Nightmare Nîn-in-Eilph

Nightmare, Ringmaker

Again, huge credit to Birdman137 for helping out with the NM Ringmaker cycle. Nightmare Nin-in-Eilph is something I personally would have nightmares about if I had to cover it myself. Instead, he took it upon himself to cover this quagmire of a quest! — Durin’s Father

Birdman137 here again.  I know that in my article for Trouble in Tharbad, I dismissed the idea of tackling the article for NM Nîn-in-Eilph. But much like after initially dismissing The Purple Wizard’s invitation to build and play a physical 1000-card deck with him at last year’s con, this invitation continued to nag at me until I decided I couldn’t pass up the opportunity.  After all, it’s for the community, and you are all awesome.  I also have a confession to make: I don’t hate Nîn-in-Eilph.  I kind of like the challenge of the standard quest (except for those pesky Neekerbreekers), and there is no denying how incredibly thematic the quest is.  They really nailed the feeling of trudging through an endless swamp.  And who doesn’t love our favourite Dwarven companion, Nalir? The objective ally so beloved, he even got a life-sized cutout a few years ago at Con of the Rings.

A big thanks to Patrick (Derrio) who helped me with testing out the quest at 4P.

At the end of Trouble in Tharbad, Nalir and the heroes found themselves pursued by Bellach and his men.  After escaping Tharbad, the group fled to the Nîn-in-Eilph, an ancient swampy marshland east of the city, in hopes of escaping to Hollin unfollowed.

Nightmare Nîn-in-Eilph

  • Found in: Nîn-in-Eilph Nightmare
  • Size: 17 new encounter cards, 2 new quest stages, and 1 nightmare rules card.
  • Increase in difficulty: Yes, quite a bit.
  • Fixed loopholes: Not really.
  • New mechanics introduced: None.
  • Play this scenario if: You like standard Nîn-in-Eilph but want more of a challenge, you want to feel the satisfaction of building for and beating a tough quest, or you want a unique deck-building challenge.
  • Solo or multiplayer: This quest gets easier the more players you add.  Having additional ways to pool attacks to take down the Ancient Marsh-Dweller and being able to make large quest pushes is helpful for beating this quest.  Just make sure you bring some location control at higher player counts.

New Setup/Rules

Setup is the same as before but one new rule gets added:

Forced: When the players advance to stage 2A, add Ancient Marsh-Dweller to the staging area (from out of play or engaged with a player).

And this is where most of the increased difficulty of the quest comes from.  You have to face the Ancient Marsh-Dweller from the start instead of being able to build up a board state throughout stage 2.  And depending on which stage 2 quest card you get, you are trying to do this while being severely hampered.

Cards Removed

The following 2 quest cards and 10 encounter cards are removed to make space for the 19 new Nightmare cards.

Here is a breakdown of the card changes by type:

  • Enemies: remove 3, add 6 (net +3)
  • Locations: remove 4, add 7 (net +3)
  • Treacheries: remove 3, add 4 (net +1)

The Quest

Since the Ancient Marsh-Dweller now starts in the game from turn 1, you will not only need to quest strongly to progress through the quest stages, but you will need to be able to deal with a 6-attack enemy that requires 13-attack to kill.  There is no time to sit and build up a board state.  You need to hit the ground running!  Additionally, all the enemies have high hit points.  The 3 non-unique enemies in the quest require 7, 8, and 9 attack to kill, meaning you need to build up attack quickly to avoid being swarmed with enemies.

You now have 5 locations to choose from to start in staging, meaning there is actually a choice to make in 4P.  I don’t think either of the two NM locations are too bad.  Hidden Eyot is always a strong consideration to start with to help stall on a quest stage for a bit if you want.

A Forgotten Land (Each player cannot play more than 1 card each round.) is easily the most difficult stage 2B to get.  This quest requires you to do a lot right from the start, and only being able to play 1 card per round doesn’t allow you to match the pace of the quest.  For this reason, decks that can put cards into play (like Vilya, Lorthiriel, or Tactics Imrahil) are good tech.  Three Hunters decks and Swarm decks are essentially shut down by this stage.  If I drew A Forgotten Land to start, I was actually hoping to see one of the treacheries that removes a time counter just so I could move on quicker.  Stage 2B No End in Sight (Player card effects cannot be used to gain resources or draw cards.) can shut down some decks as well, mainly those that rely on resource acceleration or card combos.  Cost reduction, Bond of Friendship, and good-stuff decks are all good ways to get around this one.  The final stage 2B, An Arduous Journey (Allies enter play exhausted), comes from the Nightmare pack.  I think this is the easiest draw, though it is more punishing than the stage it replaces from the standard quest.  It slows you down a bit and shuts down Tactics Imrahil decks, but generally isn’t too bad.

I had the most luck when I dealt with the Ancient Marsh-Dweller (AMD) turn 1 rather than letting it sit in staging, amassing additional threat and attack.  I found I had trouble questing well enough to make much progress when I let the AMD sit in staging, which led to stalling out at stage 2.  If you can deal with AMD right away (say with Tactics Eowyn + a 3-attack hero) and can travel to Hidden Eyot to build up a bit of a board state before it shows back up, you will be much more likely to make it through the remainder of the quest.  You really don’t want to see more than one or two stage 2Bs, or your threat could become an issue (and you’ll be seeing way too much of the AMD).  You have to keep moving on this quest if you want a chance to win.

At stage 3B, A Treacherous Swamp (Each player cannot ready more than 5 characters during the refresh phase) is by far the most difficult stage to get.  Especially since you are guaranteed to have the AMD return and need to quest a bunch to move on.  Theoretically, a Three Hunters deck could get around this stage pretty easily, but you have to hope you don’t get A Forgotten Land for stage 2.  The Deadly Marsh Adders also make Three Hunters decks a risky proposition.  Global readying effects like The Free Peoples, Strength of Arms, or Grim Resolve are good tech for this stage.  I was generally happy to see either of the other two stage 3Bs: Creatures of a Forgotten Age (Each enemy in the staging area gets -20 engagement cost) or Deadly Waters (Treachery card effects cannot be cancelled).  I was typically engaging enemies anyway and didn’t run much for treachery cancellation so these weren’t as punishing.

Once you get to stage 4, each player will immediately be attacked by the AMD, meaning each player will face two attacks from our main foe the round they advance.  If you survive the attacks, you can win the same round by defeating the AMD.  It is helpful to cancel some of these attacks to get through what is typically a very tight round of combat.  AMD is not immune to player card effects, so cards like Feint, Feigned Voices, or Grimbold are good tech.  Shadow cancellation is also helpful as there are some shadows that will boost attack or have the enemy attack again.

The Encounter deck

Global

  • The new encounter deck has 38 cards, but it is effectively 36 cards.  Nalir starts in play under the first player’s control and the Ancient Marsh-Dweller starts out of play.
  • Shadow chances are 50%.
  • Average threat per card revealed is 1.58. One treachery, Rotten Stench, will increase the threat of each location in the staging area.
  • Surge: Only Shifting Marshland (3 copies) has surge.
  • Doomed: There is no doomed in this quest, but every time you advance to a stage 2 or stage 3, each player will raise their threat by 1, plus there is Nalir.
  • Archery: None.  There is one treachery and one shadow that will do direct damage though.
  • Immunity: Most of the enemies cannot have attachments.  Remnants of Elder Days cannot be cancelled.

Quest Cards

  • An Arduous Journey (stage 2B): All your allies turn into ents and come into play exhausted.  With pace (especially early pace) being important in this quest, this hurts unless you can accelerate your board state quickly.  It also shuts down anything that can cheat allies into play such as sneak attack, Tactics Prince Imrahil hero, Tactics Elfhelm/Ranger of Cardolan allies, etc. The quest stage it replaced required a player to discard a random card from their hand to commit characters to the quest.  The card discarding effect was brought back into the quest via the Peat Bog NM location, so the effect on An Arduous Journey is a net negative for the players.
  • Deadly Waters (stage 3B): None of the treachery card effects are auto-cancels, so this quest stage feels pretty tame.  There are times it would be nice to cancel a treachery, but in my playthoughts, I’m not sure I ever did.  Generally I was very happy to see this quest stage.  The quest stage this one replaced gave +1 threat to each location in play, which I think is more punishing than not being able to cancel treacheries.  Again, the +1 threat to locations effect was introduced back into the quest via the Rotten Stench NM treachery, so this is probably still a net negative for the players.

Enemies

  • Swarm of Mosquitos: Being from Minnesota, I understand what a terror a swarm of mosquitos can be.  The fact they keep coming back even after you kill them mirrors my experience with mosquitos as well.  This is an enemy you will typically want to keep engaged if possible since they’ll return from the victory display each time you advance to a quest stage.  Their 3-attack is manageable but watch out for shadows that increase their attack (or reduce the defender’s defence).
  • Deadly Marsh Adder: This is an aptly named enemy as it can easily take out a hero.  This card is the main reason I recommend bringing healing to this quest.  If you have a player with no damaged characters, this enemy is not bad.  The Low on Provisions treachery can pretty easily place damage on a bunch of your characters, however.  With a fairly low engagement cost, it’s difficult to avoid the Deadly Marsh Adder, meaning any damaged characters are in danger.  You will want to make sure this enemy isn’t hanging around too long since it will be pushed back to staging when you advance to a quest stage, and you will have to worry about the first forced effect potentially discarding a character again.

Locations

  • Desolate Meadow: With relatively low threat, high quest points, and a tame effect, this location tended to be the last one I travelled to.  That meant they tended to pile up in staging, meaning enemies would need to be dealt with in one turn rather than chipping away slowly.  With the amount of attack required to deal with the AMD though, you should already have ample attack built into your deck(s).  This can be a decent location to choose to start in staging.  The threat is low for turn 1 questing, though the quest points are a bit high if you plan to travel there early.
  • Peat Bog: This card gives the quest a little bit of the Voice of Isengard feel since it can chip away at your hand, leaving you with no cards to play.  With 4 copies in the deck, you are likely to see it too.  Two of the standard locations (Fen of Reeds and Sinking Bog) are higher priority to travel to, so there is a decent chance you’ll have one (or more) of these sitting in staging at some point.  I was more likely to choose Hidden Eyot than this location for a starting location in one or two players.  Peat Bog has high threat but low quest points, making it an attractive location to travel to turn 1.

Treacheries

  • Quicksand: This treachery might as well read: “Remove one time counter from the current quest.”  The option to remove each character with 3 or more willpower from the quest will likely lead to underquesting by large amounts.  Since you need to quest strongly from the beginning, this quest pushes you toward high willpower heroes.  If you have to remove more than 1 character with 3 or more willpower, the choice is very painful.  At least this card doesn’t have surge like Shifting Marshland does.  The shadow is the more dangerous part of this card though.  The defending character cannot ready until the end of the round shuts down readying effects on your big defenders and means they miss the ready in the refresh phase.  This can absolutely throw a huge wrench in your combat plans.  The best case is getting this shadow against a chump blocker.
  • Rotten Stench: This card will likely cause the largest single-card spike of staging area threat in the quest.  Putting a location into staging and increasing the threat of each location in staging by 1 can easily result in 6+ threat being added by 1 card.  Having a way to modulate willpower post-staging, like Galadriel with Nenya or Leadership ally Faramir, can help deal with this.  Otherwise, I found myself overquesting on critical rounds to make sure I had enough of a buffer to deal with this.  The shadow on this card can also be tough.  Apart from being the stereotypical Defender of Rammas killer, having a damaged defender leaves them susceptible to the Deadly Marsh Adder.

Tips and Tricks

  • You need to quest and attack strong out of the gate, so strong hero choices are crucial.
  • The various quest stages present different challenges.  Without knowing which ones you will get, there are a few deckbuilding strategies you can employ to have success against whichever ones you see.
  • Bring healing to keep at least one player with no damaged characters to deal with the Deadly Marsh Adders.
  • There are a lot of shadows that target either the attacking enemy or the defending character.  Shadow cancellation is a must for anything but an uber-defender.
  • Deck types to leave in the deck box: traps, swarm, combo-y (or anything that relies on a lot of card draw), attachment-heavy, side quest, and direct damage.

Thanks again to Birdman for picking up this quest for the blog. I have been stuck in Fangorn for far too long, but hope to get out of there soon. In the meantime, I have been working on the blog and finally heard back from the editor. We hope to have a working prototype before the end of the summer, well in time for Con of the Rings 2026.

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