QOTW: The Siege of Gondor Results

There at Pelargir lay the main fleet of Umbar, fifty great ships and smaller vessels beyond count. Many of those that we pursued had reached the havens before us, and brought their fear with them; and some of the ships had put off, seeking to escape down the River or to reach the far shore; and many of the smaller craft were ablaze. But the Haradrim, being now driven to the brink, turned at bay, and they were fierce in despair; and they laughed when they looked on us, for they were a great army still.

But Aragorn halted and cried with a great voice: “Now come! By the Black Stone I call you!” And suddenly the Shadow Host that had hung back at the last came up like a grey tide, sweeping all away before it. Faint cries I heard, and dim horns blowing, and a murmur as of countless far voices: it was like the echo of some forgotten battle in the Dark Years long ago. Pale swords were drawn; but I know not whether their blades would still bite, for the Dead needed no longer any weapon but fear. None would withstand them.

The Siege of Gondor Stats

Groups registered: 12
Total attempts: 23
Most attempts: 9
Average attempts per entry: 1.9

Total number of wins: 18
Win-rate: 78%

Average opinion on the quest: 3.8

Campaign Mode

Congrats to the one player who used the Hidden Way to get just four resources on The Corsair Fleet!

Achievements

Here are the two achievements we had for this quest:

Speedy Siege

Complete the scenario in less than 6 rounds.

Mind Your Aim!

Destroy a Corsair Captain before it makes an attack.

Encounter card Opinions

Taking half the votes, the favorite encounter card was Black Sails. If you already have at least one non-unique ship card in the staging area, this is a really soft card. If you don’t have any non-unique ships, then this card actually helps you by finding one! You can’t finish this quest without finding those ships, and the faster you do that the better.

There were two controversial cards that appeared on both the favorite and least favorite lists: Corsair Captain, and Port of Pelargir. Corsair Captain is an interesting mini-boss enemy in this scenario that is not unique and not immune, meaning there are a lot of fun ways to deal with him. One of the achievements was even centered on that. However, he can be quite annoying if you see too many at once. The Port of Pelargir is not a big deal in the staging area if you’re not concerned with healing in large chunks. But if you are concerned with that, you’ll have to take a turn away from exploring ship locations to deal with it, or find some other creative solution.

With seven out of twelve votes, the winner for least favorite encounter card was Driven to the Brink. This treachery hits you in the two spots that this quest is testing you: speed and damage. The goal of the scenario is to complete it as rapidly as possible, and this treachery has the potential to add another turn to your game. The scenario also piles on tons of direct damage every turn, and this treachery’s other option is even more direct damage.

Cool moments that happened during the games

Widfast, who I didn’t think would be that helpful in this quest, let me travel to a Ship and City each of the first two rounds, doubling my Burglar’s Turn output, letting me get rid of those annoying cities, and not slowing me down at all.

My final turn I had two Corsair Captains engaged and I revealed the Pursued by Shadow burden so they both immediately attacked. Fortunately one already had some damage from the previous round so Grimbeorn was able to kill it immediately. My heroes were all pretty beat up, so it was fortunate that I could survive these attacks and explore The Great Corsair Ship.

I tried to complete this quest in 4 rounds. You need a card like The Hidden Way to get an active location before quest resoluton in the first round. Never worked out for me. I’m curious if anyone else pulled it off.

I got good opening hands, and got quickly set up. I lucked out on the encounter draws with enough ship locations to travel to a new one each turn. Didn’t think about the doomed encounter cards when playing all my doomed cards though, so ended up with a threat of 49 for both decks…

I never revealed an additional encounter card from The Corsair in 6 rounds. I just barely managed all the damage and had only a single Roving Herbmaster for healing.

Fiest time playing this for me. I quite liked it.

Decklists used

Mildly Thematic Fellowship https://ringsdb.com/fellowship/view/21545

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

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

Chad’s thematic youtune saga https://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/38003/2023thematicsagasiegeofgondor-1.0

Sp Dain, Gandalf, Glorfindel + Grimbeorn, Radagast, Mablung and all the creatures (https://ringsdb.com/fellowship/view/21518)

Treebeard, Tacowyn, Mablung + SBeregond, Galadriel, Thranduil

Beregond, Gandalf, Legolas and Denethor, Eowyn, Galadriel, Thurindir https://ringsdb.com/fellowship/view/21321/birdmanssagafellowship-qotw

3 Hunters Grimbeorn Gandalf and Cirdan alongside Haldan lanwyn and Widfast

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

This week we play one of this game’s most epic and thematic quests: The Battle of the Pelennor Fields. Once you have completed your playthroughs of the quest, please fill in this form: https://forms.gle/Rnm5SkCfwb2S6aty5

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 Battle of the Pelennor Fields:

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, Brace of Coneys
Burdens: The Ring Draws Them, Panicked, Overcome by Grief, Ill Fate, each player gets 1 copy of The Searching Eye, A Heavy Burden
Harad Enemies: 1x Oliphaunt
Resources on the Corsair Fleet: 5

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