Doomed Fate 1.1: A Shadow of the Past

A Shadow of the Past is the first chapter in the Saga Campaign and narrates Frodo and company leaving Bag End and crossing the Brandywine River via the Bucklebury Ferry, all the while being pursued by Black Riders.

Since I'm playing the campaign, I should be strategic about which heroes I pick, since in Campaign Mode I will be stuck with the heroes I choose from quest to quest until the rules state otherwise (technically I can choose to swap characters freely, but only if I pay a permanent starting threat increase of 1 per character I swap). And if one of my characters die? You guessed it, I can only replace them by taking that same penalty.

As I have mentioned previously, I like to be thematic when I can. I see this whole campaign as an alternate version of the narrative of the books, but still would like to start things the same (or as similarly as possible). In the books, there are only 3 members of the party for this journey to the Bucklebury Ferry: Frodo, Sam, and Pippin. Merry meets them at the Ferry, and Fatty Bolger (also included in the Black Riders expansion) is waiting at Frodo's new home in Crick Hollow. 

That being said, the next quest is going from Bree to Weathertop. The party meets Aragorn in Bree, but there is no opportunity to switch the party in Campaign Mode here. The final quest in this expansion has the party travel from Weathertop to Rivendell, and in the books Glorfindel joins somewhere in between there (he is replaced by Arwen in the movies). So here are the most thematic options for my starting party (not including Frodo, who must be the fourth companion in the quests in this expansion):

   Aragorn, Leadership
   Glorfindel, Lore
   Merry, Tactics
   Pippin, Lore
   Sam, Leadership

I beat this previously using Sam, Merry, and Pippin, so I thought I would try to mix things up. As you can tell by my article title, things did not go well. But, let's document it anyway!

I chose Aragorn, Sam, and Pippin to accompany Frodo. For deck building, I am only using the Core Set, Black Riders, and the three adventure packs I own: Shadow and Flame, The Dead Marshes, and Celebrimbor's Secret. I will add the other saga expansion cards only when I begin that saga's quests to keep things thematic.

I will outlined each turn I took. At the beginning of each turn, I will record relevant information to get a feel for how I was doing:

   Turn number
   T: Staging Area Threat (Party Threat)
   [[engaged enemies]]
   @Location log for this turn (>> indicates I traveled to a new location; "the path" means there was no specific location)

   *Key narrative points

 Let's see how far I got! 

--------------------

0
T: 4(28)
[[]]
@Bag End

*The party begins at Bag End, with a Black Rider not far away.
*Frodo gains the Mr. Underhill title.

1
T: 4(28)
[[]]
@Bag End >> Stock-Brook >> Bag End

*After a brief detour to Stock-Brook (we must have gone the wrong way lol), we traveled back to Bag End.

2
T: 4(29)
[[]]
@Bag End >> the path

*There was a Black Rider crawling towards us in the distance, but we were able to hide.
+++Quest Card 1 completed+++
*We left Bag End and came upon another Black Rider in the distance, but were too exhausted; we failed to hide. As a result, both Black Riders found us and engaged the party.
*The Black Riders attacked immediately and killed Sam and Pippin.
*The Black Riders attacked again. Aragorn was too exhausted to defend and was slain. Frodo used his Mr. Underhill alias to stall the other Black Rider temporarily. 

3
T: 0(30)
[[Black Rider, Black Rider]]
@the path
*Black Riders attack again, killing Frodo. The Black Riders take the Ring.

GAME OVER

--------------------

Ouch. I lost in 3 turns on Easy Mode.

What did I do wrong? Right off the bat, I went way too fast. The Black Riders expansion contains hide tests, which requires heroes to exhaust to commit their willpower to hiding (this is compared against the total threat from X number of Encounter cards drawn). 

I committed too many characters to quest, and did not have enough to pass my second Hide Test after I left Bag End. It would have been better to take things slow, which would have helped keep my characters available to pass Hide Tests, but also would have allowed me to get some allies set up to contribute toward Hide Tests and combat to get rid of the initial Black Rider in the Staging Area. 

Failing Hide Tests is bad news in this scenario; I need to take time to get a better set up. Additionally, I noticed I lacked attack power. I would like to be able to kill each Black Rider in one to two rounds, but they have a defense of 4, and Aragorn is my only strong attacker. Aragorn is known for questing and having an additional turn with his character ability, so he could fight, but my party also lacks defenders. In short, I need more allies to make this a functional team for this quest. 

I will re-group, look at my deck, and try again soon!