‘It is grim reading,’ he said. ‘I fear their end was cruel. Listen! “We cannot get out. We cannot get out. They have taken the Bridge and the second hall. Frár and Lóni and Náli fell there.” Then there are four lines smeared so that I can only read “went 5 days ago.” The last lines run “the pool is up to the wall at Westgate. The Watcher in the Water took Óin. We cannot get out. The end comes,” and then “drums, drums in the deep.” I wonder what that means. The last thing written is in a trailing scrawl of elf-letters: “they are coming.” There is nothing more.’ Gandalf paused and stood in silent thought.
–The Fellowship of the Ring
In case you didn’t know, JRR Tolkien actually created three facsimile pages from the Book of Mazarbul. He burnt the edges with his pipe, pierced holes along the left-hand side where the pages would have been stitched to the binding, and washed the paper with red and brown paint to resemble dried bloodstains. You can view pictures of these facsimiles in some editions of Lord of the Rings and they are truly remarkable. Here’s a photo of the last page, and you can even see the “trailing scrawl of elf-letters” saying “they are coming”:
The Seventh Level Stats
- Groups registered: 29
- Total attempts: 60
- Most attempts: 5
- Average attempts per entry: 2.1
- Total number of wins: 32
- Win-rate: 53%
I think this might be our first time ever in QOTW where the Nightmare mode of a quest has been played more than the normal mode. This is a great quest to do that on, since the Nightmare mode vastly improves the quality of the quest. Speaking of which, I separated out the votes for “How much do you like this quest” between those who played Nightmare and those who played Normal.
- Average opinion on the quest (Normal): 3.2
- Average opinion on the quest (Nightmare): 4.5
- Average opinion on the quest (Overall): 4.0
Achievements
Here are the achievements we had for this quest:
No Unfinished Business
Stage 2B gains the text: “The players cannot defeat this stage while an enemy is in play.“
They Have a Cave-Troll
Forced: When stage 1B or 2B is revealed, search the encounter deck, encounter discard pile, and victory display for 1 copy of a Cave-Troll and add it to the staging area.
Encounter Card Opinions
We’re back to our old stand-by for favorite encounter card this week: a beneficial location! This one is Plundered Armoury, which gives you a free Weapon or Armour attachment after you explore it. It does have a negative effect while in staging, but with no travel effect it’s a no-brainer to travel here.
There are three cards that were on both lists this week. We’ll talk about the third for least-favorite encounter card below, but the first two are Cave-Troll and Goblin Archer. Cave-Troll is a tough enemy, sure, but it also is such a quintessential “Mines of Moria” flavored enemy that gives us a return to the “trolls have effects that deal with excess damage and have victory points” that it’s hard not to be charmed by the design.
The Goblin Archer is such a relic of it’s time. They really had to bend over backward to try to invent Archery before the Archery keyword existed.
There was a three-way tie for least favorite encounter card this week between Orc Horn Blower, Orc Taskmaster, and Undisturbed Bones. Orc Horn Blower is such a weird design. It’s a really easy enemy to kill, but it has 2 threat and it surges and it essentially surges again. And props to him for being one of two enemies in the entire game that has the Summoner trait.
The core mechanic of the Nightmare version of this quest is that Goblin enemies can accumulate resource tokens. These resources don’t do anything on their own, and only are referred to by other card effects. They usually aren’t a problem until the dreaded Orc Taskmaster shows up. This guy can make even a small swarm of Goblins untouchable turn after turn until you either kill him (and he takes 10 attack to kill!) or remove each resource one at a time. Note that this card appeared on the “favorite” and “least-favorite” lists this week.
Finally we have Undisturbed Bones. The When Revealed effect here is usually no big deal. However the shadow effect, if you are defending with an ally, can often lead to you instantly losing that ally and a hero.
Things worth sharing from the games
The little Goblins outplayed themselves with adding shadow cards to Staging. Just more readying for Gleowine, Henamarth and co.
Nightmare was a lot of fun with all the enemies for my Dúnedain deck. I had one early scoop (turn 1 cave-troll), then my second game I was engaged with up to 7 enemies and could hardly reduce them. Undisturbed Bones discarded my ally Elrond and Arwen ate a 6 attack, perishing with her father. I ended when I didn’t have enough progress on the quest and my threat was at 49. For my third run, I had fewer problematic enemies, and had shadow cancellation (Burning Brand and Armored Destrier on Aragorn, Armored Destrier on Amarthiul), and I got an early Forest Snare out and also a Goblin Scout engaged, which did actually damage Amarthiul when he got a +3 Attack shadow at one point. Once Overseer Maurûl engaged me, I was able to flip Perilous Voyage and get a Forest Snare on him and just keep him sitting around until I had enough progress, at which point I finished him off. It’s nice to get a boss who can take attachments and isn’t immune to player card effects.
The one winning attempt took 21 rounds to beat normally, 30 with No Unfinished Business. But 0 Threat is helping very much with Dunhere’s consistency later on.
I had my entire deck drawn and played while waiting for my threat to creep up to 48 so I could engage the Goblin Archer and get the No Unfinished Business achievement.
My winning game had a slow start to the swarm, but with Thorin Stonehelm’s ability and a dwarrowdelf axe, I was able to deal with TWO cave trolls in a roll. Thankfully it was only one per turn. (Does that count towards the second achievement? 😉 I’m really enjoying the nightmare quests. It’s been a fun addition to this cycle so far!
Galadhon archer took down one of the annoying stagingarea Goblins on arrival! Buh/ya!
I was able to keep 3 enemies engaged with me for most of the game, allowing me to play discounted Dunedain every turn. When Overseer Maurul showed up, I smashed him immediately with a Fornost Bowman, a Dunedain Hunter, Aragorn, and Halbarad with a Warrior Sword. Then, my Misty Mountain Journeymen, Aragorn, and Halbarad quested through for the win.
Got a Cave-Troll during setup, but Bilbo Baggins (T) kept pinging away at it all game and finally took it down right as I quested through stage 2 to victory. One tense moment was when the shadow effect on Undisturbed Bones led to Bilbo facing an undefended attack of 4, but he was saved by Close Call! (fun little thematic moment there!).
On my first attempt I got absolutely overwhelmed by enemies round 1, getting 4 enemies by the end of the first quest phase, and then the first 2 shadow effects also added more enemies.
My second set of games I switched to two-handed to bring in a cycle progression deck with Lore Aragorn, Glorfindel, and Elrond, to team up with the Dwarves. These are my first real attempts at a Vilya deck, so there has been some pilot error in the losses but looking forward to playing it more! Felt this quest was way more difficult two-handed than solo.
I used Dunedain Hunter to grab the Orc Horn Blower from the encounter deck, avoiding both his Surge and When Revealed!
I decided to try my novelty deck that can engage 11 enemies without worrying about shadows, because I knew that, barring an early cave troll or Chieftain of the Pit, the enemies don’t hit too hard and many can enter the staging area through their shadow effects. I ended up with 13 enemies engaged for my best run, before deciding to quest with my three Wardens of Annuminas. My Fornost Bowmen could’ve helped with No Unfinished Business, but that wasn’t the point of this run.
Loved the fact that I randomly drew up the NM exit card and i managed to shuffle it in first turn to draw it back up. Rather amusing – love the consistency and refinement that NM brings to this quest.
This was the first time I’ve played Nightmare The Seventh Level and it was a blast! I love the enemy-resource mechanic and the strategic decisions the NM enemies and locations add. I’m very glad I gave it a try!
Spirit Merry with the book of Mazarbul is ridiculous, it’s like starting with a free Hobbit Pony+
Playing release progression style, lost the first two times I played. Swapped in 2x Longbeard Orc Slayer and somehow he was the missing piece. Sneak Attack in the resource phase and then paid to play in planning phase helped wipe the board of enemies in the same turn, including the ones that cannot be optionally engaged, allowing me to make a big quest push.
My usually strong Rohan 3-hunters got swarmed by goblins and just couldn’t keep up with the enemies. It was a very fun loss. My traps deck was more succesful. I definitely didn’t complete the unfinished business achievement, but left all the enemies stuck in spike pits and nets which seems like the next best thing.
I lost Frodo and the pony to a treachery to which Merry dug in and finished the quest.
Dain was defending for 9 (12 with his ability) with 9 health by the end of the game and Thorin Stonehelm was attacking for effectively 11. On the other side of the table was a variation of a Gondor swarm that had both Visionary Leadership and Ally Faramir on the table.
Sneak Attack Longbeard Orc Slayer killed off 5 engaged goblins saving my game on turn two.
Love the thematic cave troll, I forgot Goblin Archer existed.
Decklists used
Faramir watching Ping Pong: https://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/62524/faramirwatchespingpong-1.0 Damrod-beorning-cycle: https://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/61635/damrodsbeorningfriendsgoto0threat-1.0
Direct Damage and traps fellowship – Thalin, Argalad, Celador / Bilbo, Fastred, Theodred
I knew there would be lots of enemies, so I went with Dúnedain https://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/58016/inmemoryofarvedui-1.0
Mono-Spirit Damrod Cycle: https://ringsdb.com/deck/view/636770
The Riddermark’s Finest Finest Hour https://ringsdb.com/deck/view/638454
To Hunt a Balrog https://ringsdb.com/deck/view/637826
Mormegil’s Bond of Dwarves deck. https://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/45455/bondofdwarvesmd-dwarvesmultiplayer-1.0
Cycling bears and eagles / Arwen, Beregond *tactics, Hirgon
Dunedain oathbreakers
Gifts of Galadriel Dunedain: https://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/62563/doddecked-outdunedain-1.0
“The Luck of Bilbo Baggins” (my very first QotW deck from when we did the Core Set quests) – https://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/48295/qotwpassagethroughmirkwood-theluckofbilbobaggins-1.0
Saruman Giftmaker alongside a Tactics Glorfindel + Spirit Dain AtEoAT deck: https://ringsdb.com/fellowship/view/23456
Cycle Progression Fellowship (https://ringsdb.com/fellowship/view/23512)
Dunland: https://sites.google.com/view/wildmenofdunland/home and Ents: https://ringsdb.com/deck/view/520481
Dúnedain deck whose entire point is to engage as many enemies as possible https://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/62529/thesednedaingoto11-1.0
Spirit Eowyn, Spirit Brand, Leadership Bard
Neutragorn/Gilraen/Halbarad (https://ringsdb.com/deck/view/628708)
The Hour of Hour of Wrath and The Rise of Wilyador https://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/41400/thehourofhourofwrath-2.0 https://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/58818/theriseofwilyador-1.0
Bond of Friendship Hobbits (Tom Cotton, Sam, Merry, Pippin)
Dwarf Progression (https://ringsdb.com/deck/view/640028)
Rohan 3-hunters, Traps (Damrod, Celador, Eowyn)
Perilous Voyage Balin, Ori, Oin and Grey Wanderer/Riddle Game Bilbo (tactics)
Tactics Aragorn, Lore Pippin, Tactics Merry, Spirit Beregond, Leadership Frodo, Spirit Glorfindal
Glorfindel, Lore Aragorn, Spirit Frodo, Theodred, Gimli, Boromir
Dwarf the 3-Hunters and Gondor ft. Eleanor https://ringsdb.com/deck/view/576542 https://ringsdb.com/deck/view/636550
https://ringsdb.com/deck/view/639879 https://ringsdb.com/deck/view/639746
Progression 2 handed (all cycle cards included) Bifur, Dain Gloin and Eowyn Gimli Glorfindel https://ringsdb.com/fellowship/view/23457
This week we confront (and promptly run away from) the terror that the Dwarves awoke in the deep places of the earth. Once you have finished Flight from Moria, please fill in this form: https://forms.gle/5GNq1fRiGvWyyPsE8
If you want to share in the discussion of this quest live, join the Cardboard of the Rings discord and look for the Quest of the Week channel: https://discord.gg/5tkTeSCdxc
And for achievements for this quest, this is what we have:
Skill of the Dwarves
Complete Escape from Darkness in one turn by triggering the Refresh action on Abandoned Tools 4 times.
I Know a Shortcut
Forced: when preparing the quest deck, instead of shuffling all stage 2 quest cards together, search for Blocked by Shadow and set it aside, out of play. Then, shuffle the rest of the stage 2 quest cards together and place Blocked By Shadow on top of the quest deck with its 2A side face-up.
Complete Blocked By Shadow before the end of the next turn.
Vision Of The Palantir 