OK, at this point with Beneath the Sands being a neat mid-point of the Haradrim cycle I think this is the right moment for me to duck out and complete my saga campaign. It’s taken me a while longer than I expected for assorted reasons but here we are at last for Mountain of Fire.As usual for deluxe and saga expansions I want to split up discussion of stuff in the box between the posts for the three quests. So here in this one I’m going to talk about the player cards. It’s an interesting selection and most of them are very good in the right context, be that context Hobbits, Rohan or just whatever else – Rosie/Raise the Shire for Hobbits and Elfhelm/Guthwine for Rohan are the best ones in my opinion but they’re all pretty good.
The more difficult cards are the two heroes. They’re both fine as far as I’m concerned, and they’ve both definitely improved over time and with the release of more cards that work with them, but it would be pointless to deny that they are both more difficult to work with and fairly niche – Eomer can attack the staging area, which I’m on record as noting is an incredibly powerful ability but tricky to pull off consistently; while Tom Cotton synergises with Hobbit allies, but especially when Mountain of Fire was released there weren’t that many good Hobbit allies and Hobbit decks were so much more about the heroes. Until this point I had not built a deck with Tom Cotton, but of course standard Line Unbroken rules dictate that I have to. To be precise though, clearly Eomer is associated with the Aragorn side of the story and Tom Cotton with the Frodo side, so I’m going to have Tom Cotton at Cirith Ungol, Eomer at the Black Gate and neither of them for Mount Doom, because Mount Doom is not geared towards decks with a bunch of allies and so Tom Cotton wouldn’t make sense there.
Which brings me to my deckbuilding process for this specific quest. I would say that in my experience this is the quest from this box which varies the most between campaign mode and standard, because the Wraiths on Wings pull so much focus (Whereas in Black Gate Opens tough enemies are par for the course, and I’ve always killed the Wraiths at the Black Gate so I’ve never had them impact Mount Doom for me.
Outside of campaign mode the significant concerns of this quest are threat and a potential swarm of smaller enemies, but in campaign mode I have to factor in also dealing with the Wraiths relatively quickly before they screw me over one way or another.
Other considerations are that I have to use Tom Cotton and therefore Hobbit allies; and the more significant restriction that I’ve been trying to avoid duplicating unique characters on the two sides of the campaign, even though it makes things a lot more difficult – most significantly this means no Gandalf since he’s a hero in the Aragorn branch of the campaign.
“I wonder if they think of us at all”
Heroes:
Sam Gamgee
Faramir (Ld)
Tom Cotton
Allies (19):
Curious Brandybuck x3
Errand-rider x3
Keen-eyed Took x3
Rosie Cotton x2
Erestor x2
Halbarad x2
Farmer Maggot x2
Robin Smallburrow x1
Bill the Pony x1
Attachments (19):
Dagger of Westernesse x3
Secret Vigil x3
Steward of Gondor x3
Dunedain Mark x3
Hobbit Cloak x3
Staff of Lebethron x2
Steed of the North x2
Events (13):
We Are Not Idle x3
Campfire Tales x3
Feint x3
Raise the Shire x3
Brace of Conies x1
Thoughts: Of course Sam is sticking with Frodo to the end and Tom Cotton is mandated by Line Unbroken rules. For the third hero slot I went with Faramir for a few reasons – he was already in my decks for Land of Shadow so there’s some continuity, having two Leadership heroes helps me afford some of the other cards I want, and the ally readying combines neatly with the attack boost the Hobbit allies get from Tom.
For the ally selection of course I grabbed a bunch of Hobbits to work with Tom. I can potentially play Robin Smallburrow without a sphere match because of Tom, but it’s not reliable hence only 1 copy; whereas the Curious Brandybuck I can just put into play through their ability without needing a sphere match anyway. The surprising choice though is a card I never expected to use, Keen-eyed Took. Practically speaking it’s still not that good a card, but for trying to use Tom Cotton a Hobbit ally who can be returned to hand and replayed is OK given a shortage of other options and if one can afford to keep replaying him. That and Steward of Gondor (which also helps with replaying the Tooks) are the reasons why having two Leadership heroes is nice. The attached ability can actually be useful as well because while obviously all the cards in the deck are useful, some of them are a lot more significant than others so discarding the less important ones can be helpful as a filter – especially in the absence of card draw from Sneak Attack Gandalf due to the restrictions I placed on myself.
The non-Hobbit allies provide a little willpower but are mostly there for utility, rearranging resources, drawing cards, enabling Sam to keep triggering as threat rises, and Bill of course is free.
For attachments, we have attack boosts mostly for Haldir but optionally can go on Faramir or Sam as well; and defence boosts to go on Tom and potentially Sam as well. Plus threat reduction and a bit of readying for Faramir.
For events we have card draw, including Raise the Shire which I count as card draw here, plus it works nicely with Tom Cotton to get the attack boost, and also with Farmer Maggot to get the direct damage. Feints are standard and of course Brace of Conies.
They Were Not Forgotten
Heroes:
Cirdan the Shipwright
Galadriel
Haldir of Lorien
Allies (18):
Curious Brandybuck x3
Galadhrim Weaver x3
Galadriel’s Handmaiden x3
West Road Traveller x3
Galadhrim Minstrel x3
Warden of Healing x3
Attachments (10):
Nenya x3
Fast Hitch x3
Unexpected Courage x3
Light of Valinor x1
Events (21):
Daeron’s Runes x3
Heed the Dream x3
Secret Paths x3
A Test of Will x3
Elrond’s Counsel x3
The Galadhrim’s Greeting x2
Well Warned x2
Dwarven Tomb x2
Side-quests (1):
Double Back x1
Thoughts: Galadriel and Haldir I’ve brought forward from my Land of Shadow decks, but I didn’t want to continue with Damrod, so instead we have Cirdan providing high willpower and card draw.
The allies are almost entirely here for willpower, though since Curious Brandybucks can be put into play under any player’s control, if I remember that I could send them across the table with the attack boost from Tom Cotton – but obviously this deck should not be engaging enemies, just having Haldir kill them. And of course Wardens of Healing are for healing, but otherwise all willpower.
Attachments, Nenya provides willpower if needed and the rest is action advantage.
In events we have threat reduction since that is a concern as I mentioned (the one side-quest also serves that purpose of course) and card draw; Secret Paths is to reduce the chance of getting staging area locked if I can’t deal with the Wraiths on Wings as early as I’d like to, Test of Will is standard of course, and Dwarven Tomb can let me retrieve anything important I lose to either Cirdan or Keen-eyed Tooks.
https://ringsdb.com/fellowship/view/10931/thelineunbroken-towerofcirithungol
https://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/20239/thelineunbroken-thetowerofcirithungoldeck1-1.0
https://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/20240/thelineunbroken-thetowerofcirithungoldeck2-1.0
Warden of Arnor 