QOTW: The Thing in the Depths

Then he sent word to Ulmo of the new things that were done, and Ulmo desired not that the waters of the inner seas be longer unpeopled, but came forth seeking Palúrien, and she gave him spells, and the seas began to gleam with fish or strange creatures crawled at bottom; yet the shellfish and the oysters no-one of Valar or of Elves knows whence they are, for already they gaped in the silent waters or ever Melko plunged therein from on high, and pearls there were before the Eldar thought or dreamed of any gem.
-The Chaining of Melko, The Book of Lost Tales

The Thing in the Depths Stats

Groups registered: 14
Total attempts: 32
Most attempts: 5
Average attempts per entry: 2.3

Total number of wins: 18
Win-rate: 56%

Average opinion on the quest: 3.5

Campaign Mode

Achievements

Here are the two achievements we had for this quest:

What Are We Waiting For?

Travel to the Helm of the Storm-caller on the first round.

Calamari Chef

Deal at least X damage to The Thing in the Depths in a single round, where X is equal to half of The Thing in the Depths’ total hit points.

Encounter card Opinions

The overall favorite encounter card for this quest was Crew Quarters. I heartily agree with this one. This is one of the coolest designs for a location in the game. In the beginning part of the quest the travel cost makes things more difficult, but after you make your truce with the Corsairs, adding a resource to each Raider becomes a good thing! This is such a masterful way to use the mechanics to tell the story of joining forces with the Corsairs.

This week there were no cards that appeared on both the favorite and least-favorite lists.

There are two winners this week for least-liked encounter card: Hold Steady and Lashing Tentacles. Hold Steady is an interesting design for an encounter card that is fairly unique in terms of treachery effects. It definitely de-incentivizes you from relying on chump blocking on this quest, and in fact if you are chumping with a 0 defense ally when this shadow effect hits, you may lose a hero! I do enjoy the Pirates of the Caribbean–one of the best movie trilogies in existence–reference in this card.

Lashing Tentacles is a fairly standard treachery that we’ve seen many times before of the variety “the boss attacks”. This one is against all players, and the shadow even causes the boss to make an attack!

Things worth sharing from the games

I attempted the What Are We Waiting For? achievement once and was able to survive Sahir & Na’asiyah, only to be overwhelmed by a flood of tentacles shortly thereafter. On my final winning playthrough, I had to stall to have time to fully kill the Sea Serpent (twice).

In the final round with only 4 health left on The Thing in the Depths, a well thrown axe throw and a glorious stand by a hearty Guardian of Rivendell (with 5 DEF and 4 HP) against an enraged Sea Serpent gave the opening for Legolas and Haldir to put an end to the chaos.

I made a mistake in my first victory (by defeating an indestructible Na’asiyah), so I played it again. I had more lucky with the tentacles this time, since I had 1 or more engaged with me almost every turn (I even succeeded on the Calamari Chef achievement, by killing 2 Thrashing Arms and 1 Giant Arm in the same turn). Anyway, my feelings about the length of the quest remain the same… I would like to have more options when no tentacles are in play.

Crew Quarters came up right before Na’asiyah and Sahir joined me, so I used it to give them some resources. I also managed to heal and boost 6 characters using hero Gandalf to play Come Together from the top of my deck, so I had a hero of each sphere at the time of playing.

I love this quest, super cinematic, but it is missing some punch. Maybe draw 2 cards per turn at stage 3 or spawn a tentacle if none are around. Brand was casually chopping down two tentacles per round while an Eagles of the Misty Mountains tanked one and Sahir, half-submerged in a gold treasure pile, handled another

I waited 9 rounds to travel to the “Helm of the Stormcaller” and Sahir and Na’asiyah each had 8 tokens on them, but by that point my board state was set up and I was unstoppable.

Captain Sahír and Na’asiyah engaged in round 10. Na’asiyah defeated that same round by Sneak Attack (played via Tome of Atanatar) + Gandalf. Captain Sahír defeated in round 11. The Thing in the Depths defeated in round 17, final damage = 12 (Crushing Arm, Giant Arm x3, Thrashing Arm x2, Eye of the Beast). The last rounds of this scenario, where you’re just waiting for the tentacles to appear, can make this quest to take longer than expected. That’s the main reason I didn’t give it a better note.

By keeping my threat very low (with Keen as Lances and Woodmen’s Clearing), I was able to avoid Na’asiyah’s attacks by cycling Gaffer Gamgee. No other corsair than Sahir and Na’asiyah was engaged in Stage 1. Unfortunately, regarding Stage 3, waiting too long for tentacles to defeat (17 rounds in my case) is something the Nightmare version didn’t fix.

I like this quest much more in concept than execution. The idea of massively switching the goals of the quest midway through is cool, but in reality I find the first half is very difficult, and the second half is quite easy (I’ve never lost this quest on Stage 3). The City of Corsairs is very similar to me in this regard. As a result I lost a hero in the first 3 turns of the game my first two attempts and quickly restarted. Then in game three I barely managed to finish 1B, then had no problem finishing off the quest.

The first two games I drew no locations. How could I loose you ask? Through the shadow effects killing my heros I reply. The game where I maxed out my XP I had to keep the tentacles around, so the Thing would live, and with the Quarter Deck active I saw around 25 shadows in two combat phases (one-handed) and lived to cash in the XP.

When quests give me an excuse to run side quests, I do! 5 completed rounds, and 4 completed side quests (2x double back, 1x gather information, 1x send for aid) The thing in the depths ran out of health before I could get 5 resources on Na’asiyah though….

Thurindir + Gather Information got Vigilant Dunadan out early. Keep Watch nerfed enemies’ attack strength so Vigilant Dunadan could defend. Idraen with Golden Shield and Silver Circlet thanks to Last Alliance was a powerhouse, and Aragorn could yank over any enemies that the support deck couldn’t kill.

Decklists used

Glorfindel/Círdan/Galadriel & Legolas/Argalad/Haldir (https://ringsdb.com/fellowship/view/22593)

Their Majesties: https://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/45093/theirmajesties-1.0

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

Radagast and Brand son on Bain at the End of all Things – https://ringsdb.com/deck/view/601604

Noldor Dreams of Discard https://ringsdb.com/deck/view/600283

Their Majesties (Gondor swarm): https://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/45093/theirmajesties-1.0

Green Bearers (mono-lore deck with Smeagol and the silvan ladies): https://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/44901/greenbearers-4.0

Leadership Gondor (Denethor, Boromir, Faramir)

Caldara on a bit of the journey – treebeard joined in for this one as well.

Arwen, Purple Dain and Galdor – Last Alliance ally swarm https://ringsdb.com/deck/view/524262

Perilous Dale and Noldor: https://ringsdb.com/deck/view/520090

Riddle-Game Dunedain: https://ringsdb.com/deck/view/605242 Last Alliance of Rohan and Dunedain for Side Quests: https://ringsdb.com/deck/view/605449

This week we play the famous “map quest” that Maxine used as a testing ground for her location mechanic that would go on to inform her design of Arkham Horror: The Card Game (which is a Living Card Game by Fantasy Flight Games). Once you have completed the quest, please fill in this form: https://forms.gle/KPg4HKUrHvJpbABt9

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