"As their eyes became used to the dimness they could see a little way to either side in a sort of darkened green glimmer. Occasionally a slender beam of sun that had the luck to slip in through some opening in the leaves far above, and still more luck in not being caught in the tangled boughs and matted twigs beneath, stabbed down then and bright before them. But this was seldom, and it soon ceased altogether."
~ The Hobbit, Chapter Eight: Flies and Spiders
After several weeks of contemplation, I finally decided that it was time to invest into the available nightmare scenarios for the Lord of the Rings: LCG. I had the entire card pool already and the ongoing wait for the Voice of Isengard and Ring-maker Cycle finally proved to be too much to bear; thus, the first nine Nightmare mode scenarios were promptly ordered. As fate would have it, the first three to arrive were consequently the first three quests in the game; so, after a long day of school and work, I finally got the chance to sit down and have some bad dreams come alive as I took my heroes through the sinister green glimmer of Mirkwood.
To begin with, I had previously built a set of two Elf decks that featured a wealthy mix of the Noldor and Silvan traits. Rather than building up a couple new decks from scratch, I decided to stick with these to see how well they could fare against this now more hostile introductory quest. The cast for this adventure are as follows:
Batting for the dual spheres of Lore and Leadership are Elrond, Mirlonde, and Elrohir. Consisting of a card pool of almost entirely Lore cards, this deck is mainly focused on getting allies out and into play as well as some powerful attachments such as Vilya and Asfaloth. They are also the go-to questers for both decks and excel at this even better once one or two Protector of Lorien attachments enter play. Mirlonde effectively lowers the starting threat by two to bring it to a total of 29, not the best but not too terrible either.
Next to the first deck on the table are Legolas, Elladan, and Glorfindel, all of whom represent the fusion of the Tactics and Spirit spheres. All three of these heroes bring forth a very powerful attack strength and once they're equipped with Rivendell blades and bows, they become even more lethal. Of note, one of the standout allies in this deck is Arwen Undomiel. Once she is in play, she can allot her sentinel and defensive boosting ability to either Elrond or Elrohir, and after they defend, these three heroes can cut down even the nastiest of orcs and spiders. At a starting threat of only 24, this deck joins the first one and both are more than ready to plunge into the Dark Forest.
Each of the Nightmare mode scenario enhancements add around twenty cards to their particular quest while also removing roughly the same amount of old cards from the original encounter card deck. The Passage Through Mirkwood Nightmare conversion sees the exclusion of some of the weaker enemies (like the Dol Guldur Orcs) and some relatively low-threat locations. It replaces them with many more nasty spider and insect enemies, some terrifying locations, and a couple treacheries that are quite vile.
Above are a couple of the new Creature, Spider enemies to be added to the quest. From the onset, there is a significant boost to their overall hit points when compared to the original arachnid enemies. The shadow effects also dish out some serious punishment for any undefended attacks. While I usually never let attacks go undefended anyways (unless it's one of the many silly crow ememies) I had to remind myself that it was even more crucial now to always have a defender or two ready for the combat phase.
The dreadful Hummerhorns from the original quest realized just how lonely they were so they decided to invite some more of their grotesque insect buddies to join the throng. The new nightmarish Forest Flies bring a large threat to the staging area as well as some hideous forced and shadow effects. However, one of the most terrifying of all the new nightmare encounter cards is The Spider's Web, which when revealed, "the player with the highest threat exhausts all heroes he controls. Then, attach this card to one of that player's heroes. (Counts as a Condition attachment with the text, "each time attached hero readies, deal 1 damage.")" This is an absolutely crippling card to deal with, and the scariest part is that there are more than one to contend with in the encounter deck. Up to now, the only player card that is capable of removing burdening conditions that heroes acquire is the Miner of the Iron Hills; however, since this is a solely Elf-themed deck, this Dwarf ally would have nothing to do with it.
With a brief overview of the heroes that took part in the new Nightmare Passage Through Mirkwood as well as some of the new evils that might be encountered, it's time to talk a bit about my overall experience with the quest. The original quests begins with the Old Forest Road and a Forest Spider already in the staging area. Neither of these cards are too terrible on their own; however, Nightmare mode begins to crank up the difficulty from the very beginning by requiring an additional encounter card per player to be revealed and added to the staging area during setup. So for a dual deck setup, I was now looking at four cards in the staging area as well as the promise of at least two more arriving during the staging phase. Yikes.
Luckily, Asfaloth was an opening draw for the Lore/Leadership deck and was purchased, given to Glorfindel, and used to clear one of the beginning four cards. I also managed to not draw any of the new nightmare cards during the setup or first questing phase; so, I had a bit of breathing room early on to establish a decent foothold. The first nightmare card to enter the staging area was Ungoliant's Brood (see image above) and he was soon dealt with thanks to the strong attack of the Tactics/Spirit heroes.
Overall, the first two or three rounds went surprisingly well. Several of the nasty nightmare cards such as Forest Flies and The Spider's Web actually showed up as shadow cards that caused no effect. Elrohir and Elrond served as great defenders while Legolas, Elladan, and Glorfindel contributed a strong attack to the forest enemies that emerged. Throughout the early stages of the quest the East Bight Patrol continued to assail my heroes due to encounter card effects bringing them back from the dead. Overall, my heroes were having a hard time escaping Orc patrols and rogue spiders, but they handled everything without too much sweat... until Ungoliant's Spawn tore through the upper forest boughs and began its reign of terror.
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| Old vs. New |
As previously mentioned, the nightmare scenarios require you to remove some of the older enemies, locations, and treacheries to replace them with the newer ones. In the Passage Through Mirkwood quest, the original boss enemy of the quest, Ungoliant's Spawn, received an update both to its artwork as well as it's when revealed effect. (For a little bit more about the new artwork, visit the artist's page detailing it here) The original boss only reduced the willpower of all questing characters by one for the remaider of the phase; not that detrimental. However, the new Ungoliant's Spawn arrives with the when revealed effect of: "Until the end of the phase, each character currently committed to the quest gets -2 willpower and is discard if its willpower is 0." To my horror, I had no Test of Wills available to cancel this murderous effect. Mirlonde instantly died as well as a couple Elven allies who were valiantly questing forth. This tragic loss of a hero made me grimace because I usually consider it a defeat if I lose any heroes during a quest; however, this was nightmare mode and that sort of thing was to be expected. So my remaining Elves continued to journey their way through Mirkwood with spiders closing in all around them. The light at the end was near, but Elrond and his companions refused to depart the darkness before avenging the death of Mirlonde.
Ungoliant's Spawn engaged Elrond and Elrohir, and Elrohir defended with a total defense of 4 thanks to Arwen's boosting effect. He only took one damage from the huge spider's attack. The real game changer came when Legolas nocked a Black Arrow into his Rivendell Bow to contribute a devastating attack of 9 against Ungoliant's Spawn. Elrond and Haldir finished the mortally wounded spider off without remorse. Since the final stage of the scenario that I had randomly selected was Beorn's Path, I had conquered the quest and concluded my first Nightmare playthrough of Passage Through Mirkwood!
Taken as a whole, I believe this quest to be much more challenging, thematic, and engaging than the original. It's important to remember that the original Passage Through Mirkwood is the introductory quest of the game and it's meant to be easy and relatively pain free. So, since the card pool has expanded so much, it has made the original version an absolute breeze and I can't even remember the last time I played it. In Nightmare mode, however, the difficulty is considerably beefed up and I really had to think about every single action I took. Should I quest this Elf or save him for the combat phase? Should I spend my only two Spirit resources for an Unexpected Courage or save them for something else? These sorts of decisions are becoming more and more prominent in the newer quests that are also quite challenging, but they're usually not as important in the early-day quests. That all changes with Nightmare mode.
This advanced level of decision making naturally makes the quest itself so much more engaging. To complement this increased level of interaction is the fact that the added nightmare cards also create a much more thematic play experience. The nastier spiders and what they can do are a constant threat now and many of the more generic encounter cards (again, Dol Guldur Orcs) have been omitted to make the quest feel more succinct and focused. I really enjoyed it and will most likely play it again with a different set of themed decks to see how Dwarves, Gondorians, or Hobbits fare against the treacheries of Mirkwood.
Thanks for reading!
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