QOTW: The Weather Hills

The hills drew nearer. They made an undulating ridge, often rising almost to a thousand feet, and here and there falling again to low clefts or passes leading into the eastern land beyond. Along the crest of the ridge the hobbits could see what looked to be the remains of green-grown walls and dikes, and in the clefts there still stood the ruins of old works of stone…
In the morning they found, for the first time since they had left the Chetwood, a track plain to see. They turned right and followed it southwards. It ran cunningly, taking a line that seemed chosen so as to keep as much hidden as possible from the view, both of the hill-tops above and of the flats to the west. It dived into dells, and hugged steep banks; and where it passed over flatter and more open ground on either side of it there were lines of large boulders and hewn stones that screened the travellers almost like a hedge.
–The Fellowship of the Ring

I was pleasantly surprised to see that we got more responses this week, on the second quest of the cycle, than last week!

The Weather Hills Stats

Groups registered: 25
Total attempts: 63
Most attempts: 7
Average attempts per entry: 2.5

Total number of wins: 31
Win-rate: 49%

Looks like our Nightmare players have left the campaign! I own this one’s nightmare pack but I don’t like the quest enough (and my decks aren’t good enough) to play it on nightmare.

Average opinion on the quest: 3.1

Campaign Mode

Achievements

Here are the two achievements we had for this quest:

Weathered Mountaintop

Have a Weathered Hilltop with at least 5 threat in the staging area (at least 10 threat if there are 3 or 4 players in the game).

Not Bothered by the Rain

Complete the scenario without healing any characters.

Encounter card Opinions

Taking 10 votes, the winner for the favorite encounter card was Concealed Orc-Camp. Players appreciated revealing a location from the Orc Deck instead of an enemy, and that this location gives you a big swing on completing the Mission objective, as well as dodging “When Revealed” effects on enemies.

There was a single card that got nominated in the favorite and least-favorite categories: Cornered Orc. While not the biggest or scariest enemy, making two attacks can be a big drain on your resources, especially with all the nasty shadow effects in this quest. A very thematic enemy, though!

Most of the Weather treacheries received at least one vote for least-favorite encounter card, but the winner with 11 votes was Cold from Angmar. This one can definitely ruin your day by blanking the text boxes of your heroes and allies. This is an interesting card: as someone pointed out in the Discord chat, this is the only “blanking” treachery that allows you to keep keywords (like ranged and sentinel). It can also be used for some amusing things, like allowing hero Beorn to have attachments, or allowing you to keep ally Gandalf in play forever. If you have the misfortune of having this attach to the permanent campaign side quest, you had better have some condition removal!

Things worth sharing from the games

At 48 threat, I made the very all-in choice to quest to Mysterious Omens while having zero progress on stage 2B. Cleared Amon Forn and Mysterious Omens in one turn, then quested for 20+ and won at 49 threat while defending SEVEN enemies! Dunedain for the win!

Got extremely lucky with multiple Cornered Orc draws (this quest can stall for a while in my experience if you only ever see enemies from the orc deck) and a couple of turns with no weather treacheries. Elrohir doesn’t care about those little jerks’ extra attacks.

On the last round I was able to quest against Protect the Innocent clearing it of all damage, while a ragtag group of Easterlings finished the main quest.

I only killed enough enemies to flip Savage Counter Attack because I was running Dunedain. Heir of Valandil getting me a completely free 3-4 cost ally for several rounds felt so good.

My Hour of Wrath Deck was easily able to handle a couple of tough rounds of combat while my Fellowship deck was able to quest enough to put all the progress required on Stage 2 in 1 round.

I used Heirs of Earendil to discard a 5-threat Weathered Hilltop. Glorfindel died to a Biting Wind, but I was still able to eek out a win with Aragorn as my only hero.

First time through I revealed Cold From Angmar turn 1, by the end of turn 3 I had only textless heroes due to more weather reveals. That was a scoop. Game 2 was a slog. By the end I had 4 side quests in the victory display, plus questing at Protect the Innocent and 2B. Never felt guaranteed, but I got the win. Radagast now has Cunning for the rest of the campaign, and my least favourite quest of the cycle is behind us!

Trapping enemies and keeping them engaged really lets you turtle in this quest until you’re ready to hit Stage 2. I had 5 enemies engaged for a few rounds, but it was no problem for my Dunedain army.

Using Concealed Orc-Camp to replenish the mission’s resource tokens during the counter-attack was a game changer, and allowed enough extra questing time to remove the damage from Protect the Innocent.

I ended the game with 7 enemies engaged, so with Sword that was Broken my Wardens of Annúminas were contributing 16 willpower by themselves.

Spirit Frodo is awesome in this quest. Ignore a weather treachery during staging, take a cornered orc undefended during engagement, and then defend him just fine during combat!

I completed Mysterious Omens and earned Stalwart (on Beregond) and Hardy (on Eowyn). Sulien enabled my final questing push by reducing the threat of five locations in staging.

Early on I got Cold From Angmar attached to Protect the Innocent and was able to blank Glorfindel’s and Wilyador’s text boxes. Luckily I had enough healing to prevent my more critical characters from being blanked. Also, since you didn’t ask in the form, I was able to clear Mysterious Omens and grabbed Ruthless for Glorfindel since my deck lacks early attack power. I also just wanted to grab something I haven’t tried yet and thought that ability could provide some fun moments.

5 Silvan Trackers across two all-Silvan decks just completely undid all the difficulty of this quest.

The cold definitely bothered this fellowship. Almost every hero received some damage from shadow card effects and treacheries. Thankfully Ally Faramir rallied all the questers to push through the -1 questing to get through Amon Ford and the Hills. Eomer had a fun moment to attack an orc marauder for 7 with Firefoot and put excess damage and kill a cornered orc.

I was a little afraid of using my At the End of All Things deck with Gandalf and Radagast, but it turns out if Cold from Angmar only comes up as a shadow it still works very well. Throwing in a couple extra Wardens of Healing didn’t hurt either.

Biting Wind surge into Freezing Blast, what a encounter deck combo 😆

Decklists used

Aragorn, Gilraen, Thurindir https://ringsdb.com/deck/view/585430

Arwen/Elladan/Elrohir (Three Hunters) Galadriel/Celeborn/Thranduil (Into the West)

Istari 🧙‍♂️🧙‍♂️🧙‍♂️ https://ringsdb.com/fellowship/view/22070

Tried and failed with a BoF Dunedain deck, then switched to an Amarthiul, Arwen, and Aragorn (AAA) lineup and got the win on my second try

Dunedyin’ with Spirit in Angmar https://ringsdb.com/fellowship/view/22085

Hour of Wrath Deck – MotK Legolas, LeFrodo, TaBeregond Creature Fellowship – Cirdan, Radagast, TaEowyn

Aragorn and Glorfindel ATeoAT https://ringsdb.com/deck/view/586321

Lore Aragorn, Beravor, Arwen: Noldor

Tactics Eowyn, Grimbeorn, and Radagast

Dunedain Traps (Damrod, Amarthiul, MotK Firyal)

Silvans (https://ringsdb.com/deck/view/582547)

Rainbow Dunedain: Tactics Aragorn, Beravor, Amarthiul

http://ringsdb.com/fellowship/view/22071

Dunedain Side-Quest Deck, Hobbit Pipes Deck

“Date Night Orc Hunt”, an #RCO version of an earlier thematic Faramir/Eowyn trap deck (https://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/56737/qotw-datenightorchuntrco-1.0) + Aragorn/Arwen/Beregond (https://ringsdb.com/deck/view/584172)

Perilous Voyage Deck with Denethor, Elrond, and Thurindir Rohan/Dunedain Deck with Eowyn, Amarthuil, and Elfhelm.

Araglad, Haldan, Damrod Trap deck & Fastred Rohan deck

BoF – Beravor, Eowyn, Erkenbrand, Glorfindel https://ringsdb.com/deck/view/581051

Gandalf + Ring of Barahir + Well Preserved jank deck: https://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/56744/gandalfringofbarahirartifactdeck-2.0 Hobbit(ish) Fellowship: https://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/56742/hobbitishsecrecyfellowship-1.0 I also had wins with my Oops All Silvan decks and my Thengel Rohan deck alongside the Last Alliance of Noldor and Gondor.

Ladies and Gentlemen Fellowship https://ringsdb.com/fellowship/view/18702/ladiesandgentlemenrco

My best Eagles deck https://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/56269/eaglesattheendofallthings-1.0

Ent blitz: https://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/5966/ent-blitz-1.0

Chad’s single core deck: frodo, glorfindel, idrean: https://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/22465/singlecoreseriestheweatherhills-1.0

This week we have a completely uneventful time at a totally-not-haunted picnic site! Sunshine and rainbows and no ghosts anywhere to be seen. Once you have completed Deadmen’s Dike, please fill in this form: https://forms.gle/uE85j9YWHbEKz9gh7

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