Out from the water a long sinuous tentacle had crawled; it was pale-green and luminous and wet. Its fingered end had hold of Frodo’s foot, and was dragging him into the water. Sam on his knees was now slashing at it with a knife.
The arm let go of Frodo, and Sam pulled him away, crying out for help. Twenty other arms came rippling out. The dark water boiled, and there was a hideous stench.
–The Fellowship of the Ring
The Watcher in the Water Stats
- Groups registered: 18
- Total attempts: 33
- Most attempts: 4
- Average attempts per entry: 1.8
- Total number of wins: 19
- Win-rate: 58%
- Average opinion on the quest: 3.1
Achievements
Here are the achievements we had for this quest:
A True Mellon
Complete the scenario with both Doors of Durin and The Watcher in the victory display.
Tough Calamari
Forced: After a non-unique Tentacle enemy engages a player, it gets +1 attack and +1 defense until the end of the round.
Encounter Card Opinions
Taking the most votes for “favorite encounter card” this week is the titular Watcher in the Water. This is one of the game’s first true boss fights, and it still lands pretty well even today. I always love to see a boss enemy that is not immune to player card effects–it makes the interactions much more fun. One thing that didn’t land particularly well with the original design was the Regenerate keyword. The Watcher has so few hit points anyway that the regeneration doesn’t do much. For the Nightmare mode, they opted to more than double his hit points and remove the Regenerate keyword.
The two cards to receive nominations in both the favorite and least-favorite categories this week are both very iconic and memorable treacheries for this quest: Disturbed Waters and Wrapped. These are both really interesting card designs that you don’t see anything similar to anywhere else in the game. The most unfortunate time to reveal either of these cards is during setup, when they both effectively have surge. One time I had the misfortune of revealing 3 out of the 4 copies of Wrapped in the encounter deck during setup in a true solo game. That’s an instant scoop!
But, taking almost half of the votes for least-favorite encounter card is the Striking Tentacle. Direct damage decks work really really well in this quest, and part of the reason for that is killing this tentacle before it ever has the chance to attack (and probably kill a hero in the process).
Things worth sharing from the games
Firyal is the hero of the bunch!
French translation made the game easy… every “xxxx tentacle” becomes “tentacule xxxx”, so if you have a card starting with “T” in your hand the doors of durin are much easier to pass^^
Playing this quest for the first time, I just happened to get lucky at the turn to Stage 2 that there were no Tentacles in play, so I could engage The Watcher immediately. Then, Elladan with a Rivendell Blade, Elrohir, and allies (aided by a timely Sneak Attack + Gandalf), were able to take down The Watcher. I did not even bother trying with the Doors of Durin.
I got Doors of Durin on my first try by discarding Gandalf (Grasping Tentacle)! From there it was smooth sailing chipping away at the Watcher.
I had to replay after realizing I’d missed the line about the Watcher not being able to engage you until the Doors of Durin are out of play on the nightmare card. This time I took my Noldor deck through. As soon as I was set up well enough, I raced on, not wanting to run out of cards for the Doors. With 0 cards that start with E in the encounter deck, my 14 cards that start with E, including the endlessly recurrable Elven-Light, were useless for the Doors, and the same goes for Lords of the Eldar. I used 2 of my three Will of the Wests, drew my third copy the round after playing my second one, and decided to discard it to the Doors. Still no dice. It wasn’t until I had three cards left in my deck and no hope of recurring any of them that I was successful, discarding Protector of Lorien and Perilous Swamp. Phew! The Watcher came down, I almost had enough attack to down it, and the next round I had 6 spirit resources and played two copies of Lords of the Eldar, attacking for 54 and dealing 47 damage. Poor Watcher didn’t stand a chance.
I played on Nightmare mode, so no cheesing the victory point requirements for me. Frodo quickly had no attack or defense (but could still convert a hit into threat), and Aragorn was limited by a Choking Tentacle. But a turn one Treebeard was helpful. When I got to the second quest card, I just converted the 3 damage from the Watcher each round into threat for a few rounds, then when I drew Gaffer Gamgee I cycles him to not be attacked (love bosses who aren’t immune to player card effects). After multiple rounds, I finally was able to dispatch the Watcher. I then played Old Toby, drew 6 cards, and discarded half my hand, including a Spare Pipe, to the Doors of Durin. I discarded a Stagnant Creek, putting Doors of Durin into the victory display and sealing the win.
My game was a slog. I never really got a solid foothold on the quest thanks to the tentacles. My deck never got going. I lost Theoden mid-game to a tentacle. I had a Mountain Warg with me for half the game I couldn’t get rid of. I got lucky and was able to discard Doors of Durin first try (Wrapped, Wizard Pipe) and quested out next round.
The Watcher is not immune so Gaffer shenanigans abound
One of my favorite things about this quest is that it does require tech, but you have a lot of options, so it’s actually a fun deck building exercise instead of feeling pigeonholed into one solution. Scrying is important, but victory display shenanigans, direct damage, and Revealed in Wrath are all great in this quest; I beat it with Bard/Straight Shot on one side and a “leave things engaged with you” deck on the other. A lot more interesting in NM where it has some anti-scrying effects, too.
I really like this quest, especially in NM. With all (and only) tentacle enemies in the Encounter deck as “parts” of the Big Bad, you really get a proper boss-fight feel out of this one. Doors of Durin should be extremely annoying (especially when you’re forced to clear it), and while I have no idea what the actual odds of any given deck actually clearing it are… I feel like I always clear it on the 4th attempt when I’m just YOLO discarding the 1 card left in my hand each round as I hope and pray.
Sitting at 44 threat with the Aragorn/Elrond/Glorfindel deck, I revealed Disturbed Waters (Doomed 5), meaning I would threat out before I could use Aragorn’s refresh action to reset my threat. In a last ditch effort, I discarded both of my hands and managed to clear the Doors of Durin before threating out.
I gave up on playing this true solo with my To Hunt a Balrog deck, so reached out to Z, Derrio, and Tritonwreck in discord to see if they’d want to tackle it together on DragnCards. We scooped the first game after losing Grimbeorn on turn 1 (and also me using Gavin to ruin our quest phase by pulling out Warg Lair) but where able to absolutely crush it on our second go.
In my most tense playthrough, I lost Celeborn to an undefended attack from Striking Tentacle, but managed to limp to stage 3 and then take out the Watcher for a (somewhat pyrrhic) victory.
Decklists used
Theoden, Erestor, SPeregon (https://ringsdb.com/deck/view/630676) & Grimbeorn, Radagast, Mablung (https://ringsdb.com/deck/view/577833)
To Hunt a Balrog https://ringsdb.com/deck/view/637826
Bilbo, Frodo, Falco (Libro Rojo’s https://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/12001/burglarhobbitses-1.0)
https://ringsdb.com/deck/view/578084
Progression: Elladan/Elrohir/Eowyn (https://ringsdb.com/deck/view/644505)
Used Shellin’s progression fellowship (https://ringsdb.com/fellowship/view/6102)
Ents: https://ringsdb.com/deck/view/520481
Direct damage fellowship (Argalad,Thalin,Celador / Bilbo,Theodred,Fastred)
Fairly standard Noldor
https://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/62597/ironlung-1.0
Elrohir/Elladan/Theodred and Dain/Nori/Ori
The Riddermark’s Finest Finest Hour
Bond of Friendship Hobbits with Tom Cotton
Gilraen/Halbarad/Ld Aragorn; testing out a Dunedain deck without tactics for once. Mono-tactics Bard/Hirgon/Grimbeorn across the table.
Stoned Tempo Hobbits (Mono Spirit Hobbit Pipes) https://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/62862/stonedtempohobbitsmono-spiritpipes-1.0
Cycle Progression Fellowship: Elladan/Elrohir/Eowyn and Aragorn/Elrond/Glorfindel (https://ringsdb.com/deck/view/644505)
To Hunt a Balrog https://ringsdb.com/deck/view/637826 Silvan Victory Display https://ringsdb.com/deck/view/644054 Gondor Tactics (Damage) https://ringsdb.com/deck/view/376687 Strength & Courage Featuring Grimbeorn https://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/19204/strengthandcourageftgrimbeorn-1.0
Silvans & Secrecy Fellowship (Celeborn, Galadriel, Thranduil & Rossiel, Glorfindel (Sp), Mirlonde) – https://ringsdb.com/deck/view/642461 & https://ringsdb.com/deck/view/642459
This week we are playing one of the least exciting quests in the game: The Long Dark. Once you have finished with your playthroughs for that one, please fill in this form: https://forms.gle/7vPbyBS7oRJBfRQX8
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:
The Short Dark
Complete the scenario in less than 3 rounds.
Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop
When making a locate test, continue to discard cards from your hand until you either discard an encounter card with PASS printed in the bottom right hand corner or you run out of cards in your hand.
Vision Of The Palantir 