The Line Unbroken – N5: Nightmare Conflict at the Carrock

While as I realised in the last Line Unbroken, Hunt for Gollum is a massive example of a nightmare quest where it’s the standard cards which kill you, Conflict at the Carrock is the quest where I first observed the trend. And it comes in a different form here – in Hunt for Gollum it was more that none of the nightmare cards were particularly threatening in their own right so the only scary thing was the Hunters from Mordor from the original; whereas in Conflict at the Carrock while the nightmare cards may not typically be what kills me, it’s their presence which is making River Langflood and A Frightened Beast that much more deadly than they are in standard difficulty. Still notable I think that it’s those cards which end up causing me significant issues rather than the new nightmare trolls.

Beyond new nightmare trolls, the other notable card the nightmare deck adds is Hives and Hives, a.k.a. “We don’t want you to use Northern Trackers in this quest.” With a bit more of a card pool I can handle this card better by making use of Honour Guards, but without them it’s basically a 3 threat location you can never explore, and therefore it sits in the staging area forever. This is one reason why A Frightened Beast becomes scarier. Not a design I’m very keen on.
The nightmare trolls, on the other hand, I do like. With the way they power up as you defeat more of them until you finally have to face off against a big uber-troll, it makes for interesting combat, and of course strategic decisions as to which order you fight them in.

So how do I go about building for this one? Well, most of the same principles apply here as for the standard version. Recruiting Grimbeorn is no longer a thing, but I still probably want to hang around on stage 1 building up power before advancing and be careful about my threat so I can tackle the trolls one at a time rather than all at once. And Miners of the Iron Hills continue to be relevant for removing sacks. The main place my mind immediately went was from keeping my threat under control to the possibility of Secrecy again. So I had some… interesting ideas along those lines…

Stealthy Movement

Heroes:
Theodred
Eleanor
Glorfindel (Sp)

Allies (22):
Dunedain Wanderer x3
West Road Traveller x3
Envoy of Pelargir x3
Faramir x2
Erestor x2
Arwen Undomiel x2
Bofur (Sp) x2
Gandalf (Core) x2
Fili x1
Kili x1
Elfhelm x1

Attachments (10):
Steward of Gondor x3
Light of Valinor x3
Resourceful x3
Celebrian’s Stone x1

Events (18):
Sneak Attack x3
Timely Aid x3
Valiant Sacrifice x3
Hasty Stroke x3
Elrond’s Counsel x3
The Galadhrim’s Greeting x3

Thoughts: It’s a while since my limited card pool really bugged me that much, but trying to get questing power for these Nightmare quests, I’ve been feeling the relative shortage of cheap willpower. Still, this deck will do its best in that regard. Card draw’s also a bit of an issue, though Gandalf/Valiant Sacrifice/Erestor is decent. This deck is also hoping for Gleowine to help out from the other deck.
Between Gandalf, Elrond’s Counsel and Galadhrim’s Greeting, staying in Secrecy isn’t out of the question with some decent draws; and between Theodred, Steward and whatever Resourcefuls I manage to get out I can potentially afford to play some Secrecy cards at full price later in the game. Combat is a definite weakness for this deck. Glorfindel, Gandalf, Elfhelm and Dunedain Wanderers is the best it can get, though stacking up a few 1 attack allies is also an option. Mostly I hope to get the tougher enemies engaged with the second deck.
Very strangely, you may note I’ve actually omitted Test of Will from a Spirit deck for the first time ever. The reason is that there actually aren’t that many treacheries in this quest I really want to cancel – Sacked! can’t be cancelled, and A Frightened Beast can be cancelled by discarding a creature, plus I have Eleanor. I’m much more concerned about the shadow effects potentially screwing me over, hence Hasty Stroke x3.

That’s my secret… I’m always Eagles

Heroes:
Denethor
Bifur
Mirlonde

Allies (26):
Master of the Forge x3
Miner of the Iron Hills x3
Eagles of the Misty Mountains x3
Vassal of the Windlord x3
Winged Guardian x3
Descendant of Thorondor x2
Gleowine x2
Warden of Healing x2
Gandalf (Core) x2
Gildor Inglorion x1
Haldir of Lorien x1
Landroval x1

Attachments (9):
Narvi’s Belt x3
Resourceful x3
Gondorian Shield x2
Asfaloth x1

Events (15):
Daeron’s Runes x3
Mithrandir’s Advice x3
Out of the Wild x3
Sneak Attack x3
A Good Harvest x3

Thoughts: Do not adjust your set, you read this right, I’m using not one but two Secrecy decks against this Nightmare quest. Since staying below 34 threat is a pretty big deal, it’s not a bad fit. The drawback is I then need to have the Secrecy decks muster enough combat power to handle all the trolls. Enter A Good Harvest, Narvi’s Belt and a lot of Eagles (which of course also give me insurance against A Frightened Beast, as noted above). Interesting that both times I’ve done mono-Lore Secrecy (the other being Druadan Forest) there’s been a definite focus on playing non-Lore cards – but it still works as a mono-Lore rather than dual-sphere because firstly I get the Secrecy this way and secondly mono-Lore has the card draw going for it.
The big aim between mulligan and card draw is to hopefully get at least one Resourceful onto Bifur round 1, since that’s the only time this deck is guaranteed to be in Secrecy (though I do have Sneak Attack Gandalf and the other deck has Greetings to potentially drop back down with). With that resource generation, plus being able to pass resources to him from other heroes, Bifur with Narvi’s Belt can play a bunch of Eagles and by the time I arrive on stage 2 hopefully my Eagles of the Misty Mountains will be suitably powered up for troll-slaying. Descendant of Thorondor’s direct damage can help as well, and he works well with the low threat strategy.
Master of the Forge isn’t an obvious choice since I don’t have that many attachments, but I included him on the chance that if I play him round 1 I might find a Resourceful in my top 5 cards. And then after that being able to repeatedly search for attachments lets me have less copies of them and still be somewhat reliable, thus only 2 Shields and 1 Asfaloth.
In the end this pair of decks is pretty simple to be honest, one mostly quests, the other powers up some Eagles, both keep their threats down and hopefully it’ll work.

RingsDB:
http://ringsdb.com/fellowship/view/3038/the-line-unbroken-nm-conflict-at-the-carrock
http://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/5941/the-line-unbroken-nm-conflict-at-the-carrock-deck-1-1.0
http://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/5942/the-line-unbroken-nm-conflict-at-the-carrock-deck-2-1.0

Youtube: Nightmare Conflict at the Carrock