LotR LCG: The Haradrim cycle

I have crossed many mountains and many rivers, and trodden many plains, even into the far countries of Rhûn and Harad where the stars are strange.
- Aragorn, in the Lord of the Rings, book II, chapter II

Times were weird around Gencon 2016: we'd only just heard about Sands of Harad and gotten our hands on the Flame of the West when the first Haradrim adventure pack was announced, and promised for Q4 that year! Of course, none of us believed it, and as it happened, we got our copy of the Mûmakil in February 2017. February was also when the last pack in the cycle was announced; it officially came out a year later, in February 2018, but we didn't get our hands on it until the very end of April. At this release rate, the Ered Mithrin cycle should still be going!

John Howe: Haradrim, 2002

**

The Mûmakil - DL 4

The first quest in the cycle picks up right where Sands of Harad left off: our heroes have met up with Kahliel and his tribesmen, and are going to make their way back to Gondor. To do this, we're going to need to catch some Mûmakil, or Oliphaunts, to carry us across the Harad desert.

In practice, the quest is pretty heavy on locations until you get to the final phase, where you have to take on the Mûmaks and do damage to them in order to catch them. Out first three-handed attempt with the hobbits ended in location lock, so bring location control! There's also a treachery that turns into a condition attachment, Terrible Fever, and even an enemy that does the same, so bring something to get rid of them as well.

Next time, we brought a bear. This time, we survived the initial flood of locations and got our questing going. The enemies aren't very tough, but when the Mûmaks showed up, we got into a proper fight. Beorn died defending a Mûmak attack, but was brought back by Landroval, and eventually (pre-errata) Boromir secured some Support of the Eagles and memorably defended three Mûmakil in a turn! Soon enough, a Northern Tracker cleared out the locations, and when the last Mûmak fell into one of our traps, we won!

A post shared by Michael Halila (@michaelhalila) on Apr 21, 2017 at 2:47pm PDT

I still think that condition attachments are one of the worst-thought-out ideas in an otherwise excellently designed game; most quests don't have them, so something like Power of Orthanc will be a dead card most of the time. It feels a bit silly to have a list of the quests where I need to remember to add them to my deck. I like condition attachments as such - they work well in this quest - but I wish they were better integrated with the rest of the game.

Having said that, though, we enjoyed this quest. It's a bit heavy on the locations, but the mechanic where you first have to find and then catch the Mûmakil feels really thematic and a little different than anything we've done before. My only real complaints are that the locations all feel a bit too similar, and the encounter deck is really thin; in a reasonably succesful three-player game where we weren't particularly taking our time, we reshuffled at least twice. But like I said, it was fun and thematic, and I feel that this is a necessary part of the Harad experience.

Card spotlight: Wait No Longer

There were lots of useful player cards in the Mûmakil: we got Leadership Feint, Lore Feint, and, of course, Kahliel and the other objective allies from the Long Arm of Mordor as player cards. But the most interesting card here is the one that gives Tactics some encounter deck manipulation. In most quests, swapping an encounter card in staging for an engaged enemy is simply a great deal, especially for someone like Core Legolas, or a Dúnedain deck. Obviously this is an amazing card in solo, where it lets you skip staging entirely, but even with more players, everything is just that much easier with less encounter cards. Especially brilliant for a last-ditch questing push, where the extra engaged enemy just won't matter.

**

Race Across Harad - DL 6

Now that our heroes have captured Mûmaks to ride, they take off across the desert for the river Harnen, which marks the boundary between Harad and Gondor. Pursuing them are orcs on wargs, so not only do we have to survive the desert, but also outrace the orcs.

In practice, the quest setup is identical to Flight of the Stormcaller: there's the usual quest deck and staging area, and the orcs have their own area, as well as a quest deck they're advancing on. There are orc and warg enqemies, and the wargs will sometimes attach to the orcs as mounts, which is clever and works with the concept of the quest. Other than that, however, there isn't a whole lot of new stuff here. We took a swing at this back when it came out, but misplayed the orcs' questing at first, so although we won, I'm afraid we have to forfeit the result. We did have a fairly epic time of it, though, using a Boromir bomb to survive one last onslaught of enemies until a last questing push, aided greatly by Wait No Longer, got us to the river.

This is by no means an easy quest: quite a lot of threat can pile up in the staging area, and quite a few orcs in their staging area. I have to say, though, that as much fun as riding Oliphaunts across Harad is as an idea, in practice this is kind of a forgettable quest. It doesn't help that it really is exactly like Flight of the Stormcaller, but whereas that quest did a really good job of creating the feeling of an intense chase on the high seas, this is just, well, a slightly humdrum quest with like a desert, and some orcs. Decent but unimpressive.

Card spotlight: Steward of Orthanc

Two willpower and two hit points for three neutral resources? Spirit is the only sphere in which this isn't a great deal, and it's amazing for Tactics. The ability is a pure bonus. Also, it was a real pleasure to see an Orthanc ally again; it's a long time since the Ring-maker cycle, and we weren't expecting to see any more of these guys. It was kinda weird to see a whole archetype like Doomed introduced and then almost abandoned, so not only is this a really good card, but also a pleasant surprise.

**

Beneath the Sands - DL 5

In the comedy of errors that is our heroes' trek across Harad, they've now stumbled across desert spiders, and have to go rescue their companions from a spider cave in the desert.

We gave it a shot, and while the quest itself isn't too difficult, we eventually lost to location lock because several copies of Blocked Passage showed up, completely negating all of my deck's location control abilities. So that was annoying. Other than that, it's not a bad quest, but the on track - off track mechanism is a bit fiddly, and basically the quest consists of clearing uninteresting locations and fighting weakish enemies. Not exactly memorable.

Card spotlight: Keep Watch

An interesting side quest for several reasons: not a battle quest like the previous Tactics side quest, and a potentially very useful effect. Side quests are very situational, and since they're limited to one copy each, rarely show up, but this is one I really wouldn't mind seeing in, say, Moria.

**

The Black Serpent - DL 8

With the spiders behind us, our heroes come across the Black Serpent's forces. This quest is a pleasant surprise, as we're the ones doing the raiding for a change: you advance the quest both by placing progress and capturing objectives, which earns you the increasing attention of your enemies. Also, we're finally fighting the Haradrim again, in this adventure pack cycle called the jungle creatures southern orcs desert spiders Haradrim!

We took a stab at this quest three-handed with our visiting hobbit player, and pretty comprehensively threated out after losing several heroes to a combination of nasty shadow effects and the Black Serpent himself. Like the quests in the Harad deluxe expansion, this one was difficult (even if DL 8 feels a bit high), but it didn't steamroll us with massive enemies or giant piles of threat. Instead, this is another intelligently designed quest where the different pieces interact with each other to produce an escalating threat that you feel like you have several ways to fight. So a good quest, then; if you don't mind a little difficulty, I might even recommend it.

Card spotlight: Southron Refugee

An inadvertently topical card in terms of contemporary politics, the Southron Refugee is also the first faction reducer character like the ones we're used to seeing in the Game of Thrones LCG. She's certainly well suited to the expensive unique Harad allies, and the second hit point means she's not entirely useless on her own either. I also wanted to highlight this card because it reminds us of a feature of Tolkien's works that so often gets overlooked: his humanity towards the enemies of the Free Peoples. Sam gets a moment of empathy with the dead Southron warrior; Gandalf tells us he even pities the orcs. Similarly, the suffering and destruction of war isn't elided in the Lord of the Rings, but is part of the overall tragedy. So as a Tolkien fan, I'm very happy that Southron Refugee is part of our card collection.

**

The Dungeons of Cirith Gurat - DL 7

I guess the raiding of the southron caravan didn't go all that well, because the next quest is a jailbreak. This one focuses on capturing allies, but I have to be honest and say that we didn't really get anywhere with this quest, so this is a bit of a non-review. We found the combination of pure difficulty right off the bat and the sheer amount of text and special mechanics so offputting that we gave up on this one. Maybe there's a good quest hidden under all that stuff, but honestly, I doubt it.

Card spotlight: Heirs of Eärendil

Not only is this an excellent location control card, but I love the way it takes the Haradrim cycle mechanic of playing off heroes' traits and executes it in a very Tolkienian way. I used this with Arwen and Idraen, which I find adorably cute in so many ways.

**

The Crossings of Poros - DL 5

The last phase of our heroes' journey takes them to the Poros, the river that marks the boundary between Gondor and the lands of the Haradrim. Continuing the trend of really fiddly quests right to the end of the cycle, here you get an encounter deck and four different set-aside encounter decks. The occasional treachery will make you reveal a random card from a set-aside deck, and which randomly selected quest stage you end up on also removes some decks. This is another one of those things where on the one hand, I see how this is good for replay value and it's kind of interesting in itself, but again, it's fiddly, overly complicated and distracts from the actual gameplay. Because you can also draw just about anything, on our first try we found ourselves facing both the Uruk Chieftain and a Southron Champion - in addition to The Black Serpent, obviously - on our second turn! So the difficulty level can be, shall we say, variable. Still, at least it's an interesting quest, although again we didn't get very far.

Card spotlight: Wind from the Sea

Magic Ring is also in this adventure pack, and it's a really cool card because it's about time we got an artifact that represents both the potential and the danger of Rings of Power! But I like Flight to the Sea more, because it's also intensely Tolkien, and it lets you screw around with the encounter deck, and that's always fun. Specifically, for the measly price of two Spirit resources, you get to shuffle this beauty into the encounter deck:

It doesn't even have surge! I love the art, and the card itself is such a delight to see in staging. When it turns up as a shadow card, it can sometimes feel a bit wasted - but in that case it goes back into the discards, so if you're lucky you'll draw it again. An excellent card, very cheap and I think definitely worth bringing in any Spirit deck that can afford it.

**

On the whole, then, the Haradrim cycle was a bit of a mixed bag. None of the quests really stand out; Black Serpent was pretty good, Dungeons of Cirith Gurat wasn't; Crossings of Poros was kind of interesting, most of the rest of them weren't. I think Poros is the only one we'd be interested in revisiting at all. So I might actually go as far as to say - with the considerable caveat that we've barely played the Angmar adventure packs at all - that unfortunately the Haradrim cycle is the blandest adventure pack cycle in the game.

**

As for my deck, it remains unchanged.

57 cards; 33 Spirit, 20 Lore, 4 neutral; 25 allies, 13 attachments, 16 events, 3 side quests. Starting threat 27.

Lanwyn (TTitD)
Idraen (TTT)
Rossiel (EfMG)

Allies: 25 (19/6)
Elfhelm (TDM)
Northern Tracker ×2
Bofur (TRG)
Elrohir (TMoF)
Greyflood Wanderer (TTT) ×2
Rhovanion Outrider (TotD) ×2
Arwen Undómiel (TWitW) ×2
Bilbo Baggins (TRD)
Curious Brandybuck (TWoE)
Galadriel's Handmaiden (CS) ×3
West Road Traveler (RtM) ×3
Elladan (TMoF)
Mablung (TLoS)
Warden of Healing (TLD) ×3
Henamarth Riversong

Attachments: 13 (7/5/1)
Unexpected Courage ×2
Light of Valinor (FoS) ×2
Mithril Shirt (TFoW)
Song of Eärendil (RtR)
Warden of Arnor (TTT)
A Burning Brand (CatC) ×2
Cloak of Lórien (CS)
Dúnedain Pipe (TBS)
Map of Rhovanion (TWoR)
Magic Ring (TCoP)

Events: 16 (5/8/3)
Flight to the Sea (TCoP) ×2
A Test of Will ×3
Leave No Trace (EfMG) ×2
None Return (AtE) ×3
Daeron's Runes (FoS) ×3
Keen as Lances (EfMG) ×3

Side quests: 3 (2/1)
Rally the West (TBS)
Double Back (EfMG)
Scout Ahead (TWoE)

Sideboard:
Dwarven Tomb ×2
Power of Orthanc (VoI) ×3
Deep Knowledge (VoI) ×3

Lord of the Rings saga expansions with Fellowship Frodo when the hobbit deck isn't around sideboard:
Sam Gamgee (TTitD) x1

LotR LCG: Where the shadows are

"Yes, Barliman, Mordor, you fatso."
- The Fellowship of the Ring, more or less

We were pleasantly surprised when A Shadow in the East was announced in April, and absolutely shocked to find it at our friendly local gaming store in August. However, there it was, and with good memories of Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor still in mind, of course we had to get it.

**

The River Running - DL 6

In the first quest of the deluxe, our heroes are supposedly traveling down the epynomous river, but what you're really doing is fighting a massive horde of enemies while a timer ticks down and unleashes even more enemies. Yes, it's Fords of Isen all over again, but where the Dunlendings had the slightly interesting mechanic of being affected by the number of cards in your hand, the Easterlings have attachments. So if you're using some of the new cards that work off attachments on enemies, like new ally Faramir, there's that.

Also like the Fords of the Isen, this unfortunately isn't a very interesting quest, since being swamped in enemies and Archery already got kind of old in Heirs of Númenor. So frankly, a disappointing start to the deluxe.

Danger in Dorwinion - DL 5

If the River Running was Fords of Isen 2.0, Danger in Dorwinion delightfully continues the series of alliterating urban quests, both in name and in being really good. In terms of mechanics, this is The Steward's Fear, with randomized plots and enemies and advancing by clearing urban locations, but set in Dorwinion and even better. The key mechanic here is that various enemies and treacheries keep raising your threat, which gets especially nasty when you draw the plot that lowers your threat elimination level.

This is actually one of my favorite quests in the entire game. Like so many quests lately, it's a bit fiddly, but not too much, and most importantly it's just fun to play. You don't get buried in enemies or locations straight away or find yourself having to defend eight attacks per round; the threat builds up, but you feel like you have a fighting chance. I really think this is an excellent quest. The only improvement I'd make is that the encounter deck is a bit small. Also the art is beautiful, and finally I have to mention what I think may be the best treachery ever: Secret Cultist.

Hilariously, we repeatedly had it hit us when all of our allies in play had an attack of 0, which led to Cultist Handmaidens.

For anyone keeping score, the best alliterating urban quests are, in order:

1. Danger in Dorwinion
(2. Escape from Umbar)
3. Trouble in Tharbad
4. Peril in Pelargir

Honorary mention: Conflict at the Carrock. It isn't urban, but sounds enough like an epic boxing event that it fits the bill. Why did the Ered Mithrin cycle not have Duel in Dale or something?! Encounter at Esgaroth!

The Temple of Doom - DL 7

The last quest is another retread of a familiar mechanic: there's an end boss in the staging area, but you can't attack him until you've done enough questing, although every now and then he attacks you. I mean it's decently executed, but maybe the game is showing its age a bit when every quest in the new deluxe is pretty much an old quest with new art.

We gave this a shot, and managed to draw such a sequence of direct damage that our heroes got murdered by Easterlings in short order. One mechanic I like is that as the quest progresses, you reveal more cards from the Power of Mordor deck, which make everything a little harder. It works very well to evoke the sense that the dark realm is, well, right there and casting its shadow over you.

All in all, though, this didn't feel like a particularly impressive or interesting quest, because we really kind of felt we've seen the same thing so many times before.

**

The player cards of A Shadow in the East are very appropriately centered around, well, this one:

In addition to the One Ring, there are several Master cards that go with it and, of course, our first ever double-sided hero card: Gollum. As Sméagol, he's a Lore hero with a threat of 3, making for some intriguing secrecy possibilities. However, if you have him as one of your heroes, you have to shuffle two copies of the Stinker treachery into the encounter deck; they flip Sméagol over into Gollum, who fights you as an enemy. It's a pretty good way of modeling Sméagol as an untrustworthy ally who can turn on you when you least expect it.

We also get ally versions of Merry, Pippin and Faramir, all pretty solid. Pippin should find a home in several Tactics decks purely on the strength of 2 willpower for 2 resources. The really interesting player card here, though, is none of these, or even the One Ring. It's this one:

This is the first Contract card, an entirely new card type that doesn't go into your deck, but is set up at the start of the game and goes into effect right away. You know them as agenda cards in Game of Thrones. This one stops you from playing non-unique allies, but when you have exactly nine unique characters in play, you flip it over:

This is very thematic, pretty powerful, and I'm actually half-seriously thinking about a Fellowship version of my Hobbit deck. But I love that we're getting a whole new card type - the first since Lost Realm - and I hope we see more contracts in the future!

**

I kind of feel the same way about this as I did about Lost Realm: I want to like it for the theme, but whereas Lost Realm was too frustrating, this was kind of bland. The exception is Danger in Dorwinion, which is an absolutely excellent quest. But when the player cards are also quite niche, I'm on the fence about whether I'd recommend buying this or not. I guess if you really want a Sméagol hero? We'll have to wait and see what the adventure packs are like.

We now have some reason to believe that this is, in fact, the last deluxe expansion - at least as we now know them. If that turns out to be the case, then at least it was a good one. However, this is apparently not to say that the game is finished; but we don't know what the new stuff coming after 2020 will be. I had been thinking that it would be weird if Fantasy Flight didn't try to cash in on the supposedly upcoming Amazon Tolkien series in 2021, so maybe we'll see some kind of semi-reboot to coincide with it? Luckily, we have been told there are no plans for a second edition, but a new core set, for instance? Whatever it is, we hope the game still has a future, because we are still rather fond of it.

**

On the occasion of the new deluxe, I rebuilt my deck from first principles, with a couple of new things that I want to test.

Since my partner is still committed to a mono-Tactics deck that basically fights a lot, that leaves me responsible for questing and location control. I've kept this emphasis, and started by going through the Spirit allies best suited to it. So that means keeping my Northern Trackers, Galadriel's Handmaidens, West Road Travellers and, of course, Bilbo Baggins. I've also found Rhovanion Outrider to be quite good, especially when setting up combos with Northern Tracker and Idraen. I will also be bringing back Greyflood Wanderer; a solid enough ally on their own, with a special ability that just might save us from location lock.

I mentioned Idraen; I'm also keeping Rossiel, but I think it's now finally time to bring in Lanwyn. I like her surge response, and with a ranged attack she can potentially help out my partner. I've definitely liked hero Arwen, especially since the card is so beautiful, but I feel like I want to try something different. This also unlocks one of the best Spirit allies in the entire game, ally Arwen, who I'm definitely including, along with her brothers Elladan and Elrohir.

So far, so good: that's seventeen questing allies, with a little bit of combat upside against orcs in the case of the twins. I trawled through all the available Spirit allies to see if there was anyone I should try, and I decided on one stalwart from way back in my first deck ever, and a couple of new cards to try. First, good old Elfhelm, for a little combat power and threat reduction. I found him useful back in the day, and frankly, the proliferation of Doomed effects and other threat-raising malarkey in Shadow in the East made me miss him! I'm also trying Bofur; I try to keep a Spirit resource handy for A Test of Will, so I guess I could use it on Bofur as well. Finally, I'm going to figure out if Curious Brandybuck is any good or not.

With only one Lore hero, I don't want to bring too many Lore allies, but after all this time, there's still no getting around Warden of Healing as simply the best healing ally in the game. Apart from them and Elladan, I'm only bringing Mablung, and in another blast from the past, Henamarth Riversong.

The main reason I don't want to take too many Lore cards is that I need to be able to keep a resource handy for Leave No Trace and None Return to power Rossiel's ability and Keen as Lances, which is a truly excellent card, especially when several people are running it. The only other events I'm bringing are the compulsory Daeron's Runes, A Test of Will and the delightful Flight to the Sea, because I love messing with the encounter deck. I'm not really sold on any of the location control events; I quite liked The Evening Star in my mono-Lore deck, but it'd be competing for scarce Lore resources here, and none of the Spirit events quite made the cut. With a cardpool this big, it's not so much about what cards are useful, but what there's space for in the deck...

Attachments start with the obvious; as the wags have it, Expected Courage. Similarly obviously, A Burning Brand, especially since we refuse to acknowledge the errata - mostly because we can't remember it! Light of Valinor is brilliant on Rossiel, and Cloak of Lórien is so thematically excellent on her that I'm bringing a copy. I've also come to think of Magic Ring as a kind of must-have; it's neutral and limited to one per deck, so really, why not? Most of the attachments I've got are more on the lines of things that are nice to see when they pop up, rather than staples I need to see in my hand. On that note, I'm bringing back Song of Eärendil, both to help out my partner in their Boromir shenanigans, and because of the art. The three people who read this blog know that I'm a sucker for pretty nautical cards.

Although I'm pretty sure Eärendil's ship was more like a longship than that galleon, and also is that a fourth mast that the aftmost lateen is on? Anyway, a couple of new attachments I'm bringing are Warden of Arnor and Map of Rhovanion, for location control purposes. Finally, in keeping with my principle that I want to be able to search for something when we come across the Lost Armories of the world, I'm bringing a Mithril Shirt, and also a Dúnedain Pipe for Bilbo to find. This last attachment was originally a bit of a joke, but it's actually been kind of useful!

That's everything except side quests, of which I'm having three: the same Double Back and Scout Ahead (a pleasant symmetry) as before, and also Rally the West, to see if it's worth playing. That takes me up to 57 cards, so I'd better be done!

A couple of words about what I didn't include, the most major point being threat reducers. Partly this is because the economics of The Galadhrim's Greeting are the worst for two players, and there's almost always two of us, but I find in general that I've become a threat reduction skeptic. Unless you're doing something very specific like a Secrecy and/or hobbit deck, threat reduction doesn't usually advance the quest; it just buys more time. And in multiplayer, it buys more time for one of us. So I'm just leaving it out in favor of stuff that will hopefully actually contribute to us getting things done.

Anyway here's the deck, we'll see how it goes!

57 cards; 33 Spirit, 20 Lore, 4 neutral; 25 allies, 13 attachments, 16 events, 3 side quests. Starting threat 27.

Lanwyn (TTitD)
Idraen (TTT)
Rossiel (EfMG)

Allies: 25 (19/6)
Elfhelm (TDM)
Northern Tracker ×2
Bofur (TRG)
Elrohir (TMoF)
Greyflood Wanderer (TTT) ×2
Rhovanion Outrider (TotD) ×2
Arwen Undómiel (TWitW) ×2
Bilbo Baggins (TRD)
Curious Brandybuck (TWoE)
Galadriel's Handmaiden (CS) ×3
West Road Traveler (RtM) ×3
Elladan (TMoF)
Mablung (TLoS)
Warden of Healing (TLD) ×3
Henamarth Riversong

Attachments: 13 (7/5/1)
Unexpected Courage ×2
Light of Valinor (FoS) ×2
Mithril Shirt (TFoW)
Song of Eärendil (RtR)
Warden of Arnor (TTT)
A Burning Brand (CatC) ×2
Cloak of Lórien (CS)
Dúnedain Pipe (TBS)
Map of Rhovanion (TWoR)
Magic Ring (TCoP)

Events: 16 (5/8/3)
Flight to the Sea (TCoP) ×2
A Test of Will ×3
Leave No Trace (EfMG) ×2
None Return (AtE) ×3
Daeron's Runes (FoS) ×3
Keen as Lances (EfMG) ×3

Side quests: 3 (2/1)
Rally the West (TBS)
Double Back (EfMG)
Scout Ahead (TWoE)

Sideboard:
Dwarven Tomb ×2
Power of Orthanc (VoI) ×3
Deep Knowledge (VoI) ×3

Lord of the Rings saga expansions with Fellowship Frodo when the hobbit deck isn't around sideboard:
Sam Gamgee (TTitD) x1

LotR LCG: A long-expected quest

He waited for an opportunity, when the talk was going again, and Tom was telling an absurd story about badgers and their queer ways - then he slipped the Ring on.
- The Lord of the Rings, book I, chapter VII

Now that my Tolkien-reading project has gotten well into the Lord of the Rings, it's about time we got started on those saga expansions as well. Each of these saga quest posts will go through two adventures, incorporating the standalone scenarios that fit into the campaign; this post, for instance, deals with the first quest in the Black Riders expansion, as well as the Old Forest standalone quest.

John Howe: The Black Rider, 1985

**

A Shadow of the Past

In the very first quest of the campaign, Frodo flees Bag End, and everyone gets stabbed by Ring-wraiths and dies; the end.

In practice, you have to quest your way to Bucklebury Ferry while avoiding the Nazgul with Hide tests. It's the same as the Escape tests in the Dead Marshes, back in the Mirkwood cycle, i.e. an extra round of questing, and to be honest, it wasn't a great mechanic then, either. Here you have to quest, have questers in reserve if you need to take a Hide test, and in case that fails, defend a Nazgûl twice.

We tried this with three players, and it was not easy. The Ring-wraiths aren't impossibly tough, but when you have to defend multiple attacks by them, and somehow at the same time put together a fair bit of questing and hiding, it's a lot to do, especially when not really running ally-heavy decks. I guess a Leadership/dwarf swarm deck would find this much easier going, and I can kinda see why they were so popular back in the day.

I do want to say that the location cards are, again, absolutely lovely. But after several attempts, I don't really see why people think so highly of this quest.

**

The Old Forest

In the first of the standalone quests that can be included in the saga campaign, our heroes get lost in the Old Forest.

Basically this is the Hills of Emyn Muil, but with trees; you cycle through different quest stages until you've gathered enough victory points to advance to the last stage, where you have to quest while being attacked by Old Man Willow. Sometimes Tom Bombadil can show up.

I thought this was a decent quest, but I feel it's let down a bit by the enemies being kinda boring, and by being a bit arduous, especially in the last quest stage where your threat is skyrocketing and you're defending constant attacks from trees. The Old Forest is one of my favorite parts of the Lord of the Rings, so I really wanted to like this quest, but it's not really something I see us returning to any time soon.


So, in all kind of a mixed bag to start the Lord of the Rings saga; one quest we definitely weren't impressed with, and a slog through the Old Forest. Maybe I'm being unfair, but it feels like the saga quests have been hyped as the best thing ever for so long, and I really feel quite underwhelmed by the first two.

**

As long as we're playing saga quests where Fellowship Frodo is around, I'm definitely adding at least one copy of ally Sam. Given how kickass his hero incarnation is, ally Sam is a bit of a disappointment, but the Frodo discount makes him a one-cost ally with two willpower, which is one heck of a bargain.

Back when we played The King's Quest in the Wilds of Rhovanion, I was very disappointed when traveling to Lost Armory let us search for a weapon or armor attachment, and I didn't have any! I decided I have to fix this, so I'm bringing a Ranger Bow for Idraen.

Also, now that we're on the subject of hobbits and searching for attachments, I've had ally Bilbo in my deck for quite a while, but I've never had a pipe he could fetch! So I've decided to see whether Dúnedain Pipe would be a more fun way of getting card draw than Ancient Mathom.

56 cards; 29 Spirit, 22 Lore, 5 neutral; 22 allies, 12 attachments, 18 events, 2 side quests. Starting threat 28.

Arwen Undómiel (TDR)
Idraen (TTT)
Rossiel (EfMG)

Allies: 22 (15/6/1)
Jubayr (TM)
Northern Tracker x2
Súlien (TCoC)
Elrohir (TMoF)
Lindir (TBoCD)
Rhovanion Outrider (ToTD) x2
Bilbo Baggins (TRD)
Galadriel's Handmaiden (CS) x3
West Road Traveler (RtM) x3
Elladan (TMoF)
Gléowine
Mablung (TLoS)
Warden of Healing (TLD) x3
Gandalf (OHaUH)

Attachments: 13 (4/8/1)
Unexpected Courage x2
Light of Valinor (FoS) x2
A Burning Brand (CatC) x2
Cloak of Lórien (CS) x2
Dúnedain Pipe (TBS)
Ranger Bow (AoO)
The Long Defeat (TBoCD) x2
Magic Ring (TCoP)

Events: 19 (8/8/3)
Flight to the Sea (TCoP)
A Test of Will x3
Elven-light (TDR) x2
Heirs of Eärendil (TDoCG) x2
Leave No Trace (EfMG) x2
None Return (AtE) x3
Daeron's Runes (FoS) x3
Keen as Lances (EfMG) x3

Side quests: 2
Double Back (EfMG)
Scout Ahead (TWoE)

Lord of the Rings saga expansions with Fellowship Frodo when the hobbit deck isn't around sideboard:
Sam Gamgee (TTitD) x1

LotR LCG: Over the Edge of the Wild

"There are no safe paths in this part of the world. Remember you are over the Edge of the Wild now, and in for all sorts of fun wherever you go."
- The Hobbit, chapter VII

In a slightly bizarre episode, someone got their hands on the Crossings of Poros AP as long ago as July 2017, and spoiled the accompanying flavor text, which strongly indicated that the next deluxe would be set in Dale. Finally, in December, the Wilds of Rhovanion deluxe expansion was announced, and promised for the first quarter of 2018. We got it at the very end of June.

John Howe: An Unexpected Party, 2000.

**

Journey up the Anduin - DL 5

I wonder why they still bother with the difficulty levels? Journey Up the Anduin is obviously a sort of revisiting of the second core set quest, Journey Down the Anduin. What with the Hill Troll and everything, the original quest is, in my mind, one of the true classics of the game. I still remember the first time I beat it solo. The reverse journey here uses most of the same encounter cards as the original did, and this return to the core set had a lot of us thinking that this would definitely be the last deluxe expansion! Luckily we were wrong.

The quest itself is okay. I liked using the old encounter cards mixed in with the new stuff; I disliked the "evil creatures" deck, because it feels fiddly. But the difficulty level felt manageable, and while this quest doesn't hold a candle to the brilliance of the original, it was perfectly decent.

**

Lost in Mirkwood - DL 5

Once we've made it up the Anduin, the next quest is a retread of Passage Through Mirkwood, only with more spiders and way more locations.

This really is location lock: the quest. The first time I tried it, we were completely swamped by locations, and with cards like Dark Black Woods and Twilight Hall in play, even Northern Tracker couldn't save us. On a second attempt with my partner's Tactics deck, we got the location control engine up and running, and actually managed to beat the quest!

I'm kind of on the fence about Lost in Mirkwood; if you can manage to not get buried under the avalanche of locations the encounter deck provides, it's quite doable; even kinda fun. But if the locations hit just right, or you don't have the right cards to deal with them, this is a frustratingly impossible quest.

**

The King's Quest - DL 5

Having made their way to Dale, for some inexplicable reason our heroes have volunteered to raid the Iron Hills version of Moria. Luckily there isn't a Balrog, but there is a dragon. This quest uses a "Deep" mechanic, where locations with the Deep keyword are replaced by locations from a Caves deck when you travel to them. This is actually a pretty clever mechanic, as it introduces some uncertainty into traveling.

As a quest, King's Quest is a fairly straightforward dungeon crawl, with frankly slightly boring enemies (except the Werewolf and Hobgoblin!), that turns into a pretty decent bossfight against the dragon guarding its treasure. We damn near beat this quest on our first try; we were doing all right until the damn dragon murdered all of my questers! But it was fun.

**

The player cards in this expansion are all Dale-themed. Of these, Bow of Yew should find a home in quite a few Tactics decks as a 0-cost weapon that can trigger events like Foe-hammer, and Leadership decks should like Hauberk of Mail. Another card of general interest is Necklace of Girion, which introduces the Guarded trait for player cards: the Necklace gets attached to a location or enemy card from the encounter deck, which you have to beat to get the attachment. This sounds like it might be fun!

Other than these cards, everything revolves around the Dale trait and attachments, so in terms of player cards, get this if you're into that kind of thing?

**

Because all three quests heavily feature locations and are most easily lost through location lock, this really is location lock: the deluxe expansion. If you're looking for quests, I can't recommend this expansion unless you have a deck that's not just decent, but good at location control. If Heirs of Númenor was the combat deluxe, this is the location control one. If you've got what it takes for locations, then this was a decently fun box; I didn't think any of the three quests were great, but they were perfectly competent. I kind of liked that they used the core set encounter cards, but then I also didn't think they did anything particularly clever with them. I can't remember when I've last seen an East Bight Patrol, though!

I mentioned fiddliness in the context of the enemy creatures deck in Lost in Mirkwood, and I think it's been a recurring problem from since the first adventure pack cycle ever; there was something you needed to do when questing that we never could reliably remember to do in Hunt for Gollum. In my mind, the problem is that the core gameplay in this game is so solid, that what we at least want from a quest is to just sit down and play the damn game! Everything that breaks up the flow of the game - special tests or discards or whatever that are out of the normal turn sequence - is not only difficult to remember, but takes away from the core gameplay experience that we like so much. I find I much prefer straightforward quests, even if they're a little bit boring, to ones that try to have too many moving parts - where the end result tends to be that we forget to move said parts! Anyway I didn't think the quests in this deluxe were too fiddly, but these are some general thoughts brought on by thinking about the subject.

**

It's been ages since I really played, but I did make a change to my deck! While I was initially kinda excited about Dúnedain Pathfinder, I've rarely found myself in a situation where I can play him - or when I can, we don't need him. This is kind of a "win more" card in my opinion: if we're clearing locations efficiently enough, then we don't really need two more willpower.

Lately, with quests like Desert Crossing and Lost in Mirkwood and the like, the opposite has been the problem: even though we can put down a decent amount of questing and I have a bunch of location control tools, we still end up in location lock more often than not. I feel like the designers felt a need to compensate for the new location control tools we got since Grey Havens by burying us in horrible locations. Nonetheless, I think we need more help with location control, and with a Noldor and Dúnadan hero, I think the answer is Heirs of Eärendil.

Finally, I figured I'd give the new Guarded mechanic a shot with Necklace of Girion.

56 cards; 30 Spirit, 20 Lore, 6 neutral; 22 allies, 12 attachments, 18 events, 2 side quests. Starting threat 28.

Arwen Undómiel (TDR)
Idraen (TTT)
Rossiel (EfMG)

Allies: 22 (15/6/1)
Jubayr (TM)
Northern Tracker x2
Súlien (TCoC)
Elrohir (TMoF)
Lindir (TBoCD)
Rhovanion Outrider (ToTD) x2
Bilbo Baggins (TRD)
Galadriel's Handmaiden (CS) x3
West Road Traveler (RtM) x3
Elladan (TMoF)
Gléowine
Mablung (TLoS)
Warden of Healing (TLD) x3
Gandalf (OHaUH)

Attachments: 13 (5/6/2)
Unexpected Courage x2
Ancient Mathom (AJtR)
Light of Valinor (FoS) x2
A Burning Brand (CatC) x2
Cloak of Lórien (CS) x2
The Long Defeat (TBoCD) x2
Magic Ring (TCoP)
Necklace of Girion (TWoR)

Events: 19 (8/8/3)
Flight to the Sea (TCoP)
A Test of Will x3
Elven-light (TDR) x2
Heirs of Eärendil (TDoCG) x2
Leave No Trace (EfMG) x2
None Return (AtE) x3
Daeron's Runes (FoS) x3
Keen as Lances (EfMG) x3

Side quests: 2
Double Back (EfMG)
Scout Ahead (TWoE)

LotR LCG: Thy kinsfolk wander afar

John Howe: Descent into Rivendell, no date given

**

Back in 2016, we had a couple of friends coming over to try the Lord of the Rings living card game for the first time, and I wanted to build them some decks to choose from. One of them was a Dúnedain deck I pretty much threw together on the spur of the moment from cards we had that nobody was using at the time; I'd used Beravor before in my first deck ever, but other than her, I had practically no experience with the Dúnedain archetype. This was what I came up with:

50 cards; 31 Leadership, 16 Lore, 3 Tactics; 21 allies, 17 attachments, 9 events, 1 side quest. Starting threat 30.

Amarthiúl (TBoCD)
Halbarad (TLR)
Beravor

Allies: 23 (14/6/3)
Eldahir (TTitD) x2
Dúnedain Watcher (TDM) x3
Guardian of Arnor (TBoCD) x3
Son of Arnor x3
Weather Hills Watchman (TLR) x3
East Road Ranger (TWoE) x3
Sarn Ford Sentry (TLR) x3
Dúnedain Hunter (TLR) x3

Attachments: 17 (11/6)
Heir of Valandil (TLR) x2
Dúnedain Mark (THfG) x3
Dúnedain Quest (AJtR) x3
Dúnedain Warning (CatC) x3
Forest Snare x3
Athelas (TLR) x3

Events: 9 (6/3)
Descendants of Kings (EfMG) x3
Fresh Tracks (TLD) x3
Expecting Mischief (OHaUH) x3

Side quests:
Scout Ahead (EfMG)

**

This deck actually made its first outing at the hands of a new player, and I was surprised at how succesful it was. We breezed through Passage through Mirkwood, but a four-handed attempt at Into the Pit turned into a grueling, multi-hour slog through a gigantic pile of locations and an even larger horde of goblins. After a near-disastrous initial staging, we got much further than I ever expected before threating out in the second quest stage. In both quests, the Dúnedain more than pulled their weight, so I think I managed to accidentally create a working deck!

Now that I'd actually seen the deck in action, a couple of thoughts struck me. Seeing as how they need to stay engaged with enemies and therefore have to defend regularly, at least until you can get some enemies snared, it occurs to me that A Burning Brand might be a really good idea, along with Song of Wisdom, which would also add some resource smoothing. I've also got a spare copy of Armored Destrier hanging around, and since every hero is a ranger, Wingfoot would also fit in quite nicely.

53 cards; 32 Leadership, 15 Lore, 3 Tactics, 1 neutral; 23 allies, 22 attachments, 6 events, 1 side quest. Starting threat 30.

Amarthiúl (TBoCD)
Halbarad (TLR)
Beravor

Allies: 23 (14/6/3)
Eldahir (TTitD) x2
Dúnedain Watcher (TDM) x3
Guardian of Arnor (TBoCD) x3
Son of Arnor x3
Weather Hills Watchman (TLR) x3
East Road Ranger (TWoE) x3
Sarn Ford Sentry (TLR) x3
Dúnedain Hunter (TLR) x3

Attachments: 23 (12/10/1)
Armored Destrier (TotD)
Heir of Valandil (TLR) x2
Roheryn (TFotW) x2
Dúnedain Remedy x3
Dúnedain Warning (CatC) x3
Rune-master (ASoCH)
Forest Snare x3
A Burning Brand (CatC) x2
Athelas (TLR) x3
Wingfoot (TNiE) x2
Song of Wisdom (CatC)

Events: 6
Descendants of Kings (EfMG) x3
Fresh Tracks (TLD) x3

Side quests:
Scout Ahead (EfMG)

**

In this form, the deck was succesfully employed by a new player on, of all places, a Sweden boat, where I introduced two new players to the game with Passage Through Mirkwood.

A photo posted by Michael Halila (@michaelhalila) on Jan 13, 2017 at 1:23pm PST

It was a success, in that we beat the quest, but also in that as near as I could tell, everyone enjoyed themselves. So both new players I gave the Dúnedain deck to liked it. I guess the theme of engaging enemies is easy to take to, but I also enjoyed playing it, so maybe this is just a good deck type!

**

So that's the lesson here, I guess: Dúnedain decks are fun! Try one.

LotR LCG: Return to Arnor

Kings of little kingdoms fought together, and the young Sun shone like fire on the red metal of their new and greedy swords.
- The Lord of the Rings, book I, chapter VII

Way back when we tried the Lost Realm deluxe expansion for the first time a couple of years ago, we weren't too impressed. It was a real shame, too, since I have a soft spot for Eriador. However, here we are: it was the last deluxe expansion before Wilds of Rhovanion that we haven't played, and since the Crossing of Poros was so interminably delayed, we had a bunch of time on our hands. So let's see what the experience is like with a considerably larger cardpool.

**

Intruders in Chetwood - DL 4

In the first quest of the expansion, our heroes set off from Rivendell to help a ranger track a party of orcs heading for Bree. There's just a single quest stage, but you'll be hampered by encounter side quests, and also have to destroy all the Orc War Parties you come across. All the while your threat is raised by enemies in the staging area, but they don't make encounter checks so you have to pick them off one by one.

There's quite a bit of ally hate and some multiple attacks by enemies, which is decidedly less fun with post-errata Boromir. There's also a lovely uncancellable Treachery where everyone suddenly attacks you. So in all, you need to quest, fight and do location control while your threat is racing upward.

It's not a bad quest by any means, and I do have to say that the art on the locations is some of the best in the game. The enemies, however, are actually quite dull, which kind of detracts from the experience.

**

The Weather Hills - DL 5

After intercepting the orcs, our heroes hunt down the survivors in the wilderness. Here you have to explore locations to find orcs to kill, and once you've killed enough of them, the final quest stage unleashes a flood of encounter cards that you have to quest through in a limited time. All this is done while also dealing with a pile of nasty weather treacheries.

This is a quest I really want to like: it's got very pretty locations in Arnor, and very strongly Tolkien themes of ruins, travel and weather. In practice, though, we're facing almost the exact same orcs as in the previous scenario, and they're still boring. There's also an extra level of difficulty to the quest that we felt was unnecessary. I generally like it when different mechanics and themes in a quest interact with each other, but here they just pile difficulty on top of difficulty. Again, I wouldn't say this is a bad quest, but it's quite tough, and quite heavily dependent on either some strong combat ability or plentiful healing. I also suspect it would lend itself quite well to a We Must Away -style delay in finishing the first stage.

**

Deadmen's Dike - DL 7

In the last quest of the expansion, our heroes end up in Fornost or something, and you have to fight a horde of the undead, as well as a special undead bad guy. I actually feel we did better against this quest than the others, but maybe that's just luck. Some of the sorcery effects are interesting, and the location art remains excellent throughout, but I dunno, this quest didn't exactly captivate us either. We were eventually overrun by a massive pile of undead in the last quest stage.

**

As for player cards, this is a strongly thematic expansion, with almost every card directy associated with the Dúnedain trait. The heroes are Halbarad and Neil Young Aragorn, both of whose abilities are keyed to engaging enemies, which is what Dúnedain decks are all about.

There's also a whole stack of Dúnedain allies, and an attachment to get them into play faster - provided you're engaged with an enemy, of course. There's a couple of nice touches, like Weather Hills Watchman, who lets you fetch a Signal card from your deck - say, one of those handy little stat-boosting attachments from way back in the Mirkwood cycle - and Dúnedain Hunter, who fetches an enemy from the encounter deck. The latter is clearly very handy for Dúnedain decks, but we've also had some success using him to find someone for Legolas to kill. There's also Ranger of the North, a unique player card in that you shuffle it into the encounter deck.

A couple of other cards are also of broader utility: Secret Vigil gives Tactics some fairly rare threat reduction, and Athelas provides a whole bunch of healing, with a useful side effect of also removing a condition attachment. I should also mention the first-ever player side quest, Gather Information; after all, it's not every deluxe expansion that introduces a whole new card type.

So basically, if you want to build a Dúnedain deck, you need this expansion, and they're a lot of fun to play! If not, there might be something useful for you, but nothing particularly unmissable. This really is a fairly tightly focused set of player cards.

**

With a much broader card pool than last time, the quests of the Lost Realm are still difficult, but not kick-in-the-face difficult like, say, Heirs of Númenor. Still, there's a reason why I'm posting about this game so much less nowadays: it's that it's too hard to be fun any more. Each of these quests felt like a chore to play, because we barely felt we had a decent chance at beating them at all. The Dream-chaser cycle aside, where we actually managed to beat most of the quests, this has become the rule rather than the exception.

The fact is, me and my partner barely play any more at all; we only tend to get the cards out if there's a third person interested in playing. The quests are too big, too fiddly and too frustrating; if I'm up for something big and exhausting, I'll rather play a board game like Star Wars: Rebellion or Game of Thrones. I still enjoy the deckbuilding aspect of the Lord of the Rings card game, but it's becoming painfully obvious that it's not really possible to make a take-all-comers deck, and neither of us is at all interested in starting to create bespoke decks for single quests.

Increasingly, what this means in practice is that we'll buy new stuff, sometimes, for the player cards, but mostly we end up playing quests from the first two cycles, and some occasional later favorites. Because those quests were mostly fun. We still haven't even gotten round to starting the Lord of the Rings saga, and I don't even know if we will. I mean, I grew up playing Nethack, I enjoy a challenge; but we've been frustrated by so many quests that we found unreasonably difficult that the game just hasn't been fun any more.

**

We did finally get the last two adventure packs of the Haradrim cycle, and they come with some excellent cards. One I absolutely have to try is Flight to the Sea: it lets you shuffle a copy of the brilliant Wind from the Sea into the encounter deck.

This is the first player encounter card we've seen since Ranger of the North - introduced, appropriately enough, in the Lost Realm. Unlike Ranger of the North, Wind from the Sea has a shadow effect, and it doesn't have surge. In short, I think this is going to be a really, really good card, and I'm very much looking forward to trying it out.

Another thematically irresistible card, especially now that I'm playing the sequel to Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor, is Magic Ring.

At a limit of one per deck, I think this is kind of a no-brainer to include, but we'll see. Certainly it's high time we saw some magic items whose use carries risks!

A change I'm considering is swapping Arwen for Lanwyn and Elven-light for ally Arwen. I had some success with Lanwyn in my hobbit support deck, and I might want to take a shot at building a Dale deck when(ever) Wilds of Rhovanion shows up. Her ranged attack and ally Arwen's sentinel-granting ability should make combat a little bit easier, and give us a little boost when facing surge, all at the cost of one willpower and Arwen's discard ability. But we'll leave that to the future, and concentrate on trying the new additions for now.

56 cards; 30 Spirit, 21 Lore, 5 neutral; 24 allies, 12 attachments, 16 events, 2 side quests. Starting threat 28.

Arwen Undómiel (TDR)
Idraen (TTT)
Rossiel (EfMG)

Allies: 24 (17/6/1)
Jubayr (TM)
Northern Tracker x2
Súlien (TCoC)
Elrohir (TMoF)
Lindir (TBoCD)
Rhovanion Outrider (ToTD) x2
Bilbo Baggins (TRD)
Galadriel's Handmaiden (CS) x3
West Road Traveler (RtM) x3
Dúnedain Pathfinder (RAH) x2
Elladan (TMoF)
Gléowine
Mablung (TLoS)
Warden of Healing (TLD) x3
Gandalf (OHaUH)

Attachments: 13 (6/6/1)
Unexpected Courage x2
Ancient Mathom (AJtR) x2
Light of Valinor (FoS) x2
A Burning Brand (CatC) x2
Cloak of Lórien (CS) x2
The Long Defeat (TBoCD) x2
Magic Ring (TCoP)

Events: 17 (6/8/3)
Flight to the Sea (TCoP)
A Test of Will x3
Elven-light (TDR) x2
Leave No Trace (EfMG) x2
None Return (AtE) x3
Daeron's Runes (FoS) x3
Keen as Lances (EfMG) x3

Side quests: 2
Double Back (EfMG)
Scout Ahead (TWoE)