Welcome back, Adventurers! After a slight break to heal up my heroes, it was time to head back into The Shadows of Mirkwood Cycle for The Lord of the Rings: The Living Card Game by Fantasy Flight Games.

On our previous adventure, our top-class Lord Of The Rings heroes and I made our way to The Conflict At The Carrock. Facing a series of nasty trolls with extremely normal names, taking them down with strategy before the Threat Level was too much to handle.

A Journey To Rhosgobel Solo Playthrough // The Lord Of The Rings: The Living Card Game

As I am keeping theme after the Core Set, I will be continuing on through the fearsome woods and rivers that encompass Mirkwood. With the next adventure on the list, A Journey To Rhosgobel.

Due to an unforeseen battle with Trolls in the previous adventure, it has forced one of the mighty Eagles - Wilyador - into a life-or-death situation. On this adventure, we will be required to help the titanous beast stay alive, seek advice and sanctuary from Radagast and heal up Wilyador on a hunt for herbs before he faces darkness.

A Journey To Rhosgobel Adventure Pack // The Lord of the Rings LCG

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The eagle takes damage every round, and we need to make sure he is alive all the way through to the final phase. We will need to hunt down some Athelas to get him to full power by request of the Brown Wizard. It is up to us to find the four herbs to heal him up before he faces death and we fail the mission.

Card List...

Heroes -

• Éowyn
• Elrond
• Arwen Undomiel

Allies -

• 3x Jubyar
• 3x Master of the Forge
• 3x Gandalf
• 3x Firyal
• 3x Radagast
• 2x Treebeard
• 2x Warden of Healing
• 2x Northern Tracker
• 2x Gléowine
• 2x Eagles Of The Misty Mountains
• 1x Elfheim
• 1x Beorn

Attachments -

• x3 Vilya
• x3 Miruvor
• x2 Steward Of Gondor
• x1 Unexpected Courage
• x1 Golden Shield

Events -

• 3x Elven-Light
• 2x A Test of Will
• 2x Galdrian's Greeting
• 2x Heed the Dream
• 1x Stand and Fight
• 1x Fortune Or Fate
• 1x Will of the West
• 1x Out Of Sight

New enemies are looming for this adventure too, with parallel fliers - as Black Forest Bats come out to play. We have to make sure that we have enough eagles and/or ranged characters to rival these enemies. Whilst hoping to benefit from Radagast's healing abilities and bring some beasts to the battle.

Quest Card 1: The Wounded Eagle – 8 Quest Points

The Wounded Eagle // A Journey To Rhosgobel

As part of the initial setup, we move Wilyador and Rhosgobel to the Staging Area. As long as the location of Rhosgobel is in the Staging Area, we cannot heal the Eagle in peril. So it is in our best interest to clear it as soon as we get the chance.

No Vilya in the first hand, so I mulligan-ed, no Vilya in the second hand. I discarded a card to get an extra resource and got Treebeard out on our first turn. Not a great idea as we cannot attack or defend from the flying enemies that come along with the adventure. But, a solid choice when dealing with your goblins and orcs.

This adventure pack is a race against time to clear Rhosgobel so you can manage the ever-mounting damage on Wilyador. The first quest we took a risk and managed to get 7 out of 8 progress committing just our heroes.

The strategy is to quest through stage one of the quest as soon as possible so that we can start healing Wilyador urgently, to ensure we get as much time to hunt down the herbs later on in the adventure.

Quest Card 2: Radagast's Request – 12 Quest Points

Radagast's Request // A Journey To Rhosgobel

After clearing the last point of the first quest, we decided to clear Rhosgobel by travelling there and clearing it off from the table. Thankfully, we have not drawn much in a way of resistance, which allowed us some freedom in questing. During these turns, we managed to get out The Marksman of Lorien and the Eagles of the Misty Mountains to help us deal with enemies such as the Black Forest Bats - which can be very annoying if the right allies are not in play.

Now we have cleared Rhosgobel, we can start healing Wilyador who is looking a bit peaky on half of his health!

A lot of questing has happened at this point. We have only come up against a few Orcs and Goblins that we have had to dispatch and move on relatively quickly. Wilyador was looking a bit on the poorly side, so we broke out The Warden of Healing and burned Elrond's entire resource pool on healing the Eagle down as much as possible. Now we are on a new quest, we are now on the hunt for herbs via Radagast to ensure we don't lose Wilyador.

During the brief scuffle with the Orcs, Treebeard managed to take -2 damage due to a sneaky Shadow Effect. Elrond has got his hands on one Athelas and there are two more waiting in the Staging Area to be picked up by the party soon.

We completed the Location Mountains of Mirkwood to free up one of the Athelas. Murdered some Black Forest Bats for another, and suffered exhaustion for the third. This would normally have peppered our heroes with +2 damage each, but it is always great to keep a trusty Test of Will to hand.

Ended up soaking some unforeseen and additional damage onto Wilyador due to a Shadow Effect, this forced my hand in bringing out the healers early. I then burned my second Warden of Healing to bring Wilyador's health back to a manageable level. We finished off this quest card, however, to complete the third and final quest card we only need one progress point and enough herbs to fully heal our eagle ally.

We currently have enough herbs, so if all is good, the end is in sight and we can quest our way to victory.

At this point of the quest, Pascal was growing impatient and wanted to be the focal point to distract me from any more damage to the dark lord's plan.

Quest Card 3: Return To Rhosgobel – 0 Quest Points

In a last act of defiance, the Eagles of the Misty Mountains tore apart the Black Forest Bats. As we moved on into the next quest - we count up how many herbs he have and use them to heal up Wilyador. There are no points to achieve on this quest card as we have done a fair bit of foraging, which makes victory on A Journey To Rhosgobel. Win.

Final Thoughts

If you enter this campaign without a thought towards healing your team, you are going to struggle. Getting Treebeard out first - although normally a great tactic in a combat-heavy adventure - proved to be a little more than useless. Whereas if I were to replace Radagast for Treebeard early on, damage mitigation would not have been a problem and the quest would have gone a lot smoother.

Also, be very wary of the allies you bring to this battle. As you will need a diverse selection of warriors to deal with the aerial threats.

The third and final quest card is a make or break. Meaning if we have collected enough herb to fully heal the eagle, we win. If not we lose the entire quest and would have to start from the beginning again. To avoid this, stagger your questing to balance damage against the eagle against acquiring the herbs to save him. Take too long - the eagle dies. Do it too quickly - the eagle dies. It is an unhappy balancing act.

This adventure pack is the first time players will have to really worry about damage mitigation throughout the whole quest. As opposed to just phases. Taking everything we have learned thus far, and truly putting it into practice.

Return To Rhosgobel // A Journey To Rhosgobel

The Hills Of Emyn Muil // The Lord Of The Rings: The Living Card Game

Next week we will be heading off into The Hills of Emyn Muil. Thanks to a slight misdirection due to a mass take-down of trolls over at the Carrock, we have once again lost the scent of the slippery Gollum. And we are not leaving without a definitive location of Master Precious himself. This is the first single-card-quest adventure, and we will be dragged through many a location in a battle for mass victory points. Hopefully to be that one step closer to Smeagol's location.

Every time I read Black Forest Bats, I imagine them to be something a lot sweeter! Too whimsical for the likes of Middle-earth!