As the first scenario of a new cycle, the quest is meant to introduce new mechanics in a slightly easier format to give players a solid quest to beat without it taking a million attempts. Especially in this Vengeance of Mordor cycle, the River Running strikes me as the easiest quest of the entire cycle, … Continue reading The River Running
Ah, yes, The Dread Realm! The conclusion of the Angmar Awakened cycle, loved by some, disliked by some. It has been one of my favorite quests ever since I first played it, as it was thematic, interesting in its mechanics, and already pretty challenging. The Nightmare version, as always, makes it even more thematic and … Continue reading Nightmare The Dread Realm
Across the Ettenmoors used to be a quite enjoyable quest when it was released. It used fairly interesting mechanics and had a pretty distinctive feel to it, but it was quite a bit too easy. The nightmare deck changes that, and by how much I'll explain in this article. Nightmare Across the Ettenmoors Found in: … Continue reading Nightmare Across the Ettenmoors
Few quests were more divisive in the early years of the game than the Battle of Lake-Town. The epic fight against Smaug required a focused deck, and strategy sites like Tales from the Cards provided guides for how to bring the beast down. Battle of Lake-Town represents an earlier design philosophy of the game, where … Continue reading Fire in the Night
Every cycle thus far seems to have a quest that almost takes a step back from the traditional adversaries and enemies and has you face the diverse dangers presented by the very nature and native wildlife of Middle-Earth. In the Shadows of Mirkwood cycle we have The Hills of Emyn Muil; the Dwarrowdelf cycle offers us … Continue reading The Mumakil
One of the best things of this game is that it can dive deep into passing mentions of places and characters that were in the books. This cycle is a prime example of this, since we don't know much about Harad from the books. It has led us to the great jungles that were only … Continue reading The Black Serpent
The Haradrim cycle picks up right where the Dream-chaser cycle has left us. No month long skip to the next area, no, you are dropped in Umbar during City of Corsairs, and now you need to get out. This is done in a fast paced quest with a lot of enemies and all new cards … Continue reading Escape from Umbar
Those of us that have read the Akallabéth know of the Downfall of Númenor after the last king tried to set foot on the shores of Valinor. This was all because of the deceit of Sauron and the misguided teachings of the Númenorians. The game's developers have taken a bit of liberty with the lore … Continue reading The Fate of Númenor
Of the three splinter factions of the Kingdom of Arnor, Rhudaur was the first to fall to the Witch-King during his conquest of the north. This quests deals with the aftermath of that war many hundreds of years ago. The quest also goes in a bit deeper on the lineage of the Dunedain you have … Continue reading The Treachery of Rhudaur
In the Q&A of March this year, I got asked what my favourite quest was, I answered that for the Angmar Awakened cycle, it was Intruders in Chetwood. I stand corrected: this, this is my favourite quest of the cycle. Across the Ettenmoors brings giant (literally and figuratively) enemies and doubles down on the side-quests … Continue reading Across the Ettenmoors
