‘I thought Fangorn was dangerous.’
‘Dangerous!’ cried Gandalf. ‘And so am I, very dangerous: more dangerous than anything you will ever meet, unless you are brought alive before the seat of the Dark Lord. And Aragorn is dangerous, and Legolas is dangerous. You are beset with dangers, Gimli son of Glóin; for you are dangerous yourself, in your own fashion. Certainly the forest of Fangorn is perilous — not least to those that are too ready with their axes; and Fangorn himself, he is perilous too; yet he is wise and kindly nonetheless.’— The Voice of Isengard Deluxe insert
Cycle: The Ring-maker [The Voice of Isengard Deluxe Box]
Week 35/36, 2026.
Here we struggle past root and branch to reclaim our quarry! The Huorns would rather turn us into mulch than let us trod through their realm.
Into Fangorn’s Stats
- Groups registered: 5
- Total attempts: 17
- Most attempts: 2
- Average attempts per entry: 1.5
- Official difficulty: 6/10
- Community-rated difficulty: 4.4/10
- Total number of wins: 7
- Average win-rate: 91.7%
- Average opinion on the quest: 1.8
The average for attempts on normal is actually 1.67, while the average for attempts on nightmare is 2. A notable difference! This is still the lowest-ranked quest in the cycle, so far.
Most folks have played this before and most folks still don’t like the quest very much.
Achievements
If you looked up the definition of “slog” in the dictionary, you might see a reference to Into Fangorn. The two achievements this week emphasize speed. The first is a big hint for a successful completion; getting stuck in the stage 2 -> 3 loop can leave a player fairly frustrated. If you managed to complete Skimming the Forest then you’ve solved the puzzle! The Forest Closes In challenges you to clean up the board as you go. Despite every Huorn having the Hinder keyword, this achievement really punishes you for ignoring the trees who would rather put you six feet under their roots.
Skimming the Forest
Complete the scenario without advancing to Stage 3.
The Forest Closes In
Forced: At the start of the combat phase, each player raises their threat by 1 for each Huorn enemy engaged with them.
Encounter Card Opinions
The Favorite
While there wasn’t an overwhelming favorite, there was one card that had a majority of votes: The Forest’s Malice.
If you’re relying on the Hinder keyword to keep you safe while you try to quest over the staging area, The Forest’s Malice will remind you how angry these malformed trees are. If you’ve been diligently cleaning up the undergrowth, this card will act like nuclear fertilizer that can’t be stopped! No wonder people hate it.
The Least-favorite
This was an interesting couple cards as the split was even across normal and nightmare attempts. The least favorite in normal was Heart of Fangorn, while the least favorite in nightmare was In Need of Rest.
Heart of Fangorn can quash many broad deck strategies. Limiting yourself to 5 total characters means you need to have heroes who cover more bases. Considering the fact that Low on Provisions is in this quest, bringing flexible heroes is good deckbuilding strategy. If you didn’t bring healing, In Need of Rest can also quickly knock out your questers.
Honorary mentions: Dunland Chieftain, Wild Men of Dunland, Down from the Hills, and Brutal Assault.
Things worth sharing from the games
Prince Imrahil pulled out Beorn all three times I used his ability!
Nop, it was too fast ^^
I played this in what is probably the most fun way possible, and it was still boring. I never attacked an enemy, so all of the Huorns were actually doing something (three damage to Galadriel each round and 2 threat), and I didn’t have anyone to defend, so took some hits from The Forest’s Malice undefended. The Huorns feel like they should be fun. The whole quest to me feels like it’s almost fun, but…it’s just not. Having zero combat at least makes it quick, and building a meme deck with zero attack or defense was also a bit fun, but the scenario itself falls flat.
My first NM attempt ended in a long, drawn out failure when I was forced to attach In Need of Rest to Arwen while Mugash was lost in the encounter deck. After recurring a lone Galadhrim Healer as many times as I could, I was done in by the fact that my other Healer was buried in my own deck and Mugash ended up being the second from the bottom of the encounter deck (by the time he showed up, it was too late to save Arwen and I scooped).
The second attempt was also long (12 rounds), but I was able to dodge In Need of Rest and chop through a veritable forest of trees (admittedly, anti-thematic for two decks of Elves). Woodland Courier did excellent work in freeing Mugash from the Heart of Fangorn so that I could advance to stage 2 and quest to victory.
Not a fan of this quest. Turns out that taking away a major mechanic makes the game boring. Who could have guessed that a Leadership ally Faramir deck would destroy it?
Played decks with very few allies, so I was able to effectively ignore the Heart of Fangorn. Playing in Nightmare brings in a few new Huorn enemies that force you to fight them, so Legolas with Cram and Lembas, and a whole bunch of +atk attachments, made quick work of them.
Decklists Used
Cirdan, Hirgon, Tactics Prince Imrahil + Thengel, Radagast, Theoden (ft. The Riddermark’s Finest)
https://ringsdb.com/deck/view/682323
Meme deck just for this scenario https://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/67978/lookmanoattackordefense-1.0
“Revised Silvan Synergy (#RCO)” – https://ringsdb.com/fellowship/view/24537/revisedsilvansynergyrco
Gondor Swarm with MotK Faramir: https://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/64132/faramirheirofmardilshowshisquantitygondor-1.0
Boromir/Halbarad/Legolas (https://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/13500)
Elrond/SpFrodo/Treebeard (https://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/13501)
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: Into Fangorn on the LOTR Quest Companion
For the next quest in the cycle, you can submit your playthrough of The Dunland Trap using the form here: https://forms.gle/2iihQ9tSmztKEWjJ7.
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 To Catch an Orc, this is what we have:
“You’ve Deactivated My Trap Card!”
Stage 2A gains: “Discard all Trap and Condition attachments.”
Stealing From the Poor
When resolving stage 2A’s When Revealed effect, each player discards no Item and Mount attachments, and has no more than 1 ally in play.
