The dwarves no more shall suffer wrong.

The dwarves of yore made mighty spells,

While hammers fell like ringing bells

In places deep, where dark things sleep,

In hollow halls beneath the fells.

• The Hobbit

Threat Level rises to 33

Our party wakes on Day Seven rested and content, for no enemies loom in the staging area, and yesterday we finished the first stage of the quest. We are now in a new area known as Anduin Passage. Our party’s current location is the Necromancer’s Pass.

The party again consists only of our three heroes — no allies were summoned in the past day. Beravor has two resource tokens and two wounds, Eowyn, one token and no wounds, and Theodred, with two wounds but a healthy purse of three tokens.

In our hand are two copies of Faramir, one each of Sneak Attack, Hasty Stroke, Lore of Imladris, and two copies of Galadhrim’s Greeting.

Resource Phase We give each of the three heroes an additional resource token. This gives Theodred a total of four, and he taps his Steward of Gondor for two more and a total of six. Lots o’ cash!

We draw a new card from the deck — the ally Erebor Hammersmith!

Planning Phase. Theodred spends four of his six resource tokens to summon one of our favorite allies, Faramir.

At this point it is important to keep in mind that the current quest phase, Anduin Passage (the second of three stages of this scenario) changes the rules of the game temporarily, while it is the current quest:

Reveal 1 additional card from the encounter deck each quest phase. Do not make engagement checks during the encounter phase. (Each player may still optionally engage 1 enemy each encounter phase.)

This is huge change on two counts. On the negative side, every time we quest not one but two encounter cards are drawn — increasing the likelihood that our intrepid party will come out on the short end of the quest. On the plus side is the other change — we are not required to engage with enemies in the staging areas whose threat level would normally make such engagements automatic. In other words, we can pick and choose our battles.

Thus, with the changes for this particular quest stage, questing itself is more difficult, but combat less so. Our strategies must change as a result.

Quest Phase We opt to commit Eowyn and Theo to the quest, and that gives Theo an extra resource token for 3.

Next, we reveal not one but two encounter cards, because of the special rules of Anduin Passage just noted.

Despair couldn’t come at a better time — we have no progress tokens on the current quest, and thus its effect is moot. Eastern Crows go into the staging area, but they have the surge special condition, forcing us to draw yet another encounter card:

With Faramir and Beravor not committed, we are forced to raise the threat level by 2 to 35!

Finally, we are finished drawing encounter cards, and so we can resolve the quest. Eowyn and Theodred’s willpower combined is 5, less the threat of the Eastern Crows (1) gives us a progress of four. This allows us to close the current location, Necromancer’s Pass, and put the remaining two progress tokens on the quest location, Anduin’s Passage.

With a location in the staging area, we skip the travel phase, and move immediately to combat!

Normally, we would be required to engage with the Eastern Crows, as their threat of 30 is lower than our current threat level of 35. However, as noted above, Anduin’s Passage eliminates that rule for the time being.

So we don’t have to engage with the Crows, but in this instance — with no other enemies engaged — we choose to. It is the ideal time to fight this battle.

Defending against the Crows is Faramir, with his healthy defense of two. The shadow card on the Crows is Enchanted Stream, which has no shadow effect. So it is simply the Crows’ attack of one fully defended by Faramir’s shield. No damage to our party.

We exhaust Beravor, who attacks for two against the undefended Crows, slaying them with a healthy swing of her sword. They are now ex-crows.

The party settles back after the battle, but they have one more trick up their collective sleeves. We tap Beravor’s attachment, Unexpected Courage, which allows us to ready Beravor.

Then we exhaust Beravor yet again, allowing us to use her special power and draw two more cards:

With that, the tumultuous seventh day of our party’s adventure comes to a close, the threat level rises a notch to 36, and a second week of battles and questing awaits.