‘I am sorry, Sam’ said the wizard. ‘But when the Door opens I do not think you will be able to drag your Bill inside, into the long dark of Moria. You will have to choose between Bill and your master.’
–The Fellowship of the Ring
The Long Dark Stats
- Groups registered: 16
- Total attempts: 27
- Most attempts: 4
- Average attempts per entry: 1.7
- Total number of wins: 22
- Win-rate: 81%
- Average opinion on the quest: 1.9
Achievements
Here are the achievements we had for this quest:
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.
Encounter Card Opinions
Taking 50% of the votes and the overall win for most favorite encounter card this week was Durin’s Greaves. It’s not a particularly amazing card as far as armours go, but the fact that the encounter deck gives it to you for free is very cool. I wish there were more beneficial world-building things like this in encounter decks.
This week there were no cards that showed up in both the favorite and least-favorite categories.
And taking 50% of the votes and the overall win for least favorite encounter card this week was Foul Air. This is a treachery that can really punish you if you aren’t able to pass a locate test. And if you drew this card, that means that there is one less PASS in the deck, because this card is one of the cards in the deck that has PASS on it. Good luck and I hope all your characters don’t die!
Things worth sharing from the games
I lost my first game to Foul Air after my hand was emptied by Cave Spider while being stuck at a Twisting Passage. My second game was an uneventful win.
Kept getting engaged by multiple enemies each round between The Goblin Sneak as a shadow card, and the treachery Chance Encounter that kept sending Cave Spider. I discarded about 7 cards to finally win a lost test and it was the last card between both hands. Between Asfaloth and cave torch, I was able to do one big push in round 5 to beat the final quest stage in one turn.
I had a few tense moments in multiple games in which I discarded down to my last card before finding a “PASS” to avoid the damage from Foul Air (I would have enjoyed the playthroughs much less if I had failed those locate tests). That said, this was not a bad quest to piddle through w/victory display decks (it is satisfying to grab Twisting Passage w/Out of the Wild, for instance). In my final attempt, Gathering Ground attached to Twisting Passage, which would have been really bad news had I not completed the quest that round.
This quest stinks. I almost got location locked at the beginning (nightmare mode), but a Northern Tracker got me out of it, and I was able to generate just enough willpower to not quest unsuccessfully each round. I used all the discard effects to dump Elven-Light and had Steward on Arwen, so I drew a ton of cards. I only ever revealed a single enemy for my Dúnedain deck to engage, a measly Stray Goblin that wasn’t even worth using my Forest Snare on. The only good parts of this quest were using a couple cards that can be more difficult to use, Distant Stars to replace the active location with Eastern Mines without needing to travel there, and Tale of Tinuviel on my last round to get the extra willpower I needed to finish and not go through another tedious round.
Campaign mode made this quest a bit more interesting. I also got to spend 5 favor to keep Durin’s Greaves on Dain for the rest of the campaign.
This quest sort of dances on the knife’s edge between “extremely boring” and “extremely frustrating” depending on whether or not the encounter randomness manages to totally lock you down with some of the location stuff (more a NM problem).
Challenge me next time, Sauron. But seriously was fun to recommit to playing in 2026 and get an easy win in for the first game.
Cave torch and Henamarth for the win!
Foul Air killed about half of my characters including a hero, but we made it to the end because it wasn’t that hard of a quest in the first place.
Decklists used
The Riddermark’s Finest Finest Hour https://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/62554/theriddermarksfinestfinesthour-1.0
ff0x’s Noldorian Might fellowship which uses Erestor, Cirdan, Glorfindel and Arwen, Elrohir, Elladan.
https://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/63115/itshouldhavebeenmineboromirtakestheringandsimply-1.0
sp Glorfindel, Lore Bilbo, Beravor – https://ringsdb.com/deck/view/644643
Silvans & Secrecy Fellowship (Celeborn, Galadriel, Thranduil & Rossiel, Glorfindel (Sp), Mirlonde) – https://ringsdb.com/deck/view/642461 & https://ringsdb.com/deck/view/642459
Progression: Elladan/Elrohir/Eowyn (https://ringsdb.com/deck/view/645771)
https://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/58016/inmemoryofarvedui-1.0
Arwen Elladan Elrohir 3 hunters
Victory Display, Elrond Children 3 hunters
To Hunt a Balrog https://ringsdb.com/deck/view/637826
Stoned Tempo Hobbits (https://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/62862/stonedtempohobbitsmono-spiritpipes-1.0)
Muppet End of Dale Things (postCon24 edits)
Ents: https://ringsdb.com/deck/view/520481
This week we have been playing Foundations of Stone, one of my absolute favorite quests in the game. Once you have finished with your playthroughs, please fill in this form: https://forms.gle/9Rbvorz7tc8TQr1h8
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:
Not Getting Off That Easy
Forced: If a card with a printed cost of 0 is attached to a Nameless enemy from the top of a player’s deck, attach an additional card from the top of that player’s deck.
Aquaphobia
Forced: When stage 3B is revealed, discard all Mount and Artifact cards from play. Each player must also discard allies they control until the total printed cost of allies they control is 6 or less.
Vision Of The Palantir 