QOTW Recap: The Glittering Caves

“You may think them wonderful, but I have seen a greater wonder in this land, more beautiful than any grove or glade that ever grew: my heart is still full of it.

Strange are the ways of Men, Legolas! Here they have one of the marvels of the Northern World, and what do they say of it? Caves, they say! Caves! Holes to fly in to in time of war, to store fodder in! My good Legolas, do you know that the caverns of Helm’s Deep are vast and beautiful? There would be an endless pilgrimage of Dwarves, merely to gaze at them, if such things were known to be. Aye indeed, they would pay pure gold for a brief glance!”

“And I would give gold to be excused,” said Legolas; “and double to be let out, if I stayed in!”

— The Two Towers, The Road to Isengard, J.R.R. Tolkien

Imagine you’re doing some casual spelunking with friends. You’ve made an afternoon of it, getting out from the cold into a relatively warm, albeit humid, cave system. Halfway in someone drops one of their Bluetooth headphones. Next thing you know you’re getting chased by the angry apparition of your tour guide’s long-lost ancestor, screaming about “invaders” this and “traitorous Hill-men” that.

Until you find your missing ear piece, you’ll never be able to get back to your car.

The Glittering Caves’s Stats

Groups registered: 5
Total attempts: 10
Most attempts: 2
Average attempts per entry: 2
Official difficulty: 7/10
Community-rated difficulty: 7.9/10

Total number of wins: 3
Win-rate: 30%

Average opinion on the quest: 3

This quest required a well-tuned deck that was ready to take hits from ol’ Hammerhand as early as round 5. Some noted the difference in difficulty between true solo and multiplayer.

For the majority of responders this was the first time playing this quest. Anecdotally, many players likely don’t have the physical cards and may find the implementation on Dragncards to be more overhead than desired.

Achievements

Some may have noticed a lack of achievements in the post and in the survey. This, dear reader, was a mistake on my part!

Fear not, though, for there were indeed achievements. If you managed to accomplish one or both of them, give yourself a pat on the back!

He’s Gotten Quicker

Helm Hammerhand’s Forced effect will allow him to move up to 1 additional cave towards the nearest player.

The Full Tour

Visit every cave on the Caves Map.

Encounter Card Opinions

The Favored

One card was a clear favorite: Small Stream.

Not only is Small Stream a way to give you a way out of your current cave location if you’re stuck or behind in questing, but it also allows you to move to an adjacent location just like Helm! No more wandering down the hallways looking for a connected location, now you can take the local slip ‘n slide to the next chamber over!

The Least Favored

One particular card took home the trophy for least-liked: Echoes in the Deep.

Not only does this treachery let Helm move a second time in a round towards the players adjacently, he can attack if he finds you! While you’re already having to put up with a 7-attack enemy in the mid-game, here’s another effect akin to “This enemy makes an immediate attack after this one.” If you haven’t brought ready tech in some form or fashion, or have fodder to throw at this grumpy ghost, this might keep you forever entombed in one of Tolkien’s Wonders of Middle-earth.

Things worth sharing from the games

There were some really cool moments in this quest, but it felt too RNG dependent in true solo. Highlight was definitely using Twisting Paths to avoid a particularly terrible cave for my deck (discarding all the attachments). There’s some really cool things going on mechanically in this quest, but I think you need more players to consistently create those moments.

A huge improvement on the Lost Island mechanic. My favorite ALeP quest. I played it for the first time in hard mode, where you have to explore the entire map, and I didn’t expect so much threat, but it made it even more fun!

There weren’t enough locations for the location control-heavy fellowship I had to be effective. I also was not able to defend Helm with either deck. He slowly whittled me to oblivion.

I didn’t mark it as a win in the statistics above, because I relied on redoing one of the reveals to win. Tough quest, and a lot of overhead.

Decklists Used

Bree-fense: https://ringsdb.com/deck/view/653564
Glittering Defense: https://ringsdb.com/deck/view/659186

A Perilous Ride – https://ringsdb.com/deck/view/649507

Aragorn/Glorfindel Location Control and The Riddermark’s Finest Finest Hour

Gondor Swarm: Beregond, Boromir, Ingold (https://ringsdb.com/deck/view/659850)

Silvan Council of the Wise

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-the-glittering-caves

While this article is late, you can still submit your playthrough of Mustering of the Rohirrim using the form here: https://forms.gle/rrLVbyW7YDXFzRQVA.

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/pzKpyhTHx

And for achievements for Mustering of the Rohirrim, this is what we have: