QOTW: Flight from Moria

Legolas turned and set an arrow to the string, though it was a long shot for his small bow. He drew, but his hand fell, and the arrow slipped to the ground. He have a cry of dismay and fear. Two great trolls appeared; they bore great slabs of stone, and flung them down to serve as gangways over the fire. But it was not the trolls that had filled the Elf with terror. The ranks of the orcs had opened, and they crowded away, as if they themselves were afraid. Something was coming up behind them. What it was could not be seen: it was like a great shadow, in the middle of which was a dark form, of man-shape maybe, yet greater; and a power and terror seemed to be in it and to go before it
–The Fellowship of the Ring

Flight from Moria Stats

Groups registered: 22
Total attempts: 61
Most attempts: 6
Average attempts per entry: 2.8

Total number of wins: 23
Win-rate: 38%

Average opinion on the quest: 2.4

Achievements

Here are the achievements we had for this quest:

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.

Encounter Card Opinions

There was a two-way tie for favorite encounter card this week between A Foe Beyond and Plundered Armory. We talked about Plundered Armory last week, so let’s take a brief look at A Foe Beyond, which is the signature treachery for this quest. It’s wild to me that this is the favorite encounter card this quest, because both its When Revealed ability and its Shadow effect can pretty easily kill a hero. However, it is fun to play around this card and come up with creative ways to deal with it. There are 1 per player copies of this in the deck, so in four players you’re probably in for a pretty rough time.

I’m really amused by the card choices that appeared on both the favorite and least favorite lists this week. Discounting the cheeky answer of “Everything” on the least-favorite list, the only two cards that appear on both lists this week are A Foe Beyond (the overall favorite card) and Sudden Pitfall (spoiler alert: the overall least favorite card).

And on that note, among all the good options (and many were nominated) the overall least favorite card this quest was Sudden Pitfall. I’m shocked and surprised. Almost as surprised as I’m going to be when we get to Road to Rivendell and the least favorite card ends up being Sleeping Sentry.

Things worth sharing from the games

I also played Nightmare with my Iron Lung. I had a few games that had horrible beginnings. For one, I had three rounds in a row of Goblin Spearman coming up as a shadow. For another, for stage 1b I revealed An Evil Fortune, which surged into Swarming Goblins, which surged into A Foe Beyond (okay, perfect time for that one to come up). My first quest card was A Wrong Turn, which revealed Fouled Well. I discarded a random card. I then revealed another Fouled Well for staging, didn’t want to discard another card, and revealed a Cave Troll. Location locked and staring down those enemies, I scooped. My successful run was much smoother, again avoiding putting cards in the victory display. I ended with 3 victory points in the victory display, and took a hit from A Foe Beyond as I escaped via Pursued by Shadow, but that was no problem. I left Abandoned Tools in the staging area all game.

After multiple losses, I finally grabbed a dunadain deck that loves being engaged with enemies. I had five enemies engaged with me, two with forest snares, and two armored destriers on Armathuil. It was fun to WANT enemies to engage me.

My first reveal from setup was Abandoned Tools into Swarming Goblins into Shadow of Fear. The quest phase brought another Shadow of Fear. Combat with the goblins turned over Dismay and Fear, eliminating every attachment on Neutragorn and instantly making this my least favorite quest.

Sudden Pitfall (as a shadow card) ended two of my runs :(. I came close to inadvertently achieving “I Know a Shortcut” in one playthrough when Blocked By Shadow was randomly the first quest (I decided to risk it and avoided discarding treacheries -> won by questing thru two rounds later).

1 win on Normal, 1 win on Nightmare. I can now go back to never thinking about this quest.

I found Blocked by Shadow on turn 1, risked option 2 looking for a quick win, lost it on turn 2 to New Devilry, then immediately found it again and survived the second when revealed option again! Turn 3 I lost Theoden to a Great Cave-Troll that I had to engage. Turn 4 I yolo quested, lost Radagast to A Foe Beyond, and quested out, thus completing the jankiest win ever. It felt like cheating.

This quest was designed to teach you that gambling is bad for you, and a sin. Or at least it taught my dwarves that who ended up at the bottom of Khazad-dum.

It took me 3 tries to get the win 2-handed on normal difficulty. I ended up completing nearly all stage 2 quest cards on my winning attempt, bringing my VP total up to 11. Dain Ironfoot nearly tanked all the damage when A Foe Beyond came out but was 1 HP short so Balin was forced to perish. Eleanor was also lost to a Foe Beyond. The treachery surge trains were intense, especially early in the game when there were no enemies in the discard or progress on the quest.

Setup reveal VP-location, and Shadow and fear in the first staging. But I made!

Very fun to play the Shortcut achievement with Keep it secret, Risk some light and a Grappling Hook on Eowyn

Frodo in his Iron Lung was great for A Foe Beyond. But generally, I was just careful not to put any cards in the victory display if I didn’t have to (easier to do on Normal), so I kept a Cave Troll in staging all game even though I could’ve destroyed it, and I didn’t send much willpower to the quests so as not to advance. Only 4 victory points at the end of the game. I didn’t take the risk of Blocked by Shadow (good thing, too — the next card I revealed was a treachery!), I’ve had that kill me before.

Enjoyed it more than I remember – maybe in true solo the Foe Beyond is just hard enough to find, and it is quite thematic, but too swingy, and I don’t like how you can be forced to clear something like Dreadful gap that pumps the Balrog up

Decklists used

To Hunt a Balrog https://ringsdb.com/deck/view/637826

My first few attempts I was using a variety of dwarf decks and losing. Finally won with this “All That is Gold Does Not Glitter” Dunedain Deck.

Fastred, Tacowyn, Dunhere

Neutragorn/Gilraen/Halbarad

“Date Night Dragon Hunt” (Faramir (Lore), Eowyn & Damrod) – https://ringsdb.com/deck/view/533741 alongside “Gondorian Tactics” (Boromir, Hirgon & Mablung) – https://ringsdb.com/deck/view/639231

All Dogs Go To Valinor 🙂

The Riddermark’s Finest Finest Hour https://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/62554/theriddermarksfinestfinesthour-1.0

Aragorn (Lore), Arwen (Spirit), Frodo (Spirit)

Ents: https://ringsdb.com/deck/view/520481

Dwarf Progression (https://ringsdb.com/deck/view/640877)

Dain, Bifur Gloin + Eowny Gimli Glorfindel. https://ringsdb.com/fellowship/view/23457

Dwarf the Three Hunters and Gondor ft. Eleanor https://ringsdb.com/deck/view/576542 https://ringsdb.com/deck/view/636550

Flight to the ford

Special for shortcut achievement: https://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/62586/iknowashortcutithink-1.0 Gimli-doomstack: https://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/60852/shoppingwiththemirror-1.0

The Iron Lung https://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/62597/ironlung-1.0

Perilous Voyage Balin, Ori, Oin and Riddle Game/Grey Wanderer Bilbo (Tactics)

Bond of Friendship Hobbits with Tom Cotton

Grab a coat and gloves; this week we head out into the cold on the pass of Caradhras, and we just may find the frozen corpses of the heroes that tried to flee from Moria last week! Once you have finished The Redhorn Gate, please fill in this form: https://forms.gle/bhH2UeNBQLuKjETNA

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: