QOTW Recap: The Massing at Osgiliath

“Dire deeds awake, dark is it eastward. Let horse be bridled, horn be sounded! Forth Eorlingas!“

The Two Towers, J.R.R. Tolkien

Cycle: Print on Demand scenario

The very first GenCon, later Print on Demand, quest released for The Lord of the Rings LCG in September, 2011, The Massing at Osgilliath offers plenty of opportunities for strategic plays and clever deckbuilding. The first stage offers some time to build your board state, but the minute you start to move through the ruins and attempt to cross the Anduin you’re restricted in different ways that might just send you floating down rather than sailing to the other side.

The Massing at Osgiliath’s Stats

• Groups registered: 8
• Total attempts: 13
• Most attempts: 3
• Average attempts per entry: 1.9
• Official difficulty: N/A
• Community-rated difficulty: 7.2/10

• Total number of wins: 7
• Win-rate: 66.67%

• Average opinion on the quest: 3.9

The Massing at Osgiliath is one of the more well-liked GenCon/PoD quests. It’s personally one of my own favorites for it’s simplicity and challenge, although the lack of replayability and a certain shadow effect certainly turns some folks off.

Despite the small sample size, it’s always great to see people experiencing this quest for the first time.

Achievements

Here are the achievements we had for this quest:

But Wait, There’s More!

Setup: Make Morgulduin the active location. Add Emyn Arnen Overlook to the staging area. 

The Massacre at Osgiliath

Defeat 3👤 (per player) enemies in a single round.

The first achievement, But Wait, There’s More! (RIP Billy), had no takers, understandably. While tackling a 3 quest point active location from the start isn’t a huge hurdle, a surge and Doom from the first Scout enemy that shows up can set a fellowship back from the first round. While the odds aren’t high in 4 player (you’ll already have all the Scouts out), it becomes more likely to trigger Emyn Arnen’s effect with fewer players.

The second achievement, The Massacre at Osgiliath (see what was done there?), is more than achievable with a full card pool. I wouldn’t be surprised if people forgot that they’d even done it!

Encounter Card Opinions

The Favorite

This should be absolutely no surprise to anyone, but the favorite encounter card of this quest was the Ranger of Ithilien!

The first of many beneficial encounter cards in this wonderful game of ours, the Rangers come in committed to the quest. While you have no control over who the first player is when they’re found waiting in the ruins of Osgiliath, players can take advantage of the Gondor and Ranger traits.

The Non-Favorite

The least favorite encounter card received a few cheeky entries, pointing out a common enough misprint, it’s aptured Wat htower!

Of ourse if you’re lucky enough, like me, your opy of The Massing at Osgiliath would have missed a ertain letter in it’s print run.

But enough about typos! This card seems easy enough in the early stages, but once your group has crossed the Anduin they’re immediately spotted by the orcs atop this tower, making the final push of 15 quest points in stage 4 a bit harder.

Things worth sharing from the games

Rohan theme combos, when worked, worked very well. able to get a lot of cards out

The game I lost was the most exciting – I’d lost Grima to a nasty shadow effect, sacrificed Merry to cross the Anduin and was just pushing to make my escape when a doomed combo tipped me over the edge and I threated out. Felt very thematic as I was harried by assailants on all sides – if only I’d made it!

I hadn’t tried it in Secrecy in true solo till now, and it is really a much easier start when the wolves are just a single extra threat in staging.

In the winning game, I had three enemies engaged the whole game (I missed the achievement to take them all out in one round). Amarthuil was an absolute tank with three Dunedain Warnings and two Armored Destiers.

One Ithilien ranger came in on turn one to give a little help during combat and the second arrived during turn three to help get the party to the Anduin.

It was a fun game!

Amarthiul took lots of 2 direct damage shadows, which were scary. I had a ton of healing though (Erestor + Arwen + Elven-Light + Song of Healing + Ioreth), and luckily aptured Wat htower never came up as a shadow when anyone with over 3 attack was attacking. Armored Destrier helped with that.

A Captured Watchtower popped up as a shadow for an attack by the Wolves of Mordor, defended by Grimbeorn. While I had a moment of despair, the Hauberk of Mail let him take 4 undefended damage to survive. The next card I drew during the Resource phase was Hasty Stroke!

Decklists Used

Rohan themed deck with cards from Core and Mirkwood cycle (1-6)

The Rohan forces come and go – Lothiriel, Thengel, èomer

Last alliance Hobbits & Minstrels – https://ringsdb.com/deck/view/624979

Gizlivadi’s All That Is Gold Does Not Glitter dunedain deck. https://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/2972/all-that-is-gold-does-not-glitter-1.0

An unholy combination of Noldor, Outlands, Blood, and Fire

Bard/Brand/Grimbeorn

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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/#standalone-quests-quest-the-massing-at-osgiliath

Quest of the week is currently tackling the Against the Shadow cycle! As it stands the schedule is as follows:

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

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And for achievements for Peril in Pelargir, this is what we have:

Butter-fingers

Lose Alcaron’s Scroll at least 4 times.

Pacifist

Complete the scenario without optionally engaging an enemy.