“…for he that strikes the first blow, if he strikes it hard enough, may need to strike no more.”
-Gandalf, The Two Towers

Threat Level 34

Our heroes wake and examine their wounds. Theodred has one, Beravor and Eowyn have two each. They know the journey is at an end. But though they have five allies, they fear that they will not be able to complete the journey without one of them succumbing. Success will only truly be celebrated if all the heroes return.

In the staging area are the two remaining enemies: the Goblin Sniper and the Wargs. They are all the stand in the way of completing the trek.

Our allies: the cousins Faramir, Gleowine the spy, Hammersmith and the Northern Tracker.

Resource Phase
We add tokens to our plentiful pool of resources, and draw a card:

The Great Wizard has returned! As if sensing our point of crisis, Gandalf arrives for the third and final time to provide much-needed assistance.

Planning Phase.
This is simple: The resource-rich Theodred pays five to summon Gandalf. The Wizard uses his response power to deal four damage to one enemy in play:

This response does not exhaust Gandalf, and thus he stands ready to battle the remaining Wargs in combat.

Quest Phase

Questing is unnecessary — we have reached the end of our adventure. There is but one more task: the Wargs must die, once and for all.

Combat Phase:

The final battle proves anticlimatic. Gandalf stepped up to defend against the vile creatures. We reveal the shadow card: another Pursued by Shadow:

Shadow Effect: “Defending player chooses and returns 1 exhausted ally he controls to its owner’s hand. If he controls no exhausted allies, raise his threat by 3.” The perfect shadow effect for this situation — it does not add to the damage against the Great Wizard, but prevents the Wargs from fleeing back before we can counterattack.

So the Wargs’ attack of 3 is easily stopped by Gandalf’s defense of 4.

Next our counterattack: I won’t bore you with the math. Our three wounded heroes stand back, watching with pride as the remaining allies converge, once and for all, on the Wargs and insist on their demise.

They are, finally, ex-Wargs.

The journey is complete, and all heroes survive despite their grave wounds. They cheer their allies, then turn to thank the Great White Wizard.

But Gandalf is already gone.

THE END