QotW: Murder at the Prancing Pony Results

We just saved Rhovanion from the fires of Dagnir and the armies of Urdug–now we’re on our way back to the Shire to check in on Frodo and a certain Ring. But first, let’s celebrate our victories at Gundabad by stopping into the Prancing Pony for some ale. Alas, there has been a murder and Barliman needs our help solving it. Let’s see how good the community was at detective work this week!

Murder at the Prancing Pony Stats

Groups registered: 13
Total attempts: 32
Most attempts: 10
Average attempts per entry: 2.46

Total number of wins: 11
Win-rate: 34.4%

Average opinion on the quest: 4.3

Achievements

Let’s take a look at the two achievements that people might have been trying to go for. Pretty low turnout for these achievements, but the quest is fairly difficult all on its own.

I KNEW IT!!!

Complete the scenario where Johnny Goblin-fingers was the set-aside Suspect.

Worst. Detective. Ever.

Forced: If the players’ accusation is not correct, search the investigation deck and out of play areas for each Suspect and add them to the staging area.
Complete the scenario where you incorrectly accuse a Suspect.

Whodunit?

This quest, although it still has the binary “win or lose” that all other quests have, has an additional success metric: was your accusation correct?

Suspect Accusation Success Rate: 83.3%
Hideout Accusation Success Rate: 83.3%

The community has long suspected that Johnny Goblin-Fingers is the real murderer more often than any other suspect. However, the results don’t support that:

Johnny Goblin-Fingers: 25% of games
Susie the Spider: 25% of games
Todd the Troll: 25% of games
Old Orc-Eyes: 16.7% of games
Wolf-Pelt Jake: 8.3% of games

What about where the murderer was hiding?

Archet Trading Post: 25% of games
Bill Ferny’s House: 25% of games
Chetwood Campsite: 16.7% of games
Combe Storehouse: 16.7% of games
Staddle Hiding Hole: 16.7% of games

Encounter card Opinions

There was a clear standout for favorite encounter card: Old Warehouse. Although the Travel effect is not insignificant, the benefits for successfully clearing this location are huge. In a quest that is constantly ramping up your threat, the threat reduction granted by this card is very important to stay afloat. It even gets around the limit on the Ramshackle Manor (more on that momentarily) because it’s not a player card.

There were quite a few cards mentioned as least favorite, from Bill Ferny to Chetwood Outlaw, but the one to get the most votes is Ramshackle Manor. This location prevents you from your threat by more than one with a single player card effect. Sorry Galadhrim’s Greeting! Not only that but it raises your threat for traveling there. Oh and did I mention that there are four of these in the encounter deck?

Cool moments that happened during the games

Well, mistakes were made. One of my two decks is a high threat Gandalf and Elrond deck, but luckily got Elfhelm into play very early. But then had a very troublesome encounter with Wolf-Pelt Jake where he got two shadows in a row that gave him another attack after this round, so I had 2 deal with 3 attacks from him in a row. Fast-forward about an hour and I’m investigating and find Bill Ferny, and go to check him off the list…. Wait a second. Bill Ferny shouldn’t be there. Uh-oh. Why did I fight Wolf-Pelt Jake in round 2? He should’ve been in the investigation deck . . . I realized I screwed up by grabbing the first five unique enemies I saw and throwing them into the Investigation Deck, which is how Bill Ferny got there. I decided to play it out and try to make it harder on myself in the meantime to make up for the mistake.

Lots of allies (particularly Rosie to add to Frodo’s defence, Bill the Pony to give extra life, and Arkenstone), lots of attachments on Gandalf such as Shadowfax, and Galadhrim’s Greeting to manage threat. The latter card was what won it for me really, as threat is a real issue. I didn’t try for the achievements as this quest is already ‘brain-burny’ and slow.

Widfast is great tech for this quest so that you can investigate more frequently.

Messanger of the King Elfhelm for the win!

Hobbit Gandalf with Narya is fun.

I tried to get two different Hobbit decks to work, to no avail. They want low threat an this quest just doesn’t allow for that.

Elfhelm ally FTW

I was in a rush this week, but had to join in: testing my Con decks that are supposed to be played 3p or 4p was not wise. This quest was too much for my decks one-handed. Should have tried multi- but didn’t have time.

First time playing a Hobbit Gandalf deck, and other than getting my threat up to 49 at one point, he was fantastic!

Hobbits make the best detectives!

Decklists used

QotW Does the Sagas! https://ringsdb.com/fellowship/view/20652

Gandalf, Sam, Frodo

Woodmen https://ringsdb.com/deck/view/539682 And mono-tactics Burglar’s Turn https://ringsdb.com/deck/view/539699

https://ringsdb.com/deck/view/198189

Pipe Fellowship – https://ringsdb.com/deck/view/468255

CSI: Bree https://ringsdb.com/deck/view/545715

A thematic Fellowship deck called A Weary Pilgrim (https://www.ringsdb.com/decklist/view/12413/awearypilgrim-1.0)

https://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/13394/leafandland-3.0 (The other decks I tried did not work at all)

Gondor deck w/ Leadership Boromir, Leadership Denethor, Tactics Mablung

Sam, Fatty, Folco & Glorfindel, Galadriel, Idraen

Used multiple different decks I’m testing for the Con which, in retrospect, was not ideal

https://ringsdb.com/questlog/view/52463/murderattheprancingpony-1player-2024-09-19

https://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/25135/singlecoreseriesmurderattheprancingpony-1.0

Next we’re starting the Lord of the Rings Sagas! We’ve timed the start of our Saga very well, as this week in Middle Earth, on September 23rd, 3018, Frodo sets out from Bag End to begin his own journey. It’s too bad that the events won’t end up lining up very well after this.

If you have completed A Shadow of the Past, then please fill out this form: https://forms.gle/YYA6ekjWthP1B8Hm6

There will be two challenges for this week, which are: