QotW: Desert Crossing

Autumn is on holiday this weekend, so you’re getting the update from me this time! Quite a coincidence as well, as I have played this quest a week ago during a physical convention at my house with some players from across the Netherlands and Belgium. We managed to beat the quest without too many problems, but I’m interested to see how everyone else fared. It’s also the height of summer right now, so it felt like a thematic quest that you want to start early in the day before it gets too warm outside. I hope everyone managed to keep it cool during their games!

Desert Crossing Stats

Groups registered: 23
Total attempts: 65
Most attempts: 9
Average attempts per entry: 2.8

Total number of wins: 37
Win-rate: 57%

Average opinion on the quest: 3.95

Achievements

We had the following achievements for this Quest of the Week:

Beat the Heat,

Complete the scenario with a temperature of 30 or less.

Mirage,

Forced: After you travel to a location, switch the active location with the topmost location in the encounter discard pile.

Final Temperatures

This quest is unique, as it gives the players a thermometer to fight against. The faster the players are, the weaker enemies and locations tend to be. Careful timing and decisions on which location or side-quest to go to will save on your temperature tracker by the end of the game.

Mean final temperature: 41.36 degrees
Lowest final temperature: 22 degrees (you might even need a jacket)
Highest final temperature: 58 degrees (cutting it reeeeeal close there)

Encounter card Opinions

The clear winner for favourite encounter card is the Desert Oasis. It’s the only beneficial location in the deck, and doesn’t punish you for travelling to it, unlike the other locations in the deck. If you get to explore it, you get a nice bit of healing done to your characters, which is a lifesaver in a quest like this. Next up was Carrion Bird, which is a tricky enemy if you have damaged characters, but a piece of cake if you managed to take no damage up to this point. Their ability can discard a hero though, so you have to be careful with them.

As for the least favourite card in the deck, the opinions were quite split. There are many brutal locations that can pop up out of a Mirage, and even some quest cards were mentioned here for exhausting or damaging your characters. But in the top spot was Sandstorm, which is a nasty treachery to hit early in the game, as it forces you to either discard all cards in your hand, or deal damage to your characters equal to the number of cards in your hand. This is on top of many other damaging effects in this quest, which does stack up quickly if you are not healing enough. The shadow effect on this one is also quite nasty for Dale decks that could get hit with even more damage if they want to hang on to their attachments.

Cool moments that happened during the games

Coming ever so close to getting “Beat the Heat” only for Scorching Sun to ruin it, Seek Shade being at the very bottom 😦

remembered this quest having a lot of desert creatures. Replaying it now, I played Fang, Grip, Wolf, and Landroval in a single turn (I was resources rich). Who’s the master of creatures now, quest?

5 Sidequests in VD for thurindir and an 8-resource Ally Treebeared Defended alone against 4 Were-worm attacks for a round.

I enjoyed the temperature mechanic. I went on a couple of side quests, which was helpful to get my temperature down, but I ended up in the 40’s really fast. A were-worm engaged me and stayed engaged for three turns until I made it to my final round, where I ended up with TWO were-worms. I thankfully had some readying and defense boosts with Arwen and Kiehliel’s Tribesman. Finally killed the first were-worm at 56 temp, next turn it was win or lose. I was able to equip Yazan with a haradrim spear, and Cirdan ready/boosted attack. Between him and Jubayr, they were able to kill off the second were-worm at 58 temp for a very close victory.

Both my decks starting a bit slow on questing plus getting hit by Find Water while relying on a lot of hero readying, almost lead to location lock. I managed to get through it and ended at a temperature of 58! It would have been a turn earlier except for Scorched Hamada getting revealed.

I got mostly locations early which was great because me deck doesn’t start with much combat. I cleared both encounter side quests and was able to get my fellowship flipped so I could blow past stage 2 in one turn. I would have been toast otherwise with no healing.

All Silvan Fellowship was interesting. On one hand 1B hard counters puny Silvan allies on the round they enter (die or exhaust, no bonus for you!), but on the other hand Silvan Trackers basically completely break the incoming damage problem. I had 2 out in my game and I wish I counted how much damage they were healing. It was like 22 points each round at some points.

After failing to amass enough willpower with Tactics and Traps, I pulled out my trusty Woods(wo)men deck from the Ered Mithrin cycle to pair with Faramir (L), Eowyn (T), and Damrod. As a result, the locations were much less of an issue (the encounter deck actually sent me to an Oasis on Round 1 via Mirage) and I was able to keep multiple Were-worms in Ranger Spikes until round 3. Got to use Woodmen’s Path + Put off Pursuit to get rid of the final Were-worm and then quested to victory.

Gandalf and Galadriel got blanked. Gandalf got to stay in play, and Galadriel could quest by herself.

Fell one progress short of Beating the Heat! Finished with Temperature of 32.

Treebeard is carrying a lot of weight for me here, with hard quest pushes and one-hitting Were-worms. Once the encounter deck threw all side quests at me in a single staging. I cleared them all to beef up Thurindir but I came into stage 3 with a heat 2 over the limit for the challenge so I quit. I really like Leaflock in this scenario as the damage on Ents is gratis. I “used” the Mirage objective twice, because I had Scorched Hamada in the discard and heat was at 8. Also my favorite moment, when the Were-worm had 0 ATK.

My Istari deck was made much more potent by craft remedy. Allowed me to keep Gandalf and Saruman in play without worrying about them being discarded at the end of the game.

Were-worms were no match for my swole Eagles of the Misty Mountains.

In my run with a Vilya deck Treebeard defended 4 attacks from 4 ATK worms in a single round and 5 side quests in VD for Thurindir

The only sticky situation I had was drawing a were-worm on the turn I cleared stage 2, then having to fetch another worm and engage both of them. Luckily the tens digit of the temperature was only 2 at the time, so I survived.

The Silvan Trackers were the MVPs of the Silvan passage through the desert. In the final stage, with the temperature soaring into the 40s, two were-worms confronted the party… but things didn’t end well for those sneaky creatures.

My Silvans got rolling, and I played Host of the Galadhrim on the last round to quest with everyone without exhausting for 29, then added 4 from Galadriel and Nenya as well.

Got 4 side quests done and lost on a bad shadow on my last round.

Decklists used

SpDain Gandalf Glorfindel

Two different Isengard decks: https://ringsdb.com/deck/view/610073; https://ringsdb.com/deck/view/610357

Bond of Friendship Hobbits with Beorn – https://ringsdb.com/deck/view/599050

This is what I won with: https://ringsdb.com/deck/view/606913

BGamerJoe’s “Harad Needs No Steward” deck. Cirdan, Kahliel, and Thurindir are the heroes.

Gondor swarm

Rossiel: https://ringsdb.com/deck/view/550840

ATEoAT Gwaihir Radagast and Arwen Aragorn Elfhelm Mounts ringsdb.com/fellowship/view/17792

Creatures Fellowship ft. Wilyador: https://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/58818/theriseofwilyador-1.0

Oops All Silvan Fellowship. My first attempt at a Grey Aragorn deck (OMG Estel!). A Forth Three Hunters Staging Area Attack deck. An attempt at a Last Alliance of Beornings and Noldor. Last Alliance of Harad and Dale. And my version of the Pen Is Mightier Elrond deck.

Date Night Dragon Hunt (https://ringsdb.com/fellowship/view/20217/qotwthekingsquestdatenightdragonhunt) – a two-handed fellowship featuring Faramir (L) & Eowyn (T) along with some trusty rangers and woods(wo)men.

2 dwarf decks, a Silvan, and Cowboy Bebop alt art deck from Beorn

Dwarf swarm

Haldir Herubrand Merry Three Hunters: https://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/53629/haldirdoubleshot-1.0

https://ringsdb.com/deck/view/612553, https://ringsdb.com/deck/view/612111

Five Istari Deck (https://ringsdb.com/deck/view/612397) At the Ent of all Things (https://ringsdb.com/deck/view/614423)

(Faunith/Prince Imrahil(Le)/Radagast)[https://ringsdb.com/deck/view/613447]

Mono-lore Vilya: https://ringsdb.com/deck/view/606913 Dwarves: https://ringsdb.com/deck/view/613562

EDH (Estel. Dúnedain. Harpist): https://ringsdb.com/deck/view/609340

There & Everywhere (Silvan elves): https://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/59215/thereeverywhere-5.0

Outlands & Harad: https://ringsdb.com/deck/view/611532

Silvan Council of the Wise https://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/57989/magicsilvancouncil-2.0

https://ringsdb.com/fellowship/view/22379

At last, you’ve made it out of the desert and have been rescued by a group of friendly Haradrim. They seem quite nice. I hope nothing happens to them in the next quest.

Next week’s quest: The Long Arm of Mordor https://forms.gle/sgr4irybtKu3GN4AA

Achievements for this week: