QOTW: The Black Serpent

Southward beyond the road lay the main force of the Haradrim, and there their horsemen were gathered about the standard of their chieftain. And he looked out, and in the growing light he saw the banner of the king, and that it was far ahead of the battle with few men about it. Then he was filled with a red wrath and shouted aloud, and displaying his standard, black serpent upon scarlet, he came against the white horse and the green with great press of men; and the drawing of the scimitars of the Southrons was like a glitter of stars.

Then Théoden was aware of him, and would not wait for his onset, but crying to Snowmane he charged headlong to greet him. Great was the clash of their meeting. But the white fury of the Northmen burned the hotter, and more skilled was their knighthood with long spears and bitter. Fewer were they but they clove through the Southrons like a fire-bolt in a forest. Right through the press drove Théoden Thengel’s son, and his spear was shivered as he threw down their chieftain. Out swept his sword, and he spurred to the standard, hewed staff and bearer; and the black serpent foundered.
–The Return of the King

The Black Serpent Stats

Groups registered: 7
Total attempts: 15
Most attempts: 6
Average attempts per entry: 2.1

Total number of wins: 7
Win-rate: 47%

Average opinion on the quest: 3.7

Achievements

Here are the achievements we had for this quest:

Double Your Danger, Double Your Fun

The Black Serpent should read “X is twice the stage number of the main quest” instead of the stage number of the main quest.

It Gets Worse

Setup: Search the encounter deck for a copy of Southron Captain and set it aside, out of play, and add the Southron Champion side quest to the staging area. Add the set aside Southron Captain to the staging area as “the champion”. Shuffle the encounter deck.

Encounter Card Opinions

There was a two-way tie for favorite encounter card this week between Desert Bastion and The Black Serpent. One is a pretty simple and straightforward location that starts the quest out with pretty low threat. Plus it has no Forced abilities that screw with you, and no travel cost! I’m glad a few folks nominated The Black Serpent as their favorite, because I’m always partial to the cool boss enemies that aren’t immune to player card effects. Playing around bosses like these is very fun.

There were two cards nominated in both categories: Nowhere to Hide and Roofless Tower. Both cards have pretty interesting designs, especially as they relate to this quest. With Nowhere to Hide, you are not adding any threat to the staging area and if you’re set up to deal with enemies it’s not really a big deal. The only problem is that all the Haradrim enemies have effects that trigger when they engage you that might make you face a tough choice. Roofless Tower also introduces another strain on progress on the main quest: events now cost progress. This is a very interesting design that works very well with the core mechanic of Haradrim removing progress.

The card that was voted the overall least favorite encounter card of this quest was The Serpent Guard if you are not managing your threat carefully and/or putting enough progress on the quest ever round, you may find yourself in a situation where you keep getting enemies engaged with you and no way to deal damage back to them.

Things worth sharing from the games

Lothiriel plays Escort from Edoras for free, which quests for 4, discards itself, Gamling returns it to hand, and Thengel puts in an ally from the 5 cards of your deck (exhausted). Thengel also readies with his Light-footed Steed in order to defend, and Eomer gets +2 Attack. I believe this combo existed already, but I will be posting my version of it on ringsdb. -Maedhros100

I played a Dunedain trap deck that kept enemies engaged so their Forced effect would only trigger once. I also had Spirit Aragorn with 5 willpower and the Elendilmir with lots of readying so he could basically negate the threat of any locations. He also helped me control when I wanted to advance. Once the Dunedain deck had 4-5 enemies engaged (3 in Forest Snares) it was pretty easy to handle attacks from The Black Serpent.

This quest really kept the pressure on, but I managed to get to stage 3…only to lose one of my objectives to No Quarter. No matter, I fought through the next round of Harad enemies and prepared to quest to victory…only to reveal Southron Champion (of course the Southron Captain came out as a result). Fortunately, I got the 6 progress on Stage 3B so that I could engage The Black Serpent and whack him with Eowyn to lesson the pressure. Faramir used The Black Arrow to dispatch the Champion/Captain next round and then I quested through to replace lost progress. Quite the roller-coaster!

Decklists used

BOF with Spirit Dain, Thorin S, Gilraen, Galdor alongside Last Alliance of North and South with Lanwyn Kahliel and Brand

Scouting Burglars: https://ringsdb.com/deck/view/613935 and Rossiel: https://ringsdb.com/deck/view/550840

Isengard-Gondor Last Alliance: https://ringsdb.com/deck/view/610357

Rohan Discard deck: https://ringsdb.com/deck/view/618100 Last Alliance of Bears and Trees: https://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/30343/thelastallianceofbearsandtrees-1.0

Dunedain Traps and Location Control Support https://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/51608/dunedainofthenorth-1.0 https://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/58862/hopefromthelasthomelyhouse-1.0

Storm-Chasers (https://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/43973/stormchasersrco-1.0) – an #RCO Noldor deck featuring Cirdan, Erestor, and Arwen & Date Night Dragon Hunt (https://ringsdb.com/deck/view/533741) – #RCO Faramir (L), Eowyn (T), and Damrod

The Beacons are Lit in Umbar https://ringsdb.com/fellowship/view/22821

Because I’m about a week behind on writing this article, we’re actually already on The Crossings of Poros at time of writing. But if you have a result for The Dungeons of Cirith Gurat that you want to submit, please fill in this form: https://forms.gle/5bFTs6obzCCnNmw36

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