QOTW: The Road to Isengard Results

‘They pushed, pulled, tore, shook, and hammered; and clang-bang, crash-crack, in five minutes they had these huge gates just lying in ruin; and some were already beginning to eat into the walls, like rabbits in a sand-pit. I don’t know what Saruman thought was happening; but anyway he did not know how to deal with it. His wizardry may have been falling off lately, of course; but anyway I think he has not much grit, not much plain courage alone in a tight place without a lot of slaves and machines and things, if you know what I mean.’

The Road to Isengard Stats

Groups registered: 14
Total attempts: 18
Most attempts: 3
Average attempts per entry: 1.3

Total number of wins: 14
Win-rate: 78%

Average opinion on the quest: 2.6 (This makes it the lowest rated quest so far in the saga)

Campaign Mode

This quest gives the chance to earn one burden (Saruman’s Voice) and one boon (The Palantir of Orthanc). It looks like everyone who played this one this week avoided the burden and earned the boon. Well done, everyone!

Achievements

Here are the two achievements we had for this quest:

Entmoot

Complete the scenario with 15 or more Ent characters in play.

“To Isengard with Doom we Come”

Complete the scenario where the players as a group control all 4 Ents of Fangorn before advancing to stage 2.

Encounter card Opinions

There was a three-way tie for favorite encounter card this quest, each receiving three votes: Ent of Fangorn, Blast of Sorcery, and Gríma. Players obviously like the benefits of getting free powerful allies in the form of the Ents of Fangorn. The Blast of Sorcery, in a quest with lots of annoying treacheries, is the least bad of all of them most of the time. And players also noted that Gríma is a thematic homerun and can be a fun wrench in the gears.

This brings us nicely to the most hated encounter card. At just three votes, it’s Gríma! There were a lot of different nominations for least liked encounter card, but it seems strangely fitting that the Traitor himself would receive just as many votes for favorite encounter card as least favorite encounter card!

Cool moments that happened during the games

I was able to rally two Ents of Fangorn to the cause, which helped with location control. I rushed the quest to avoid nastiness and was setup just enough to handle Saruman. The ents proved invaluable, which should come as no surprise.

Good old fashioned Northern Tracker got me out of Stage two nice and quick thanks to Gavin fetching locations for me.

I got all 4 Ents after 2 rounds.

I used the ol’ reliable strategy of using an action window in the quest phase right before I place progress to explore the last needed location (using ents) so that I immediately progress to stage 3 and place all the needed progress immediately.

In a single round, my ents of Fangorn explored 4 locations, then we got 15 progress on stage 3, traveled to Orthanc, and killed Sarumon in 1 round….I didn’t want to deal with his BS

Gríma came up as a shadow for an Isengard Orc with a measly 2 attack. That was great to see so I didn’t have to worry about Saruman’s attack becoming undefended. Once I’d built up a good board states, I used my Ent of Fangorn to explore one last location, go to stage three, and damage Treebeard 3 to have enough willpower to get the 15 progress on stage 3b. Then I dispatched with Saruman the same round, which is a great feeling.

Like many others, I was able to use Ent of Fangorn (and Asfaloth) to completely disregard Saruman and win the game the same quest phase that the 3rd quest card is revealed.

Despite packing 19 willpower among my 7 heroes, it still took almost three full rounds of actions to win over the four Ents. Luckily, of the three extra cards revealed on moving to Stage 2, two copies of Blast of Sorcery whiffed.

Did the quest-swap at the end of the questphase with great success. Thanks for the tip, unknown discorder.

Decklists used

Grimbeorn, Gildor, Arwen Three Hunters (Grimbeorn’s Saga)

3 Hunters Galdalf Cirdan and Grimbeorn accompanied by a Widfast Lanwyn and Haldan Woodman / Scout Deck

Beregond, Gandalf, Legolas and Denethor, Eowyn, Galadriel, Thurindir https://ringsdb.com/fellowship/view/18922/birdmanssagafellowship-qotw

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

https://ringsdb.com/fellowship/view/21255

https://ringsdb.com/deck/view/556954

The Ents got their revenge this week!

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

Mildly Thematic Fellowship https://ringsdb.com/fellowship/view/21140/qotw-theroadtoisengard-mildlythematic

Radagast, Grimbeorn and all the creatures + LEomer, SpEowyn and Erkenbrand

Treebeard, Faramir and Beregond and a few other ents + Cirdan, Galdor & Galadriel

After nearly a month apart, we return to Frodo this week and see how he is getting on. He’ll need a hand taming his new guide, so make ready that elven rope. Once you have completed your playthroughs of the quest, please fill in this form: https://forms.gle/ya31fn69njtExEEN6

If you are using the quick start for campaign mode, either because you didn’t get a chance to play all the quests before this one 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 The Passage of the Marshes:

Boons: Old Bogey-stories, Ho! Tom Bombadil!, Each player may choose one of the permanent boons from A Knife in the Dark, Sting, Mithril Shirt, Glamdring, Anduril, Each player may choose one of the Gift boons from Breaking of the Fellowship, each player may choose one of the Skill boons from The Uruk-Hai, Palantir of Orthanc
Burdens: The Ring Draws Them, Panicked, Overcome by Grief, Ill Fate

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