QOTW: The Battle of Carn Dûm

Then he told them that these blades were forged many long years ago by the Men of Westernesse: they were foes of the Dark Lord, but they were overcome by the evil king of Carn Dûm in the Land of Angmar.
‘Few now remember them,’ Tom murmured, ‘yet still some go wandering, sons of forgotten kings walking in loneliness, guarding from evil things folk that are heedless.’
-The Fellowship of the Ring

The Battle of Carn Dûm Stats

Groups registered: 12
Total attempts: 72
Most attempts: 15
Average attempts per entry: 6

Total number of wins: 12
Win-rate: 17% (this makes it the lowest win-rate we’ve ever seen for Quest of the Week)

Average opinion on the quest: 3.3

Campaign Mode

Who is Determined:

Eowyn, Radagast, Grimbeorn the Old
Beregond, Lanwyn, Widfast
Rossiel, Elrond, Ibrahim, Aragorn, Gloin
Aragorn, Beravor, Amarthiul, Halbarad, Gandalf
Beravor and Eowyn
Haldir, Damrod, Haldan, Aragorn, Eowyn, Fastred, Theodred
Arwen, Aragorn, Beregond, Faramir, Eowyn, Damrod (all my heroes!)
Alatar, Pallando, Gandalf, Frodo, Rosie Cotton, Sam Gamgee, Saruman, Beregond

Achievements

Here are the two achievements we had for this quest:

The Shadow of Angmar

Defend an attack from an enemy with 6 or more shadow cards.

Move with Haste

Complete stage 1 without flipping Thaurdir to his Champion side.

Encounter card Opinions

The winner of the favorite encounter card, with only 3 votes, was Furious Charge. This is an interesting side quest. Making 5 progress on this quest gets you 10 progress on the main quest, but when you place progress on it, all characters get lowered defense and then Thaurdir is flipped to his Champion side, giving him a free attack against the first player. Note that if he’s already on his Champion side, that part doesn’t do anything, so this can be a good quest to complete in the second quest stage (which is thematically very appropriate). Also bonus points to this card for its awesome Magali Villeneuve art.

The only encounter card to appear on both lists was the Accursed Battlefield, which is quite fitting. Love it or hate it, this is a card you have to think about when going into this quest. It starts as the active location, so until you make enough progress to clear it (or use some other trick, like Distant Stars), you have to battle quest. Once you’re through the initial location, additional copies of this card can sit in staging with no negative effect. Or, if you would prefer to battle quest, you can travel here for a nice little bonus. Very cool design.

The winner of the least favorite card, again with only 3 votes, was Daechanar’s Will. Most of the time, this card will cause Thaurdir to flip to his Champion side and make an immediate attack against the first player. If you don’t have your defensive solution set up yet, that can be a big problem. In stage 2, or when Thaurdir was already on his Champion side, this card isn’t that bad, but then it also surges. The worst part about this card is probably the shadow effect. What’s worse than “This enemy makes an additional attack after this one”? Why, that would be something like “Thaurdir attacks after this.”

Things worth sharing from the games

After my 14th loss I was feeling frustrated and playing too fast expecting another loss. I had a good start getting Radagast’s staff and a Great Bear down both of the first two turns due to Cunning’s extra resources, and also got Gondorian Shield in play. Turn 4 I played Magic Ring on Beregond. When I got to combat I hit a point where I thought I was forced to take an undefended attack with a shadow card that would kill any of my heroes. In frustration I shuffled up both decks when I realized I hadn’t used Magic Ring. I knew there was no way I wouldn’t have readied Beregond to take that attack if I wasn’t playing frustrated, so I rebuilt the board. I’m confident I didn’t miss anything except maybe a no effect shadow card in the encounter discard (which might have made the encounter deck a tiny bit easier to play against if I did miss one, but I’m not letting such a small percentile difference take this away from me). I forced myself to slow down and got my first normal win on Carn Dûm ever! Beregond died defending Thaurdir on the last turn due to the Angmar Marauder shadow, but that’s a sacrifice he had to make.

Lure of Moria FTW

This quest is Hard AF but still fun. Also, Battle-questing with Lore Faramir feels very satisfying. Still was too close at the end in the Vilya deck. Should have included more Wardens of Healing.

It’s such a great feeling to get those sorceries into the victory display and then being able to ignore them completely with The door is closed. Not sure if its the most efficient way, but it feels like resistance.

Two Fornost Bowman (5 attack each) joined Amarthiul, with help from Cunning, to kill Thaurdir in one round.

I used tactics Eowyn’s ability to crush questing the opening round and was also able to defeat the Card Dum Garrison. I never dealt any additional shadow cards and didn’t see a Sorcery treachery until the final round. Moving swiftly on…

Firs time playing (and beating) took some hero changes, playing on sleezy and some luck to pull it off. Can’t imagine without the boons!

It took five tries, but I managed to eke out a win shortly before resigning myself to switching up my hero lineup. I chose Raiment of the Second Age (for Aragorn) and Elrond’s Champion as my starting boons and was fortunate enough to get Orders from Angmar and Daechanar’s Brand into play on round 1. The combination of Feint and Eowyn’s action allowed me to deal with one Garrison of Carn Dum and Aragorn + Berelind took care of the second. Even so, the rest of the quest seemed to rest upon a knife’s edge, most notably when I risked an undefended attack that was boosted by Terror of the North and resulted in taking 5 undefended damage on Aragorn, and when Beregond survived an attack from Thaurdir with 1 health remaining. However, I was able to keep the board stable and quest through Orc Ambush and Power of Angmar before advancing to stage 2, putting the requisite damage on Thaurdir, and battle questing (at Accursed Battlefield) to victory!

On the second to last turn, after dealing 26 damage to Thaurdir, I used my Blue Wizards to complete a Scout Ahead I had been saving in staging to set up the quest phase for my final quest push so there were no surprises.

I tried thrice with a Dunedain deck but wasn’t able to crack it, so then tried with my mining deck and managed to beat it on normal on my first try. I got a bit lucky without any Heavy Curses coming out, which would’ve made playing Elven-Light difficult. I then tried it on nightmare (for my first nightmare quest lol), which felt very similar in difficulty. Ended up beating it on my third try. Gandalf’s staff being able to discard shadows from Werewolves, Garrisons, and Thaurdir’s Elite was super helpful, and Northern Trackers were amazing too.

Decklists used

Tactics Eowyn, Tactics Beregond, Radagast

https://ringsdb.com/fellowship/view/22274

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

GW Faramir (failed), Smeagol+Sam+Eowyn+Glorfindel BoF (failed), Lobelia and Pallando (failed), Beregond+Glorfindel “Hammer and Anvil” (failed), Blue wizards (failed), Elrond+Gandalf+Galadriel Vilya deck (won)

Rossiel, Arwen, Elrond – vd-shenanigans style & Tacrahil, Gloin, Scorpagorn

Rainbow Dúnedain (T Aragorn, Beravor, Amarthiul/Halbarad)

BoF Good-stuff Beravor, Eowyn, Erkenbrand, Glorfindel

L-Aragon, Damrod, Haldir (Trap) & Fastred, Theoden, Eowyn (Rohan)

“Date Night Orc Hunt” (https://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/56737/qotw-datenightorchuntrco-1.0) + Aragorn/Arwen/Beregond (https://ringsdb.com/deck/view/584172)

Four Istari and Their Emotional Support Himbo 🧙‍♂️🧙‍♂️🧙‍♂️🧙‍♂️🏋‍♂️ https://ringsdb.com/fellowship/view/22361

https://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/57834/thespirityearnsfortheminesrcofriendly-1.0

This week we wrap up the Angmar Awakened campaign with The Dread Realm. Once you have completed the quest, please fill in this form: https://forms.gle/QCds97AyYha6ziPP8

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