“What roads would any dare to tread, what safety would there be in quiet lands, or in the homes of simple men at night, if the Dunedain were asleep, or were all gone into the grave?”
Aragorn, The Fellowship of the Ring

Threat Level 37

The ninth day of our hero’s journey finds both Theodred and Beravor tending to their wounds; they each have two. Eowyn has none. We have three allies in the party, Faramir (healthy); his cousin Faramir II (one wound) and the healthy Henamarth.

The Wargs, who attacked last turn, have fled back to the staging area. The current location is Necromancer’s Pass, which we hope to close this turn.

In the biggest picture, we seem to be at the halfway point — we have 7 progress tokens on the current stage, out of 16 needed to complete it.

In our hand is a healthy set of cards: Sneak Attack, Hasty Stroke, Lore of Imladris, Galadhrim’s Greeting, A Test of Will, and the ally Erabor Hammersmith.

Resource Phase The resources are piling in: Eowyn and Theodred now have five each, and Beowyn has four. Money is no object. We draw another ally:

Planning Phase. Eowyn pays two to summon the Miner, whose “Response” effect is moot. Eowyn also pays two to summon Erabor Hammersmith, whose’ “Response” effect is a good one:.

So we pull out the attachment Forest Snare from the discard pile and it goes back to our hand. This could come in handy later.

Quest Phase
The quest decision — who to commit to questing versus leaving ready for combat — is more complicated on this day due to the size of our party, now totalling eight. We have three heroes, one of which (Beravor) can be used for both thanks to her Unexpected Courage attachment. Then we also have five — count ’em — five allies in the party. The possibilities here are many.

Next, we turn to the spy among our allies, Henamarth-Riversong, whose special ability allows us to peak at the encounter deck:

Riversong reveals the top card to be a treachery:

While the effect of this could be harmful, at least we know it does not add to the threat level. So with that knowledge, we opt to commit all three heroes to questing, for a total willpower of 7.

Quest Resolution:

First we draw two encounter cards, the first being The Necromancers Reach. Ah, but wait! We have a trick up our sleeves:

We apply this to Necromancer’s Reach, canceling out the damage to our heroes. The treachery is discarded without effect, and our party breathes a sigh of relief.

The second encounter card, though, proves also to be a treachery: Despair!

Sadly, the progress on our quest drops from 7 down to 3; 16 are needed to complete it. Our party is dejected by this setback.

However, we have another trick at the ready. Before calculating the quest resolution, we invoke the action ability of Faramir’s cousin Faramir:

This means that our three questing heroes get one extra willpower each, taking us from a total of 7 to 10. Subtracting the threat of the Wargs (2) we get a whopping eight progress. Two are applied to the current location, the Necromancer’s Pass, to close it, and then six are applied the quest card, taking us to 9 out of 16. A satisfying result.

Combat Phase:

Here, we choose to engage with the Wargs, as we did last time. Remember, though, that unless a shadow effect appears, the Wargs can scurry back to the staging area before we can attack. Hopefully our luck will be better than the previous attempt on Day Eight.

We defend with the first Faramir, who has no wounds. The shadow card drawn is the Gladden Fields, a location which has no shadow effect. The Wargs’ attack leaves him, like his cousin yesterday, with one damage out of three. And, as feared, the Wargs flee out of combat before our other allies can retaliate. A very unsatisfying result.

Before the day ends, we carry out one minor action: we tap Beravor’s attachment Unexpected Courage to ready her. Then we play the event Galadhrim’s Greeting to reduce our party’s threat level by six. The cost of the event comes out of Beravor’s resources, taking her from four to one.

Threat Level 31

And with that, the party settles into camp, sleeping a bit easier, and resolved to make more progress — and take out the Wargs — in the coming day.