Passage Through Mirkwood | LOTR LCG | Progression Series Episode 1

you hello viewers and welcome to the first scenario playthrough for the Lord of the Rings the card game progression series my name is Mitch and I'm Matthew and today we'll be playing through the first of three scenarios which made their debut in the LOTR LCG corset this is passage through Mirkwood and Matthew why don't you introduce us to this quests mechanics and story Mirkwood has long been a dangerous place and recently one of King Thranduil x' patrols has uncovered disconcerting signs of a gathering menace in the vicinity of dole gold or a party of heroes controlled by us the players has been assembled to carry a message through Mirkwood down the Anduin and eventually to lure Ian to warn lady Galadriel of the imminent danger so when I think of Mirkwood it brings me back to my readings of The Hobbit where Bilbo encountered these big vicious spiders and that's exactly what we're going to be encountering in this quest and ultimately what we have to do is deal potentially with this huge spider ungoliant spawn hopefully the decks we've created Mitch will be able to help us journey through Mirkwood and kill as many spiders as possible yes exactly when I think of a gathering of evil I think of the peril of giant spiders and the occasional work here and there but PTN is very much all about spiders and drawing upon the corset the most formidable tools that the corset offers up Matthew and I I've cobbled together a couple of decks for Matthew and I to use so why don't you do us the honor of telling us a little bit about what we can expect from your deck well my deck is predominately tactics using Gimli and Legolas but also splashing in a little bit of lore with bear roar and so hopefully should we encounter any nasty spiders in particular ungoliant spawn my deck will be more than able to handle it yeah your deck is very much focused on combat and I kind of pick up the slack in regard to questing I've got Aragorn I've got a Owen I've got theodred hopefully we'll remember his trigger to add resources but apart from that it's just kind of between the two of us a lot of filler and the occasional power card like steward of gondor and unexpected courage so I've got these decks available on rings DB if any viewers would like to take a look at them more than uh just being able to check them out in the video here but we're going to be digging for something like steward of gondor maybe played on a tactics hero because Matthews got a lot of expensive attachments to put into play and Bera for might be an ideal candidate for Horn of Gondor but apart from that it's just kind of get northern tracker out and kill a bunch of spiders and hopefully profit so Matthew I've gone ahead and made you the first player and we may as well run through set up a quest phase 1a here flies and spiders has a little bit of flavor text remind us that we're carrying an urgent message from King Thranduil to lady Galadriel but alas there are myriad spiders gathering around us we've got to search the encounter deck for a forced spider and an old forest road add them to the staging area shuffle said encounter deck we've got that forest spider sitting here in the staging area nice low engagement cost on it it's not dealing a lot of damage but the first round that it engages us it does get in the ephemeral attack bonus the location we've got sitting out the staging area just offers up a paltry one threat and when we travel there the first player can ready a character maybe that's going to be Gimli maybe not we've got our encounter decks setup it is shuffled we move to quest phase 1b and there's just some flavor text here so nasty cobwebs signs of spiders everywhere and it reminds us that Mirkwood forest is a pretty miserable place but I suppose we may as well go ahead and draw our opening six cards sure and starting with you are you interested in taking a mulligan ah I think I will keep my hand it's a little on the expensive side but I'm going on to it sure and viewers Matthew and I can clearly see one another's hands just to make for some more interesting discussion and discourse between the two of us Bjorn Citadel played some pretty pricey stuff there for me I've got a lot of spirit cards in my opening hand but not a ton of spirit resources I might keep it just because I can use theodred to toss a lot of resources over to Aon and I think I actually did just convince myself to keep this hand so hopefully I'll draw a steward of gondor soon but who knows but anyways I guess resource phase let's all go ahead and add a resource to our heroes pools and draw a card I got something pretty damn good okay I got it another copy of Citadel play I'll add that in the prior iteration in the progression series we often got comments that folks didn't know what was in my hand and so they weren't really able to understand my thought process and so while in a way we're breaking the tabletalk rule so to speak we're having my hand be exposed for exactly those reasons is it gives people much more insight into what I'm doing on my side of the table um so hopefully it'll make the videos even more helpful hopefully so but I suppose we might as well transition into planning Matthew you're the Chur player what are your thoughts what are you going to play well my only thought is should I play Horn of Gondor uh my hand is fairly tactics heavy the thing is one of Gondor needs allies to go away and I don't really have allies to play in the short term so I think I'm gonna hold on to my resources potentially trying to pump up Gimli with some extra hit points so I'm just gonna sit pretty alright sounds totally reasonable to me and for me I guess I've got a few different options here I've got the resources to put out a guard of the Citadel okay but I may also want to use like just to walk through my process here I'm thinking theodred and a one at the very least are going to be sent to the quest I'd love to have theodred throw is resource to Eowyn so I can get out effects like northern track or an unexpected courage quicker but I'm kind of coming down to do I want this ally or do I want Aragorn ready knowing that we're gonna have to deal with this forest spider I think maybe right off the bat I'll hold off on my ally especially since you don't have a horn out and I suppose with that said maybe I'm going to just not do anything so I think all passes well and I guess that brings us to questing so who do you want to commit well I'll send Gimli for sure cuz as you mentioned he's always a great target for the old forest road right I think both of us are in the situation where we could use some cards because we've got some expensive stuff sure so I'm debating whether or not to send bear to the quest well let's see so Gimli would be - we're currently up against three I'm gonna be sending I'll probably do all of my heroes for a grand total of seven nines we'll have nine going ok well let's all go ahead and hold her back and that way one of us can enjoy some card draw at the end of the turn sure so the alternative for Matthew and I of course was having barrel or have one of us draw cards during planning but yeah you know passage through Mirkwood is difficulty level one will be fine and as I well let's hope yes right exactly hopefully our our first real video here is going to be successful but I'm going to go ahead and commit all of my characters to the quest simultaneously Aragorn loses a resource to ready and theodred is going to be tossing a resource over to Aon a little game Matthew and I like to play throughout the progression series here is going to be called remember not to screw up and miss responses so that's one successful remembrance thing but I guess we're good I've commits seven will power to the quest and I've done - yeah okay so let's go ahead and see what we're up against so staging round one encounter card number one is going to be an Old Forest Road oh my okay bit of a softball encounter card number two is gonna be I don't know caught in a web so the player with the highest threat level which is Matthew attaches this card to one of his heroes it's a conditioned attachment attached hero does not ready during the refresh phase unless he paid two resources from that hero's pool well this is pretty horrible but I happen to have a minor of the iron hills in my opening hand so it is not that bad let's go ahead and I'll take control of this card and I'm gonna place it on bear roar fantastic and I was going to say I've got an unexpected courage but that is even better so that is going to have value dwarf for show and indeed alright so Matthew we're only up against four threat if we remember our elementary school math that means we're going to make a total of three progress unless we want to discard cards to Eowyn I'm fine taking this one slow when we be making five nine minus four is five oh yes I sorry I was looking at elementary elementary back anyway so I totally forgot that Matthew had commit characters to the quest how dare you forget me I know Jasha a self-centered American go figure but anyways so we've made five out of the eight progress there's nothing I can do to make us pass through this quest phase this round I could certainly ditch a copy of Citadel plate I just am not sure that that's absolutely necessary yeah and I suppose your barrel or it's obscured a little bit by caught in a web but I guess if we wanted to be crazy you could do secret paths to block if threats and discarding something and I could discard something but no need to rush toward may be facing Reilly and spawn so it's been a while I don't want to be premature about anything I alright but anyways uh so that is going to be that five progress shall we travel to a copy of Old Forest Road let's do it okay so that's going to be active feel free to ready one character you control okay Gimli and uh so that is our travel phase how about encounter what do we want to do with a horse bite I will take the four spider alright so that's pretty simple optional engagement nothing left over me and then a combat how do we want to deal with defending against force I'm thinking that I'm gonna do it undefended um and because I'm gonna plot the Citadel plate down next turn okay uh just thinking it what our shadow cards are there's maybe like four cards out of the 33 that do +1 attack but there's no um let's see there's no effect like plus multiple attack so this forest spider has engaged a player it gets +1 attack strength until the end of the round something new since you and I last did the progression series are these handy tokens that were added into cool note that but anyways I think you're fine with an undefended attack so let's go ahead and assign a shadow card here okay at the beginning of combat and flip it oh wow so to image to every character the defending player controls and now you've got three undefended damage to a sign as well yeah that is horrible yeah said did not exactly go as expected ah that is one card out of the entire entire deck so it looks like yeah I guess who are you going to choose to be your dead hero uh I think it has to be bear four okay so I guess if you were to pick bear you'd miss out on your lore cards but that's not the end of the world right and at least that way you are getting rid of that caught in a web attachment sure Wow so that is a wretched start but rest in peace burov or Brian alright so I suppose she'll be discarded and why don't I go ahead and take control of caught in a web and I will go ahead and discard that Wow yikes rough start Brian but now that you've defended ah I guess you're free to attack in turn right and I will just attack with both of my characters all right so Gimli is going to be doing a grand total of something like four if you want to use your arrows just for fun and then Legolas is going to make that a grand total of seven and the forest spider is going to be killed so goodbye for spider and goodbye Hummer horns yep and then a legless is going to trigger his ability for to progress on the old forest road yep so clearly in this situation my dear viewers I could have used Aragorn to defend against that spider just to be really certain and secure but Matthew and I are risk takers goddammit so sometimes that comes back and bites us in the ass but that is going to be combat and now I suppose your refresh phase yep alright so control our I'll go ahead and take the first player token our threat is automatically increased and then that is going to lead us into the resource phase we each draw one card I got a valiant sacrifice for some additional card draw Macca you got some a1 fodder yep and I suppose what I want to do is I'll spend two resources during planning to do unexpected courage do you want that on Gimli or Legolas that's a good question um let's do like a loss okay so I will go ahead and toss that over to you that way Legolas is going to be able to speed us through the quest pretty quickly even though Gimli hits quite a lot harder and with some of my remaining resources I think I'll do two from theodred to do a guard of the Citadel which would normally be a great little chump blocker but I don't know right and I'm going to play Citadel plate on good way okay pretty simple and Gimli now has seven HP if only Bera four would have had that Citadel plate oh my yeah alright and let's see you know I guess come to think of it we should have obviously neither of us was expecting that shadow effect resolve but I guess going into combat knowing that we didn't need bare of or necessarily well actually I guess with undefended you would have no you wouldn't have needed her so we maybe missed out on a card draw but not that big of a deal anyways smell I guess planning is done yep okay so let's go ahead and do questing and I suppose all to the same thing as last time so I will happen or well like yeah it's me first okay so I will strip one resource from Aragorn I'll toss another resource to Aon and I will again commit seven to the quest and how about you I will just pitch one card to Aon so you can add one to your tow sure alright so let's go ahead and call it eight total willpower and this time I won't forget about your characters alright so for staging let's go ahead and do our encounter cards encounter card number one is going to be a dull gold er or so the first player chooses a character currently committed to a quest and they mix two points of damage I suppose I will I will do whoops I'm forgetting my hotkeys I will do two points of damage to theodred okay encounter card number two is going to be another copy of forest spider so we're going to be up against a total of five threat we're going to make one to progress and that is old forest road discarded and let's see I guess I've forgotten about the existence of old forest road here but that could allow me to ready fayed rid all right so it's almost as though I'm more focused on recording the video than I am playing a good game of LOTR go figure but for travel shall we do Old Forest Road active location sure all right so I think I will ready theodred and for engagement we've got the forest spider which is going to require it attack of five to kill and we've got the doll colder orcs I wouldn't mind taking the orcs I'll be able to kill them pretty easily and do you want a spider than sure alright so I will go ahead and again screw that up and I'll add a little attack bonus symbol to it coke will go into the combat phase and defending against my dog older orcs I suppose what are your thoughts on how you want to deal with your forest spider you know I'm gonna do the same thing and hope for the best and not offend it sure that's what I would suggest which I actually sincerely mean most of the time it works out famous last words from my dog altar orcs I will defend it with aragorn's so I'll go ahead and exhaust him for that this is going to be defending player must choose and discard an attachment fortunately I don't I believe that you control the unexpected courage yep okay good deal just make it sure and that's going to be no damage to our Gorn and how do you want to for spider undefended let's roll the dice on defendant alright so that day just three damage mark whoops wrong one alright there we go so Gimli is currently sitting at for HP kept alive only through the I don't know beneficence of that Citadel but for return on fire I'll do a combined three to my dog older orcs they are dead and how about you and just for fun I will use both of my guys alright so grand total of 10 is going to be more than enough to get rid of that spider and that's going to be another couple of points of progress ahnold's and frankly I should have sniped over to your side with with Legolas because I could have attacked twice to make extra progress yes in fact since there's no reason not to do that do we just want to go ahead and do that yep I was gonna say it you just move kind of quickly yeah I should have introductive sorry about that but okay viewers what happens here is when we've got this or sitting with me obviously Legolas can do two attacks so let's just consider he participated in this attack with the guard of the Citadel the orc was killed with Legolas participating and then Legolas of course helped out Gimli to do some killing as well so it's probably not going to make much of a difference but this will allow us to potentially travel where we may not have been able to otherwise but anyways now that I'm done in my apologies for going a little bit quick shall we do the refresh phase wants do it alright so first player token bounces back to you I will draw a card and we'll do a resource for each character and unfortunately you've got some more useless stuff yep I I don't really see it's super necessary to play Horn of Gondor so I'm just gonna sit pretty okay may as well just save up for more citadel plates I've got the resources for an unexpected courage would you want that on Gimli maybe to help quest or something along those lines uh I mean we can sure I guess I may as well do something with this bounty I've got so there's unexpected courage for you okay and with my leadership resources I think I want to leave them unspent at the moment okay okay so for questing I guess what do you want to send I will just send Gimli for two okay and all we need to do is make one progress so let's see if you are sending Gimli I suppose I will send five myself as so let's just do maybe a total of seven and then adjust up as necessary with a one okay alright so encounter card number one is going to be the necromancers reach so G once damage to each exhausted character I don't have any way to get around that so that kind of swoops I did not mean to do resources I always screws with me a little bit that the add damage short is different for conquests than LOTR but anyways Gimli is currently at three hit points left so necromancer's Reach is going to be gone and encounter card number two is going to be heat all sister orcs okay so first player chooses a character currently committed to a quest and deals two points of damage to it so alright I suppose that is Gimli there and he is currently sitting at one hit point that's a little bit frightening but I'm you're at least gonna make some quest progress here and move through things pretty quickly so I suppose I could have readied him with the action window with unexpected courage but yeah right again just a small slip-up that I'm sure we could attribute to recording a video because there was no reason to not use unexpected courage and right there are some effects in the encounter deck which exhaust characters and there are a few that also wound characters so yeah anyways doesn't matter too much but 7-2 is going to be five progress tokens and that means we're going to pass through our first quest phase so as we move through Mirkwood hounded by spiders the forest path Forks before us and we don't know what lies ahead but our message remains urgence we have to choose a path as soon as we make two progress and go figure dull Guldur orcs because of Legolas is going to give us a couple of progress travel no options encounter I doesn't really matter too much but do you want the honor of receiving our orc I'm sure okay and I've got Aragorn as a simulant defender is why there's why I offer that up to you sir combat shadow card for him and let's play it a little safe this time and have you defendants hi hey yeah I'm very happy to do so okay so our a Gorn right there we go ahead and flip the card nothing good Aragorn takes no damage and go ahead and swing with the team yeah alright so looks like thirteen is greater than three sir-sir ork is going to be destroyed - progress is going to be made on quest phase 2 it is feeded and now our trail begins to wind into the darkest most tangled parts of the forest we sense a foul dark presence hunting us and we move quickly in an attempt to avoid its evil so Matthew with one being our top card and to being our bottom card why don't you randomly choose a number between 1 and 2 let's do - all right so - that's going to be big about half so 10 quest points we attempt to follow a secret hidden trail to avoid the enemy Matthew and I are very cowardly by nature we cannot defeat this stage while in boolean spawn is in play but if we defeat this stage we've won the game so I guess that is that do we want a fresh let's do it alright so control our did not actually go off for me wanted to make sure I didn't double increase my threat I will snag first player token I will do my resources Matthew draw another drew another lower card really sorry about including so many lower cards in your deck that's ah but I suppose it's my planning I've now got a few resources again on a1 I don't really have anything to do with those unless I want to put out my wandering tooks so let's think we might be able to push through the quest this round but I don't know I feel like we should maybe take any unnecessary risks so why don't I do a couple of resources for another guard of the Citadel okay and let's see if I do a one gets another resource another reason ok I'll do two more resources from Aon for a wandering tube because she'll get a resource from theodred and well yeah we don't need northern tracker really so I'm just gonna do a wandering tube now and how about for you I will play my second copy of Citadel play on Gimli to be on the safe side that poor poor guy yeah but now he's got a grand total of 13 hit points so 5 HP remaining not too shabby and I suppose we're back to questing so I think I want to send pretty much everybody yeah I'm gonna send the team as well someone send three and then ready them with unexpected courage ok just in case we pull moongolian just or don't pull in goalie and spawn see then maybe I wonder if I should do everybody because I could do two three seven eight nine ten you make it 13 we can and I'm going to actually go ahead and discard a copy of secret path so you can boost up a one by one sure so it all comes down to we've got let's see here how many cards 24 left in the encounter deck we've only got two chances to draw ungoliant spawn so yeah you've got some ready characters I've got some ready characters why don't we be ballsy and will commit everybody so you've discarded cards so 2 3 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 total sent and 14 thanks to your discard and then if I discard again that'll be 15 but let's see what we get so this is again readying Aragorn and giving a resource from Fayed to a one encounter card number one is going to be east byte Patrol so three thread is actually pain in the ass counter card number two is going to be dull Guldur Beastmaster which we could leave in the staging area so this is going to be a total of five threat against us I suppose I will go ahead and discard a copy of wandering - to boost up our willpower to 15 and let me just double check so - 3 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 and 14 15 thanks to the two discards so 15 minus 5 is going to be 10 and what do you know looks like we have managed to passage through Mirkwood I can't say I'm used to losing heroes during this scenario but Matthew we have eaten the quest I guess now that we've played through PTM a second time what are your thoughts on how this went I still love this quest the nostalgia is strong but I will say as much as passage Mirkwood passes through Mirkwood could be considered tough this was a pretty tough playthrough there's a lot of damage on the board a couple more heroes fairly close to to death and yet we still managed to eke out a win I'm glad we sent the team so is definitely a pretty fun unexpected playthrough of this one yeah I guess even with these allegedly innocent scenarios you can still find yourself being pretty surprised sometime I was half expecting another the necromancers reach to kill a theodred or something along those lines we did not end up finding ungoliant spawn our big nasty spider that we had to fight like we did in our tutorial video that could have certainly ruined our chances of winning this quest on this round but certainly Gimli being able to attack 410 himself would have been able to make very short work of this spider but you know whether or not it went well whether or not we kind of well whether or not I kind of stepped all over myself and you and trying to speed this video along point is I had a good time and LOTR LCG is always pretty fun uh Matthew I guess in regard to revisions to make to your deck unfortunately those lower cards didn't work out too well but minor of the iron hills seem clutch I mean any other thoughts for what you used what you didn't use I just sort of got hampered by having a bunch of expensive stuff in my opening hand but I also kept it because one of gondor can be good secret paths is another reason I kept it that's a great card I think it's highly undervalued uh and then said it'll played you know if since I didn't have other stuff to play immediately I kept it I thought quick-strike could maybe come in handy so I think there was a couple miss plays on my part not writing somebody with unexpected courage during the action window before staging mostly minor mistakes but sometimes those minor mistakes can add up sure in our case it ended up not being super detrimental and so you know played a little fast and loose here with my undefended attacks and they did come to bite for Bev or in the butt but hey we still made it through our our passage here and only one heroes down right and I will say undefended attacks to me always are calculated risk and since it's it was really only one card out of the entire deck that could have possibly done that to you and killing off a hero it was you know less than a five percent chance that you were taking so prime most of the time people don't roll ones on their d20 and what's the fun about a bit of risk for my deck it was a bummer that I didn't get steward of gondor but apart from that everything worked reasonably fine and I do just have to apologize dear viewers for focusing more on haste than a precise gameplay like with that little unexpected courage suboptimal use and stuff like that but like I said I had a good time Matthew always a pleasure and done any other thoughts before we close out the video just that I'm hoping we have a bit tighter gameplay against that big beefy Hill troll right right but at the very least I did not forget a Fayed red trigger so a small victory exactly but Matthew I hear that you're on a podcast so why don't you go ahead and plug that and let's get out of here you are absolutely right I happen to be a co-host of the gray company podcast which is an in-depth Lord of the Rings LCG podcast focusing on strategy deck building and the meta game so feel free to join host dan derek ian and myself for an in-depth look at the game i think it's a pretty fun show and hopefully you enjoy it as well it certainly comes highly recommended whereas I've abandoned the community twice now you guys have stuck with it so there's certainly something to be said about being faithful so definitely encourage you to check out the gray company if you want to get in touch with me I'm the hive tyrant on Twitter and on Facebook and feel free to get in touch with Matthew and I in the comments what are your own experiences with passage through Mirkwood do you have any ridiculous stories like Matthew and I just experienced that you'd like to share with us what are your strategies for beating this insurmountable scenario and do you feel like it holds up in the context of the modern card pool so as always thank you so much for watching thank you for checking out another installment of the Lord of the Rings the card game progression series if you want to support my ongoing endeavor to cover LOTR LCG I'm also on patreon but I'll just in this video by saying as always be sure to check back in again soon for much more Lord of the Rings the card game content to come

Channel: The Hive Tyrant

Views: 17,229

Keywords: Living Card Game, Card Game (Game Genre), LCG, Fantasy Flight Games (Game Designer), FFG, Hive Tyrant, Tutorial (Media Genre), Review (Media Genre), OCTGN, Gameplay, Lord of the Rings, LOTR, Tenth Nazgul, Progression Series, Middle-Earth, Middle Earth, Tolkien, JRR, J.R.R., Passage, Through, Mirkwood

Id: aJ242SoRyVQ

Length: 34min 22sec (2062 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 02 2016

Reddit Comments

[u/GhostEight]

I just wanted to say that I'm glad to see you guys back for another series, I've enjoyed watching your old videos and look forward to the new ones.

[u/The_Hive_Tyrant]

After far too many weeks of waiting, I present the latest installment of the Lord of the Rings: the Card Game Progression Series! Today, Matthew and I tackle the first quest of the CORE set - Passage Through Mirkwood - and things could scarcely go any more unexpectedly. So, here's hoping you enjoy the first scenario playthrough episode of our series, and look forward to more entries in this ongoing project in the future!

Note: scheduling between he and I has been much more difficult than anticipated, but rest assured that this series shall remain a permanent project. Take care, and do leave your thoughts and feedback in the comments!

[u/jacenat]

I recently played this quest with 3 players with decks geared for quests 3-6 of the lotr saga campaign. We didn't lose a hero, but it certainly was close. We did play Anduin on the same evening and actually did have one of the players threat out. These old quests are nothing to sneeze at!

[u/RansomMan]

Good on you guys to persevere after that first round. Usually when that happens to me I scoop and start over... Maybe I'm just not very good at this game!

[u/dave633]

I've never watched any LOTR videos but I enjoyed this one. How often will you be posting videos? I think I'd rather play through the scenarios myself before watching y'all do it.