QOTW Recap: The Siege of Cair Andros

“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]

Assisting (hopefully) Celador in the Ithilien Forest and making a break for the fortress of Cair Andros we find it under siege!

The Siege of Cair Andros’ Stats

Groups registered: 7
Total attempts: 17
Most attempts: 4
Average attempts per entry: 2.4
Official difficulty: 7/10
Community-rated difficulty: 8.2/10

Total number of wins: 8
Average win-rate: 64.3%

Average opinion on the quest: 2.9

The Siege of Cair Andros is regularly ranked amongst the lowest in this cycle, just above The Drúadan Forest. Its difficulty in normal mode shouldn’t be taken for granted; you’re heavily encouraged to play mono-sphere in this quest. Nightmare smooths it out quite a bit, but the challenge is still there.

Clearly the split in opinion is evidence enough of that challenge.

Despite the majority of players having played this quest already, it still doesn’t change the fact that it’s amongst the least-liked quests, ever.

Achievements

The Siege of Cair Andros’ achievements leaned heavily into the most common method for beating the quest: clearing all locations before losing them to damage. While no one managed to finish a run of Cair Andros without traveling to a location, many managed to clear the victory Battleground locations while still on stage 1, avoiding the slog of the middle stages.

Be Done Before Lunch

Clear all three Battleground locations on stage 1.

Rooted in Place

Complete the scenario without traveling to a location.

Encounter Card Opinions

The Favorite

One card eked out as the favorite of this quest: The Master’s Malice. Clearly people understand how this quest tries to punish you and where this particular treachery falls flat in its attempt.

Building anything but mono-sphere for this quest, and any quest that uses this particular card including Assault on Osgiliath and The Morgul Vale, is certainly a way to give yourself an additional challenge on top of the constant waves of orcs.

Honorary mentions go out to the Orc Arbalesters, Orc Saboteur, and Orc Rabble.

The Least-favorite

If you’re no stranger to this quest, you won’t be surprised by the least-liked encounter card: The Power of Mordor.

This card may be one of the reasons why people don’t ever play this quest a second time. The fact that it reveals the encounter cards isn’t the worst, nor is the Doomed 3. If this comes out in the first or second round it can make for a very difficult game. Imagine the frustration of Ghost of Framsburg but with less patience and more malice. Thankfully this is one of the cards removed from the deck in Nightmare.

Honorary mention goes to The Master’s Malice!

Things worth sharing from the games

I lucked into a near-perfect playthrough first time. The encounter deck didn’t go easy on me, but I was drawing exactly the right things at the right time to counter whatever it threw at me. With Gwaihir loaded up with Support of the Eagles, and a beefed-up Eagles of the Misty Mountains, I was able to handle Siege questing and hold off enemies in the combat phase to make it through. Very enjoyable first-time win – and I didn’t dare play it again lest I ruin that feeling…!

A Winged Guardian and Defender of Rammas in my starting hand got me through all the locations and the first quest card. A well-timed Feint helped with a Battering Ram, and pretty much the only thing Eowyn did was take out two enemies with her ability. Not a very fun quest, unfortunately.

Last Alliance with Gondor and Eagle works really well for this quest

The closest I got lost to the Power of Mordor dooming me out, but I saw it with Henemarth. I couldnt exhaust denethor to put it on the bottom of the deck because it was the last card in the deck!

This one was a battle throughout! After losing The Banks to Ruin and Wroth on round two, I ended up questing through stage 1 without exploring any of the Battlegrounds -> arrived at stage 2 without any copies of Trained for War. I strategically allowed the Southron Mounted Archer caught in Ranger Spikes to damage away a Besieged Courtyard (no enemies were set to engage either deck and so the mass-exhaust didn’t hurt me and I needed the threat removed from stating). I would later allow The Approach to be damaged out of play as well just to give myself a chance to quest through stage 2. By aggressively engaging enemies (and using Hands Upon the Bow + Lore Faramir + Black Arrow to snipe a Battering Ram), I was able to explore The Citadel and make it through stage 2 in two rounds with exactly(!) the amount of progress needed (fortune was with me in that I revealed Orc Assault on a round that required willpower and left me with few enemies to fight). From there, the battle-questing of Stage 3 was no trouble, but I was forced to siege-quest on stage 5. A clutch Heed the Dream allowed the tactics deck to find a Defender of Rammas to drop into play alongside two Winged Guardians as I went all-out to attempt to finish. Despite Lieutenant of Mordor triggering a Southron Support (resulting in eventually 10 threat added to staging), I was able to quest for just enough(!) to put the requisite 15 progress on stage 5 and win the game! The unsung hero was a humble Ithilien Tracker, who negated almost 10 threat in staging over the course of the game. An Honour Guard saved Eowyn from an untimely death at the hands of The Master’s Malice and a Knight of Minas Tirith comboed with Forest Patrol to take out a Southron Mounted Archer (and to lower each deck’s threat by 3 thanks to Secret Vigil).

Between tactics Beregond, Denethor, spirit Frodo with every Fast Hitch I could find, and several Winged Guardians I was able to trivialize siege questing all throughout the game. There was a lot of luck involved in my reveals, but I managed to clear The Banks, The Approach, and The Citadel as quickly as they came out. Nightmare helps to buffer these locations with more battleground locations, meaning I could spread damage around more easily than in normal. I finished the final round on stage 5B with 22 progress!

Decklists Used

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

Mono-Tactics Beregond, Mablung & Gwaihir: https://ringsdb.com/deck/view/669451

https://ringsdb.com/deck/view/663659

Mono tactics Prince Imrahil Gwaihir Faunith Last Alliance

Beregond / Boromir / Gimlie + Denethor / Imrahil / Aragorn = Shellin’s progression https://ringsdb.com/fellowship/view/6281/22-the-siege-of-cair-andros-progression-series

“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

Beorn/TBeregond/SpFrodo [https://ringsdb.com/deck/view/671663]
Denethor/Gandalf/Pippin [https://ringsdb.com/deck/view/671662]

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/#heirs-of-numenor-quest-the-siege-of-cair-andros

For the next quest in the cycle, you can submit your playthrough of The Steward’s Fear using the form here: https://forms.gle/RjDZPxjH9xqDGF4u6.

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 The Steward’s Fear, this is what we have: