Nightmare Into Ithilien

 Faramir has left a company of rangers in Ithilien, tasked on ambushing Southrons as they march toward Cair Andros. Their captain, Celador, offers to lead you to Cair Andros after the approaching enemy is destroyed…

Into Ithilien and I have a complicated history. It was the first quest in the game that my partner and I played which actually made us angry, and ultimately it resulted in us taking a five month hiatus from the game. At the time, we were a little ahead of release order, having just purchased The Black Riders. My partner was rocking an awesome new Hobbit deck, while I was playing a Lore scrying deck that was much less thematically cohesive.

We were able to get through Peril in Pelargir with a little extra elbow grease, but Into Ithilien was an entirely different story. We lost game after game, and never seemed to get very far. We figured we could probably scrap our current decks and come up with something better suited to the quest, but we just didn’t want to. We had just built these decks, and we liked them. We wanted to play these decks.

So we skipped it, thinking maybe we’d have more luck with Siege of Cair Andros—but that turned out to be even worse. There was no getting around it; the game designers wanted us to include more Tactics cards in our decks. But we rebelled against the idea—nobody tells us what to do! So we stopped playing for a while.

The Southrons had won, at least for the time being.

Haradrim Captain by Guillame Ducos

Why did Into Ithilien cause us so much frustration back in the day?

Part of it came from us still trying to wrap our heads around the new Battle and Seige keywords, which forced us to re-evaluate the entire card pool. But that wasn’t the primary problem—after all, Peril in Pelargir had featured the Battle keyword prominently, and it wasn’t a problem for us. No, the biggest issue was that above all else, Into Ithilien demanded an aggressive playstyle—a sharp contrast from most of the quests that had come before it.

The quest begins with a number of Southron Companies equal to the number of players. These Enemies are worse when the current Quest has the Battle or Siege keyword—and of course Stage 1 is a Battle quest—clocking them in at a hefty 3 threat and 5 attack. The only saving grace is that they have an engagement cost of 34, meaning that the players probably have a few rounds before they’re forced to engage them… so long as they can also clear the copy of Ithilien Road which starts as the Active Location. Otherwise, the Road reduces all Enemies’ engagement costs to 0, and all of those 5 attack Enemies in the Staging Area demand to be dealt with immediately.

It’s a pretty common occurrence for players to exhaust all of their combat-capable characters for the Battle quest, only to fall a few progress short of clearing the Ithilien Road. But of course, your combat-capable characters were questing, so now you have nobody left to defend all of the Enemies you’re now engaging. An undefended attack of 5 pretty much means a dead Hero. Scoop, rinse, repeat.

But the quest doesn’t leave you to face the Southrons alone: you also begin with the Objective-Ally Celador in the Staging Area. Celador is a 2 / 2 / 2 / 3 Ally, and is considered to be committed to the quest as long as he’s in the Staging Area. He’s even got some Ithilien Guardian buddies hiding in the encounter deck, other Objective-Allies who are just waiting to pop out and offer some surprise help. There’s a catch, though: Celador takes a point of damage every time a character leaves play or that the players quest unsuccessfully. Those 3 hit points can go by fast.

And as it turns out, it really matters whether Celador lives or dies. If he survives to the end of Stage 1, the players skip past Stage 2 of the quest entirely, straight to Stage 3, which is a standard willpower quest requiring 12 progress. If he dies, on the other hand, players go to Stage 2  (skipping past Stage 3 later) which is a Siege quest requiring 9 quest points, and featuring Archery X (where X is the number of players).

The fourth and final Stage of the quest also offers a “choice” of sorts between standard willpower and Siege questing, only gaining the Siege keyword once a player has hit 37 threat or higher. Of course, Stage 4 pushes you closer and closer to that threshold by raising your threat by an extra 2 points at the end of each round, meaning you have to work pretty hard if you’re trying to avoid Siege questing altogether.

It’s actually a pretty dynamic quest

Over time, I have come to appreciate just how interesting this quest actually is from a strategic point of view. You have to decide if you’re going to allow Celador to die, meaning you can build a combat-focused deck that just has to be able to Battle and Siege quest, or you can try to keep him alive and keep your threat low so you can go with a more standard attack-and-willpower sort of deck. Both options are viable strategies, and both come with their own share of formidable challenges.

Southron Counter-attack by Magali Villeneuve

In the original version of the quest, most players found it a little easier to let Celador die and go the Siege route than to go the willpower route. After all, that way you don’t have to work to control your threat or try hard to keep Celador alive, and the characters with high attack often also have high defense too. The Nightmare version of the quest tweaks the odds somewhat, making it a much harder decision.

At the start of the game, you set aside two copies of the monstrous Mûmak Elite, a 5 / 7 / 5 / 12 Enemy which has Archery X (where X is the number of players), is immune to Attachments, and can’t take more than 3 damage per turn. No matter what, you’ll have to face one of them when you reach Stage 4—but you’ll also have to face an extra one if you let Celador die and end up at Stage 2, as well. The prospect of facing an extra Mûmak Elite is definitely enough to change the calculus around whether it’s easier to save Celador or let him die, with neither strategy coming up as the clearly easier option.

What to watch out for

There are a lot of problematic cards in this quest, many of them coming from the base quest rather than the Nightmare version. Blocking Wargs is a memorable little problem, dealing 1 damage to each questing character and then having the audacity to Surge on top of it. But the card that messes up my day even more often is Haradrim Elite, a 4 attack 27 engagement cost Enemy who simply makes an immediate attack when he enters play. This guy forces you to hold back 2 defenders each round—otherwise you’re risking an undefended attack of 4 (or up to 7 when combined with certain Shadow Effects in the deck).

In addition to the multitude of generally powerful Enemies in the deck, the Nightmare version of the quest puts extra emphasis on Archery, which can be found on Enemies, Locations, and Treacheries alike. It’s pretty important to keep the Staging Area clear in the Nightmare version of the quest, because it’s easy for the Archery damage to get out of hand. Bring lots of healing!

Above all else, no matter whether you try for the willpower-route or the Seige-questing route, make sure your deck is combat-ready from round 1. The Enemies are bigger than average, the questing is difficult, and Into Ithilien does not give you time for a slow ramp up!

You can see all of the encounter cards and their quantities over at the Hall of Beorn.

Building the deck

My theme for this quest is obvious: Into Ithilien was inspired by the scene in The Two Towers where the Rangers of Ithilien ambush the Haradrim on the road to the Black Gate—so I will draw upon the same inspiration for my deck. “The Rangers of Ithilien” will be my guiding principle, and it’s only a hop, skip, and a jump from there to leaning heavily on Trap cards.

There are (happily enough) three Rangers of Ithilien available as Heroes: Damrod, Mablung, and Faramir (who comes in either Leadership or Lore). There is one small problem with using Faramir, unfortunately: according to the flavor text on the quest cards, I’m supposed to be bringing a message to Faramir, who has gone on to Cair Andros. How could he be along on the quest to bring himself a message?

I considered playing without him, possibly saving the Rangers of Ithilien theme for a future quest in this cycle, but as it turns out Faramir plays a fairly pivotal role in the storyline of this cycle and as such there really isn’t a quest for which he and his Ranger buddies would be a good fit.

Furthermore, the Lore version of Faramir, who gets +1 attack for each Enemy in the Staging Area, is just so good at Battle questing. He’s not a great Hero for a lot of other quests, so I couldn’t resist giving him his moment to shine here. Alright Faramir, curse the flavor text! You can come along.

With that decided, I built a Trap deck with a smattering of all of the different Gondor Ranger Allies and then spent a lot of time tuning it against the quest (more on that process later). After filling in the corners with some of the standard Gondor fare to help me meet the demands of the quest, this is what I ended up with:

Deck: The Trap is Set

Theme: The Rangers of Ithilien

“These cursed Southrons come now marching up the ancient roads to swell the hosts of the Dark Tower. Yea, up the very roads that craft of Gondor made. And they go ever more heedlessly, we learn, thinking that the power of their new master is great enough, so that the mere shadow of His hills will protect them. We come to teach them another lesson. Great strength of them was reported to us some days ago, marching north. One of their regiments is due by our reckoning to pass by, some time ere noon—up on the road above, where it passes through the cloven way. The road may pass, but they shall not! Not while Faramir is Captain.”
—Mablung, Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit, The Two Towers

Hero (3)
Damrod (The Land of Shadow)
Faramir (Assault on Osgiliath)
Mablung (The Nîn-in-Eilph)
Ally (20)
1x Anborn (The Blood of Gondor)
3x Defender of Rammas (Heirs of Númenor)
2x Guardian of Ithilien (The City of Corsairs)
3x Honour Guard (The Wastes of Eriador)
1x Ioreth (A Storm on Cobas Haven)
3x Ithilien Lookout (The Dunland Trap)
2x Ithilien Tracker (Heirs of Númenor)
3x Warden of Healing (The Long Dark)
2x White Tower Watchman (The Drúadan Forest)
Attachment (19)
3x Entangling Nets (Temple of the Deceived)
2x Forest Snare (Core Set)
2x Gondorian Shield (The Steward’s Fear)
2x Poisoned Stakes (The Blood of Gondor)
2x Raiment of War (The Thing in the Depths)
3x Ranger Spikes (Heirs of Númenor)
2x Secret Vigil (The Lost Realm)
1x The Red Arrow (Beneath the Sands)
2x Wingfoot (The Nîn-in-Eilph)
Event (11)
2x Hands Upon the Bow (Shadow and Flame)
3x Heed the Dream (Flight of the Stormcaller)
2x Interrogation (The Drowned Ruins)
1x Justice Shall Be Done (A Storm on Cobas Haven)
3x Needful to Know (The Redhorn Gate)
3 Heroes, 50 Cards

This deck on RingsDB

Strategy

This is a well-rounded Trap deck that is equally capable of Battle, Siege, and standard questing.

Faramir is the star of the show here, so Wingfoot goes on him so I can get double-duty out of his stats. The first Gondorian Shield goes on him, too, since he has the most hit points of all of my Heroes (and therefore is the least likely to die from an unexpected Shadow Effect).

In general, though, I’d rather have Allies like Defender of Rammas (preferably with Raiment of War attached, although I can’t be too picky) taking the hits for me—the Heroes are better used during the quest phase if at all possible. Even better is to catch Enemies in some Ranger Spikes so I can avoid dealing with them at all.

The primary card draw in the deck comes from Damrod‘s ability every time a Trap card attaches to an Enemy. I generally try to keep at least one Trap in the Staging Area at all times so I can keep the deck moving, sometimes putting two traps (of different types) out simultaneously, just to get the extra card draw. When Damrod’s ability isn’t enough, I do have three copies of Heed the Dream—which is especially useful because this deck tries to do a little of everything, so there’s generally a solution for whatever problem I’m experiencing at any given time somewhere in the top 5 cards of the deck.

The extremely situational Justice Shall Be Done turned out to be a good fit for this deck while playing against Nightmare Into Ithilien, since once I reach the last round of the quest it usually turns into a sprint to the finish. The fact that the last Stage raises my threat by an extra 2 each round means that I can typically tell when I’ve reached the last turn—if my threat is sitting at 47 or higher, I’m not going to get another round. Justice Shall Be Done—if I happen to draw it—helps to ensure that my last round is an explosive one.

Missed opportunities

I really like it when I get to make good use out of niche cards like Justice Shall Be Done. It wasn’t until I started writing this post that I realized that I missed an opportunity to use another niche card in this deck: Weather-stained Cloak. There are a lot of cards in Nightmare Into Ithilien that can cause characters to take damage during the questing phase, and death by a thousand cuts is a common way to lose in this quest. It’s a shame I didn’t think to try the Cloak before pulling my deck apart—it probably would have made a good addition.

While I’m on the subject of cards that would have fit well here, there are also two spoiled cards (1) (2) from Crossings of Poros that would have made an excellent fit for this deck. Maybe I’ll come back to it once I have Crossings of Poros in hand just to see how much of a difference these various cards could have made.

The play’s the thing

Win ratio: 3 / 6

With the exception of one game (in which I got Location-locked because my first two encounter reveals were the 5-threat Cormallen Fields) every game of Nightmare Into Ithilien I played with this deck was close. I always walked the razor’s edge between victory and defeat, almost always reaching Stage 4, but not always with enough time to place the required 15 progress on it before threatting out. Several games I lost because I fell just 1 or 2 progress short, and many I won without a single point of progress to spare.

My win ratio is out of 6 because I was never quite able to get the deck to the place where it was winning more games than it lost. I ended up playing a lot of games against this quest—more than 30 over the span of two weeks, although I lost exact count somewhere along the way. I evolved my deck slowly over that time, adding a little more healing here, a few more Traps there, now some cheaper defense, now some more willpower… until I got the deck to the place it is today. I could probably keep tweaking forever, so once I had managed to get a 50 / 50 ratio, I decided to call it.

The play by play

I always started by committing all three Heroes to the quest. Best-case scenario I might be able to get a copy of Ranger Spikes in the Staging Area and Wingfoot attached to Faramir (and I learned to declare “Location” on that first round instead of “Enemy” since the Locations have higher threat, meaning they made me more likely to lose the quest and be forced to engage the initial Enemy due to not clearing the Ithilien Road—but I digress).

I always did everything I could to quest for as much as possible on that first round, even if that meant playing Secret Vigil on the Southron Company just to get the -1 threat—not an ideal play most of the time, but 1 progress was often all it took to make the difference between winning and losing on that critical first round of the game.

As long as I could survive round 1, keeping Celador alive generally wasn’t a problem. I think I only ever lost him twice in all of my 30+ plays against this quest—and in those games, everything else had already spiraled out of control anyway. Otherwise, I was able to rely on skipping Stage 2 (and its extra Mûmak Elite).

Of all three types of questing, willpower is definitely the hardest one for my deck to handle. It wasn’t too uncommon to lose during Stage 3 because the Staging Area built up threat faster than I could handle. Because of this, I generally tried to clear the Staging Area during Stage 1, and then pushed hard to clear Stage 3 as fast as possible. Once I was a few progress away from clearing Stage 3, I would use a scrying card like Ithilien Lookout, Interrogation, or Needful to Know to find out what card was on top of the encounter deck so I could calculate precisely the minimum number of characters I had to commit in order to clear the quest—because I needed all the help I could get for Stage 4.

Stage 4 always involved being swarmed with more Enemies than I could handle. I had one, maybe two turns tops before I either threatted out or ran out of chump blockers. This made the end of the quest always a sprint across the finish line where I committed everyone with even a single point of defense to the quest and hoped it was enough. More than one game ended with me throwing Damrod under a Mûmak just before eking out the final few progress required to win the game.

The tension was palpable all the way up to the end of every game.

Final thoughts

My opinion on Into Ithilien has changed completely over the years. What used to be a quest that I couldn’t stand has now become one of my favorites in the game. There’s a lot of strategic depth here that I didn’t appreciate back in the day, and the Nightmare update only seems to have made that deeper.

I think part of the problem when it was first released was that I had so many new and interesting archetypes to try, and none of them seemed to work for Into Ithilien. Now that the player card pool has expanded and I’ve had a chance to try those decks out, Into Ithilien no longer feels like a prison; it feels like a challenge to think outside the box and try something new. It’s one of only a few quests that I think has actually gotten better with age.

Next up I’ll be returning to my Path Less Traveled series with The Weather Hills, and after that I’ll be braving Nightmare The Seige of Cair Andros—another quest I wasn’t a fan of back in the day. I wonder if I’ll warm up to it too, after all these years? I suppose we’ll find out soon.