With not everyone having received their copy of the Ered Mithrin campaign box last week, we decided to extend the waiting period before we would begin with this cycle for QotW. Instead, we went for the Erebor stand-alone scenario that was created by AleP last year. It is a recent quest and also takes place in Rhovanion, so we won’t have to skip around the map between the Dark of Mirkwood and Ered Mithrin campaigns. With this being a slightly more difficult quest that has a lot of moving parts, I am interested to see how the community did! Especially since the two achievements for this week were drafted in 2 minutes without playtesting…
The Siege of Erebor Stats
- Groups registered: 11
- Total attempts: 14
- Most attempts: 3
- Average attempts per entry: 1.27
- Total number of wins: 11
- Win-rate: 78.6%
- Average opinion on the quest: 4.90
Achievements
Since we decided shortly before the end of last week’s quest that we were going to do Erebor next, I did not have a lot of time to come up with new achievements. That was needed since this quest was released after the books were originally published. Without time to playtest them, I came to the following two achievements:
Roam Across Rhovanion
Explore all different locations at least once.
Power of Sauron
When a stage is added to the victory display, remove a token from Hold the North.
Not a lot of participants for this, but that was to be expected for a complex and long quest like this. Roam Across Rhovanion is also an achievement that you can better clear in higher player counts, as it will be impossible to do in solo I think. The Power of Sauron on the other hand will extend the number of rounds you have to take in order to beat the quest, and is a bit easier in solo. You won’t lose stages as fast in that case, so you might survive for a turn longer!
Encounter card Opinions
The beneficial locations did well for favorite encounter card of the quest! Gate of Erebor, Treasure Hoard, and Ravenhill all scored pretty high. Another honorable mention are the Iron Hills Reinforcements, which should make the stages a little easier to deal with in lower player counts.
There were also plenty of horrible encounter cards to discuss. This includes Focused Onslaught, Wainriders, and Fight or Flight. But the worst was definitely the Balchoth Avenger. This enemy is a real hero-killer by the final stage, and should be killed before he gets a chance to outflank you.
Cool moments that happened during the games
I had an Eagle of the North get revealed from the encounter deck on the last turn, taking out the only enemy in play.
I’m really just happy my Riddermark’s Finest deck made it through.
Even though I felt that I played well, it was still close, which made for a very fun quest. Discarding a hero might have had a worse effect if I wasn’t using MOTL Halfast Gamgee. Gone but not forgotten.
I lost stages at the ends of rounds 4, 5, and 7 so was left with a do-or-die turn 8. Charlie and Carol died with the penultimate fall of Dale, and Radagoose had to take an undefended in Round 8 order to have enough firepower to clear the last two enemies. So only Maverick, Iceman, and Viper survived. My two decks spent the first five rounds at different locations before coming together; you would think by now I would know that you never ever leave your wingman.
I survived by avoiding elimination to the Eagles deck that in the last turn would have reached 50 threats if I didn’t pass the Arkenstone to to the Woodmen…That had 46 threaths…So I ended 48+48 with only Erebor saved..!!
Nothing much, I simply brought a Dale deck with Spirit Dain to sort of capture the Siege of Erebor moment from the books. I was able to lose only a single quest stage thanks to having revealed Ravenhill early on and since I had an Erebor Besieger to take care of I stayed in Erebor for a couple of rounds.
Iron Hills Reinforcements are clutch
Meme-decks made
It is a tough quest that does not leave a lot of room for goofing around, so we’ll skip this section for this week. I do expect a lot of fun stuff for Journey Up the Anduin though!
Decklists used
Dain/Brand/Thorin Stonehelm and Gwaihir/Radagast/Faunith
https://ringsdb.com/deck/view/483635
Dale Passes Into the West: https://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/24689/dalepassesintothewest-1.0 Return to Manwë: https://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/25182/returntomanwintothewest-1.0
https://ringsdb.com/deck/view/529201
An Ent deck and a deck spot-lighting The Riddermark’s Finest. https://ringsdb.com/fellowship/view/16480/qotw-thesiegeoferebor
Gandalf + Radagast creature deck
https://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/49548/conoftherings24radagoosesupportdeck-1.0 https://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/41745/cotr2023dangerzonetopgunlastallianceofeaglessco-1.0
Woodmen and Eagles https://ringsdb.com/fellowship/view/19926/protectorsofthewild
https://ringsdb.com/deck/view/529763
https://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/49620/rcoplayerswelcometodale-11.0
For next week, we will finally begin the Ered Mithrin cycle in earnest. We will kick things off with a Journey Up the Anduin. Hopefully, most people have access to the campaign cards for this quest, though playing along in campaign mode is not a must. There is plenty of enjoyment to be had from these quests without the extra Boons and Burdens. Once you’ve finished with your playthrough of this quest, please fill in this form: https://forms.gle/jBjk1dg56WtorHgc7
Achievements for this week are the following:
Deja Vu
Setup: Search the Evil Creatures Deck for 1 Hill Troll (2 in a 3 or 4 player game), and add it to the staging area. Shuffle the Evil Creatures deck.
We Don’t Know the Way
Setup: Search the encounter deck and discard for a copy of Hills of Wilderland and add it to the staging area. Shuffle the encounter deck. The Hills of Wilderland location that was added to the staging area during setup gains “Cannot leave play.”
Vision Of The Palantir 