QOTW: The Old Forest Results

This article was delayed because I was at Con of the Rings. While I didn’t get a chance to play The Old Forest at the Con, I know many people did. Here are the results from everyone who submitted the form.

The Old Forest Stats

Groups registered: 16
Total attempts: 18
Most attempts: 2
Average attempts per entry: 1.1

Total number of wins: 17
Win-rate: 94%

Average opinion on the quest: 2.9

We saw an up-tick in the number of people using The Return of the King Frodo. There are no cards in this encounter that penalize you for exhausting the Ring, so it is risk-free to use this version and get an extra resource every round. I expect many people, though, will always use the “current” version of Frodo for each quest.

Campaign Mode

In order to earn the Old Bogey-stories boon, you need to deal enough damage to Old Man Willow. Since the majority of players did that, we will be adding Old Bogey-stories to our combined campaign pool for any that want to use it.

Achievements

We had two achievements for this quest, one based on what happened during the quest and one based on deckbuilding.

Hey! Ho!

Defeat two enemies with Tom Bombadil participating in the attacks.

Trees vs. Trees

Complete the scenario with two players controlling at least one Ent hero.

Encounter card Opinions

It will come as no surprise that the favorite encounter card for this quest, with 10 votes, was Tom Bombadil. He gives you another ally that is committed to the quest, he doesn’t surge, and he’s ready so he can be used in combat with his hefty stats. Second place, with 4 votes, was Wall of Trees.

There were quite a few different submission for least favorite card, but the winner at 5 votes was Song of Sleep. Unless you have condition removal, this card essentially makes you lose a hero for the rest of the game. With this condition attached, all they can do is take undefended damage and generate resources.

Cool moments that happened during the games

Had some early Friend of Friend boosts to help with questing. Love when Tom comes in to save the day!

Gildor Inglorion got revealed turn 1. Tom Bombadil got revealed turn 2. That was a pretty good start.

I used Narya to ready Tom Bombadil so that he could kill two enemies and earn the Hey! Ho! achievement. It’s a good thing that Gandalf had his ring because Jolly Tom wandered off after this and never showed up again. He was probably busy gathering flowers for Goldberry.

Gandalf got put to sleep but luckily he could still use his staff. 😀

The Conspiracy keeps going, who knows where it will stop

Fingernail biting finish, risking an extra turn with 49 threat to get the boon.

The ents rock! If You hage timme to set them up.

Quested through Withywindle and The Wicked Willow in a single push

While my Haldir deck was a little useless, other than beating up some vines in the staging area, the other player’s Caldara deck did a lot of work once all three Northern Trackers were in play. We managed to clear 3A in one try with 19 progress just before threating out.

My Hobbits got lost in the Old Forest for over 3 hours. It took a long time, but the Hobbits and I were determined to find our way out. And we finally did! Jolly ol’ Tom Bombadil only made one appearance, and he wasn’t very helpful in that instance (he was a shadow card every other time). As an idea of how my game went (being lost in the forest), when I finally made it to stage 3, I could not travel to Withywindle because I drew the Misleading Path in the quest phase and had to travel there instead. I blame that on Merry… “Let’s go this way!” he said. And if going the wrong path wasn’t bad enough, in that same quest phase we hit a surge train – four in a row! Those pesky Flies! I had no trouble with Old Man Willow because Tom Cotton in one deck and Sam Gamgee in the other were by then well-prepared to defend. With scratches on our limbs and a few bruises here and there, we emerged from the Old Forest and immediately set down to enjoy a nice, hot meal. My favorite moment in the game was when I finally got enough locations in the victory display to advance to stage 3. I had 8 points in VP (needed 10), but I drew a treachery that made me put a location back in the staging area. I chose Wall of Trees. Once again I was back to 6 VP (will we ever get out?!). Then, my second encounter card was another Wall of Trees, which was welcome news because progress goes here before going to the quest. The forest thought it had me on that one, but my Hobbits know how to quest! Rosie Cotton came riding in on a Wild Stallion (literally?) and boosted our willpower enough to clear both of those locations! And that put my VP up to 10 points.

Decklists used

Hobbit/Harad last alliance deck!

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

Chad’s Thematic Deck: https://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/35125/2023thematicsagatheoldforest-1.0

Woodmen and Burglar’s Turn: https://ringsdb.com/fellowship/view/20726

Hobbit Fellowship (A Weary Pilgrim)

Good-stuff Gandalf and BoF https://ringsdb.com/fellowship/view/18922

Mildly Thematic Fellowship: https://ringsdb.com/fellowship/view/20748/qotw-theoldforest-mildlythematic

https://ringsdb.com/questlog/view/52748/theoldforest-1player-2024-09-29

MotK Bilbo (ALeP) / Folco / Fatty (ALeP) — Victory display shenanigans

https://ringsdb.com/deck/view/305803

Grimbeorn Radagast Beravor + Sam, Pippin, Spirit Merry

Celeborn Galadriel Haldir Mablung Treebeard (Lore) Faramir (leadership) https://ringsdb.com/fellowship/view/20779

Glorfindel, Idraen, Galadriel https://ringsdb.com/deck/view/542692 Sam, Fatty, Folco https://ringsdb.com/deck/view/543004

[Legolas/Haldir/Mirlonde](https://ringsdb.com/deck/view/544772) [Arwen/Caldara/Cirdan](https://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/14905/caldara21-1.0)

https://ringsdb.com/deck/view/547290

Hobbit decks – Frodo (Ld), Sam (Ld), Merry (S) – Tom Cotton (T), Pippin (Lo), Folco (Lo) https://ringsdb.com/fellowship/view/20281

This next week we spend a couple nights in Tom Bombadil’s house, then set out into the spooky Barrow Downs. Once you have completed your playthroughs of the quest, please fill in this form: https://forms.gle/FUaYyVesRqeocgEw5

If you are using the quick start for campaign mode, either because you didn’t get a chance to play the first two quests and still want to play campaign mode, or because you want to use the community’s shared campaign pool, this is what your campaign pool looks like going into Fog on the Barrow Downs:

Boons: Mr. Underhill, Old Bogey-stories
Burdens: The Ring Draws Them

And for achievements for this quest, this is what we have: