“Believe not that in the land of Gondor the blood of Númenor is spent, nor all its pride and dignity forgotten. By our valour the wild folk of the East are still restrained, and the terror of Morgul kept at bay; and thus alone are peace and freedom maintained in the lands behind us, bulwark of the West. But if the passages of the River should be won, what then?”
— Boromir, The Fellowship of the Ring
Cycle: Against the Shadow [Heirs of Númenor deluxe box]
We’ve escaped last week’s assault of Orcs and Easterlings on Osgiliath, making our way down the Anduin to the inland port city of Pelargir for relief. A certain Lord Alcaron has a request of us, however, in seeking aid from Faramir. When we arrive at The Leaping Fish to begin the quest, we’re greeted with a whole host of ruffians, ne’er-do-wells, and guys who invade your personal space who suffer from excessive sweating.
Peril in Pelargir’s Stats
- Groups registered: 10
- Total attempts: 26
- Most attempts: 6
- Average attempts per entry: 2.6
- Official difficulty: 5/10
- Community-rated difficulty: 6.5/10
- Total number of wins: 12
- Average win-rate: 62.8%
- Average opinion on the quest: 3.6
Outside of A Long-extended Party content we’re able to see some folks taking on Night mare difficulty. This changes the quest by punishing you for ignoring the Scroll of Alcaron, which is the typical strategy in normal difficulty.
While there’s some first time players on this quest, this isn’t most respondents’ first rodeo, so to speak.
Achievements
The achievements for Peril in Pelargir seemed simple, but both have their drawbacks in Normal and Nightmare:
Butter-fingers
Lose Alcaron’s Scroll at least 4 times.
Pacifist
Complete the scenario without optionally engaging an enemy.
Butter-fingers is easy enough to accomplish in Normal where there’s no real punishment for leaving the scroll on the ground until you really need to have it. Pacifist can be much harder to accomplish with cards like the Umbar Assassin ready to take a hero out if he’s automatically engaged.
Encounter Card Opinions
The Favorite
For this quest there was a two way tie between locations: Market Square and City Street.
Both of these locations have small quest point requirements, making them fairly small obstacles to travel to compared to the rest of the cycle.
While the Market Square is immune to player card effects and requires that you make a purchase before you use the restroom, clearing the 1 quest point in a scenario where you’re pushing the stages to get out of Battle questing is a simple task. The shadow, however, is the Ponzi scheme you hope to avoid.
City Street forces you to travel to it when able, on top of surging! It may seem like a card that elicits a sigh when you see it, but this one isn’t immune to player card effects. Asfaloth, West Road Traveller, and The Riddermark’s Finest are all classic staples that let you quickly clear the staging area and hasten your escape from Pelargir.
Honorable mentions go to Harbor Thug,
amongst a lot of restrictive cards this one is at least ok
Lossarnach Bandit,
at least his engagement effect is not horrible
Harbor Brute, and a nod to the Nightmare setup card for smoothing the quest out.
The Non-favorite
Just like the favorite encounter card, the least favorite is tied between Collateral Damage and Zealous Traitor.
Collateral Damage is a card that can quickly accelerate you to 50 threat. With 4 copies in the encounter you’re sure to suffer from this card more than once.
that threat increase can be absurd
The shadow effect can take out whoever decided to hold on to the scroll, as well. While Nightmare rids you of this card, and the threat of more threat, you’re instead forced to more intentionally guard Alcaron’s Scroll throughout the fight.
Zealous Traitor, on the other hand, is responsible for the deaths of legions of Wardens of Healing and many other 1 health allies. Some would almost welcome a shadow effect to lessen the blow he can deal to the table during the Encounter phase or any other time you’re forced to engage him, which will be almost immediately with his very low engagement cost of 17. Thankfully he only has 2 defense and 2 health, making him one of the easier enemies in this encounter to deal with.
Honorable mentions go out to Local Trouble (especially in Nightmare), Market Square’s Shadow effect, and everyone’s favorite impressio- I mean Shadow card, Pickpocket.
Things worth sharing from the games
Getting that first thug out of the way is really important, and then there were some luck involved as well.
This game really made me appreciate the flexibility of spirit frodo as a scroll carrier to just absorb any excess damage you might get from those shadow effects.
After treading water (barely clearing each active location) for the first 4-5 rounds, I was finally able to get a handle on enemies and use Eowyn’s +9 attack action to battle-quest through stage 2 in one go. Then, with the mono-tactics deck at 47 threat (and Aragorn hit with Local Trouble), I made an all-out push using Trained for War to battle-quest through stage 3 in one go as well, thereby delivering Alcaron’s Scroll safely.
Play nightmare. Advice for whole cycle, it removes of lot of horrible designed cards. Maybe it’s a bit harder, but a lot fairer.
As usual, playing low threat with tactics bilbo to destroy ennemies in staging is good. Keep hail of stones for Zealous Traitor if he shows up, rest should be a piece of cake.
My first experience with battle-questing. Outside of Collateral Damage, I thought this quest was enjoyable. The Scroll objective kind of felt useless for the first two stages, and would be more relevant in multiplayer, as I just let it sit in staging. Played a cycle progression Gondor deck and switched from Leadership to Tactics Boromir for the extra action advantage.
Once the Outlands engine got churning, there was no slowing it down. Aragorn’s sphere-smoothing and threat reduction really came in handy, as did Glorfindel’s action advantage and location control with Asfaloth. Having Spirit access allowed for cancelling untimely Collateral Damage (cannot state enough how terrible that card is!) and some of the nastier shadows.
I knew I wanted to run some side quests and having just picked up a physical copy of this cycle, I also knew I wanted to give Anborn and Poisoned Stakes a spin. My 3 wins were because I was able to get Deeping Defender and a Ranger Spikes out turn one to handle the Harbour Thug and any enemy revealed by The Leaping Fish. My 3 losses were when I couldn’t pull that off quickly. The deck handled the battle questing with ease, but struggled to generate enough willpower on the last stage. Thankfully I had enough traps and allies out by that time. Not the most optimal deck, but a lot of fun with the ALeP additions to the trap archetype.
While playing too much Outlands can get boring, it’s still never a guarantee to win the first few rounds. I stalled for about 5 rounds with little card draw, and kept getting resources removed. Made it through in 12 rounds. This was also my first time trying the nightmare version of this quest and had a fun time!
I managed to lock down the Cunning Informant (nightmare) with Feint every time he came up, keeping Elrohir from taking damage from big shadows. While I managed to get the scroll back right at the end of the combat phase, I never let more than 1 resource build on an enemy. My Galadhon Archers managed to deal enough damage to the Harbor Brute (4/4/4/5 but not immune to player cards!) that Haldir found a window in the penultimate round to take him out and free up the staging area from enemies in the final stage.
Going in with a willpower centered quest deck makes it a slog even with a great Rohan set up. This is obvious, but I was too rushed to optimize for battle questing and thought “eh, I’ll give it a go”
Decklists Used
By nature – The Radagast way (Haldan, Damrod & Radagast)
Shellin’s Progression Fellowship for this one. Boromir (L) Prince Imrahil (L) Theodred (L) + Araglorn (Lo) Glorfindel (S) Frodo (S). Performed really well, would reccommend.
“My Brother, My Captain, My King…” (https://ringsdb.com/deck/view/566880) – mono-Tactics w/Boromir, Aragorn, and Mablung & “Date Night Dragon Hunt” (https://ringsdb.com/deck/view/533741) – Faramir (L), Eowyn (T), and Damrod
https://ringsdb.com/deck/view/657131
Gondor Cycle Progression: Beregond, Boromir, Imrahil (https://ringsdb.com/deck/view/664633)
Outlands Cycle Progression: Aragorn, Glorfindel, Hirluin (https://ringsdb.com/deck/view/664643)
Side Quests and ALeP Traps: Celador, Damrod, Thurindir (https://ringsdb.com/deck/view/666515)
A standard outlander deck cause I was in a hurry. I’ve built this deck up from inspiration between several of the favorite versions of this archtype. I like including Prince Imrahil with the your typical Denethor and Hirluin lineup. I enjoy making
Elrohir/Splorfindel/Haldir (https://ringsdb.com/deck/view/669700)
Thalin/Elladan/Mablung (https://ringsdb.com/deck/view/669697)
Lothiriel, Eomer, Thengel
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
For the next quest in the cycle, you can submit your playthrough of Into Ithilien using the form here: https://forms.gle/NQTthpgycmBAJpfh8.
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 Into Ithilien, this is what we have:
Ranger Recruits
Complete the scenario with all three Ranger objectives in play.
Race Across Ithilien
Complete the scenario by bypassing stage 2, and before stage 4B gains siege.
Vision Of The Palantir 