Alright, Dungeons of Cirith Gurat. Big moment in the story of the cycle, as the capture of Kahliel’s son was something put in specifically to make him more sympathetic as a character (to dispel the perspective of Haradrim just being enemies) – so finally rescuing him is a big deal. It’s also another take on the previously seen quest concept of breaking friendly characters out of captivity. As executions of that idea go, it’s… I’d say mixed.
Alright, so quick player card impressions:
Folco Boffin is great. He allows you to either build lower threat Hobbit decks and/or to build 2-hero decks which start with 3 heroes to make the early-game easier before ditching Folco to go proper two hero.
Knight of Dale and Fierce Defence are both strong Valour cards which remain pretty good outside of Valour. Fierce Defence stands out a bit more, but if you’re looking for a Leadership ally and don’t care about cost then the Knight is pretty good.
Diligent Noble like Fearless Scout in the previous pack is OK but trait-granting attachments are still pretty niche.
Riddermark Knight and Eregion Survivor are both solid allies with bonuses that synergise really nicely with their respective trait archetypes.
Heirs of Elendil is a really powerful location control card in the right context, but obviously limited in when you can use it and when it’s worth it.
Leaflock is decent but a little disappointing that he can only get up to 4 willpower, since it means he’s only 1 point better than a Wellinghall Preserver, only once you’ve got enough damage spread around, and he has no other ability. It’d be nice if he had a bit of a higher cap or started higher than 0.
Legacy Blade is fantastic if you’re doing side-quests since it ends up being a 0-cost +3 attack. That’s ridiculously good.
Open the Armoury is fantastic for any deck which runs on weapons and armour, with or without Valour.
Back to the quest, as noted it’s another take on having to rescue captured characters, so we can compare somewhat to The Uruk-Hai and The Long Arm of Mordor; and very much to Escape from Mount Gram which had the same kind of setting in a dungeon. An important point to note immediately in Cirith Gurat’s favour is that you don’t lose characters at the start of the quest, which makes it much easier to just pick up and play without worrying that the quest mechanics will mess up the functioning of your deck. The problem to my mind lies in how some of the mechanics – in particular the effect on the first quest card causing you to reveal an encounter card every time any characters are rescued – lead to the game just dragging.
As far as deckbuilding ideas go, the fact that it tends to drag on stage 1 means side-quests seem a strong idea. The quest has a difficult relationship with allies – there are some effects which punish you for having too many but also some which take away allies or discard from your deck until you hit one, so you want a decent number so you have spares and don’t discard too many good non-ally cards. I usually like to play around with a newly introduced/expanded trait archetype in the final quest of a cycle; but in this case thematically this is really Kahliel’s big moment, while mechanically we have all the necessary cards for a Harad deck already and Abaan (once rescued) can provide a bonus to a Harad character so having a Harad deck gives more flexibility for how to use that. Meanwhile Folco has me looking at Hobbits and/or 2-hero Secrecy stuff, and of course there’s the usual thoughts about looking at things I haven’t used yet.
I’m going to note here that I struggled a bit with these decks, I think they’re not my most consistent pair and if I’d failed the quest one more time I was probably going to do a bit of a redesign before trying again – so if you’re taking my decks to play the quests yourself, I’m afraid you might have a trickier time with this one.
Never Abandon Family
Heroes:
Kahliel
Faramir (Ld)
Merry (Ta)
Allies (18):
Firyal x3
Jubayr x3
Yazan x3
Gandalf (Core) x3
Southron Refugee x3
Kahliel’s Tribesman x3
Attachments (17):
Steward of Gondor x3
Song of Hope x3
Kahliel’s Headdress x3
Song of Kings x2
Song of Travel x2
Song of Wisdom x2
Haradrim Spear x2
Events (11):
Feint x3
Sneak Attack x3
Captain’s Wisdom x3
We Are Not Idle x2
Side-quests (4):
Gather Information x1
Send for Aid x1
Prepare for Battle x1
Keep Watch x1
Thoughts: Kahliel for a Harad deck of course, I figured Faramir’s ally readying could be good with the powerful Harad allies, and then Merry is on the one hand low threat and on the other a Hobbit, because I want to try out using Fireside Song (had I failed the quest again and redesigned the decks, the Fireside Song stuff probably would’ve been the first to go, but it can work if things go favourably).
So the ally selection is obvious – all the Harad allies and Core Gandalf for Sneak Attacks. What more could you want, really.
In attachments we have Steward of Gondor and Kahliel’s Headdress to get all our Harad stuff working, Haradrim Spear for a little possibly-superfluous in-trait attack boost, and then a bunch of Songs to work with Fireside Song. I found deckspace easier to free up in this deck than the other which is why this is the one with all the resource icon Songs as well as the in-sphere Song of Hope. The primary reason for them is the Fireside Song synergy, but they can also help smooth out resources.
Feint and Sneak Attack are both standard things, We are Not Idle to make the deck that little bit more efficient. Captain’s Wisdom is nice for a Harad deck because Kahliel can use it to gain resources to play an expensive ally, then discard a spare ally to ready himself and still have actions that round. And then return the discarded ally to the deck with his Headdress. May be superfluous depending on how quickly I find Steward, but a welcome boost if Steward is slow to appear.
And then some side-quests. Of course Prepare for Battle and Keep Watch I could have included additional copies of, but I’m viewing them more as bonuses than essential things, and I do have The Road Goes Ever On in the other deck to potentially dig something out if it seems important.
Help in Your Time of Need
Heroes:
Thurindir
Folco Boffin
Frodo Baggins
Allies (19):
Arwen Undomiel x3
Galadriel’s Handmaiden x3
Celduin Traveller x3
Ithilien Lookout x3
Elladan x2
Elrohir x2
Sam Gamgee x1
Ghan-buri-Ghan x1
Quickbeam x1
Attachments (16):
Resourceful x3
Fireside Song x3
Fast Hitch x3
Legacy Blade x3
The Road Goes Ever On x2
Strider x2
Events (11):
A Test of Will x3
Daeron’s Runes x3
Heed the Dream x3
Vanish from Sight x2
Side-quests (4):
Gather Information x1
Double Back x1
Rally the West x1
Scout Ahead x1
Thoughts: I’m doing a bunch of side-quests while I stall on stage 1 before/while rescuing captured characters, so obviously Thurindir. Folco Boffin is in by standard Line Unbroken rules; and then Frodo is in as a decent defender (especially with threat to spare, which I have with Folco) and also a Hobbit for a little extra synergy with Folco and allowing me to use Fireside Song. Because Folco’s threat cost is reduced by having Hobbit heroes, this deck will start at 20 threat so I can do some Secrecy things.
Our ally selection starts out with standard cheap willpower (Arwen is also important to boost Frodo and make him a Sentinel) and the two encounter deck scrying Secrecy allies. And then we have some uniques – Elladan and Elrohir will help if this deck has to handle any combat itself, especially since almost all the enemies in this quest are Orcs. One consideration when picking allies which I could have put more focus on is that since rescuing allies in this quest leaves them in play under their owner’s control, there’s an argument for including higher cost allies since you may not actually have to pay the resources and you want the ally to be worth the extra card you reveal if you do it on stage 1.
Resourceful is of course the mulligan card since I most likely have one round to play it with the discount before having to wait a while (though obviously threat drops are available, notably including Folco). Fireside Song can potentially get some big willpower boosts on Frodo and/or Merry (theoretically Folco as well but I’m not going to bother since his destiny is to be discarded). Fast Hitches but no Unexpected Courages, as I’m not going to have a lot of need for extra hero actions outside of the Hobbits potentially being high willpower and useful in combat. Legacy Blades because I am going to be doing side-quests so they will be amazing – they probably go on Faramir because he’s Ranged. The Road Goes Ever On to potentially keep the side-quests flowing. Strider could be willpower early on and can let Thurindir quest without exhausting once Folco’s gone.
Test of Will and Daeron’s Runes of course. Heed the Dream is good here because either deck could definitely have a desire to search for a specific card, and the first deck may well have enough spare Leadership resources to pay for the kicker. Vanish from Sight is one more way to get the Secrecy discount after Folco’s gone even if threat has gone up too high.
Once again no extra copies of side-quests. I’ll be starting with Gather Information via Thurindir, and ultimately while the others are useful I’m not that bothered which of them I do.
Note of apology about the video: I tried a different recording setup and as a result my mouse movements are very audible, as are some creaking noises from the chair I was sitting in. So sorry about that. I do not plan to repeat this.
https://ringsdb.com/fellowship/view/11386/thelineunbroken-dungeonsofcirithgurat
https://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/21356/thelineunbroken-dungeonsofcirithguratdeck1-1.0
https://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/21357/thelineunbroken-dungeonsofcirithguratdeck2-1.0
Warden of Arnor 