QOTW: The Tower of Cirith Ungol Results

Wild fantasies arose in his mind; and he saw Samwise the Strong, Hero of the Age, striding with a flaming sword across the darkened land, and armies flocking to his call as he marched to the overthrow of Barad-dûr. And then all the clouds rolled away, and the white sun shone, and at his command the vale of Gorgoroth became a garden of flowers and trees and brought forth fruit. He had only to put on the Ring and claim it for his own, and all this could be.

In that hour of trial it was the love of his master that helped most to hold him firm; but also deep down in him lived still unconquered his plain hobbit-sense: he knew in the core of his heart that he was not large enough to bear such a burden, even if such visions were not a mere cheat to betray him. The one small garden of a free gardener was all his need and due, not a garden swollen to a realm; his own hands to use, not the hands of others to command.

The Tower of Cirith Ungol Stats

Groups registered: 11
Total attempts: 21
Most attempts: 5
Average attempts per entry: 2.1

Total number of wins: 11
Win-rate: 52%

Average opinion on the quest: 3.6

It’s interesting that so many of our players selected Pippin to bear the one ring! I’m not sure I would trust him with that responsibility, but evidently it turned out okay in the end.

Campaign Mode

Nobody reported losing any boons to Shagrat. Well done everyone!

Achievements

Here are the two achievements we had for this quest:

Infighting

Discard 2 per player enemies from play using encounter card effects.

Not If I Stick You First!

Destroy Shagrat and Gorbag using only Sam Gamgee as an attacker.

Encounter card Opinions

Taking 7 votes, the winner for favorite encounter card this week was Orcish Howls. There are very few shadow effects more fun in the entire game than this one right here. Plus the revelation effect can be very helpful!

There were no cards this week that appeared on both the favorite and least favorite lists. Quite the contrast from last week!

Also with 7 votes, the least favorite encounter card for this quest was Deep Shadows. In true solo this card isn’t too bad (just Doomed 2 and surge, essentially), but in any other player count this card is very nasty. Even with just two players, it’s somewhere between a Doomed 2 Double Surge and all players discard their hands. None of our true solo players voted for this card, which makes sense.

Cool moments that happened during the games

The quests get a bit weird when the toughest enemy on the board are the ones that are there at the start, the Wraiths. If you can get through them and the location lock waiting to happen if you take too long, nothing’s gonna stop you.

Because my deck relies in allies for a lot of its combat prowess, and Sting’s effect is not “combat damage”, Shagrat was particularly a menace. I slowly built up some damage on him, and a few of his fellow Orcs even took some swings, but I still had to tank him for half of the game. I had to hold all of my Hobbits back from the quest so that I could kill him on the same turn I defeated the Two Watchers and won the game.

Winding Stairs turned up at exactly the right time to save me from being overrun by the orcs. The extra breathing room was enough for me to take control of the quest after that.

I used Put Off Pursuit on the same copy of Wraith on Wings three times throughout the game.

A beefed-up Legolas with a Rohan War Horse kept the board clear of enemies and placed lots of progress on the quest. Eowyn helped take out a Wraith on Wings early.

I think I’d like this quest more not in campaign mode. The Wraith on Wings and Heavy Burden put so much pressure on you at the beginning, it makes it feel brutally difficult. Which, props to the devs, because I felt anxious the whole time I was playing, like Sam did when he stormed the tower.

Had my combat phase fully planned out and was one damage shy of taking out Shagrat when he showed up, only to have the Wraith on Wings make up the difference by attacking him with Orcish Howls’ shadow effect. Absolutely clutch bit of luck on a quest that had been brutally unlucky so far.

Decklists used

Sam, Pippin, Amarthiul & Hopeful Gandalf, Spirit Merry, Argalad (https://ringsdb.com/fellowship/view/21722)

Hobbit Secrecy (A Weary Pilgrim)

Mildly Thematic Fellowship https://ringsdb.com/fellowship/view/21778

Galadriel, Thranduil, Beregond (sp) + Tacowyn, Mablung, Treebeard

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

https://ringsdb.com/deck/view/534158

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

Tactics, Eagles, Burglar’s Turn: https://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/26324/turdeagle-1.0

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

Hero Treebeard and Custom Merry and Pippin lead an army of Ents!

Black Riders trio (Sam/L. Pippin/T. Merry) with a pipe deck (Galadriel/Motk Bilbo/Folco)

This week we are doing things a little differently. We are taking two weeks for the next two quests instead of doing them one week after the other. This is to accommodate those players who want to do them both at once in Epic Multiplayer. Once you have completed both quests, please fill in this form: https://forms.gle/e2gkwY53gHj5zed37

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 Black Gate Opens:

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, Esquire of Gondor, Esquire of Rohan
Burdens: The Ring Draws Them, Panicked, Overcome by Grief, Ill Fate, each player gets 1 copy of The Searching Eye, A Heavy Burden, 1 Wraith on Wings for each player

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