Continuing the Nightmare campaign, Nightmare Knife in the Dark. As I noted at the end of the Nightmare Shadow of the Past video, I’m skipping over The Old Forest and Fog on the Barrow Downs for this, partly because that is a way a lot of people will play a campaign so I can make the case of showing that, partly because I’ve already done those quests for The Line Unbroken and don’t need to do them again (as event quests of course there are no Nightmare versions of them), and partly because in the long run playing those quests just makes the campaign easier since it gives the chance to earn two additional boons in Old Bogey Stories and Ho! Tom Bombadil!, so skipping them seems in line with the general increased difficulty of Nightmare.
The transition to Nightmare for this quest makes it a bit more restrictive with regards to viable strategies against it, as it makes Bill Ferny immune to player card effects while he’s in the staging area. In standard difficulty there’s a choice of methods to get rid of Bill Ferny quickly – raising your threat so he engages you naturally, using card effects to forcibly engage him, attacking into the staging area, or using direct damage effects. In nightmare only the first of these options is still available. I have mixed feelings about it, because on the one hand I like having more options for how to do things, but on the other hand Nightmare is obviously supposed to be harder than standard difficulty, and of the options for dealing with Bill Ferny, raising your threat is the most problematic, because it opens you up to being engaged by all the other enemies as well.
The other changes I find most notable are location-based – Weather Hills is now a more standard location rather than a means of cheesing the quest by putting all the Nazgul out of play, and Weathertop is something you actually have to deal with as opposed to the typically ignored standard difficulty version. There are also a couple more Nazgul enemies in the encounter deck to start with, so short of using victory display stuff I will be facing a minimum of five Nazgul at stage 3 of the quest.
So what does all this mean for my deckbuilding? Well, since the first deck starts at a threat of 35 I can very quickly be engaged by Bill Ferny, and Beorn + Haldir are enough attack to deal with him immediately, so I don’t have to worry too much about that. On the other hand it is worth bringing a decent amount of threat reduction to get back down afterwards. I should bear in mind the big Nazgul fight at stage 3, but that’s more a matter of how I play the quest than how I build for it, making sure I’m set up for lots of combat before advancing and possibly saving my attack cancellation specifically for that point in the quest. Other deckbuilding guidance comes from the cards already in the base quest – The Prancing Pony can put an ally into play for free, so I want some worthwhile allies available; Black Breath can be an annoying condition, so condition removal is useful; and Power in Their Terror will destroy any allies with less than 2 base willpower (unless they have at least 3 hit points, but they mostly don’t), so I want to build around that since getting characters destroyed will lose me Fellowship of the Ring, which is a great source of extra willpower.
Vigilance Against the Darkness
Heroes:
Gandalf
Beorn
Galadriel
Allies (9):
Treebeard x3
Arwen Undomiel x3
Bilbo Baggins x2
Bofur (Sp) x1
Attachments (25):
Bow of the Galadhrim x3
Gondorian Shield x3
Unexpected Courage x3
Mirror of Galadriel x3
Light of Valinor x3
Gandalf’s Staff x3
Nenya x3
Wizard Pipe x2
Shadowfax x2
Events (15):
A Test of Will x3
Elrond’s Counsel x3
The Galadhrim’s Greeting x3
Dwarven Tomb x3
Feint x3
Side-quests (1):
Gather Information x1
Thoughts: This deck is almost exactly the same as the one for Shadow of the Past. I removed the Handmaidens to make room for Treebeard, who can help out with the combat requirements, and reduced Bilbo to 2 copies in favour of having a third Galadhrim’s Greeting given the potential threat problems. Nothing else really to say about this.
All Strengths Combined
Heroes:
Balin
Haldir of Lorien
Denethor
Allies (5):
Elrond x3
Gildor Inglorion x1
Faramir x1
Attachments (24):
Fellowship of the Ring x3
Elf-stone x3
A Burning Brand x3
Lembas x3
Steward of Gondor x3
King Under the Mountain x3
Dunedain Mark x3
Celebrian’s Stone x2
Path of Need x1
Events (20):
Daeron’s Runes x3
Gildor’s Counsel x3
Secret Paths x3
Campfire Tales x3
We Are Not Idle x3
Sneak Attack x3
Parting Gifts x2
Side-quests (1):
Gather Information x1
Thoughts: I’ve abandoned the whole Song of Battle idea that I had for Shadow of the Past. Getting Haldir immediately up to Nazgul killing levels isn’t as crucial here and it was a bit odd anyway.
The problem presented by Power in Their Terror ruled out all the allies I had in the Shadow of the Past version of this deck, so instead I have some good targets for the effect on The Prancing Pony or for Elf-stones, or indeed for Sneak Attacks. Elrond in particular is a good Sneak Attack target and my only source of condition removal, which is basically why the Sneak Attacks are in the deck.
Elf-stones give me another option for bringing in my expensive allies besides The Prancing Pony. Lembas is still good healing even though there’s less need for action advantage here than the previous quest. In the absence of Master of the Forge of course I can’t get away with having less copies of something as important as Fellowship of the Ring. Thror’s Map is out because the Travel costs in this quest aren’ts so bad in general. A Burning Brand can bring Denethor up to an impressive level of defensive power (Incidentally, I will be observing the reported errata from more recent reprints even though we still haven’t had the FAQ, so the Brand is Restricted and exhausts to cancel a shadow effect). Finally Path of Need is in as a potential means of dealing with the Nazgul swarm on stage 3 – I can attach it to a location in the staging area before I advance and then travel there immediately afterwards to have really easy combat.
The Sneak Attacks as noted are intended for use with Elrond, though I could also do Sneak Attack Faramir for the willpower boost before he gets in play properly. Parting Gifts I included as essentially a substitute for Errand-riders which doesn’t have the issue with Power in Their Terror – rather than transferring one resource at a time I can let them stack up and then just move a whole load all at once. The rest is in for the same reasons as the previous version.
https://ringsdb.com/fellowship/view/7442/thelineunbroken-nmknifeinthedark
https://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/13041/thelineunbroken-nmknifeinthedarkdeck1-1.0
https://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/13042/thelineunbroken-nmknifeinthedarkdeck2-1.0
Warden of Arnor 