QOTW: The Wastes of Eriador

The howling of the wolves was now all round them, sometimes nearer and sometimes further off. In the dead of night many shining eyes were seen peering over the brow of the hill. Some advanced almost to the ring of stones. At a gap in the circle a great dark wolf-shape could be seen halted, gazing at them. A shuddering howl broke from him, as if he were a captain summoning his pack to the assault.
-The Fellowship of the Ring

The Wastes of Eriador Stats

Groups registered: 14
Total attempts: 32
Most attempts: 9
Average attempts per entry: 2.3

Total number of wins: 13
Win-rate: 41%

Average opinion on the quest: 3.3

Campaign Mode

Who is Determined:

Eomer and Aragorn
Gilraen
Beravor
Fastred, Haldir
Eowyn
Elladan, Elrohir
Gandalf, Pallando
no one thus far 😦
No one (it got lost in the wilderness)
Beregond

Achievements

Here are the two achievements we had for this quest:

Here Puppy, Puppy, Puppy

Return 2 per player enemies to the staging area with the “forced” effect on Daybreak.

Why Even Bother?

Do not cancel any “when revealed” effects.

Encounter card Opinions

We had 7 different submissions for favorite encounter card, and a five-way (!) tie for first place. Those were Warg’s Den, the Time Objective card, North Downs, Blood-Thirsty Warg, and Wolf of Angmar.

Although there were 7 different submissions for favorite and 5 different submissions for least-favorite, there was no overlap between the two lists.

The clear winner for least favorite encounter card, with 7 votes, was Sudden Darkness. This card sucks. If it is daytime, you have to flip to night (causing you to reveal another encounter card and also do whatever bad thing it says on the quest card), and that means you are wasting the quest phase not making any progress. On a quest that can already take a long time to complete, this card just draws it out even more.

Things worth sharing from the games

With the aid of a Tale of Tinuviel, Aragorn was able to hit the pack leader with 13 attack, destroying the Pack Leader with one blow. I also managed to get Elendilmir on Arwen, so she could discard Elven-Light twice every round and play it again.

The theme is great, but it’s a bit of a grind.

The “Cold from Angmar” was chilly enough to inspire Galadriel to action — she didn’t have Nenya yet, and by clearing her text box, she was able to quest again and provide the party with a much needed willpower boost.

Treacheries were my bane in this one. Game one double Sudden Darkness put me up 8 threat and at 50. Game two double Biting Winds meant either Eowyn or Radagast would die, so I took the loss. Game 3 went smooth. Between the 3 games I took out 10-15 wargs with Grimbeorn’s ability.

Unfortunately the coolest combos in this one came from the encounter deck. Side quest -> side quest -> Weight of Responsibility during setup was one memorable one.

Easterlings are really weird in this quest because of the Day/Night objective. One of the rounds it was daytime so I advanced from stage 1 to 2 during planning. Then in quest phase I completed Make Camp. Then, in refresh after my characters had readied but before night fell, I advanced to stage 3, which causes it to flip to night. But then the end of the round hit and it flipped right back to day.

After my first attempt never really got off the ground, I was on the verge of victory at stage 3, needing to make the requisite 5 progress and then use Eowyn’s “I am no man” power-up to take down Pack Leader. After committing characters to the quest, I decided to draw a card w/Elven-Light and when I saw that it was West Road Traveler I used to my final two spirit resources to retroactively play her and commit her to the quest. Ironically, this proved to be my undoing when Pack Leader’s shadow card was Northern Warg (he dodged Eowyn and exhausted all available defenders in my Lord & Lady of Evendim deck -> loss of a hero to an undefended attack and no way to kill Pack Leader). The icing on the cake was that not only did I not need the extra 2 willpower from that West Road Traveler, but I had a Hasty Stroke in my hand but no resource to pay for it :(. On my third and winning attempt, I completed Fend Off Despair (and saw all other side quests), got stopped by Eriador Wastes once, but later used Eriador Wastes to engage Pack Leader right away on stage 3 to minimize his exhausting effect. Once it was Day, I used Aragorn (T) to kill a warg and drag Pack Leader down -> had just enough attack to finish him off. This is the first campaign that I have chosen to carry Iarion’s Pendant instead of Amarthiul’s Courage, and it came up clutch to cancel a Sudden Darkness and save a big questing push.

Ruthless continues to be a really fun choice of Boons. I had a Defender of Rammas with a Raiment of War and Hauberk of Mail sitting there looking pretty confident.

Decklists used

Ladies and Gentlemen Deck by Ironwill212 https://ringsdb.com/fellowship/view/18702/ladiesandgentlemenrco

An earlier edition of this deck: https://ringsdb.com/deck/view/588080

Three Hunters Aragorn, Gilraen, Halbarad https://ringsdb.com/deck/view/587460

Standard Noldor deck (Cirdan, Arwen, Erestor)

T Aragorn, Beravor, Halbarad (subbed for Amarthiúl for this quest)

Silvans https://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/57022/silvannobility-2.0

Damrod, Haldir, Haldan Trap deck, and Eowyn, Fastred, Dunhere Rohan deck

Tactics Eowyn, Grimbeorn the Old, Radagast

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

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

Hobbit Pipes (nice), Dunedain Sidequest (ouch)

“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)

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

Scouting Burglars: https://ringsdb.com/deck/view/581558

This week we sneak around the dungeons beneath Mount Gram, try to rescue our friends, and make our escape! Once you have completed Escape from Mount Gram, please fill in this form: https://forms.gle/3r4xNW1Lvi7r1QFd8

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