QOTW Recap: The Gap of Rohan

“All hope was lost when, unlooked for, the Riders came out of the North and broke upon the rear of the enemy. Then the fortunes of battle were reversed, and the enemy was driven with slaughter over Limlight. Eorl led his men in pursuit, and so great was the fear that went before the horsemen of the North that the invaders of the Wold were also thrown into panic, and the Riders hunted them over the plains of Calenardhon.”

— Return of the King, Appendix A, J.R.R. Tolkien

This quest tested your mettle and stamina, with the Frostbite mechanic exhausting characters at the beginning of the round and several treacheries that punished you for having too many allies, others doing just enough damage to keep you alive and plodding throw multiplying drifts of snow.

While Elves and the valorous Men of Gondor seem to have an easier time, others who were slow to set up and race against Gálmód’s Time mechanic would have struggled a bit more.

The Gap of Rohan’s Stats

Groups registered: 10
Total attempts: 21
Most attempts: 3
Average attempts per entry: 2.1
Official difficulty: 6/10
Community-rated difficulty: 6.7/10

Total number of wins: 12
Win-rate: 57.14%

Average opinion on the quest: 3.4

While many commented positively on the very thematic Snowbank, some noted the difference in difficulty between solo and multiplayer.

Half of the responders were playing this quest for the first time! It’s certainly one of the more challenging blind-plays of this cycle.

Achievements

Here are the achievements we had for this quest:

Snowbankier

Each Snowbank gets +1 threat for each progress on it.

On the Edge of a Knife

Setup: Remove 2 time counters from Gálmód.

Encounter Card Opinions

The Good

Two cards tied this week for favorite scenario card: Snowbank and Frozen Lake. If a card could take home an award for theme, it’d be the one that shows up every round while you chase a traitor through a blizzard!

Frozen lake, however, felt like a much needed reprieve from the constant snow piling around your party, despite the risk:

very thematic that you risk the ice breaking and swallowing someone

The Middle One

Two cards also showed up in both lists, this week: Snowbank and Exhausting Winds. While Snowbank is a heavily featured card in this quest, Exhausting Winds isn’t exclusive to this Quest of the Week.

The Ugly

No card had enough votes this week to make it the least favorite, but many were mentioned. This quest throws a lot at you, forcing you to be agile with ready characters and their respective health pools. While Exhausting Winds and Cold from the Mountains were also mentioned, as mentioned previously they’re not exclusive to this quest but get Honorable Mentions.

Things worth sharing from the games

Unnatural Cold shut down Lothiriel since all my Rohan questing allies only had one health. Fortunately, I had enough willpower in play I was able to push past it. Fun quest, but I think it would be better in multiplayer.

The snowbanks are fun and thematic

On the edge of a knife is really good idea for more tempo, specially when i play a side deck quest centered around thurindir and thalion.

Also th eillustrations of the snowy mountains cards are georgeous, love them

This quest isn’t especially fun with so much ally hate and slogginess on top of a time 7 that would end the game, but it definitely creates a perfect thematic atmosphere

I had an excellent start, with Nenya and Light of Valinor in my starting hand. Nenya let me blast past the first quest stage, and I got The Elvenking on Celeborn to exhaust him and an ally each following round, then ready Celeborn with The Elvenking and return a Silvan Refugee to hand, essentially negating the Frostbite 2 (albeit with an ongoing cost to do so). Love the theme, maybe because I love snow? It was also really nice to play a quest blind with a deck that, by luck, had great answers to the challenges the quest threw at me. Ended with 4 time counters on Gálmód, so I could’ve gotten the achievement had I decided to take off two time markers at the beginning, but I can’t really claim it.

This quest punished me the whole time, but it felt wonderfully thematic. Like chasing enemies down amongst a certain triptych of peaks from another cycle…

I missed so many triggers the first game I just took a loss, but really enjoyed the second and third games. I like how frostbite both pushed you towards ally swarm and mitigates the benefits of it. I wish snowbank felt more meaningful given how much significance the quest places on it.

Decklists Used

https://ringsdb.com/deck/view/647573

Power Decks: Caldera/Arwen/Cirdan and Elrond/Denethor/Quickbeam

https://ringsdb.com/deck/view/657131

Hirluin Grey Wanderer – https://ringsdb.com/deck/view/657357

Rohan Discard: Éowyn, Thengel, Théoden (https://ringsdb.com/deck/view/648023)

CotW Silvans https://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/57989/magicsilvancouncil-2.0

Gondor Swarm: Boromir, Denethor, Ingold (https://ringsdb.com/deck/view/648134)

SpAragorn/Celador/Damrod & SpBeregond/TEowyn/SpGlorfindel

Ingold, Hirgon, Lore Denethor – Doomed/Valour

If you haven’t yet voted on the difficulty of the quest over at the LOTR LCG Quest Companion, feel free to do so here: https://lotr-lcg-quest-companion.gamersdungeon.net/#oaths-of-the-rohirrim-quest-fire-on-the-eastemnet

This week we’re spelunking for a haunted horn, seeking to put Helm Hammerhand’s spirit to rest in The Glittering Caves! When you’ve completed your playthrough, please fill out the form here: https://forms.gle/kpTYhAtsrCFG9ri67.

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: