted, this can be a very fun option. I have had several epic moments with
this card in multiplayer games.
There are no stage 3 cards, so you will continue cycling through these stage 2’s until you
either find your way out of the Dwarrowdelf, or the Balrog destroys you.
Locations
This quest is actually location light with a total of only 9 copies of 4 different locations in the
deck. We’ve seen a couple of them before including the terrible Dreadful Gap (which is
usually worthy of a Test of Will), and the annoying Fouled Well. The Plundered Armory
actually has a very helpful effect for this quest. If you explore this location, each player can
play a weapon or armor card from their hand for free! With that brutal Foe Beyond treachery
in the deck, there is a good reason to bring your Citadel Plates to this quest, even if you don’t
have a resource match! You can play it for free giving your hero 4 more hitpoints to
withstand that unstoppable damage.
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Enemies
While the Balrog and treacheries take center stage in this quest, there are
still some other enemies that can give you grief. You will run into plenty
of little 2/2/2/2 Goblin Spearmen and the Stray Goblin which is a
pushover in solo play and a nasty 4/4/4 enemy in a four-player game.
The Goblin Archer can be annoying as he shoots arrows at

you from the safety of his 48 engagement cost, but you are
able to shoot back at him in the staging area with Ranged
characters. I like this enemy’s design a lot. He’s still
thematic and can be super annoying if you forgot to bring
a bow along, but he’s doesn’t punish you too much like
the bats from Rhosgobel that can’t be attacked or defended
by any character without the Ranged keyword. The Orc
Drummer can be a terrible draw if accompanied by other enemies in the
staging area. He can balloon the threat in the staging area to insane numbers
if you’re playing with 3 or more players. With only 1 hitpoint, a little direct
damage through Thalin, Galadhon Archer, or even
something like Hail of Stones can save you a lot of
questing trouble.
The other terrible orc you may run up against can hit for a massive 8
attack on the turn he enters play. With a low engagement level of 27 and
a starting attack of 5, his When Revealed effect makes him even worse
on that first turn he hits the table. There are numerous targets for Test of
Will in this quest, but sometimes cancelling this effect can make the
difference between defeat and victory if you don’t have an ally ready to
take that first angry blow from the Chieftain of the Pit. The relatively
new Dunedain Lookout might be a good card to bring along just to
cancel this effect (although you could just chump block with an ally and
basically accomplish the same thing).
The last enemy you might encounter while running from the Nameless
Fear is the classic Great Cave Troll. He’s not messing around with that
7 attack and 10 hitpoints. Not even Legolas’s arrows can pierce this
fellow’s skull. Not only can he not have attachments (no Forest Snare
tricks), but he’s immune to ranged damage which means no one can
help take this guy down. Whoever engages this enemy had better have
a bunch of attack power ready to hit back right away or he’ll start to
bash your allies’ heads in with that rock. Even if you are able to kill the
Great Cave Troll, he adds 3 points to the victory display making the
Nameless Fear much stronger! Hunting Party and Fierce Defense
would be excellent cards to deal with this enemy. If you
can discard him from play rather than defeating him, he won’t go to the
victory display and make your life harder.
Treacheries
Of the 47-50 card encounter deck, at least 23 of those cards will be
treacheries (23 in solo, 26 in a four player game). There are 10
different treacheries and none are particularly gentle… We’ve already
looked at A Foe Beyond, so let’s review the other 9.
Cave In is actually not too bad most of the time, but it can be horribly
frustrating if you’ve been slowly digging with those tools and your
hope of victory collapses leaving you to start that digging process all
over again.
Chance Encounter usually isn’t too rough unless there’s a Great Cave
Troll in the discard pile.
Dark and Dreadful is the cycle’s version of Necromancer’s Reach, but

it can be doubly deadly if your current active
location has the Dark trait. If you’re playing
dwarves, 1 damage to your questers won’t ruin
everything, but if you’re playing Silvan or Hobbits,
this might be worth cancelling. The other option is to try to keep your
questing characters ready with effects like Unexpected Courage, Light of
Valinor, Fast Hitch, Galadriel etc.
Undisturbed Bones is annoying, but it will likely just kill one of your
allies every time it’s revealed which is usually less painful that Dark and
Dreadful.
Crumbling Ruin needs to be accounted for. If you quest with everyone

but your backup defender, this treachery may exhaust that character
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leaving you vulnerable to whatever enemy might engage you later in the
turn.
Sudden Pitfall is a scary treachery that always has to be considered as

well. It can very easily discard a hero if the players haven’t been careful.
It can’t be cancelled so the first player should either not quest at all so it
does nothing, or quest with at least one ally you’re willing to part with.
With only one copy in the encounter deck, you really need to be mindful
of where this card is. As soon as it’s in the discard pile, both your
questing and defending become much safer. The shadow effect is super
terrible as well.
New Devilry can be a easy draw during the first part of the game, but if
you’ve started questing through either of the stages that let you escape,
this treachery can be game-crushing. It not only forces you to switch to a
new random quest card, but you have to shuffle the entire quest deck
which may destroy your efforts to get those beneficial quest cards
towards the top. If you’ve made any substantial progress through the
quest, this card should be cancelled if possible.
Massing in the Deep is another card that scales really aggressively for a
larger game. In solo or 2-player, it’s not too painful, but in larger
games, it becomes a top priority target for being cancelled. No one
loves a quadruple surge! Shadow of Fear is the final treachery and I
think it’s a well-designed card. It attaches to one of the first players’
heroes as a condition that basically renders that hero useless until its
removed. Unlike the Caught in a Web condition attachment from the
last cycle, there’s a built-in way to remove if you haven’t included any
condition removal cards in your deck. This is the only condition
attachment in the encounter deck so cards like Miner of the Iron Hills and Bulwark of the
West might be chosen over Power of Orthanc, but your chosen spheres will likely dictate
which option will be best for your deck. If you don’t want to run condition removal, you can
always pay resources to get rid of it
Tips and Tactics

• As mentioned before, heroes with plenty of hitpoints will be very appropriate for this
quest. Dwarves are an easy first choice since they are thematic, they have plenty of
starting hitpoints and can be helped with Hardy Leadership and the powerful Citadel
Plate. Ring Mail, Boots from Erebor and Vigilant Guard can also grant further
hitpoints to your heroes to help withstand the constant direct damage along with the
occasional Foe Beyond treachery. Hitpoints are great but healing will obviously be
helpful as well!
• Damage prevention could also be very helpful in keeping your heroes alive. Close
Call, Honor Guard and Weather-Stained Cloak could be good choices.
• Beorn might be a decent hero choice as well since he could likely take a couple hits
from the Balrog before dying. Another clever hero option would be Spirit Frodo. As
long as you have enough threat control in your deck, he can stand toe-to-hairy-toe
with that Balrog and take all that direct damage as threat. You could even get silly in
multiplayer and pass Frodo to the last player with Desperate Alliance during the quest
phase!
• With so many treacheries in the deck, lots of cancelling cards will be appropriate. Test
of Will is the gold standard, but you could also bring Eleanor, Dwarven Tomb to
recycle Test of Will, and even a Halfling Bounder if you’re bold enough to bring your
sidequests. Firyal is also a great option for solo play since she can discard some of
those terrible cards that you can’t even cancel before they even trigger.
• With the very real danger of losing 1 or even 2 heroes, you may want to avoid super
tricky decks or tri-sphere decks that will be crippled if you’re down a hero. You
should probably even consider which hero you plan to feed to the Balrog first when
the time comes.
• Options to manipulate your willpower numbers after the staging step can be helpful as
well. The encounter deck is very swingy as far as quantity of threat it will put into the
staging area. That combined with not knowing which stage 2 you may be questing
against can make questing control very valuable. Helpful options might include Spirit
Eowyn, Galadriel/Nenya, Rosie Cotton, Elrond’s Counsel, Courage Awakened, or
even the more global buffs like ally Faramir, Astonishing Speed and Untroubled by
Darkness.
• As far as game play strategy I find it effective to quest fairly conservatively to avoid
completing stages. Try to avoid or cancel any effect that would make you shuffle the
quest deck. Keep bypassing stages until you find the tools then start digging your way
out of that crack. If that tactic fails, you can attempt to run past the Balrog and escape
if presented with the chance.
• Due to the random nature of the quest cards it is technically possible to win on the
first or second turn but the quest has usually functioned the way it was designed to in
my play experience.
Final Thoughts
I know this isn’t the best or most balanced quest out there, but if you go into it with the right
mindset, you can get some excellent game experiences out of it. This isn’t the best quest to
test your shiny new deck against but if you’re looking for a thematic and potentially dramatic
and deadly story of a game, this quest will dish it up.
I find solo games to be much tamer experiences overall but as soon as you hit two players and
up, it will usually be an exciting game!
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The Redhorn Gate
Our first Snow mission takes us the same path as the Fellowship as we tackle the Misty
Mountains, only this time we go the opposite direction. This quest is notorious for killing a
lot of allies simply because they don’t have enough willpower. We have seen the return of
needing a lot of willpower on characters during the Harad cycle. The Orc enemies there get
worse as your characters have less willpower. In the early days, this quest was difficult as
there wasn’t a lot of ways to increase willpower. These days, Dwarves and Gondor have
plenty of global willpower buffs, making the quest easier. Think of Sword that was Broken,
Faramir, Visionary Leadership, and Dain Ironfoot. However, Caradhras is not beaten that
easily, let’s face the icy cold of:
General Information
• Found in The Redhorn Gate adventure pack, Dwarrowdelf cycle, pack 1
• Encounter sets: The Redhorn Gate, Misty Mountains
• Quest cards: 3
• Play if: You have forgotten all about this quest (like me), you want to test a questing deck
that can handle willpower reduction, you want to have a fun game with your location
control deck, you want to tech against a certain scenario.
• What is different about this quest?: Arwen ally, willpower reduction, 3 unique Mountains of
Moria locations.
• Solo or Multiplayer?: While the quest requires a lot of willpower, I would not recommend
you play this with 4 players, you are far more likely to reveal a Snowstorm, causing people to
lose characters faster than in solo or 2p.
• Can I run Side-Quests for this scenario?: Yes, though I would advise to clear them before you
pass the first stage. Rally the West is probably the side-quest you want to clear first, as it will
help to keep your heroes alive a bit longer during the later stages.
The Quest
Setup
The Setup of this quest has all players remove all copies of Snowstorm from the encounter
deck. These will be shuffled back in later. Then, the players search for the unique Caradhras
location and add it to the staging area. This starts your threat off with 3, but this will be
increased later. While players can’t travel to Caradhras, they are able to put progress there.
Don’t clear the location yet though, as it will return from the victory display at the end of
stage 2.
Quest card 1: Up the Pass – 9 quest points
The B side of this quest card looks remarkably empty, so the developers decided to add their
standard When Revealed effect to it. This will add 1 card per player to the staging area. There
are a couple of really nasty effects that can trigger with this effect though. Revealing a
Mountain Troll might be too early for most decks, and Fallen Stones will surge into 2 new
cards (because there is no progress yet to remove). But the absolute worst card to reveal now
is Avalanche! This card will ruin your chances of making progress during this turn.
Avalanche will exhaust every ready character, making it hard for you to commit characters to
the quest next phase. Cancelling this effect might seem a bit early, but is definitely worth it.
There is only one copy of this card in the deck, so best to see it gone early. There is probably
1 card that is good to have revealed during this time: Black Uruks. Their When Revealed
effect is pretty mild, and won’t discard a lot of attachments, even during the questing phase.
The rest of the stage is pretty mild, no real challenges have come up yet. This is the time
where you want to clear your side-quests and assemble enough victory points by maybe
clearing a couple of unique locations. The 9 progress tokens required to pass the stage should
be easy enough, as there are no Snowstorms in the deck yet.
Quest card 2: Snowdrifts – 11 quest points
This is where the weather turns foul and you will start to struggle to
make progress. Once players have flipped the quest card to stage 2B,
they are instructed to shuffle X copies of Snowstorm into the
encounter deck, with X being the number of players plus 1. This
treachery will now become the bane of your questers, as you can very
easily lose willpower at this point.
You should have cleared whatever side-quests you wanted to complete

during the last stage, but if you are just a couple of progress short, you
might be able to complete it at this stage. The 11 progress for this
stage will be harder to place than you might think, especially if you
are encountering some enemies at this point.
Once you manage to place the 11th progress token on the second
stage, you immediately discard the active location and make Caradras
the active location. Now here is where the wording is a bit odd, but in case you had a location
with Victory Points on it (Fanuidhol, Dimrill Stair, etc) you do not collect those points as the
location is discarded before it gets explored. Remember that quest card effect happen before
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the effects on the locations. Therefore, it is not a good idea to have a location worth victory
points active once you clear the stage, try and clear them before or after the trigger on the
quest card.
A short note here is that if you manage to clear Caradhras before you make it active, it will go
to the victory display. However, the effect on stage 2 will retrieve the location from the
victory display and make it active. It is a far better idea to have Caradhras at 8 progress
tokens, making the next stage easier.
Quest card 3: The Mountains’ Peaks – 13 quest points
This is where things take a turn for the worst: the static effect on this quest stage will have
you discard any character the moment their willpower is 0. This means that you will have to
tech against this quest in order to not have to discard any heroes. Allies will definitely perish
in the snow, making your combat phases harder. Offensive and defensive characters usually
don’t have a lot of willpower, so you will either have to boost their willpower, or bring
different characters.
Once this quest card is revealed, all Snowstorm cards that are in the discard pile, get shuffled
back into the encounter deck. This will make it very likely that you will encounter some more
Snowstorms during the following turns. These chances increase as you play the quest with
more and more players. Committing characters after staging to the quest will be a good way
to save some of those characters and still make progress on the quest. In order to make a lot
more progress, you will have to clear Caradhras fast. You can do this with location control, or
you can move it out of the active location slot to negate the Mountain’s debuff. Be sure to be
able to clear it once you switch it for something else, as the 3 victory points might be crucial
to your victory.
This brings us to the win conditions of this scenario. In order to win, players must have 13
progress tokens on this stage and own 5 victory points. Luckily, recent player cards will also
count towards your victory score, making the scenario easier. Player side-quests and cards
like Justice Shall Be Done are a good way to ensure you don’t have to wait until the
encounter deck hands you a tough location. Once all these criteria have been met, and Arwen
is still alive, the players have won the game and can now sink their teeth into the treacheries
of the next adventure pack: Road to Rivendell.
The Encounter Deck

Global
• There are 37 cards in Normal Mode, 28 in easy mode
• Shadow effects are on 54% of the cards, this means 1
in 2 attacks of Mountain Wargs will return them to the
staging area.
• Average threat on cards revealed is 1.3 and 1.4
between Normal and Easy mode.
• Surge is only on Fell Voices if it doesn’t return 2 Snow
treacheries.
• Doomed is not present on any cards.
• Caradhras is immune to effects that make it the active
location, everything else is fair game.
(please note that these stats are the encounter deck at the
start of the game, they do not include Snowstorm,
Caradhras or Arwen Undomiel.)
There is quite an even distribution between the 3 types of cards you can reveal. This makes it
hard to correctly guess with Wingfoot.
Objectives
Arwen Undomiel has become a staple in many Spirit decks with her Hero and Ally version.
This is the first time in the game we encounter her, this time as an objective ally. Note that
you are not allowed to bring any other version of her to the quest (sorry Noldor players).
Your objective will be to keep Arwen alive. While she may not get killed during combat,
there are some combos in the encounter deck that can kill her on stage 3. This makes the
quest quite frustrating so I would recommend boosting her willpower once you
hit that stage. Even boosting it by 1 can make the difference between victory and
an icy defeat. Think of effects like Faramir, Lords of the Eldar, and Sword that
was Broken as ways to boost her willpower.
Arwen also has an effect that will have you commit her to the quest a lot. Every
time she exhausts, she adds a resource to a hero’s resource pool. This will make
it easier to fund your cards during the next planning phase. There are as of yet
no other effects that can have you exhaust her without committing her to the
quest or using her as a defender (why?) or as an attacker (again, why?). A card
that I would definitely consider for Arwen is Late Adventurer. This will allow
her to commit her 2 willpower to the quest after the Snowstorms have laid waste
to your other questing characters. If you are on stage 3 and reveal 2 snowstorms,
it is game over for everyone. Another strategy, to play it safe during the final
stage, is to exhaust Arwen only during the attacking step of the combat phase. Sure, she can’t
deal any damage on her own, but at least you gain a resource for the next round.
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Locations
As you pass through the Redhorn Gate, there are a number of Mountain locations you can
encounter. Some of these are the unique 3 peaks of Moria. Since most of the locations are
Mountain traited, Dwarves will have a distinct advantage by playing effects like Ancestral
Knowledge and Ever my Heart Rises!
• Rocky Crags: This is quite a lot of threat to reveal during staging. However, the 2 progress
tokens required to clear this location opens up the possibility to clear it without having to
travel. The travel effect may seem bad at first, but there are not many other direct damage
effects in the game, so you should be able to survive taking 2 damage on a questing
character for example. It is well worth to get that 4 threat out of the staging area by doing
so.
• Warg Lair: This location is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, you are allowed to draw
a card once it is explored. However, when it is revealed, you are adding a copy of Mountain
Warg to the staging area. This might be poorly timed, so cancelling the effect on this card
might seem like a good idea. But don’t be tempted. Save your cancellation for treacheries
and stomach the warg. Alternatively, you can try and put Mountain Wargs into the victory
display in order to have this effect whiff. This turns it into a harmless 1 threat location that
benefits players once it is explored.
• Caradras: Caradhras the Cruel is where this scenario derives its name from The Redhorn. It
starts off in the staging area adding its 3 threat to the total. It is immune to effects that try
and make the location active like West Road Traveller, but not immune to cards that place
progress on it. However, the 9 quest points on the location will take a long time to clear. You
don’t want to clear this location in the staging area, as the effect on stage 2B will pull it back
from the victory display. Once it becomes active due to the quest card, it will lower the
willpower of every questing character by 1. In combination with Snowstorm and stage 3, this
can cause you to lose a lot of characters. My advice against this
location is, therefore, to try and put up to 8 progress on it before it
becomes active, and then use cards like Strength of Will to clear the
location. This will allow for an easier passage through the
Mountains and gives you 3 victory points out of the 5 required for
the scenario.
• Celebdil: The Silvertine is also a unique location the will reward
players with 2 victory points once it is explored. This location is
harder to explore via location control cards, as it will remove 2
progress from it at the end of each turn. It is therefore advised to
travel to Celebdil if you want to remove its 3 threat from the staging
area. Once you have it active, it will still remove 2 progress from it
every turn, so be sure to put more than 2 progress on there e ach
turn in order to clear it.
• Fanuidhol: The final unique mountain location is quite tough. In
order to count the willpower of heroes that are committed to the
quest once Fanuidhol is active, players must spend a resource from
that heroes pool. This can be really costly, as you might want to
send a couple of high willpower heroes in order to clear the
location. The strategy against this location is, therefore, to not travel to it, and clear its 7
quest points with cards like Rhovanion Outrider, Explorers Almanac, Hithlain, and Northern
Tracker.
• The Dimrill Stair: This location is really unique, and by that I mean besides the unique symbol
printed on it. Revealing this card in the late game can ensure that you keep a very low
threat. This does come at a price though, you have to reshuffle all locations in the encounter
discard pile ánd the victory display back into the deck. This might mean that you will have to
acquire the 5 required victory points for stage 3 again, though the Dimrill Stair helps you
with that. The benefit of this location is huge though; you get to remove all copies of the
Freezing Cold treachery from the game. On top of that, each player may lower their threat
by 11. 11!! This is probably the biggest threat reduction people can get outside Fall of Gil-
Galad and Lore Aragorn. Note that you do not have to travel to the Dimrill Stair if you are
afraid to face certain locations again, you also have the option to clear it in the staging area.
This gets you a single victory point, which might be the last one you needed.
Treacheries
These treacheries are meant to illustrate how hard it is to traverse a snowy mountain pass.
And man, do these treacheries suck. They will sap away your resources, add more cards to
the deck and staging area, and above all: they reduce your willpower. There are quite a
number of cards that are very much worth it to cancel in order to save resources or characters.
• Snowstorm: Let’s start off with the main treachery of this quest: Snowstorm. I have
mentioned this treachery before, so by now, you should know that this card will reduce the
willpower of every questing character by 1. This is bad on its own, but the effect can stack on
top other copies of Snowstorm, Freezing Cold, and Caradhras. This will render your
characters defenceless against the snow and might cost them their lives. This treachery is
very much worth it to cancel. This will allow you to perhaps even make some progress on
the quest this turn. It is also good to keep track of how many Snowstorms you have
encountered so far. There can be up to 5 of these, so being able to know
when to expect one is vital. They are also good targets for Out of the
Wild, as they won’t get reshuffled during the final stage.
• Freezing Cold: I think a lot of people with beard can relate to this cards art
during the colder seasons. This card will attach as a Condition attachment
to one of your heroes. That hero gets -2 willpower and is unable to
commit to the quest (this includes the effect of Avalanche, it will only get
exhausted). I would advise putting this condition on a character that will
be needed for combat, and has a willpower of 3 or higher, after
calculating additional buffs. Come stage 3, it will be difficult to keep that
hero alive. If ever the attached hero gains another copy of this treachery,
that hero gets discarded anyway. So there is no point in sticking all of
these attachments on a single hero. Fortunately, there are a couple
effects that will remove condition attachments from characters. Even
better, if you manage to pull off the trick with Dimrill Stair, you remove all
copies of this treachery from the game.
• Fell Voices: This card will return the top 2 Snow cards in the discard pile to the TOP of the
encounter deck. Note that they do not get reshuffled. There are a lot of cards with the Snow
trait, so you might see some enemies again or worse, treacheries. Then, if the effect didn’t
bring back 2 Snow Treacheries, this effect causes you to reveal the next card off of the top of
the deck. With some planning, you can decide which card you will reveal. Also note that this
card causes you to be careful of the arrangement of cards in the discard pile, especially
when you discard shadow cards, and in what order.
• Fallen Stones: Either Surge 2 or remove all progress in the game. In a scenario where making
progress is difficult, I would advise players to pick the 2 cards if you ever have to discard a lot
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of progress. Otherwise, you will have to spend an additional 3-4 turns to get back where you
are now.
• Avalanche!: I’ll just say it, this card has cost me a couple of games. Not only will this card
exhaust every ready character, but it will also commit them to the quest. Combine this with
Caradhras as an active location, and perhaps a Snowstorm, and you have just discarded
every character with 2 or less willpower (provided you are on stage 3). This will probably
include Arwen, so everyone loses the game regardless. This treachery is the main reason you
want to globally boost your willpower, as it can actually result in you making a lot of
progress. Then again, all of your characters are now exhausted so combat will prove to be
difficult unless you have some readying effects. There is only 1 copy of this card, so once you
have seen it, there is no more threat of it being revealed (except if it gets shuffled with Fell
Voices).
• Bitter Wind: If you were saving your resources for the next planning phase, bad luck. This
treachery makes you discard 3 resources from EACH hero you control. In most cases, this
will clear all your resources, turning off some of the Gondor synergy with Leadership
Boromir and Visionary Leadership. My advice to counter this effect is to save your resource
acceleration until the refresh phase, or the end of combat. The shadow effect on this card is
slightly less punishing, but it is rare to have more than 2 resources on your heroes. Only after
you have dealt with shadow effects, should you add resources to your heroes.
Enemies
The passage over the mountains is home to a variety of enemies. Creatures, Orcs, and Trolls
will make you want to keep up a couple of defenders after the questing phase. This encounter
deck is also the first time that we use the Misty Mountains encounter set so I will cover the 2
enemies in there as well.
• Snow Warg: The first of 2 types of Warg found in this scenario, the Snow Warg is quite a pain
to defend against. Not only are allies unable to, the defending hero is forced to take 1 point
of damage. This reminds me a bit of Gondorian Spearman, but in reverse. Remember that
you can also choose to have the attack go undefended, thereby having no defending
character to take the point of damage. Killing the Snow Warg will not be very difficult, as you
can easily the 5 attack strength to do so.
• Mountain Troll: These scenario’s in the early life of the game are really
enjoying their trolls, so there is another one in the cold passes of the Misty
Mountains. This Mountain Troll has a very beefy 5 defence, which will protect it
against a lot of smaller attacks. you will have to commit fully to defeating this
Troll in order to kill it. Defending the troll is also not a small task. The base 5
attack is high enough to kill some defenders, but on top of this, the Mountain
Troll gets a +1 increase to its attack strength for each Mountain location in the
Staging Area. During the first 2 stages, there will always be Caradhras that will
boost the effect. And there are quite a number of other locations that you
would not like to travel to. The way around this troll is therefore to try and
chump block it with a character that wasn’t very useful, to begin with. Perhaps
you might even have to discard that ally during the 3rd stage, so you might as
well get a defence out of it. You can also opt to use Forest Snare on this Troll,
and not bother with it ever again. The troll is not immune to player card effects
or attachments, so traps are also a nice way to avoid this enemy.
• Mountain Goblin: Like the Mountain Troll, this Goblin gets an increase in attack strength for
each Mountain location in the Staging Area. It also gets style points for that awesome wolf
pelt it is wearing. The Goblin is not really a threat to most decks, though he can get out of
hand if you are getting locked with locations.
• Mountain Warg: The Wargs from the previous cycle were such a hit, that the developers
decided to beef them up a little and put them into this cycle too. This time, the enemies are
hitting for 4 attack and will take an additional point of attack to kill. They will still bounce
back to the staging area if their attack didn’t have a shadow effect.
A quick note on the shadow effects: A lot of show effects get worse if the active location is a
Mountain location. This might have influence on whether or not you will travel, or clear the
location in the staging area. The absolute worst Shadow effect on an encounter card is that of
Snowstorm, which might discard your defender, causing you to take the attack undefended.
This is a quick way to lose 2 heroes. Bring cancellation, or raise everyone’s willpower, so
that these effects do not get the chance to trigger.
Tips and Tricks

• This is really a quest where you will have to build a deck against the scenario, not every deck
will do. If you bring Beregond as a defender, and you don’t raise his willpower, stage 3 is
going to kill him, if a Snowstorm Shadow card doesn’t do that first.
• Your defender must have 2 or more willpower in order to be able to defend an attack
without the chance of having a Snowstorm discard him. Think about using Aragorn, Elrohir
or Elrond as defenders over characters like Defender of Rammas or Beregond.
• Visionary Leadership is a good card to include because of its ability to raise willpower, but be
careful that it might get turned off halfway through the quest phase with Bitter Wind. This
can also lead to a board wipe of your allies, especially on stage 3. Consider stacking multiple
willpower boosting effects, like Faramir, Sword that was Broken, and Dain Ironfoot.
• Clearing the side-quest Rally the West is a good way to ensure that your Heroes will have
some extra willpower. This will keep them alive a bit longer and will make questing easier.
• Spirit Eowyn shines in this quest, having the ability to discard cards to make up for lost
willpower will have your company plough through the snow a lot easier.
• Try to commit characters to the quest after you have finished staging. This can be done with
Late Adventurer (extremely useful for Arwen), Nenya, Bofur, and Hobbit Pony. This will allow
those characters to survive Snowstorms without having their willpower reduced by their
effects. This can save you some characters in the final stage.
• Try and place 8 progress on Caradhras with your location control before you have to travel
to it. This will make it easier to clear it once it becomes active, negating its willpower debuff.
DO NOT CLEAR IT IN THE STAGING AREA! You will have to fish it out of the victory display at
the end of stage 2 and will need to make an additional 9 progress.
• Try to use cards like Out of the Wild to get rid of copies of Snowstorm or Avalanche! This will
also open up the possibility of using The Door is Closed to cancel another Snowstorm if it
should come up. Bringing regular cancellation is also a good idea, as the treacheries in this
scenario can be brutal and cause you to lose just like that.
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Road to Rivendell
Let’s just start off with why everyone remembers this quest: Sleeping Sentry. It is widely
regarded to be the worst treachery in the game for at least the first 4/5 cycles. But besides this
treachery, Road to Rivendell brings a new mechanic to the table: Ambush. The quest will
certainly be memorable to everyone who attempts it. It is again an escort mission like the
previous Redhorn Gate, though I tend to find this quest much more manageable.
General Information
• Found in: Dwarrowdelf Adventure Pack 2
• Encounter Sets: Road to Rivendell, Misty Mountains, Plundering Goblins
• Quest Cards: 3
• Play if: You want to test your decks against enemies that engage immediately, you want to
face off the terrible treacheries.
• What is special about this quest?: Arwen Objective ally, very punishing treacheries, Ambush
mechanic.
• Solo or multiplayer?: The quest cards will require a lot of progress, so having at least more
than 1 player will be beneficial. However, having a lot of players might trigger the Ambush
mechanic a lot on a player that might not be prepared for multiple enemies. I would advise
playing this with 3 players, with everyone packing cancellation for the treacheries.
• Can I run side-quests for this scenario?: You can, but there are a lot of progress tokens
required to pass the stages. You may find that you won’t quest against your side -quests too
often. If I would advise a side-quest, it would be Keep Watch, as enemies will make a lot of
attacks, so having them hit for less will be worthwhile. There are also a lot of other quests
you could attempt to complete.
Be afraid, Be very afraid!
The Quest
Setup
Just like the previous scenario, the players are instructed to find Arwen and put her into play
under the control of the first player. She will switch between players during the game as the
first player swaps. This will allow everybody to benefit from her ability when she exhausts.
Players will then have to reveal 1 encounter card per player. While this might add some threat
to the staging area, it can also cause some players to be engaged with enemies from the very
beginning of the game. Dunedain decks will love this, as they will be able to trigger multiple
abilities off of this.
Quest card 1: Along the Misty Mountains – 20 quest points
The first stage of the game doesn’t have any text, besides some flavour. The 20 quest points
might take a while to obtain, especially if you have trouble getting your deck to quest
successfully, or if you are playing solo. Try to get your healing out at this stage, as you will
not be able to use it during the final stage.
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Quest card 2: Orc Outpost – 7 quest points
From the flavour text on this card, it is clear that you have made the same
mistake as the company of Thorin Oakenshield. The cave in which you
took shelter turns out to be a Goblin colony. This means that players will
have much more combat to take care off in this stage. When you flip the
stage, you search the encounter deck and discard pile for the Goblin Gate
location. This shouldn’t be hard, as the art features some very bright
colours in contrast to the other encounter cards. You will add the location
to the staging area and make it the active location if there is no other
active location. Chances are that there is no other active location, so you
should be able to avoid the 5 threat on the location.
Besides this when revealed effect, there are no other triggers or

conditions that have to be met. Players will have to make the 7 progress
on the quest card after which they will immediately advance to the next
stage.
Quest card 3: Approaching Rivendell – 13 quest points
Now you are on the final stretch to Imladris, however, the encounter deck will try extra hard
now to make sure you don’t make it home. They start off by revealing another card per player
from the encounter deck. This (basically) second staging step will mean that there will be
enough cards in the staging area so that there are plenty of locations to travel to. But the real
danger in this When Revealed effect are the treacheries again. Since you have already
survived a staging step where you made enough progress to proceed to this step, you will be
punished even harder by a Sleeping Sentry or an Orc Ambush. Orc Ambush at this time will
surely cause some engagements. If not, it will return a vast amount of Orc enemies from the
staging area.
To top it all off, this stage doesn’t allow characters to be healed. This is particularly
dangerous, as Arwen is quite vulnerable to direct damage. However, the tactics sphere allows
for some help in this regard. Cards like Honour Guard, Close Call, and Vigilant Guard will
either redirect or cancel the damage that either Arwen or another hero would have taken. This
is not healing and is therefore allowed by the quest. I would advise trying to hang on to these
effects for really game-ending scenario’s during your playthrough and not waste it if you are
losing a few unimportant allies.
Willpower is key during this stage, so I would try and put all your eggs in one basket and
rushing the questing during the next turn. Try and remove as much threat out of the staging
area to make sure you can get 13 progress on the stage that round. Having cards like Legolas
putting some progress on the quest during combat will also be nice. There is plenty to kill in
this quest, and that would make it easier to pass the stage next round. Once players place the
final progress on the stage, they immediately win.
The Encounter deck

Global
• This encounter deck consists of 56 cards in normal
mode, and 45 in Easy mode
• Shadow effects are abundant in this quest, with over
60% of cards having some Shadow effect
• Average threat on cards revealed is 1.4 and 1.6
between Normal and Easy mode. This does not count
the threat taken out of the staging area due to Ambush
on some enemies.
• Doomed is not present in this quest, and there are not
a lot of other effects that raise your threat.
• Surge is present on 8 cards, either printed directly or if
you choose to damage characters with Followed by
Night
• Encounter cards can become Immune to player card
effects if Crebain is in the staging area. Try to engage or
kill these enemies in order to cancel treacheries or
other cards.
This encounter deck has quite a lot of Shadow effects, so

the Mountain Wargs should stay engaged often. The
encounter deck brings a lot of enemies to the game, so be prepared for combat. The amount
of treacheries is greatly reduced in Easy mode, so cancellation of When Revealed effects are
less of a priority at that point.
Ambush
Let me just put a quick note here on the new mechanic. I personally very much like the
Ambush mechanic, as it feels very thematic. You will have little to no time to respond to any
of these engagements. The Ambush mechanic will cause any enemy with the Ambush
keyword to make engagement checks with the players, just like during the engagement phase.
Then, if the engagement cost of the enemy is lower than the threat of that player, the enemy
engages that player. Most of the enemies will then trigger an effect that will damage
characters, discard attachments, or make an immediate attack. If no engagements were made
this way, the enemy just gets added to the staging area. The nice thing about this keyword is
that the enemy doesn’t contribute its threat to the staging area if it engages. This makes
making progress a bit easier.
To counter this keyword, players can use several tricks to avoid the engagements or to benefit
from the keyword. The first option players have, is to raise the engagement cost of enemies.
This can be done with cards like Take No Notice or Lore Pippin. Hobbits, in general, are a
good archetype to bring, since they usually start with lower threat than most engagement
costs. However, be careful, as Hobbits are quite vulnerable to direct damage effects from the
encounter deck. Rangers will also allow easy access to Traps. While the regular Staging Area
traps will be less useful (but not useless!), the traps you will want to use are Followed and
Forest Snare. This will making questing even easier and will cause the engaged enemy to be
no longer a threat.
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Another way to exploit the Ambush mechanic is to make use of the
Dunedain archetype. They focus on having enemies engaged with you.
Having enemies engage out of the regular engagement phase can work in
favour of the Dunedain. This can cause Amarthiul to get a Tactics resource
icon, and perhaps an extra resource during the resource phase. Other cards
that will be wanting enemies engaged with you are the Halbarad ally, Heir of
Valandil, Fornost Bowman, and many more.
Objectives
Arwen is still being escorted by our company, so using

her ally or hero version will be illegal. Don’t worry, this
is the last quest that restricts you this way. She has
remained unchanged from her Redhorn Gate version. She still has the
effect that players can add a resource to a hero’s resource pool when she
exhausts.
While Arwen won’t be as vulnerable to being discarded from having too

little willpower like in Redhorn Gate, she is vulnerab le to a host of other
effects that might cause you to damage her. With stage 3 restricting you
to heal her, this can cause her to die before you reach the end of the quest.
Be careful in committing her to the quest, and be sure to heal her if you
can. Effects like: Followed by Night, Sleeping Sentry and the shadow
effect on Pathless Country will try and kill her. Be sure to cancel these
effects, especially during the final stage, as you won’t be able to heal her
anymore.
Enemies
There are quite a number of enemies in this scenario, so you should be ready to deal with
them from the start of the game. Some of these newer enemies will feature the new Ambush
mechanic, and there will also be quite some Goblins that will swarm you if you don’t kill
them soon. Direct damage will be a good way to deal with most of these enemies. Consider
bringing Thalin and/or Argalad in order to minimize combat.
• Black Uruks: I haven’t covered these enemies in the previous article so I will give them a
quick analysis here. The Uruks are pretty harmless with their (shadow) effect, the chances
that it will go off are quite small. However, losing attachments really sucks, especially if you
have to discard important cards from your heroes. I would advise playing some attachments
on questing heroes that you can lose. Think of some of the Signal attachments, Dunedain
Remedy is probably your best bet. You can also choose to not have any attachments on
questing characters so that the effect whiffs.
• Crebain: Now this enemy is interesting. First of all, it will surge into another card, so that is
unfortunate. The static effect on Crebain is horrible though, not being able to cancel
encounter card effects will render your Test of Will useless. You should definitely engage
these birds whenever you can. I would advise not killing the Crebain once they have engaged
you. Try to use effects like Followed and Forest Snare on these birds to prevent them from
going back into the deck when you run out of encounter cards. This strategy is best used by
Dunedain decks, so consider using some cards from that archetype. If you reveal a treachery
while the Crebain are in the staging area, perhaps you surged into one, consider using
Revealed in Wrath to clear their text box, and then cancel the treachery. This only works if
you have 1 copy of Crebain in the staging area.
• Goblin Taskmaster: The first of the enemy cards with the Ambush keyword. At 27
engagement cost, the Taskmaster will likely engage most decks during the starting rounds of
the game. His forced effect when he engages you is that you will have to deal 2 damage to a
character you control. This could be fatal, as this scenario will deal a lot of direct damage to
characters. Consider adding some healing to decks in order to
prevent taking losses.
• Orc Raiders: These Orcs have a lower engagement cost at 21 so they
will engage everything but a Secrecy deck. These Orcs are weaker
than the Taskmaster but have a very nasty effect when they engage
a player. That player will have to discard 2 attachments he controls.
This can be horrifying for any deck that relies on a few key
attachments. You will find that you might discard traps from
enemies, causing them to attack again. You will also no longer to
enjoy the riches with Steward of Gondor or Resourceful. Your
defenders will get stripped of their armour, and your attacking
characters might lose some weapons. There are 2 ways around this
effect:
1. Don’t run attachments. This might seem hard at the
beginning, but this does open up deck space for more allies,
events, and side quests. However, you must absolutely
commit to this strategy, you cannot run just 1 or 2
attachments on the side. These will still be able to be
targeted by the Raiders.
2. Spam the attachments: 2 attachments might seem a lot, but you might be able to fill
the board with a couple less important attachments. With the new Dale synergy, this
might become even easier. Good options are any of the free attachments, like
Dunedain Remedy and Spare Hood and Cloak.
• Wild Bear: The Bear is on the higher end of the engagement spectrum when it comes to
Ambush. This might mean that you won’t have to engage it for a while. Staying under 34
threat will allow you to put the bear in the staging area, where it won’t increase the threat.
During the later stages of the game, the Bear will come down to play. Whenever the Wild
Bear engages a player, he makes an immediate attack. While the base attack of 2 might not
be so hard to block, you will lose a defender for the combat phase. During combat, the bear
will make another attack, so be sure to have at least more than 1 defender on the board.
Treacheries
This is the meat of the scenario, the treacheries are a big step up from what we have seen
before. These treacheries are all very well worth it to cancel if you can. Be aware that there
are effects like Crebain that will protect these treacheries from being cancelled.
• Sleeping Sentry: This treachery has taken the spot at the number 1 treachery card in the
game (see the top 10 list here). This is because this nasty treachery not only has a terrible
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when revealed effect, but also a nasty shadow effect. On top of this, there are 2 copies of
this treachery in the encounter deck (0 in easy mode). The effect will cause you to take 1
damage on every exhausted character. This is nothing new, and we have seen it before
during the Deluxe box (Dark and Dreadful) and the first cycle (Necromancer’s Reach).
However, Sleeping Sentry ups the ante by exhausting every ready character afterwards. This
will leave you with nobody to defend or attack during the combat phase and makes every
character vulnerable to the second copy of Sleeping Sentry. While this exhaustion effect was
also in Redhorn Gate (Avalanche!) at least you got some more willpower out of that, as each
exhausted character was committed to the quest. This really is the card to cancel, no matter
how much resources it will cost. Now the shadow effect of this card makes it even worse.
You will not get lucky by drawing Sleeping Sentry as a Shadow card without an effect like
Necromancer’s Reach, no sir. This shadow effect will discard ALL exhausted characters from
play that the defending player controls. This is usually the defender itself (unless you are
using Beorn), all of your questers, everyone that exhausted to trigger an ability, and anyone
who got exhausted by an Encounter card effect (again, Sleeping Sentry). The shadow effect
also deserves to be cancelled, use cards like Hasty Stroke or Buring Brand. You can also try to
use global readying effects if you know that this shadow effect is coming up (thanks to Silver
Lamp or scrying). Cards like Grim Resolve, Lure of Moria, and The Free Peoples will make
sure you lose as few characters as possible. This card has ruined countless games for
everyone. It is also the card that people remember the quest by, Road to Rivendell is “That
quest with Sleeping Sentry“. But hey, at least it doesn’t surge!
• Orc Ambush: On the same list that Sleeping Sentry placed first on, Orc Ambush managed to
get third place. So you will know that this treachery isn’t going to play nice either. The card
will have every Orc enemy in the staging area engage the first player. Now, there are quite
some enemies that could come down this way, especially i f this is
the final card revealed during the staging step. This treachery can
cause the first player to take 5 or more enemies from the staging
area. This will mess with the plans that the group might have on
engaging the enemies equally. However, if players are doing well,
and there are no Orc enemies in the staging area (because they
engaged players with the Ambush mechanic), this card will try and
find some. In case the first effect whiffs, Orc Ambush will return
every Orc enemy in the discard pile to the staging area. This can
cause a great increase in threat and a lot of problems during
combat. Orc enemies have a low engagement cost in this quest, so
they will come down and try to destroy every player. The Surge on
this card hurts, even more, you will get additional cards from the
encounter deck after either filling the staging area with enemies or
if one person just took them all out of the staging area. This card
can be mild though, if only 1 Orc enemy is in the staging area, or if
you haven’t killed any Orcs yet. But you will find yourself cancelling
this card a lot as well, especially in multiplayer. On the bright side,
this card can come up as a Shadow card, where it will not do
anything.
• Followed by Night: Now this treachery might not be of the same calibre as the previous two,
but it can still hurt players during their quest. The first player must decide whether to deal 1
damage to every ally in play (including Arwen) and the card gains Surge or every engaged
enemy makes an immediate attack. With the Ambush mechanic causing enemies to engage
players a lot, an extra attack might not be desirable, especially since this would cause the
Wild Bear to attack 3 times in 1 round. So I would recommend the first player to make the
decision carefully. If you are able to defend the attacks with ease, go for it. If you have
enough healing or damage redirection, try that instead.
Ultimately I would recommend you play this scenario in Easy mode if you find that the
Treacheries are too rough on your decks. There is no shame and still a lot of challenge and
fun in playing the scenario this way.
Locations
To make up for some of the very nasty enemies and the horrible treacheries, the scenario
features a couple of beneficial locations. These locations will allow the players to catch their
breath a little but can be few and far between.
• Turbulent Waters: I didn’t cover this location last time, as that quest didn’t have a lot of
combat, so this location was pretty useless there. Not so in Road to Rivendell, with over half
the encounter deck being enemies. Turbulent Waters will restrict players to only forced
engagements (and Ambush). This might screw up your planning so you will have to consider
who takes what enemy before you decided to travel to this location.
• Knees of the Mountains: Well, crap, all of the enemies that engage
players while it is in the staging area will gain a buff to their attack.
Combine this with Plundered Armoury, and suddenly your engaged
enemies got a lot worse. These locations make Ambush all the more
dangerous and should definitely be travelled to. If you can, try and clear
the location in the staging area to avoid the buff during the combat
phase in case you have multiple copies of this location in play.
• Barren Hills: This location gives the players a bit of relief while it is
active. Players will ignore the Ambush keyword during the next round
(or longer if they fail to explore the location). This effect will add all
enemies with the Ambush keyword to the staging area, resulting in a
higher threat there. This will also just delay the inevitable, as the
enemies will still make engagement checks during the encounter phase,
and might still engage the same players than they would have if Ambush
wasn’t ignored.
• Goblin Gate: This one-off location is easily spotted in the encounter
deck because of the very bright colours. Don’t be fooled into security
though, Goblin Gate has the highest printed threat of any encounter
card in this scenario and might hinder your progress. When it becomes
active, players will treat every first enemy revealed by the encounter
deck each round as if it had the Ambush keyword. When any of enemies would engage a
player due to Ambush, that enemy makes an immediate attack. This effect will stack with
any other effect on enemies with the Ambush keyword. This would mean that the Wild Bear
makes 2 attacks when it engages, and 1 regular attack during combat. You will be facing this
location due to the effect on stage 2, so you better prepare yourself for the additional
attacks. This could for instance cause you to engage Chieftain of the Pit with his When
Revealed effect and having him attack twice for 7 attack (at least) during that round. Tip: you
could just send Goblin Gate to the Victory Display if you encounter it early, or scry it out the
deck. Stage 2 will not add the location if it isn’t in the deck or the discard pile.
• Pathless Country: I have struggled against this location a lot because it is very well protected
against regular location control cards. I would recommend travelling to it, getting the 3
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threat out of the staging area. It will require 6 progress in one go to clear if you do want to
explore it. The other reason why this location is so horrible is its Shadow effect. This might
cause you to lose some allies, especially if you were unable to get your healing up in time. Be
careful with Arwen around this shadow card.
• Ruined Road: This final location is another beneficial one. After you travel to it, you may
ready a hero or place 2 progress on that location. I find myself readying a hero more often,
as they tend to exhaust due to Sleeping Sentry. It is good to have at least some readying in
the encounter deck itself. Still, the progress on the location can also be nice, as it allows y ou
to make more progress on the quest during the next turn (if you quest successfully).
Tips and Tricks

• BRING CANCELLATION! Sleeping Sentry and Orc Ambush can and will ruin your game if they
are left unchecked. You can either use A Test of Will and/or Eleanor in Spirit to cancel them
or put everything into the Victory Display with Out of the Wild and The Door is Closed! in
Lore. Having Balin and Hasty Stroke in play to cancel shadow effects is also a good idea.
These shadow effects can also bring you a lot of trouble. Sleeping Sentry will hurt in both
forms, so cancelling it will make your playthrough a lot more relaxed.
• Since the Ambush keyword is coupled to the engagement cost of enemies, raising this
engagement cost might have you dodging some untimely engagements. Hobbits and
Rangers specialize in this field. Using Lore Pippin, and Take No Notice will greatly increase
the engagement cost of the enemies, which will likely put them in the staging area, rather
than engaged with a player.
• Be careful with your attachments, there are effects out there that will discard multiple
attachments you control. Placing extra copies of Blood of Numenor or Gondorian Fire is a
good way to have attachments to discard. You can also choose to not have any attachments
in your deck, though this might make things harder.
• While stage 3 doesn’t allow characters to be healed, it does allow damage to be redirected,
cancelled or taken as threat. This type of tactics-healing will prove to be very useful in
keeping Arwen alive up to that point. Other forms of healing are also crucial during the first
stages of the game. If you lose a lot of your allies due to direct damage early, you might
struggle to turn the tables on this scenario.
• Readying effects will be very important in this quest, as there are plenty of cards that will try
and exhaust your characters. To handle combat effectively, a Sentinel hero with readying
effects might save a player who got Ambushed by an enemy. Global readying effects will
save your characters from the shadow effect on Sleeping Sentry.
• This quest has a lot of ally hate. A lot of the cards will deal damage to either exhausted
characters, or allies in general. To avoid having to discard your allies, play with arche types
that can withstand some punishment before dying. Ents, Dwarves, and to a certain extend
Gondor can survive this quest longer than Silvans.
• Play Easy mode if you don’t manage to win it at first. Try to get a hang of the Ambush
mechanic in this way and add the treacheries later. This will keep you engaged with the
game a bit longer.
The Watcher in the Water
This quest was made even before the Saga expansions were announced, so in order to relive
the movies a little, the developers gave us this quest where you will battle the Tentacles from
the Watcher in the Water. This enemy will make its return during the Saga scenario’s in The
Ring Goes South, as the final boss of the quest. This quest has been a bit controversial, as
there were 2 paths the players could take to defeat the final stage: Either kill the Watcher or
speak the password and enter the mines through the Door of Durin. Nowadays, players have a
lot more options to get 3 Victory Points, making this scenario poorly balanced. If you really
want the true experience of battling this ancient creature, try to kill it instead of cheating and
clearing 3 side-quests.
General Information
• Found in: The Watcher in the Water Adventure pack, Dwarrowdelf cycle, pack 3
• Encounter sets: Watcher in the Water, Misty Mountains
• Quest cards: 2
• Play if: You would like to cheat this scenario with Side-quests, you want to battle a big boss
enemy that regenerates, you want to frustrate yourself by trying to clear the Doors of Durin
• What is different about this quest?: Doors of Durin special location, Watcher in the Water
boss, Tentacle enemies
• Solo or Multiplayer?: The scenario can best be experienced with a ton of people, but is also
fun in solo, though the battle part may be difficult. Having more people to hack at tentacles
may prove a more cinematic experience for the group. It will also be useful for taking down
the Watcher or having more cards to discard for the Doors.
• Can I run Side-Quests for this scenario?: Do you want to cheat the game? If the answer is
yes, then do bring side-quests. Clearing just 3 will make you pass the final stage of the
scenario without having to deal with the boss enemy or the unique location. If you want an
accurate experience, then either leave your side-quests in the binder or only clear 1 or 2.
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The Quest
Setup
The Setup for this scenario is relatively easy, as players are instructed to remove The Doors
of Durin and The Watcher from play. These will get added to the game once players make it
to the second stage.
Quest card 1: To the West-Door – 13 quest points
Here is another method of adding cards to the staging area that the developers use to scale the
difficulty to the number of players. Players are instructed to reveal cards from the staging
area until there is at least twice the amount of threat in the staging area than the number of
players in the game. This will mean that any treacheries that are revealed, will go off and
target players. Since they do not add any threat to the staging area, they will automatically
surge. A very nasty card to reveal at this point is Ill Purpose, if there are any enemies in the
staging area (if not, this whiffs). You will have to remove the enemies from the staging area
and put them into play engaged with a player. On top of this, players may have to raise their
threat.
Once all cards have been added to the staging area, the stage can begin. There is nothing
special about this stage, you just have to make the 13 progress. During this time, players are
advised to set their board state up, to prepare for the Watcher on stage 2. Players can also
decide to clear a couple of side-quests during this time.
Quest card 2: The Seething Lake – 5 quest points
Now things are getting real when this stage is revealed, players have to add the set-aside
Watcher to the staging area. They also make Doors of Durin the active location and place any
other active location back in the staging area. Finally, all Tentacle cards in the discard pile get
shuffled back into the encounter deck. This will make the Forced abilities of the Tentacle
enemies more likely to go off. It will also add more Tentacle enemies to the staging area
during the staging step. This makes The Watcher less likely to be engaged optionally.
With the Watcher in the staging area, players face a big 4 threat boost to the total threat in the
staging area. They also face the wrath of the Watcher if they leave it in the staging area too
long. At the end of the combat phase, players are forced to deal 3 damage to a character they
control. This targets EVERY player, so before long, players may find themselves without
allies and dealing damage to heroes. Clearing this stage in just a few rounds is crucial, as the
Watcher creates a slippery slope for players that can result in a loss.
The stage will require just 5 progress tokens, which can be obtained during the next quest
phase. Note that any progress that is placed on Doors of Durin (the active location) are
instead placed on the current quest card (main quest or side-quest). Then, players need at
least 3 Victory Points in order to win this scenario. This can be done in 3 ways:
1. Use player cards with victory points as a cheating way around the other 2 options
When this scenario came out, there would be no player side-quests for many years to come.
Even other player cards with victory points were far off and would be too rare to get 3 copies
off in the victory display. These days, players are far more likely to complete their own side-
quests and play cards like Fall of Gil-Galad, Red Arrow or Justice Shall Be Done. This way,
players can very easily obtain victory points during the first stage, and only need 5 progress
tokens on the second stage to win. Though it may not be the intent of the scenario, it will be a
very easy way around it. Players who are playing these scenarios progression style without a
restricted card pool may choose this option to get through this scenario fast.
2. Clear the Doors of Durin
This is slightly harder than shouting: “MELLON” at the card. The unique Doors of Durin
location cannot be explored with regular progress or by using location control. Instead,
players have the option each round to discard any number of cards
from their hand. Then, the top card of the encounter deck is
discarded and compared to all discarded player cards. If the first
letter of the encounter card matches the first letter of any discarded
player card, the Doors open and players have obtained the 3 required
victory points. If they also already have the required 5 progress
tokens on the quest, they immediately win.
This option has been quite controversial, as the chances of you

picking the right cards are very slim if you don’t build your deck
accordingly. In the Tips and Tricks segment, I have linked all the
first letters of the encounter cards and the matching player cards. To
have the most chance at winning this way, have everybody discard a
card that has a unique letter, there is no point in discarding 2 player
cards that start with an S. Analyse the encounter deck for what letters
are on the cards, and how often they appear in the deck. Also, keep a
close eye on the encounter cards in play, and in the staging area, as
that may influence your discarding options. For instance, if Ill
Purpose is in the discard pile, there is no use in discarding Imladris
Stargazer, as there is only 1 card in the scenario that starts with the
letter I.
3. Killing the Watcher
This is easier said than done. The Watcher is an absolute tank with 7 defence and 9 hitpoints.
On top of this, it will regenerate 2 of these hitpoints at the end of each round. This can only
heal the Watcher up to his original 9 hitpoints. Then there is the problem with the fact that
you are not able to engage the Watcher while any other Tentacle enemies are in play. You
will have to defeat all of his tentacles in order to face the body of the Watcher. Having just
shuffled all Tentacle cards back into the encounter deck will make this difficult. However, the
text on the Watcher only talks about optional engagement, not forced or engagements via
player card effects. Having the Watcher in an Ithilien Pit that someone played during the
previous stage will make it legal to attack it. Hands Upon the Bow will allow any Ranged
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character to do some damage to the Watcher, but it is very unlikely that you can kill it. Events
like Tireless Hunters and The Hammer-stroke will cause the Watcher to engage a player. You
can also bust out Son of Arnor to engage the Watcher.
So there are plenty of ways around the optional engagement limitation, but now you have this
big enemy engaged with you, what next? Well, the Watcher doesn’t really have a crazy attack
value or ability that raises his attack stat. Shadow effects aren’t very common, but it could
boost the attack strength of the Watcher up to 8 maximum (Ill Purpose as Shadow card). This
can still be managed by a beefy defender like Beregond or Boromir with Blood of Numenor
attached. Defending the Watcher shouldn’t be a problem, though you must be careful that you
keep that defender alive and ready to defend. Chump blockers are also allowed to defend the
Watcher, there is no penalty for that. Feed some Snowbourn Scouts or
Squires of the Citadel to the beast.
The hardest thing about the Watcher is effectively killing him. The 7
defence dictates that you should bulk up all your attack strength into 1
attack dealing 16 damage to it. This way, you circumvent the
Regenerate keyword and will only have to face the defence once. If
this is not possible, try to lower the defence of the Watcher with
Rivendell Blades or Marksmen of Lorien. This should make attacks
against the Watcher easier. Direct damage is also a great way to
circumvent the high defence, Galadhon Archer, Dwarrowdelf Axe,
and Spear of the Citadel can place those few extra points of damage on
the Watcher. Be careful that this damage will get removed from the
Watcher 2 at a time at the end of the round.
And that is it, you have gathered 3 victory points at least, and are now
ready to face the Long Dark of Moria. The road behind you is shut, the
only way left is forward, into the mines of Khazad-Dum.
The Encounter Deck

Global
• There are 43 cards in the encounter deck in Normal mode, 33 in Easy mode.
• Shadow effects on cards are quite rare, only on 33% of the cards in Normal mode, 36% in
Easy mode
• The average threat on each card revealed from the
encounter deck is 1.5 between both modes. This will
influence the number of cards you will reveal during stage
1.
• No cards will surge with that keyword, better bring cards
that trigger off of that to the next scenario.
• Doomed 5 is quite a common sight in this quest, 3 copies
of Disturbed Waters will raise your threat rapidly. This is
on top of other effects like Stagnant Creek.
• The Watcher is immune to optional engagements if there
are any other Tentacle enemies in play. Besides that,
nothing else is immune to player card effects.
• The chances of discarding a Tentacle enemy, or a card
with a shadow effect are 60% in Normal mode, and 63% in
Easy mode. This highly depends on what cards you have
already encountered though, there are 26 and 21 cards
that would match these criteria between the two modes
respectively.
With a lot of enemies in the encounter deck, this is definitely a scenario to bring your combat
decks to. Having only a 1 in 3 chance of a shadow effect will make the Mountain Wargs very
likely to bounce back to the staging area. Try to find a way to engage them from the staging
area after they have attacked. Tactics Aragorn will be a good choice for this.
Enemies
The new enemies in this scenario represent the many Tentacles of the Watcher itself. They
are supported by the enemies from the Misty Mountains encounter set. The Tentacles sport a
high attack but little to no defence. They also have a very low engagement cost so Secrecy
decks will struggle with this scenario.
• The Watcher: I have already covered how to deal with this boss enemy best, so check out
the paragraphs about the second stage of the quest. The basic rule is, get him out of the
staging area asap, and then either kill him or pass through the door.
• Striking Tentacle: This is the tentacle with the highest engagement cost at 18. This will still
provide Secrecy decks with a problem, as those usually don’t want to engage a lot of
enemies from the get-go. The Striking Tentacle also fields the highest attack out of the 3
tentacle enemies and is the only one that is unable to be discarded outright with Straight
Shot. The high attack might be fatal to a lot of heroes, as the ability of the Striking Tentacle
will force players to discard the top card of the encounter deck when the Tentacle attacks. If
the discarded card is another Tentacle enemy or has a Shadow card effect (chances are 60-
63%) the attack is considered undefended. This will mean you have to deal at least 4 damage
to a hero, not counting any shadow effect that might go off as well. This can be fatal to all
but the strongest heroes. Boosting hitpoints of heroes or cancelling damage with Honour
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Guards or Raven-winged Helmets will let you survive the attack. The Tentacle is killed rather
easily, as it has no defensive ability like some others.
• Grasping Tentacle: This Tentacle is nasty as he has a more defensive ability that can cause
your attackers to be paralyzed for the rest of the game. When you attack the Grasping
Tentacle, you are again forced to discard the top card of the encounter
deck and look if it is a Tentacle enemy or if it has a Shadow card. If so,
the enemy attaches itself to one of the attackers and counts as a
Tentacle attachment which reduces the attack and defence stats of
that character to 0. It is because of this that you should always attack
this Tentacle with multiple low attack characters. This gives you
options to who you should attach the tentacle to. The good part is, that
the tentacle is now no longer an enemy, and will remain out of the
encounter deck for the rest of the game (unless the attached character
is killed). There is no possibility to discard this attachment, as it is not a
condition.
• Thrashing Tentacle: I have often found this enemy to be the worst, as it
will redirect the damage you try to deal to it to one of your own
characters. It will even ignore defence, so no point in redirecting it to
some high defence character like Defender of Rammas. Players still
have to discard the top card of the encounter deck and follow the
same procedure as the other two Tentacles. I would advise to attack
this enemy with only 3 attack strength, and perhaps redirect the attack
to a chump that didn’t die this round. Discarding this enemy with Straight Shot is probably
your best bet though.
Locations
• Doors of Durin: This art is one of my favourites, and I have been using it as my screensaver
for a while (no my password isn’t Mellon). The location itself is slightly less fun to see when
it gets put into play as the active location during stage 2. This location will clog up your
active location slot until you clear the password. During this time, other locations will fill the
staging area, making location lock a big problem. So you wi ll have to get the Doors of Durin
out of the active location slot, allowing you to travel to other locations. Use a West Road
Traveller for this. You can also try to clear other locations using location control and
Explorers Almanac in order to cheat around the Doors of Durin. While in the staging area,
Doors of Durin is only 2 threat, and players are still able to use its action to try and get the 3
victory points.
• Makeshift Passage: This location is actually quite beneficial. It will add 2 progress on the
current quest card, perhaps making the final 2 that players couldn’t place during questing.
With shadow effects removing progress tokens, it is also good to make up for those, even if
players failed to make that progress, but still have the option to travel. In the staging area,
this card is pretty harmless, as it only sits at 1 threat. However, whilst travelling to Makeshift
Passage may seem tempting, it will require players to make 5 progress in order to clear it.
Failure to do so may result in more locations in the staging area, which can lead to location
lock.
• Stair Falls: This unique location looks very interesting, as unique locations usually are, but it
is nothing special. The 2 threat is not enough to consider travelling to it, I would rather clear
out the 4 quest points in the staging area. Having the first player to exhaust 2 characters will
also be tough, as most characters after questing will be needed for combat. Either travel to
this location without paying its Travel cost (Ghan-Buri-Ghan, Strider’s Path) or
clear it in the staging area.
• Stagnant Creek: This is probably the worst of the locations in the
encounter deck. Not only is the 3 threat and 3 hitpoints quite strong, being
able to keep the location around after some location control, but the when
revealed effect is just horrible. When you reveal this location, players have to
discard the top card of the encounter deck. If that card is a Tentacle enemy,
the enemy gets added to the staging area, just like if the location would
surge. On top of this, each player has to raise their threat by 5 if an enemy
gets added this way. This jump in threat may be too much for some decks to
handle, especially if Disturbed Waters has also boosted threat this round. I
would advise travelling to this location when possible, and perhaps cancelling
its when revealed effect. Proper scrying will ensure that you know if an
enemy gets added to the staging area this way.
• Perilous Swamp: While the 4 threat on this location is painful to
leave in the staging area, do not travel to this location if there are other
options. You are not able to make more than 1 progress on it, essentially
meaning that you will have to stall your progress on quest cards for a turn.
Northern Trackers are perfect tech against this location, perhaps combine it with Guarded
Ceaselessly or Power in the Earth to lower its threat a bit.
Treacheries
Being around an ancient tentacle monster will surely bring a couple of nasty treacheries along
with it. The scenario also features Bitter Wind. This treachery strips away resources from
players, making them less likely to field a big army of allies to chump the Watcher with.
• Wrapped: This treachery is lethal and will force you to have enough ready heroes held back
during combat in order to save the attached hero. If this attachment stays on a hero until
the end of the round, it is just like during Conflict at the Carrock where you have to discard
that hero. This card will change your strategy for that round, so cancelling it i s a good idea.
Also be careful with sending heroes to the quest. If you exhaust 2
heroes to quest, you will have to attach Wrapped to 1 of them, as you
would otherwise lose your ready hero. Positive note though, the hero
still has his stats and abilities for the round, so you can still count its
willpower if the hero is committed to the quest.
• Ill Purpose: This treachery has been mentioned a lot in this article.
That is because it can be the ruin of a single player that round. All
enemies in the staging area (including the Watcher) will engage the
player with the highest threat. Then, players are forced to raise their
threat by the total threat in the staging area after the enemies have
engaged. If players are facing location lock, this effect may very well
raise their threat by an additional 8 or more. Combat during this
round will also be a problem as you now have 1 player engaged with
a lot of enemies. Sentinel and Ranged characters will be vital to
lighten the load on this player. This is usually the card to cancel unless
there is only like 1 enemy in the staging area, and just 3 threat worth
of locations.
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• Disturbed Waters: Boom, Doomed 5, enjoy the rest of your day. This is the largest hit in
threat we have come across from the Doomed keyword. Not to mention that there are 3
copies of this card in the game. Your threat will get out of hand fast if you keep drawing this
card. There is not much to cancel either, the best options you have are Elfhelm or Free to
Choose. The last card is very useful in this scenario and perfectly counters this treachery.
Tips and Tricks

• If you want to beat the scenario by clearing the Doors of Durin, build your deck accordingly
by adding cards of which the title starts with the same letter as encounter cards. The letters
used and a good card to include in your deck are:
o B (7 cards): Player Cards
o D (3 cards): Player Cards
o G (4 cards): Player Cards
o I (1 card): Player Cards
o K (1 card): Player Cards
o M (5 cards): Player Cards
o P (2 cards): Player Cards
o S (8 cards): Player Cards
o T (6 cards): Player Cards
o W (6 cards): Player Cards
• Your threat will rise fast in this scenario. Consistent threat reduction will be essential if you
want to make it to the end of the game.
• The Tentacle enemies have a very low defence, or even nothing at all if you play with Tactics
Aragorn. Combine this with a lot of weapons and Straight Shot in order to discard some of
the Tentacles before they would attack.
• Even if you don’t want to play side-quests, you can still add victory points to the victory
display using player cards. Consider using Black Arrow, Red Arrow or Justice Shall Be Done.
Playing this last event can make for an exciting final round.
• Doors of Durin will make you unable to travel to any other location until you clear it, this
makes location lock a big issue on stage 2. Try to swap the location with West Road Traveller
to allow you to travel again to other locations.
• With all of these cards triggering off of Tentacle cards or cards that have a Shadow Effect, it
is very much worth it to see what is coming next. Effective scrying with Scout Ahead or the
Palantir will make decisions around which enemy to attack easier. You can immediately see
if the attack will succeed or if it will backfire. It can also make you decide whether or not to
cancel the when revealed effect on Stagnant Creek.
The Long Dark
Every cycle has a less enjoyable scenario, and it usually is the fourth one. Emyn Muil, Long
Dark, Assault on Osgiliath, and Nin-in-Eilph aren’t really the highlights of their cycles.
Thankfully the trend gets broken during the Angmar Awakened cycle. This scenario again
focusses on finding your way through Moria. The Dwarves and Goblins have carved a
labyrinth of tunnels and passages, and it is easy to get lost in. A lot of players play this
scenario maybe once, and then move on. The scenario features a new test: The Locate test.
This is where early card pool Lore decks shine, as they tend to draw a lot of cards to discard
for the test.
General Information
• Found in: The Long Dark Adventure pack, Dwarrowdelf cycle, pack 4
• Encounter sets: Long Dark, Deeps of Moria, Twists and Turns
• Quest cards: 2
• Play if: You want a scenario that focusses more on willpower and location control rather
than combat, you want to test your Noldor deck by discarding even more cards with the
Locate test, you want to play an easy quest, but not Amon Dîn again.
• What is different about this quest?: Locate test, Artifact objective, location focus
• Solo or Multiplayer?: For the locate tests I would recommend playing this with a large
number of players, as consecutive locate tests might drain your hand too fast in solo.
However, this scenario isn’t really exciting so I wouldn’t recommend using this quest with
new players, as they might get bored.
• Can I run Side-Quests for this scenario?: Yes, since you will be focusing on willpower over
attack strength, you will be making plenty of progress on those quests to pass them in one
go. You can also choose to ignore side quests and burst through this scenario in 3-4 turns.
But if you want to stall a little, bringing side quests will be a good idea. My personal
recommendation will be Explore Secret Ways, to deal with the threat of the locations.
Prepare for Battle will also be useful, as the first player can definitely use that extra card
each turn.
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A quick note on the difficulty of this quest: in no way is this quest harder than Into Ithilien,
Wastes of Eriador or Raid on the Grey Havens. FFG might just be throwing darts on a
dartboard and see what number the difficulty should be.
The Quest
Setup
The setup of this quest is plain and easy, the first player will attach the Cave Torch to a hero
he controls. Since the Cave Torch is a restricted attachment, players will have to keep in mind
what other attachments they want to run on those heroes.
Quest card 1: Journey in the Black Pit – 13 quest points
The When Revealed portion of this stage will have players discard cards from the encounter
deck until they reveal locations. Then they add 1 location less than the number of players. In
a solo game, the player will be instructed to add just 1 location to the staging area. From this
effect, it is the most beneficial to start the game with 2 players. You will reveal the same
amount of locations during this step but will be able to commit more willpower to the quest
than a solo player could. The cards you discarded that were not locations will get shuffled
back into the deck after the players have added the locations to the staging area. So there is
no way to clear half of the enemies and treacheries in the encounter deck early because of
this.
The rest of the stage is not really interesting. All location cards in play will get +1 threat so
clearing locations will be in your best interest. Having at least somebody bring Northern
Trackers will help you in clearing all that threat from the staging area. This +1 threat will
stack with any other threat raising abilities, like Branching Paths or Burning Low.
It is also important that players will have to make sure they quest successfully during the
quest phase. In case this doesn’t happen, players are informed to trigger all lost effects in
play. These Lost effects can be found on certain enemies in the staging area or engaged with
players. Locations in the staging area or in the active location slot will also count their Lost
effect when you are instructed to trigger them.
All in all, the 13 quest points will take you about 3-4 turns to complete. The stage can start
off with quite some threat in the staging area, but with some location control and good luck
with the cave torch, you should be able to quest successfully.
Quest card 2: Continuing Eastward – 17 quest points
When you place the last progress token on stage 1, you immediately advance to the next
stage. When this stage is revealed, the first player is instructed to make a Locate test. Make
sure you communicate which player can do this test the best, and time your progress so that
this player is the first. You can stall time by clearing side-quests while you wait. You can also
include a copy of Follow Me!, as that will also draw that person another card. When the test
is passed, play continues as normal. If the test is failed, the players reveal an additional
staging step worth of cards (1 per player, counting all keywords). Then, the players will
trigger all Lost effects in play. This may make the second stage start off rough, depending on
how many Lost effects you just triggered.
The locations will have lost their +1 threat buff while you are on the stage. This makes
questing a bit easier if you were having trouble with location lock. The 17 quest points
required for this stage may seem like a lot, but by this time your decks should have their
engines installed, and will be committing a lot of willpower to the quest each turn. This stage
is usually dealt with in 2-3 turns, depending on the number of players.
And that’s it, you passed the scenario. Not really exciting, was it? There may be a case where
you only made one locate test in this game when the stages flipped. Besides that, the scenario
has been pretty straightforward. Fortunately, the next scenario won’t be that easy, and your
questing decks may end up being torn to shreds by Nameless things. Next time: Foundations
of Stone.
The Encounter Deck

Global
• The encounter deck has either 60 or 44 cards to reveal, depending on if you are playing
Normal or Easy mode.
• Half of the cards have Shadow effects in Normal mode, 59%
in Easy mode, shadow cancellation might be nice to bring
• Average threat on cards revealed is 1.4 in either mode, this
does not count the X value on Stray Goblin or The Mountains
Roots
• 6 cards (10%) have the surge keyword on them, most of the
time this is only triggered if a treachery doesn’t go off.
Gathering Ground will increase the Surge in the encounter
deck substantially
• Doomed 1 is only found on Massing in the Deep
• The Great Cave Troll is the only immune card in the set. It is
immune to Ranged attacks and attachments, but not to
other player card effects.
• The Pass keyword needed for the Locate test is on 14 cards
in Normal mode, and 10 cards in Easy mode. In both modes,
the average number of cards you need to discard to reveal a
keyword is 4.5. This doesn’t give any guarantees though,
sometimes a Pass can be 10 cards deep.
The distribution of the 3 main categories of cards is nearly perfectly equal. This makes
guessing with Wingfoot difficult. Treacheries are less common in Easy mode, which makes
Cave Torch slightly less reliable.
Objectives
Durin’s Greaves is an objective attachment you can come across during this scenario. It gets
shuffled along with the other encounter cards during setup. It is a very nice card to see during
staging, as it won’t surge or trigger some nasty effect. The defence boost is free, and no hero
has to exhaust in order to claim the objective. The only negative side about this objective is
that the first player will have to attach it to a hero he controls. If other players could really use
this attachment, they are in bad luck (or they should play Follow Me!). Be aware that you
will sometimes discard this objective because of either the Cave Torch, Locate tests, or some
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other discarding ability of the encounter deck. This can suck, but the
benefit of the attachment is not that big, so you shouldn’t worry.
The Cave Torch also makes its return from Into the Pit. This objective
remains unchanged and will be a great tool in helping players to clear
the locations in this scenario. Combine this objective with other location
control tools, and you will be clearing locations left, right, and centre.
The chances of revealing an enemy because of this effect are 35/38%
between Normal and Easy mode. Remember that the Cave Torch can
only be used to place progress on Dark locations. This makes locations
like Silent Caverns immune to its effect.
Locations
This scenario is more location focussed than combat. They will most
likely be the lost affects you will trigger most in case you do fail a locate test. A lot of these
locations we have seen before during Into the Pit so I won’t cover those again. You can check
out that review for more information on those cards.
• Twisting Passage: Now here is a location that I really loathe. Twisting Passage will force the
first player to make a locate test each time that any amount of progress is placed on it. This
can be because you have to clear it as an active location during questing or if you trigger the
response of Northern Tracker while it is in the staging area. If that locate test is failed, all
progress gets cancelled off of the location, and all Lost triggers will go off. This leaves you in
a far worse state than you were before you placed the progress. I would advise players to
use Distant Stars or Short Cut in order to circumvent this location. You can get lucky if you
pass the locate test, but you will still have to make 5 progress in order to clear it in one go.
• Abandoned Mine: The perfect target for your Cave Torch. You will get rid of a lot of threat in
the staging area this way. The Lost trigger on this one might not be a problem in the early
game. But in the later stages of the game, having multiple copies of this effect go off will be
painful. The top 2 Goblin enemies will get added to the staging area. This will mean that
players have to keep in mind in what order they discard cards.
• Silent Caverns: While the location itself is pretty harmless, with only 1 threat
and 3 quest points, its Lost effect is quite the opposite. The danger of Sleeping
Sentry still haunts players, and this effect will do the second half of that
treachery. Note that Silent Caverns is not a Dark location so you won’t be able
to Cave Torch this location, though its stats would make it an ideal target.
• Dwarven Forge: This 2/4 location has no real threat to it, except that the Lost
trigger may come up if players quest unsuccessfully or fail a Locate test. The
effect of this card isn’t horrible though. Players will get to choose a card to
discard from their hand. This can either be a copy of a unique card that is
already in play, or Noldor decks can fuel their discard pile. The 4 progress
tokens required for this location will protect it against a Cave Torch trigger if no
other location control has effected it beforehand. Try to clear this in the staging
area instead of travelling to it, there are far better options to travel to.
Enemies
While the locations are the focus of this scenario, the scenario also features some unique
enemies. While Moria is known for the Goblin infestation, this scenario also brings some
Creatures to the mix. The Great Cave Troll is probably the worst enemy, especially since
your decks won’t be focused on dealing with him. However, his engagement cost is quite
high, so keeping a low threat should allow you to pass by him unseen.
• Orc Drummer: Drums, drums in the deep. This Orc will raise the threat of
each enemy in the staging area by the number of players in the game. This can result
in a lot of threat that suddenly got added to the staging area. This Orc is perfect to
deal just 1 point of damage to, and suddenly the Orcs are less menacing. Sending
Thalin to the quest will deal with this guy no problem. If you don’t deal with him this
way, you can always engage him optional, he isn’t immune to that. While he is out of
the staging area, his effect is not active anymore, and he makes for a pretty wimpy
enemy himself. His 3 defence might be tough to pierce, but a Mirkwood Runner
could handle this no problem.
• Rock Adder: I don’t know if cold-blooded snakes can survive this long
underground, but the Rock Adder is one enemy that you will definitely encounter
during your travels. The enemy is immune to attacks if the Adder hasn’t damaged a
character this round. There are a couple of ways in order for you to defeat the Adder
without taking any damage. Note that the text says that the Adder can’t be attacked,
it can still take damage. Direct Damage is a good way to defeat this slippery guy. It
also has no defence, so Straight Shot is also an option. All in all, it is a pretty harmless enemy
that you can deal with in one turn.
• Cave Spider: I would scream and run the opposite direction if I saw a spider this size in a
tunnel, but luckily our heroes are braver than I. The Cave Spider will tech against players
who are drawing enough cards to pass locate tests. It will first allow the first player to draw 1
card. Then, he has to choose 4 cards from his hand to discard. If you have 4 or fewer cards in
your hand, you need to discard your entire hand. This poses a real dilemma for players as
they have to decide what cards to keep, and what to toss. When the Cave Spider engages a
player, that player will have to choose a card from their hand as well, and discard it. Noldor
decks will definitely benefit from this if they have enough cards in hand. The rest of the
Spider is pretty straightforward, no real trouble in bringing this one down.
• Goblin Warlord: This is probably the strongest enemy in the deck, besides the Great Cave
Troll. However, since the Warlord has 39 engagement cost, he can sit in the staging area for
some time while you build up ways to defeat him. The best strategy for this enemy is
probably to engage him outright. Do not try to use traps. Though this will deal with the
Warlord, he will still contribute his 4 threat to the staging area for a couple of turns. There is
also a chance that another enemy gets trapped in your Trap card, so it isn’t a very reliable
strategy. Though this enemy is a bit stronger than the regular Orcs, his Lost effect is what
can make him a lot worse to have in play longer. He will force players to choose and discard
1 ally they each control. During the early game, this effect might kill off some stronger allies,
as your board state has to grow. A special note on this enemy is that his Shadow Effect is
one that is very much worth it to cancel. Triggering all Lost effects in play may hurt players
either this turn or the next.
• Goblin Sneak: Though this enemy is small, it can engage the wrong player easily. This might
cause players to take some unexpected attacks. The Forced effect on Goblin Sneak will have
players discard the top of the encounter deck. If that card is a Treachery, the Sneak engages
the next player. Here it will trigger the Forced effect again. Players can play Hot Potato with
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this Sneak until a non-treachery card gets revealed. This is a great way to get rid of some
nasty treacheries, but it can also thin the encounter deck of Pass keywords.
Treacheries
Besides the locate test on the quest cards, treacheries can also force players to take a Locate
test. There is also a treachery that will really help Lanwyn players. Though these Treacheries
might not be very dangerous, cancelling them will still be in your best interest.
• Foul Air: Looks like someone farted in these tunnels. Now everyone is disorientated and the
first player has to make a Locate test in order to find your bearings. If the Locate test is
failed, all players have to deal 2 damage to every character in play. This makes Hobbit decks
unlikely to survive for long in these tunnels. Besides the damage, every Lost effect in play
triggers as well. It should be obvious that failing these locate tests will hurt your board state
a lot. Having enough cards in your hand will hopefully cause you to find a Pass on any card. It
doesn’t that Foul Air itself also has Pass on it, this lowers your chances of revealing a
keyword.
• Vast and Intricate: The same as Foul Air, but instead of dealing 2 damage to every character
in play, players will have to raise their threat by 7. This is a huge step up and might cause
more enemies to engage with you during combat. On top of this, all Lost effects in play will
trigger as well.
• Fatigue: This treachery is pretty harmless, as most decks can suffer having
1 character to exhaust during the later stages of the game. Perhaps you
have Galadriel on the table, in which case you can exhaust an ally that got
played this turn. Most of the times, this treachery won’t surge, as decks
tend to have a couple of combat characters ready.
• Gathering Ground: This Treachery is one that will inspire a lot of
attachment treacheries in later cycles that will attach to other encounter
cards. This treachery will usually attach to the worst location in the
staging area. While that location is in play, all enemies revealed by the
encounter deck will gain surge. This can cause an incredibly long surge
train to go off during staging as enemies will surge into enemies (which
surge into even more enemies). This can cause the threat in the staging
area to get out of hand. It will also cause the next combat phase to be
quite interesting, with a lot of attacks. This is the treachery to cancel in
this encounter deck. You can also focus all of your location control on that
location. Now there is a case where there is no location in the staging area, in that case, this
treachery whiffs. Since there is just one copy of it, there is a big chance that you will not see
this treachery go off. It is quite harmless as a Shadow card and will have you pass a locate
test if you reveal this card.
The Test
The Locate test is the second type of test we have seen in this game up to this point. It will only
trigger when players are forced to, there is no point in the round sequence where players have to
make a Locate test, unlike the Escape test in the Dead Marshes. The Locate test will start off by
having the first player discard a card of their choice from their hand. Then, players discard the top
card of the encounter deck to match this. If the discarded encounter card has the bold word PASS
printed on the lower right side of the textbox, the players pass the Locate test. If not, the first player
may discard another card from his hand to repeat the process. This can go on until either players
reveal a card with the Pass keyword on it or if the first player doesn’t want to discard any more cards
from his hand. The test also stops if he hasn’t got any cards in his hand left. In this case, players have
failed the Locate test and are forced to trigger the text written on the card that instructed them to
make the test in the first place.
Players are not forced to discard any cards. If you want to keep all of your cards as the first
player, but are forced to make a Locate test, you can decide to not reveal any cards, thereby
losing the test immediately. This will possibly trigger a couple of nasty effects, so it is up to
the first player to make a decision between his cards, and the overall board state of the
scenario.
There are in total 14 cards that have the Pass keyword printed on them in Normal mode. In
Easy mode, this is reduced to 10, but the overall size of the encounter deck is reduced to
match this. The chances of revealing a card with the Pass keyword printed on it is 22-23%
depending on the cards that have already seen play. This translates to a Pass keyword in
every 4 to 5 cards. But this is just an estimate. There may be cases where you won’t see a
Pass for 10 cards in a row, and then 3 Passes show up afterwards, back to back. This is the
randomness of the game, and it might help you in your tests or it will hinder you. It is up to
the gods of the RNG to determine this.
Tips and Tricks

• Having enough cards in your hand is important to pass these Locate tests. Consider using a
lot of Lore cards and heroes like Erestor, Bilbo or Beravor. Most of the Lost effects will not
be very pleasant, so trying to pass every test will be in your best interest. Bilbo and Prepare
for Battle are particularly nice, as they target the first player, who will need the cards the
most that turn.
• Scrying the deck for Pass cards is a good way to see how many cards you should discard in
order to pass. The Palantir and Scout Ahead will be important tools for this. You can also mill
the encounter deck with Denethor for locations with the Pass keyword. You might also put
Pass cards back from the discard pile with Shadow of the Past or The End Comes if you don’t
feel like a lot of Pass keywords remain in your encounter deck.
• Try to keep the staging area clear of cards. The fewer Lost effects you have trigger, the more
beneficial it becomes to fail a Locate test. Though it is still not adviced to lose them, your
board state will be in better shape if you don’t have to trigger lost effects from locations and
enemies. This can also save you in case you happen to fail the quest.
• Consider using Short Cut or Distant Stars in order to get around the nasty Twisting Passage.
Short Cut will allow you to have another Pass keyword in the encounter deck, while Distant
Stars will make sure you do not see it again for a long time.
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Foundations of Stone
This is a quest that is still very popular with veteran players. It is also a nice quest to play with some
newer players who have at least some practice before playing this quest. Foundations of Stone is
one of the most enjoyable quests to me because of a clear split between the early and the late
game. New encounter cards get added, and players tend to lose some of their board states halfway.
This poses players with the problem whether to play their attachments before or after the flood.
This scenario also forces players to play with decks that can survive on their own until they are
joined by their fellow players. It is one of the more replayable scenarios too, as stage 4 drops you at
a random quest card, which can either suit your deck very well or be absolutely terrible. This all
concludes in a desperate attempt to climb back to the Dwarven section of the mines, dodging
Nameless things down below.
General Information
• Found in Foundations of Stone adventure pack, Dwarrowdelf cycle, pack 5
• Community Difficulty: 6
• Encounter sets: Foundations of Stone, Hazards of the Pit, Twists and Turns, Goblins of the
Deep
• Quest cards: 5, with 4 different stages 4
• Play if: You want to run against this scenario again, you want to face Nameless things, you
have the time to play a long quest and want to show new players how awesome a scenario
can be.
• What is different about this quest?: Players get split off, players have to wash away most
attachments during the third stage, Nameless enemies, different encounter decks between
first and second half of the quest.
• Solo or Multiplayer?: Both are good options, though the quest will take longer in
multiplayer, having more willpower to commit to the quest will definitely help players
through some stages.
• Can I run Side-Quests for this scenario?: No, I wouldn’t recommend it. This scenario can be
very long, and there are no real stages where you can stall. Perhaps players can decide to
clear side-quests during the first stage so that the side-quest will help during the rest of the
game. This will make it more difficult to progress through and will cause some players to get
dangerously close to that 50 threat limit.
The Quest
Setup
This setup is crucial, so please stage 1A carefully before rushing into the game. Players are instructed
to set aside the new Foundations of Stone encounter set and create their initial encounter deck with
only the Khazad-Dum encounter sets that we have seen before. Adding the new encounter deck will
make for a more exciting scenario later on, with different cards in the early and late game. Besides
this, the first player will have to attach the Cave Torch to a hero he controls. This restricted
attachment hasn’t changed since the previous scenario, so it shouldn’t be anything new.
Quest card 1: The Dripping Walls – 9 quest points

The standard When Revealed effect goes off on this card, which will have players reveal X cards,
where X is the number of players in the game. There are a couple of cards that will be fantastic to
see early, like Burning Low, Dark and Dreadful, and Sudden Pitfall. Having discarded any of these
treacheries will allow for a slightly more relaxed quest phase, especially if you can get Sudden Pitfall
out early.
The rest of the stage isn’t really hard, it is just standard questing and building up your board state.
There are no new surprises in the encounter deck, so players should be able to move on to the
second stage in 1-3 turns.
Quest card 2: The Water’s Edge – 12 quest points
Stage 2 isn’t very different from the first stage, only this time players will have to discard the
top 2 cards of their deck when they have committed characters to the quest. This kind of deck
milling is pretty harmless and can actually fuel the engines of a Dwarven mining deck or a
Noldor deck that uses cards in its discard pile. Besides this discard mechanic, the stage posses
no real threat and can feel quite basic. But just you wait until you place that final progress
token!
Quest card 3: Washed Away! – 0 quest points
*Toilet flushing sound*
You are being washed away to the very roots of the mountains, to the foundations of Moria. During
this, players will have to discard all of their Items, Armour, Weapons, and Light attachments. This
includes the Cave Torch. Losing all of these attachments is terrible and will send your heroes back to
the start of the game. There are a couple of ways to minimise your losses:
1. Don’t play attachments during the first 2 stages of the game. This wil l save you resources to
play allies and events. You will be able to play the attachments in your hand during the
fourth and fifth stage (if you don’t have to discard your hand). This will leave you a bit naked
during the first two stages, but it will pay off in the end.
2. Play attachments that will not get discarded. There are plenty of traits that will stick to your
heroes during this stage. Mounts, Signals, Artifacts, Conditions, and Titles do not get washed
away during Normal mode. Rohan decks can benefit from this by bringing a lot of horses to
the mix.
Besides stripping your heroes from their attachments, you will be forced to discard all encounter
cards from play. This includes the active location, engaged enemies, any cards in the staging area,
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Rangers of the North(!), and any copies of Watchful Eyes attached to characters. Then, all enemy
and treachery cards in the encounter discard pile will get shuffled with the set-aside Foundations of
Stone encounter set to form the new encounter deck. The old encounter deck and any locations in
the discard pile are set aside, out of play. This effect will only shuffle any cards from the discard pile
into the new encounter deck, so having quested hard and fast during the first two stages will
definitely help. This will result in fewer cards in the new encounter deck.
After the new encounter deck has been made, each player spl its off from the group and receives a
random stage 4A off of the quest deck. starting with the first player. Any stage 4A that did not get
distributed among players are put aside, out of play.
Quest card 4A: Below the Mines

There are 4 different stages 4B, all with the same 4A side. At this point, players are separated and
will have to clear their own stage until they can join another player. Once all stages 4B are defeated,
the players advance to the final stage. During this time, play continues as usual, but each player
handles their phase individually. So the group first does the quest phase of player 1, then the quest
phase of player 2 etc. All players are considered to be the first player while they are alone at their
stage. When joining a fellow player at a stage, do so during the travel phase. The joining player(s)
must add any encounter cards in his own staging area to the staging area of the player(s) he is
joining with, keeping any enemies engaged with him and discarding any active location in the s taging
area being left.
Quest card 4.1: The Endless Caves – 17 quest points

This is the quest stage that is most suited for decks that can muster a lot of willpower. If you have a
swarm deck, this is the card you would like to see. When this stage is revealed, you have to discard
all resources from your heroes. Any resources on Treebeard or Radagast may stay in play. You will
not be forced to reveal any cards at this point, making it a rather easy stage at the start of the round.
Having an empty staging area will help in clearing the 17 quest points on the card. If you are playing
a combat orientated deck, with little willpower to commit to the quest, try and stall until a fellow
player joins your stage.
After the final progress token is placed on this quest card, you get to decide to what other stage 4
you want to travel in order to help your fellow players. If there are no othe r stages 4 left in the
game, the group is reunited and can move on to stage 5.
Quest card 4.2: Old One Lair – 5 quest points

While you get to keep your hand and your resources, Old One Lair will force you to reveal 4
encounter cards and add them to your staging area. This will make it harder to make the 5 required
progress tokens, as you will either get locked with locations or get swarmed with enemies, requiring
you to keep some characters back for combat. This quest stage is well suited for Tactics players, as it
doesn’t require you to make a lot of progress in order to advance. If you cannot deal with all these
cards, try to stall until a fellow player joins your stage.
you want to travel in order to help your fellow players. If there are no other stages 4 left in the
Quest card 4.3: Sheltered Rocks – 11 quest points

This is probably the mildest stage, as it doesn’t require you to discard your hand, reveal a lot of cards
or discard all of your resources. Instead, you only reveal 2 cards off the top of the encounter deck
and put them into your staging area. You will need 11 progress to advance to a diffe rent stage, but
this should be manageable for most average decks.
you want to travel in order to help your fellow players. If there are no other stages 4 l eft in the
Quest card 4.4: The Shivering Bank – 7 quest points

All of those attachments you were saving for the fourth stage, yeah discard them all! This stage
opens with the unfortunate player discarding their entire hand. This is not really a problem for
Erestor decks, but every other deck that doesn’t rely on card draw will have a hard time. You have to
reveal 2 cards off the top of the encounter deck, like at the Sheltered Rocks, but will have to only
make 7 progress to advance. This stage is best suited for Lore decks or decks that work with their
discard pile as an extension of their hand.
you want to travel in order to help your fellow players. If there are no other stages 4 left in the
Quest card 5: Out of the Depths – 11 quest points

When all players have joined together and beaten the final stage 4B, they advance to this stage.
During this final stage, players have to climb back upwards to the Dwarven layers of Khazad -Dum.
But the Nameless evils down below are trying their best to stop you. On top of this, time will be
running out, as your threat will be quite high at this point. If players have struggled to clear
everyone’s stage, there may have been a couple of rounds that increased threat.
When this stage is revealed, every player reveals an encounter card from the top of the deck, just
like they did at the start of the game. This will give the players a bit more enemies to work with
during this final stage. The 11 progress tokens required for this stage may be difficult to place, as
there may be a lot of threat in the staging area that needs to be overcome first. Location lock is a
real threat at this point. Having some way to discard locations or make progress on those locations,
will be of great use to the group.
The second problem that players might encounter is that they cannot commit more allies to the
quest than the number of heroes they are sending as well. Spirit decks will be fine, but the more
combat focused decks might not be sending any willpower to the quest at this point. Pseudo-
questing will be important here, being able to boost the willpower of the few characters that are
going or lowering the threat in the staging area. Eowyn and Cirdan are good heroes if you want to
send a lot of willpower, and they have enough ways to boost their willpower. Consider using
Galadriel as well to add her willpower to that of another character. At this stage, the scenario gets
easier if you are with a lot of players, as 11 quest points aren’t too much to overcome. I would
reckon it takes about 2 turns before players beat this stage. If they do, they beat the scenario and
made it back to the Mines. But there is still one hurdle between them and the East-Gate. They will
have to try and overcome that during the final Adventure Pack: Shadow and Flame. Note that
players can also try to place a bunch of progress directly on the quest card by doing the Refresh
Action on Mithril Lode. This might even be enough to clear the stage and win the game outside of
the questing step.
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The Encounter deck
There are two separate encounter decks for this scenario. The first is for the first two stages, without
the Foundations of Stone encounter set. The second is with the FoS encounter set and any
treacheries and locations that got in the discard pile during the first two stages. You might actually
consider using The End Comes to shuffle the entire discard pile into the encounter deck just before
you progress to the third stage. For obvious reasons, the second encounter deck analysis only
involves the FoS encounter set. It depends on what you discard during the first few rounds on how
the actual encounter deck looks like, this will be unique for every game.
Global: Stage 1-2

• There are 41 cards in the encounter deck in Normal mode, 28
in Easy mode
• Shadow effects are on 46% of the cards in Normal mode and
57% in Easy mode
• Average threat per card revealed off the top of the encounter
deck is 1.4 threat per card
• 4 treacheries can surge, they will all be in both Easy and
Normal mode
• Doomed is not on any cards in the encounter deck yet
• Sudden Pitfall cannot be cancelled, this is the only card that is
immune to player card effects.
Having the Cave Torch in Easy mode is a far bigger risk than using it in
Normal mode, you will also run the risk of discarding treacheries,
which will get reshuffled into the new encounter deck at stage 3.
Global: Stage 3-5

These statistics do not include any cards you added from the discard pile at stage 3. The new
encounter deck will be unique in every playthrough and may cause these statistics to shift a little.
For more accurate data, you will have to do your own math.
• The bare minimum of cards in the encounter deck is 24 in Normal

mode, 18 in Easy mode.
• Shadow effects are very uncommon at 25% in Normal mode and
22% in Easy mode
• Average threat on cards revealed is 1.5 in Normal mode and 1.3 in
Easy mode
• Surge has become quite common, with 6 cards surging. This means
that 1 in 4 or 1 in 3 cards will surge, depending on the mode you
play.
• Doomed 1 is now on 5 cards, nothing really to fear, but if you cycle
those treacheries often, you may raise your threat above 40 sooner
than you would like.
• Unless you reshuffled Sudden Pitfall into the deck, no cards are
immune to player card effects.
Again, these statistics will be influenced by the cards you add to the mix during stage 3.
Objectives
There are actually two treasures to be found in these dark depths. You may actually outfit one of
your characters with a full set of Durin attachments. Unfortunately, you are not allowed to bring the
Greaves from The Long Dark with you to this quest.
• Durin’s Helm: While this Objective attachment surges, it does not get guarded by the surging
card. This makes it quite easy to claim the Helm whenever you want. You will have to either
explore a Drowned Treasury or exhaust a hero to attach the Helm to that hero. It will be a
great defensive attachment, as the hero gains a point of defence and
two hitpoints if it is attached to a Dwarf hero. This makes it a good
attachment for Dain Ironfoot or Gimli. For a non-Dwarf hero, it is a
free Dunedain Warning.
• Durin’s Axe: Finding the Axe was actually one of the goals of Balin’s
expedition, as it is mentioned in the Book of Mazarbul. The Axe will
also surge but is not guarded by the next card. It will be a great boost
to attack strength for the attached hero, boosting attack by 3. If the
attached hero is a Dwarf, he also gains a point of willpower to help
during the final stage of the quest. The Axe is restricted, so be careful
to who you would like to attach this weapon. You can again claim it
by exhausting a hero or by clearing a Drowned Treasury.
• Cave Torch: While the Cave Torch has remained unchanged from the
very first time we used this Light objective, the quest will only allow
you to use it during the first half of the quest. During stage 3 you will
be forced to discard the attachment. If you do want to hang on to it
(which you can’t!) you wouldn’t be able to place any progress on
locations anyway. Both locations in the second half of the scenario
aren’t Dark so a new Cave Torch wouldn’t work anyways. During the
first half of the scenario, you may use the Cave Torch like you normally would. I would,
however, advise to use it as little as possible. Any treachery or enemy you reveal with the
Torch will go to the discard pile eventually and will get shuffled into the new encounter
deck. You will be able to get rid of a couple of locations this way if you scry the encounter
deck well enough. During the first two stages of the game, your chances of revealing an
enemy and putting it in the staging area are 29% in Normal mode and 43% in Easy mode.
Enemies
The enemies in this scenario are accompanied by any enemy cards that you had to reshuffle
during stage 3. This will have definitely caused you to add a couple of goblins to the mix.
Besides those, the enemies that can be found deep underneath Moria are:
• Moria Bats: This type of flying enemy shouldn’t be anything new. However, they can still be
a handful. These bats will be very vulnerable to direct damage, so having Thalin committed
to the quest will be a sure way to discard these enemies. Since only characters with Ranged
can attack and defend against the bats, Gondorian Spearmen will not be useful,
unfortunately. If the bats do come down to a player, they get a boost of 1 attack for every
other enemy engaged with that player. This might make them troublesome, but on their
own, you could very well let the damage go through undefended. If you do have a Ranged
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character, you will be able to shoot this enemy out of the sky without much problem. The
bats are very poorly defended. Direct damage is still the best way to handle them though.
• Nameless Thing: This is the real meat of the scenario, the
Nameless enemies. Besides this scenario, there will be very few
cases where you will encounter enemies with this trait (except
some Nightmare scenario’s and Ruins of Belegost). The Nameless
things have a variable attack and hitpoint pool depending on the
cost of the cards attached to it. Playing a very cheap deck may
cause you to get rid of these enemies easily, but if you discard a
Gandalf to them, you’re going to have a bad time. While the
Nameless Thing is in the staging area, it doesn’t have any cards
attached to it, and its X values are considered to be 3. If you
engage it, the Nameless thing will have you discard the top 2 cards
of your deck and its stats will become the combined cost of those
cards. If the cost of all cards is 0, you get to discard the enemy
immediately. Try to defeat this enemy as soon as you can, as it will
get boosted by treacheries like Deep Deep Dark. This might cause
it to get more hitpoints and hit harder. Once you do defeat it, you
can add it to the victory display for a single victory point. This will
make Rossiel more capable to defend against other Nameless
enemies.
• Elder Nameless Thing: The same idea as the normal “Younger”
Nameless Thing, only this time the X value is 4 when the Elder Nameless Thing has no cards
attached to it. When you engage this enemy, you will have to take 3 cards off the top of your
deck instead of the 2 for the regular Nameless Thing. This will cause the Elder to have higher
stats and be a tougher enemy to bring down. You will have to clear this one as quickly as
possible too, lest it gets boosted by Deep Deep Dark. The Elder Nameless Thing will be worth
3 victory points.
Locations
There will be only two types of locations in the encounter deck, as no other locations get added from
the first encounter deck during stage 3. This makes the deck slightly less location heavy than you
might expect at first. Getting trapped with a lot of locations is still an option if you draw a couple
back-to-back.
• Drowned Treasury: This 2/3 location will be the most common one in the later stages of your
game. It is a bit dangerous, but if you can clear it in one turn, you get
to either claim one of the Objectives if it is in the staging area
without exhausting a hero or draw 2 cards. The 2 cards may be
useful when you have landed at the Shivering Bank quest stage. I
would recommend players to not travel to this location and instead
clear it in the staging area with location control. The location will
absorb 3 progress tokens that would otherwise go on your quest
stage, which may be enough to join another player. If you happen to
have this location active at the end of the quest phase (between
quest resolution and the travel phase) you must drown one of your
characters (discard a character).
• Mithril Lode: This location might cause you to raise your threat by 1
point, but it may also be your ticket out of the stage. While the
Mithril Lode is the active location, it gains a Refresh Action. You can
exhaust a character during the refresh phase to place X progress
directly onto the quest card, where X is the willpower of the chosen
character. This bypasses any active location and is a great way to
beat the final stage. It can also cause you to advance your stage 4,
which will allow you to travel to another player during the travel
phase, you will still need to survive another round of staging at your current quest though. I
have found this location very useful during the final stage by exhausting Eowyn and having
every player discard a card for up to 8 progress on the quest. This can even be boosted with
Windfola, Favor of the Lady or Protector of Lorien. This may clear the stage immediately and
will let you avoid the quest restriction on the final stage. There is only 1 copy of this location,
so use it wisely.
Treacheries
The treacheries in this scenario are joined by the treacheries that were in the discard pile
during the third stage. The treacheries will increase the strength of the Nameless enemies in
play and will force heroes to wander off into your deck. This can be quite dangerous, as there
are many ways in which they may be discarded. Also be on the lookout for Sudden Pitfall if it
gets shuffled into the deck. Always quest with an ally if you are the first player.
• Deep Deep Dark: Besides the Doomed and Surge keyword, this card will have the first player
attach 1 card from the top of his deck on each Nameless enemy in play. This makes the
Nameless enemies a lot stronger and will mill the deck of the first player quite a bit. If th ere
are no Nameless enemies in play, however, this card just surges and raises the threat by 1.
While this effect may not seem that bad, I have had many cases where I had multiple copies
of this treachery surge into each other. This can make your Nameless enemies quite beefy in
the blink of an eye. The only real way to circumvent this is by using Minas Tirith Lampwright
and calling Treachery every time it surges.
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• Lost and Alone: This treachery is among the reasons why you don’t see so
many 1 or 2 hero decks against this scenario. If you have the ill fortune to
draw this card, each hero at that stage chooses a hero he controls and
shuffles it into his deck. Then, when the hero is drawn, you gain full
control of that hero again. There are a couple of downsides to this. First,
you lose a powerful character along with all of its resources and the
attachments. The attachments will be discarded and not shuffled into your
deck. Second, you will have to mill your deck until you find the lost hero,
this may very well last until the end of the quest. Third, you may lose a
resource match with some of the cards in your hand. This is a big problem
in a tri-sphere deck. Fourth, there are quite some effects where you have
to discard cards from the top of your deck. While the hero might not have
a resource cost, you will be less likely to bring that hero back to life.
Remember that you only bring that hero into play if you draw him. Adding
Fortune or Fate or just a Will of the West will help you in this regard. Ally
Imrahil will trigger from this effect too! Lastly, even when you do draw the
hero, you miss out on drawing a card that round. This may be hard if you were looking for
other cards that round. There is a silver lining though, your hero is healed of all of its wounds
when it enters play again. This might be useful if you had Beorn near death before you had
to discard him. Bottom line, try to cancel this treachery, it is definitely the worst out there
and will hinder all players at the stage. Not to mention that there are 2 copies of this card, so
players may find themselves stuck with just 1 hero at some point.
Tips and Tricks

• Try to rush the first two stages. The fewer cards you reveal during this time, the fewer cards
you will have to reshuffle during the third stage. If you are filtering the encounter deck by
scrying, try to find as many locations as possible. This will result in a very thin new encounter
deck, which will make effects like Wind from the Sea and Ranger of the North more likely to
pop up.
• Try to add your Rangers of the North after stage 3. They are not enemy or treachery
encounter cards, so they do not get shuffled into the new encounter deck at stage 3.
• Keep in mind that any Items, Armour, and Weapon attachments you play during the first
two stages will get discarded at stage 3. Make the decision yourself if you would like the
attachments early or if you would rather use them during the later stages of the quest. Be
adviced that there will be a 50/50 chance that you will have to either discard your hand or all
of your resources at stage 4, making it harder to put out all of those attachments.
• Playing a deck with very cheap cards will make the Nameless enemies less of a threat. If you
could, I would advise not using Gandalf as an ally, and instead, run a couple extra 0 cost
events. This might even give you the chance of revealing 2 or 3 0-cost cards, which will
cause the Nameless things to die instantly.
• Scry your own deck to draw your more expensive cards and try to put your 0 cost cards in
line to discard to the Nameless Things. This can be done with an Imladris Stargazer. This way,
you might be able to stack the deck in such a way that the Nameless enemies become less of
a threat. You may be able to deal with them via Direct damage this way.
• Direct damage will be very useful against the goblin enemies and the Moria Bats. You will
also want to have some Ranged characters in your party to defend and attack the bats if
they come down.
Shadow and Flame
This cycle goes out with a bang as you are faced with your toughest opponent yet: The Balrog of
Moria, Durin’s Bane. This absolute beast of an enemy will be the centre point of this scenario. This
scenario features many treacheries that will boost Durin’s Bane to absolutely crazy stats, making the
task of killing him quite the challenge. And while the early card pool featured a Feint-lock ability with
Hama, since the recent patch this option is no longer available. This will make killing the Balrog even
more of a challenge since you won’t be able to cheat this way for long. In fact, you will not be able to
kill this Balrog, as that task is for when you return to Moria during the Saga campaign. This time, it
will be your task to reach the East-Gate of Moria and being able to tell the tale. But a huge demon
stands before you made of:
General Information
• Found in: Shadow and Flame Adventure Pack, Dwarrowdelf cycle pack 6
• Encounter sets: Shadow and Flame, Deeps of Moria, Goblins of the Deep
• Quest cards: 3
• Play if: You want one of the fiercest boss-fights in the game to date, you want to finish your
Dwarrowdelf cycle, you have beaten the Balrog in saga mode but want to do it again, you
want to test Secrecy cards in your deck, but don’t want to run 2 heroes.
• What is different about this quest?: Balrog enemy attacking all players, threat starts at 0,
unique location to discard the Balrog.
• Solo or Multiplayer?: Having more players will help in many ways. Having a few people extra
will give you more Ranged and Sentinel abilities to attack the Balrog and some of the other
enemies in the scenario. Having other players bring some willpower will get you through the
stages, as that may be less of a priority when faced with a Balrog in the staging area.
• Can I run Side-Quests for this scenario?: I don’t think you will want to go to these side -
quests, as the main stages will require enough willpower to clear, and questing shouldn’t be
a priority in this scenario. Better leave that deck space for some extra copies of Feint or
other events/attachments/allies to help in combat. The only time you will have time and
willpower to spend on side-quests is in the final stage, and that is usually too late.
The Quest
Setup
We begin this quest by searching the encounter deck for the unique Balrog enemy and adding it to
the staging area. Then, players will remove Dark Pit from the deck and put it aside, out of play. This
location will get added during the final stage of the scenario and will be your ticket out of the mines.
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Quest card 1: Nearing the Gate – 9 quest points
Now we come to one of the most important steps in the game: reducing every player’s threat to 0.
Not only does this open up the Secrecy mechanic, it will also allow players
to skip questing during the first few rounds. An increase in threat won’t be
terrible in the early game. With the threat of each player at 0, all other
enemies will not have to engage if you can keep your threat low enough.
Even Durin’s Bane won’t attack you this round, as he has an effect that
causes him to be engaged with each player who is at 1 threat or higher.
Note that Hobbit/Ranger synergy of increasing engagement cost doesn’t
raise this limit. Having a very low threat will also allow you to engage Goblin
Scout, removing his 3 threat from the staging area before you pass the 25
threat threshold.
Besides dropping your threat to 0, the stage will also require players to
reveal an additional card for each player other than the first player. There
are a couple of good cards to reveal at this point like Whip Lash, Inner
Shadow, and Fires in the Deep (to some extent). There will also be a lot of
nasty effects that might go off, such as an immediate attack from the
Balrog, a Great Cave-Troll added to the staging area or a weapon
attachment for Durin’s Bane right of the bat. After all the cards have been
revealed, your total threat in the staging area should be about 4+ 0.9 threat per player.
The first round of the game is very important, as it will give you just this round to avoid attacks from
Durin’s Bane. At the end of the round, you will raise your threat to 1 so Durin’s Bane will attack all
player the next round unless they manage to lower their threat during round 2. It is also vital that
players do not play any Doomed cards at this point, for obvious reasons. Getting 2 cards isn’t worth
an additional round of attacks from a Balrog. You should also try to quest successfully during the first
round. This should be easy, as you don’t have to deal with combat this round (if everything goes to
plan).
Try to get a couple of allies out during these first 2 rounds. These allies will provide emergency
chump blockers to the Balrog. While you are sacrificing allies to the Balrog, try to get your main
defence strategy online. This can either be a very beefy Hero/Ally or getting enough attack
cancellation on the board. Also, try to get some threat reduction for at least one player. This player
can focus solely on questing while managing to avoid the Balrog that way. Elrond’s Counsel and
Galadriel’s Handmaiden will be important. If players happen to have to raise their threat because of
failing the quest, one player can be saved by playing Ever Onward. If encounter cards would raise
your threat, Free to Choose will save that player as well.
During the second turn, most players will have to deal with attacks from the Balrog, but this also
allows them to attack the Balrog back. While the Balrog is immune to attachments, it i sn’t immune
to player card effects. And since it only has 3 defence, putting damage on him will be easy. He does,
however, regenerate 3 of that damage at the end of each round, plus his healing ability with Inner
Shadow can heal 5 damage off of him. During these first rounds, it is not vital to keep attackers
around to deal with Durin’s Bane. Since he is indestructible, he will still keep attacking you if he has
no hitpoints left. This stage requires you to get your defence online and set up your board state for
later.
The 9 progress tokens required to clear the stage shouldn’t take more than 3 turns for most decks. In
solo, it may be a bit difficult, as you might also want some characters to act as chump blockers. But
with very little locations in the encounter deck, it shouldn’t be too much of a task to clear the stage.
Quest card 2: The Rear Guard – 16 quest points

While transitioning between quest stages has no trigger, this next quest stage does have some
interesting ways to progress through this stage. If a hero has committed to the quest during the
previous round (when you transitioned from 1B to 2A) you get to place 4 progress tokens on the
quest immediately, not counting any active location. This will make it less important for players to
commit characters to the quest, as all they have to do is commit a hero in order to place 4 progress
tokens. Now, you are not limited to this effect alone, you can still make progress the traditional way.
This would allow you to clear locations, and clear the stage in less than 4 rounds. A good tool to use
for this stage is Light of Valinor on a hero. That hero will still be committed to the quest, but not be
exhausted. This leaves the hero ready during the combat phase. A word of warning though, try to
commit a couple of heroes to the quest, this will protect you from effects like Inner Flame or Inner
Shadow, where you could opt to remove a hero from the quest, and still make the progress.
Windfola is also another great card to use with those two treacheries.
At this stage, players should start to chip away at the Balrog’s massive pool of hitpoints. By now,
they should have a sizeable army of allies to be able to chump. The rest of the characters can easily
pierce the 3 defence and start putting the hurt on Durin’s Bane. Since Durin’s Bane is not immune to
player card effects, direct damage is another good way to reduce his hi tpoints fast. One of my
personal strategies involves a Dwarf Swarm with an Erebor Battle Master. When the Battle Master
attacks, Heavy Stroke can double his damage, which can get out of hand real quick. The Balrog will
try and protect itself with Counter Spells, so beware playing event cards during this time.
Another way to beat this stage is to get the Balrogs hitpoints down to 0. In a 4 player game, this
should be manageable if at least 3 players can damage Durin’s Bane consistently. This might save
players a round or two worth of attacks.
Quest card 3: Last Lord of Moria – 1 quest point
Now we come to the thrilling finale of the cycle, you have to find a way to distract the fire
demon so that you can slip by him. Once this stage is revealed, players add Dark Pit to the
staging area. During the next travel phase, you should definitely travel here (unless you
progressed with an active location still in play). Durin’s Bane will also make an immediate
attack against the first player during this time. Either time your progression right, so that he
attacks the player who can deal with 2 attacks this round or have a sentinel character ready to
defend it.
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The players will be unable to defeat this quest while the Balrog is in play. The only
way to defeat him is to use the Refresh Action on Dark Pit. Now, you will only get
a couple of attempts at this, as you can only trigger it while it is the active
location during the refresh phase. This will mean that it will prevent you from
travelling anywhere else during the rest of the game unless you keep switching
the location out with another one during planning. Recycling a West Road
Traveller will let you quest like normal if you can keep switching Dark Pit with
another location in the staging area, clearing that location, and travel to Dark Pit
during the Travel Phase. This will give you the most options to use its ability. DO
NOT CLEAR DARK PIT IF THE BALROG IS STILL IN PLAY!! This is the only way to
discard him, and if you discard the location first, you will have to stall until it pops
up again from the encounter deck. Cards like A Watchful Peace and Shadow of
the Past can put it back on top, which makes it the perfect reveal in a solo game.
The effect on Dark Pit will require players to exhaust up to 3 characters during the
refresh phase. All characters will be ready at this time, but be careful who you exhaust. Those
characters won’t be able to attack, quest or chump during the next round (unless you ready them,
Greenwood Archer is perfect for this). Then, you discard as many cards from your deck as characters
you exhausted (up to 3). If the combined cost of those cards is higher (not equal) than the remaining
hitpoints on Durin’s Bane, you discard him from play. There are a couple of ways you can do this
action more efficiently:
1. Have Durin’s Bane at 0 hitpoints, this will make him very likely to be discarded. Even a single
1 cost card will do the trick. The Regenerate keyword on him won’t trigger until the end of
the refresh phase, so you should be safe there.
2. Include a lot of high-cost card in your deck. This does not only include Beorn and Gandalf but
perhaps also a couple of Secrecy cards that you didn’t get to play. Resourceful and Timely
Aid have a very high printed cost.
3. Stack your deck for maximum chances. Imladris Stargazer, Wizard Pipe, and Gildor Inglorion
will allow you to put the highest costed cards on top of your deck. This is very useful as you
know for certain how much printed cost you will reveal. This will help if the Balrog still has a
couple of hitpoints remaining.
Once the Balrog has been discarded from play, you still have to clear the stage. This may take up to 2
turns, as an 11 quest point location sits in the active location slot. I would suggest going all out,
sprint to the finish on this one. Clearing the location and putting 1 progress on the stage will allow
you to leave Moria behind you in triumph. This will mark the end of your cycle, and allows you to
move on to Gondor. There you will be faced with new challenges, and new friends and/or enemies.
The Encounter deck

Global
• This encounter deck can reveal 54 cards in Normal mode, 40 in Easy mode. This does not
count Durin’s Bane and Dark Pit.
• Shadow Effects will trigger 52% of the time in Normal mode

and 55% in Easy mode
• Average threat on cards revealed is quite low due to the high
number of treacheries in the deck: 0.9 threat/card in Normal
mode, 1.0 threat/card in Easy mode. X-cost is not counted.
• Surge is quite a common theme on cards in this scenario in
order to compensate the low threat on an individual card.
15% of the cards have the ability to surge. Most of the time
this can happen because a treachery didn’t go off.
• Doomed 1 is only present during Normal mode. Massing in
the Deep will raise your threat 1 point. On turn 1 this is
horrible, as it will force players to deal with Durin’s Bane on
the first round.
• Immunity:
o Durin’s Bane: Only to attachments, player card
effects can still go off.
o Great Cave-Troll: Immune to Ranged attacks and
attachments.
o Second Deep: Immune to progress if Durin’s Bane is at full health.
This scenario features a lot of treacheries, so cancellation will be nice to include in your decks. While
Durin’s Bane is the chief antagonist in the scenario, he is far from the only enemy in the game. Be
careful not to spend all of your defences on the Balrog, as Goblins may overwhelm you if you don’t
handle them quickly.
Enemies
Besides the pretty obvious Balrog that will be the main challenge of this scenario, the quest has a
couple of other enemies in the encounter deck that will try to make your life miserable. The Great
Cave-Troll is a very strong enemy to have engaged with you if you also have to deal with the Balrog
that turn. Note that your threat will be very low at the start of the game so it will be a while before
you have to engage some of these enemies. This will mean that many enemies will be left in the
staging area, adding their threat to the total of the quest. I personally found that traps like Poisoned
Stakes and Ranger Spikes are great cards to deal with some of the enemies. Arrows from the Trees is
also a very effective tool to discard a lot of the smaller Goblin enemies.
• Durin’s Bane: I have covered Durin’s Bane a lot already in this scenario review as he is the
main antagonist of this scenario. The 4 threat will always be in the staging area, as Durin’s
Bane can’t leave the staging area. It is also impossible to play Secret Vigil on him, as the
Balrog is immune to attachments. The 6 attack stat on him will be a handful to most
defenders until you can get someone like Beregond+Gondorian Shield online. Chumping this
6 attack will be the best way to deal with this attack during the early stages of the game. You
can also try to load up a hero like Dain with Dunedain Warnings and Ring Mail for all you
progression players out there. The 3 defence stat is a bit low to my liking, but this makes the
Balrog more susceptible to your attacks. Remember that each player declares their own
attacks in turn against the Balrog, unless they have Ranged characters. At the end of the
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round, 3 of the damage tokens on the Balrog get removed, so be sure to place a little more
than that on him each round. Try damaging him during stage 2, so that you will have him
near 5 hitpoints during the final stage. The lack of immunity to player card effects is really
useful to players, as they will be able to use Feint or Thicket of Spears to counter any attacks
the Balrog would make. Having Direct Damage will also allow you to place more damage on
him outside of combat if you can’t pierce the 3 defence.
• Ranging Goblin: This is the only other enemy that gets introduced
during this scenario. When it gets revealed, each player has to deal 1 point
of damage to a hero they control. This is to soften up the heroes in order
for the Balrog to finish them off. When a character would leave play, the
Ranging Goblin gets shuffled back into the deck to be revealed later. This
makes him a very bouncy enemy, and one that you will have to deal with
before combat. If you tend to chump a lot of allies, this enemy will
continuously assail your heroes and ping them for 1 poi nt of damage.
Direct damage is a good way to deal with the goblin. Engaging it is also
fine, but it might leave play if you have to chump again. Thalin+Gondorian
Spearmen is a good tactic to kill him outright. Having him back in the
encounter deck might also be a good thing, as he doesn’t have a shadow
effect, so that might be beneficial during your other attacks.
Locations
While the encounter deck is quite location light, these new locations will
be vital in defeating the Balrog. The two Second locations will be really
good cards to get rid off in the staging area, as they will mostly add a lot of
threat to the staging area.
• Second Hall: The Second Hall of Moria is a rather annoying location. It will contribute its 4
threat to the staging area, which is quite a lot for a single
encounter card. This might put a dent in the progress you were
about to make on the quest. On top of this, the Second Hall has a
horrible forced effect once it is active. Players will have to reveal a
card from the top of the encounter deck the moment that one of
their characters leaves play. This makes chumping a rather poor
defence strategy. I wouldn’t make Second Hall the active location if
you were planning to chump this round. Instead, Asfaloth on
Glorfindel will be good tech against this location, as it only has 2
quest points. Do this during staging will save you 4 progress (or
increase in threat). Other location control cards are also decent
options, but not as effective as Asfaloth.
• Second Deep: This is a bad card to get out early. You are not able to
make any progress on this location while Durin’s Bane has no
damage on it. This counters not only location control, but also
regular progress from travelling. Once you start beating back at the
Balrog, this location will be a good location to have active, as it will
remove 3 threat from the staging area and only requires 3 progress
tokens to clear.
• Dark Pit: As mentioned before, Dark Pit will be encountered during
the final stage of the scenario. Try to make it active asap and subdue the Balrog with its
effect. More detailed strategy tips are given in the scenario overview.
Treacheries
The scenario adds a host of new treacheries to the encounter deck. Most are designed to increase
the stats and abilities of the Balrog. This is most notable in the two unique weapon treacheries that
can be revealed from the encounter deck. Since these treacheries are unique, there can be no two
copies of the same treachery on the table. Any second copy of Fiery Sword or Many Thonged Whip
are discarded immediately if the Balrog already has one of those attached to him. These treacheries
will not surge into new cards.
• Counter-Spell: Now here is a rather unique treachery, even though it hasn’t got a unique
symbol on it. Counter-Spell will attach to the Balrog as a Condition when it gets revealed.
Then, if any player plays an event, that player must first discard the top card of the
encounter deck. If that card is a treachery that player cancels the effects of the event, and is
forced to discard his entire hand. Only then will Counter-Spell be discarded from the Balrog.
The chances of getting a treachery revealed are 50% in Normal mode, and 40% in easy mode
(counting the fact that Counter-Spell is on the table and cannot be discarded from the top of
the deck). This percentage can vary depending on what cards you have seen already. If the
discarded card is a location or an enemy, the event goes off, but Counter-Spell will remain
attached to the Balrog. With multiple copies of Counter-Spell in the encounter deck, players
will have to make checks against each copy of Counter-Spell for each event they play. This
will thin the encounter deck a little, but this card is very much worth cancelling when it gets
revealed. You can also discard the Condition with Miner of the Iron Hills or Elrond. Bulwark
of the West and Power of Orthanc will require players to make the Counter-Spell check first.
• Fiery Sword: This the first of the two unique attachment you can attach to Durin’s Bane.
Since there are two copies of this attachment, you will have to discard the second copy if the
first one is out already. When attached to the Balrog, Fiery Sword grant him a +3 to his
attack stat. This boosts his reasonable 6 attack to an outrageous 9. While the 6 attack is
pretty easy to defend with just a Gondorian Shield on Beregond, a 9 attack will be a lot more
difficult. Getting Blood of Numenor or a Shield, Citadel Plate and a Raven-winged Helm
might do the trick. This attachment is permanent and will boost the attack of the Balrog
during each attack he makes.
• Many Thonged Whip: This second unique attachment will start to reduce your hand each
time the Balrog attacks you. Since you don’t get to pick the cards you would like to discard,
you find yourself discarding vital cards you were planning to play next round. Getting a Silver
Harp on the table will negate this effect for you, as you can return the card to your hand
after it gets discarded.
• Fires in the Deep: Basically Fires in the Deep will discard your chumping options for this
round if you have only 1 ally. This is why Swarm decks are so important in this quest, as they
will not be bothered if you discard just 1 ally. During the first few rounds, thi s treachery is
worth cancelling, as you may have to discard an important ally from play. If players don’t
discard any allies, because they have none, this effect will surge.
• Inner Flame: Charging his Inner Flame, the Balrog will get a boost to his attack stat of 3. This
could boost him up to 12 attack until the end of the round if Fiery Sword is in play. This
treachery will also stack on top of any other copies you may have revealed this round. This
could potentially boost the Balrog to an incredible 18 attack until the end of the round if you
reveal all 3 copies and the Sword is attached to him (not counting shadow effects). Better
bring a chump blocker this round to deal with this. The first player will get the option to
remove a questing hero from the quest in order to cancel this effect. This will not ready the
hero, and might put a dent in your progress this round. It will also prevent you from placing
4 progress tokens on stage 2 if you remove your only hero from the quest. Use Windfola and
commit at least 2 heroes in order to cancel this effect (twice) and still make some progress.
135
• Inner Shadow: This card will surge, along with healing 5 damage off of the Balrog
immediately. This will make the final stages more difficult, and will force players to deal 5
more damage this round to get the Balrog down to 0 hitpoints if that was their goal. The first
player may remove a questing hero he controls in order to cancel the healing ability. This
would be adviced for only the last stage, as that player might want to keep a hero in reserve
to cancel the effect of Inner Flame. Removing a questing hero won’t cancel the Surge
though. Use Windfola to recommit that hero to the quest.
• Leaping Flame: This is nothing special, but the Balrog will make an additional attack against
the first player. This might screw that player over during the first few rounds, as that player
might not have counted on 2 attacks this round. This attack will deal and resolve a shadow
card, just like the regular attacks during the combat phase. Note that the Balrog makes the
attack only to the first player, regardless of his threat.
• Whip Lash: Though not a really awful shadow effect, Whip Lash will discard an attachment
from each player. Having a swarm of less useful attachments in play will save you from
having to discard a vital piece of your defence strategy. It is because of this that 2 Dunedain
Warnings are better than a Gondorian Shield. The new Dale synergy will have an easier time
to handle this treachery as they pump out attachments like crazy. Signals are at the moment
good targets, as they can be passed around to players who would otherwise have to discard
something crucial. Having attachment retrieval cards like Second Breakfast or Erebor
Hammersmith will allow you to return those attachments to your hand.
Tips and Tricks

• Try to have every deck capable of defending enemies in one way or the other. Having at
least one Tactics hero will open up the possibility of adding Feint to your decks, which can
stop the Balrog from attacking you for a turn.
• With a lot of treacheries and shadow effects boosting the Balrog to immense strength,
cancellation will be very useful in preventing the loss of a hero. You can also try to put the
unique weapon treacheries in the victory display with Out of the Wild in order to prevent
permanent boosts to the Balrog.
• Do not play a Silvan deck. There are a lot of triggers in the encounter deck when a character
leaves play. This is basically what the Silvan trait is all about, so it would be a better idea to
bring a different deck. The same principle holds for cards like Sneak Attack,
Gandalf/Saruman, and Reinforcements. Try to only have characters leave play in case you
have to chump block an attack from Durin’s Bane.
• Since enemies will not be forced to engage you for the first few turns, I would advise playing
down a couple of traps in the staging area, this will handle the threat in the staging area a
little. Effects like Arrows from the Trees and Hands upon the Bow will also be effective tools
to deal with any extra enemies in the staging area.
• Because players are instructed to set their starting threat at 0, Secrecy cards will be viable
for all decks. Try to add some copies of Resourceful for extra resources and try to dig for
Timely Aid as well to get some high-cost allies into play for cheap. Early game Secrecy can
really give a much-needed boost to your decks. Having your threat set at 0 at the start of the
game also means that you can experiment with pairing 3 high-cost heroes with each other.
Elrond, Gandalf and Treebeard are just a couple. In regular games, this would put you very
close to the Valour threshold, but that doesn’t really matter in this scenario. Don’t bother
using Valour cards unless you can get yourself there easily.
• Playing a lot of Doomed cards like Deep Knowledge and Legacy of Numenor is another great
way to start the game off with a bang. Remember that this will put you past the engagement
cost of the Balrog, so you must be able to handle that. It might be better to save your
Doomed cards for round 2. Also, communicate with other players if they would like to play
any Secrecy cards before you push them past the 20 threat.
• With your threat close to 0 at the starting rounds of the game, it can be an option to forsake
questing for a round or two. This will result in a huge increase in threat, but might also leave
you with enough characters ready to deal with the Balrog and other enemies. Be sure to get
enough questers out though, as this scenario needs willpower to progress (unlike Morgul
Vale).
• Again, DO NOT CLEAR DARK PIT IF THE BALROG IS IN PLAY. You will likely end up losing being
swarmed with other nasty cards until you can finally get Dark Pit back from the encounter
deck.
• Card draw is quite important in this scenario, as you will be discarding cards due to
encounter card effects. You also need to resupply your board with fresh chumps, so try to
draw some cards during the sceanrio to prevent your hand from getting empty.
• If players will try to use chump blockers to soak the damage from the Balrog, having 1 player
add Horn of Gondor to his decklist will make them generate a lot more resources. Note that
this card has been nerfed so that it will only trigger if players lose an ally after it has been
destroyed.
137
This brings an end to the Dwarrowdelf cycle, the second cycle in the game. Quite a couple of these
quests were fun to see again and have a high replayability. This is often regarded as one of the
strongest cycles in the game, both because the quests are so fun and because of the strong player
cards that were introduced in this cycle. Since only the Dwarf trait was really fleshed out at this time,
other cards had to be powerful in order to stand out from the rest. After this cycle, more traits got
focused and shaped into the synergies that they are today (*cough* Outlands *cough*).
While I usually come back to a few of these quests, some are easily broken with the modern card
pool. Fortunately, the Nightmare versions of the scenario’s fix most of the quests, while also
increasing the difficulty a fair bit.
With the dark depths of Moria behind us, we turn towards the Realm of Gondor and their ever
ongoing battle to keep Mordor at bay. Join us next time as we start the Against the Shadow cycle at
the salty quays of Pelargir.
Closing statements
I hope you all enjoyed this bundle of scenario analyses. I will be continuing this series for the next 2
cycles in Volume 2: Keywords and Narrative. This will cover the Against the Shadow cycle and the
Ringmaker cycle. For future Volumes after that, I will first need to complete the Dream-chaser cycle
before I can bundle it together with the Angmar Awakened cycle in Volume 3. Stay tuned for those
in the near future.
If ever I get the time to make an update to the first 2 cycles (since they are less in depth than later
articles) I will also be updating this volume once they have all been redone. Even just making this
volume showed me a couple of errors in the original articles, so I am bound to improve them at
some point after I have caught up to the current cycle.
Aa’menealla nauva calen ar’m alte
Durin’s Father
139

Vision of The Palantir Guide Volume 1 - The Early Days

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The Early Days

A Strategy Guide to The Shadows of Mirkwood

By Daan Prins, Durins_Father, host of the Vision of the Palantir blog.

Card Images are courtesy of the Hall of Beorn http://hallofbeorn.com/LotR

Community difficulties are courtesy of the LOTR Quest companion: http://lotr-lcg-quest-

Shadow and Flame ..............................................................................................................129

Passage Through Mirkwood

Quest card 1: Flies and Spiders – 8 quest points

Quest card 2: A Fork in the Road – 2 quest points

Quest card 3A: A Chosen Path

Quest card 3B: “Don’t Leave the Path!” – 0 quest points

Quest card 3B: Beorn’s Path – 10 quest points

The Encounter deck

• Ungoliant’s Spawn: The “boss” enemy of this scenario. Her When

Tips and Tricks

Quest card 1: To the River – 8 quest points

Quest card 2: Anduin Passage – 16 quest points

Quest card 3: Ambush on the Shore – 0 quest points

The Encounter deck

The encounter deck is focussing more on enemies than during

Tips and Tricks

Escape from Dol Guldur

Quest card 1: The Necromancer’s Tower – 9 quest points

Quest card 2: Through the Caverns – 15 quest points

Quest card 3: Out of the Dungeons – 7 quest points

The statistics above do not include any of the Objective

This scenario really depends on if you are playing easy

Besides the Necromancer’s Reach and the other treacheries, we have

Tips and Tricks

Quest card 1: The Hunt Begins – 8 quest points

Quest card 2: A New Terror Abroad – 10 quest points

Quest card 3: On the Trail – 8 quest points

• Flooding: Thinking on bringing a Location Control deck, well, be sure to

Tips and Tricks

Conflict at the Carrock

Stage 1 – Grimbeorn’s Quest 7 Progress Points

Stage 2 – Against the Trolls 1 Progress Point

The Encounter Deck

The enemies are varied and interesting in this quest.

Strategies, Tips and Tricks

Quest card 1: The Wounded Eagle – 8 quest points

Quest card 2: Radagast’s Request – 12 quest points

Quest card 3: Return to Rhosgobel – 0 quest points

The new expansion adds a little variety to the quest, but

The only text on Athelas is the Guarded keyword, which makes

Since the new expansion of this scenario doesn’t include a large

• Swarming Insects: This effect is brutal, while designed for

The Hills of Emyn Muil

Quest card 1: The Hills of Emyn Muil – 1 quest point

The Encounter Deck

Tips and Tricks

The Dead Marshes

Quest card 1: Into the Marshes – 12 quest points

Quest card 2: The Capture – 3 quest points

The Encounter deck

• Impassable Bog: This bog sure is impassable, 12 required quest

Then, players are instructed to discard a number of cards from the

Tips and Tricks

Quest card 1: Through the Forest – 12 quest points

Quest card 2: Escape Attempt – 3 quest points

Quest card 3: To the Elven King’s Halls – 7 quest points

Quest card 4: Ambush – 2 quest points

The Encounter deck

Toilet flushing sound