QotW: Escape from Dol Guldur Results

We’ve already reached the end of the Core Set this week! The challenge for the past 7 days was to play Escape from Dol Guldur and report back with your findings. This is a quest that many players have (rightfully) skipped in the early days of their time with the game, so it is good to revisit it with new decks and more experiences. Even then, this is a tough quest in lower player counts due to the big enemies and rough setup. In higher player counts, this gets a little better, though the play limit of 1 ally per round makes things difficult. Let’s see how the community did, before sharing the info on next week’s quest!

Escape from Dol Guldur Stats

• Groups registered: 22
• Total attempts: 94
• Most attempts: 42 (hope that was the Answer to clear this quest) 😉
• Average attempts per entry: 4.27

• Total number of wins: 24
• Win-rate: 25.5%

If you played through Dol Guldur in campaign mode, you had the chance to earn Mendor as a permanent Boon if he is still alive by the end of the game. You do rescue him during the game, but the initial damage on him, paired with the tough enemies in this quest, can lead to him dying. Luckily, that does not cost you the game as it did in Passage through Mirkwood and Journey Along the Anduin. The majority of the players that attempted this quest in campaign mode did manage to rescue Mendor and keep him alive. This allows them to run the ally during their next playthroughs in the campaign against the Oath and the Caves of Nibin-Dum!

• Average opinion on the quest: 2.65

Achievements

The achievements for this quest were meant to make the quest a bit harder by taking away an easy setup, and removing ways to interfere with the boss-level enemies in this quest. Nothing too complex, but it does change your approach to this quest a little.

Well Guarded

Setup: If there is at least one objective in the staging area that is free of encounters, discard cards from the top of the encounter deck until an enemy or location is discarded. Add that card to the staging area and attach an unclaimed objective to it as a guarded objective. Then, shuffle the encounter discard pile back into the encounter deck.

Servants of the One

Chieftain Ufthak, Nazgul of Dol Guldur, and Ungoliant’s Spawn each gain: “Immune to player card effects.”

Encounter card Opinions

We have a tie for favourite encounter card of this quest. Both the Nazgul of Dol Guldur and Under the Shadow earned 5 votes in this category. The treachery was selected because of the ominous art, but lackluster effect that made it more threatening than it actually was. The Nazgul is of course a staple of this quest, and was a pretty cool boss to end this Core Set with!

As for least favourite encounter cards, Caught in a Web takes home the gold, with 5 votes. The quest already starts you off with reduced action advantage, and getting hit by this treachery hurts even more! Hummerhorns also scored high in this category, mostly because they are a death sentence if they end up attached to an objective.

Cool moments that happened during the games

I got a fully powered up TaEomer in my 3-Hunters deck with Firefoot, Rohan Warhorse, Tireless Thoroughbred, Arod, Golden Belt, and War Axe. Attacking for 12 twice a round with ranged and being able to do splash damage to an enemy is pretty fun!

I tried to create a deck where who was taken as a prisoner was not particularly relevant, thanks to Thurindir fetching in Setup The Storm Comes. Since all heroes were Dunedain I could also always access the Response on Ranger of Cardolan

Erestor was hit with Caught in a Web early on, and I kept using his resources to pay for cards, so it was a long time before I got Elrond in play and could use Erestor’s stats again. Ungoliant’s Spawn delayed me by a turn, but my board state was sufficient to swiftly kill her. The Nazgul was also destroyed the same round as the prisoner was rescued. I thought Hummerhorns was going to destroy Círdan right after I rescued him, but I drew a Galadhrim’s Greeting, allowing me to ignore it the entire game (it had been drawn as a result of a surge during setup).

I pulled off a nifty trick with Prince Imrahil and the objectives. My threat is steadily climbing, so I put the Shadow Key and Dungeon Torch on the prince of Dol Amroth. He was already Caught in a Web. The moment I claimed the Torch I progressed to stage 3. An undefended attack during combat put Imrahil 1 damage from death, and the Shadow Key killed him before the Torch’s forced effect raised my threat by 2 more. Once on stage 3, you no longer need the objectives.

A Burglar Indeed on Tactics Bilbo is really good tech against the start of this quest 💪

My deck was built with only the first 3 cycles of cards.

Crazed captive as shadow card over a Crazed captive guarding an objective.

This deck was meant to attempt an “hero-less” run of Escape from Dol Guldur using the Grey Wanderer Contract. Of course this meant ignoring the ruling that says that if your only hero is the prisoner you insta-lose. It also requires a perfect order of cards in your deck, but it’s more of an exercise in style anyways.

Nightmare Escape from Dol Guldur can go suck an egg.

Hummerhorns shadow effect wiped every remaining hero off the board the same turn I would have lost due to threat.

Haldir Grey Wanderer went 0 for 5. He really is overrated, isn’t he?

With a final threat 48/46 and all quest items claimed (plus 2 threat by the end of the round for the 48er) as well as six opponents enganged, the last round was a nail biter. I needed another 4 wounds on the Nazgul and did not have enough defenders. Solution: „Quick Strike“ with Argalad (Silvan Bow; Rivendell Blade plus the extra attachment from the campaign …) => Attack for 4; reduce defense to 1 (3 damage) plus 1 direct damage when attacking (from the campaign attachment) and when the Nazgul died, the quest was completed 🙂

Caldara was rescued as the prisoner and then immediately sacrificed to bring in Glorfindel, Jubayr and Elfhelm, resulting in the defeat of Ungoliant’s Spawn and the the Nazgul a turn later.

Hummerhorns in staging area. Threat near 40. Derufin helps defeat the Nazgûl dropping threat by 5.

Built a two-hero deck to show it’s possible against Escape, won my first three games, decided to retire it while it was still undefeated. Bragged about my 100% win rate but was informed that since I preselected my prisoner rather than choosing randomly, it was really just a 50% (theoretical) win-rate, so I flipped a coin three times to see who retroactively “should have” been captured and got my preferred prisoner three times; my 100% win rate stands. 🙂

With two Grey Wanderer decks, the “prisoner” was left without a hero, so he could engage every enemy and take all attacks undefended. When he was finally rescued he relied on shenanigans to survive the huge wave of attacks for a few rounds (Desperate Alliance, Hobbit Sense) before dropping A Elbereth! to clear out the Nazgûl and questing hard to freedom. The fellowship only declared one defense all game (the necessary one to make the Ringwraith eligible for A Elbereth!)

Gandalf swooped in to land the killing blow on the Nazgul. Always a satisfying finish.

I never thought I could complete it with core set only 😀

Meme-decks made

By Emmental, clear all the side-quest before bothering with the main quest at all: https://ringsdb.com/deck/view/524252
By SomeSort, a lengthy explanation as to why this deck has a 100% win-rate against this quest: https://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/48725/qotwthis2-herodeckhasa100winrateagainstescape-1.0
By Shellin, an homage to the Backboard of the Rings crew: https://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/48730/qotwefdg-backboardoftheringshomage-1.0
By Mormegil, a reliable deck with Bond of Friendship to get a solid win-rate out of this tough quest: https://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/48812/howtoescapefromdolguldur-1.0
By Alonewolf87, a mono-hero deck that could beat this quest if you ignore some lose conditions: https://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/48836/qotw-mono-heroforescapefromdolguldur-1.0

Decklists used

https://ringsdb.com/fellowship/view/19739

Everyone wants to escape Dol Guldur. But… what if we don’t ? Objective : complete all side quests before claiming an objective https://ringsdb.com/deck/view/524252

https://ringsdb.com/deck/view/524284

https://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/48747/qotw-noldorjailbreak-1.0

https://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/19150/theturdburglarcaldaraexplainer-1.0

Lore and Larceny https://ringsdb.com/fellowship/view/19550

https://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/26413/escapefromdolguldur-solo-monospirit-1.0

https://ringsdb.com/deck/view/523239 and https://ringsdb.com/deck/view/523235

https://www.ringsdb.com/decklist/view/48835/soloqotwdolguldur-1.0

https://ringsdb.com/deck/view/524938

Woodmen deck (Haldan, Galadriel, Denethor)

https://ringsdb.com/questlog/view/50268/escapefromdolguldur-nightmare-2players-2024-06-18

https://ringsdb.com/questlog/view/50286/escapefromdolguldur-2players-2024-06-19

Haldir Grey Wanderer

https://ringsdb.com/fellowship/view/19526

https://ringsdb.com/fellowship/view/19882/qotw-escapefromdolguldur-royalrescue

(Tactics Imrahil and Lotheriel) and (Dale)

https://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/48725/qotwthis2-herodeckhasa100winrateagainstescape-1.0 Revisiting an old challenge to escape from Dol Guldur with a two-hero deck.

https://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/48904/qotwtheyretakingthehobbitstodolguldur-1.0 A pair of Grey Wanderer decks featuring Spirit Pippin, Fatty Bolger, zero other uniques, and as many bad cards as I could get away with including. The hobbits escaped through the Power of Friendship(tm).

Caldara-Lothiriel-Cirdan

https://ringsdb.com/questlog/view/50296/escapefromdolguldur-2players-2024-06-19

Only core set 2h fellowship https://ringsdb.com/fellowship/view/19735

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Next week’s quest will be the Oath. This is the first quest from the Dark of Mirkwood expansion, or from the Collector’s Edition if you own that. We decided to skip the rest of the Shadows of Mirkwood cycle for now, since it has not received a reprint and otherwise we would be excluding many people from participating in the event. Have fun in this relatively easy quest, and be sure to list your thoughts in the form via this link: https://forms.gle/FNxkhUYP9trgeN4f8

Achievements for this week are:

Swift Trackers

Complete the scenario in less than 6 turns.

Raiding Party

Setup: Discard cards from the encounter deck until X enemies are discarded, where X is the number of players in the game. Add each enemy discarded by this effect to the staging area. Shuffle the encounter discard pile into the encounter deck.

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Hopefully, the player numbers will pick up again as we next dive into the Dark of Mirkwood set. I would ask everyone to be patient with Ered Mithrin, as we will start that as a community in two weeks!