Queen of Shadows – Part 2

Liz Davidson, 11 May 2025

Hey Gamers, and welcome back to another session report as I work through a game of cooperative Oath, in which two adventurers go up against the Queen of Shadows. Hopefully this will give you a sense of what Ricky and I have been quietly working on how that the Servant decks, which play like normal competitive opponents, are far enough along. Here is where we are at during the start of Round 3

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Round 3

In this round, both Adventurers will start their turns with full supply. However, we are also about to see our first “hot” card from the Queen of Shadows. As is befitting of any game of Oath, her deck will evolve from game to game. When the players win, they have to remove “cool” blue cards and add in “hot” red ones–and they can indeed be spicy.

This is a pretty nasty card. If the Queen ruled the #1 site, she’d take 2 favor instead of the usual 1. Fortunately we escape that one. At site #3, she is already the ruler and will add the last minion from her board to the Great Slum. She’ll also place an Altar there. It’s the Altar of Treasures, which would allow a player to exchange a relic for a secret. We’ll have to think about that one.

This is the latest episode in a running playthrough of OATH from Leder Gamers; you can find the links to all published episodes at the end of article, with new installments each Sunday

Since this is a red card, her turn is not yet over–and she’s very aggressive. At site# 6, she will perform a “kill” action. This means the Queen of Shadows will kill either an enemy warband at the site, or a warband on the active player’s board. That means that poor Red has to give up a warband on their board. Even worse, the QoS will swap sites #6 and #7, then perform the kill action again. Red does rule this site, and it’s fortunate that they placed 2 warbands instead of 1, because they lose a warband from the Shrouded Wood but are still holding onto it by a thread.

Now the QoS will try to place a minion on site #7, but she doesn’t have one! When this happens, she will Muster, move 2 minions from her supply to her board, and end her action. Finally, she’ll try to grab a relic at site #8, but there isn’t one. Whew.

Finally, it’s Red’s turn to go. They start the turn strong by picking up a secret at the Drowned City. They travel to the Shrouded Wood to trade with the Order denizen there, and grab 2 favor in exchange for a secret. They also Search the world deck, and one of the cards drawn is Curfew, an Order card! Red plays it to their site for another favor from Order. They then immediately spend it to Muster 2 more warbands. Armies are costly! They once again save their last Supply so they can do a lot of trading and fighting on their next turn.

The QoS will have a more chilled out turn this time, comparatively. She tries for favor at site #1 with no luck. She swaps sites #4 and #7, and would attempt to take site the Drowned City from Red except that her force isn’t large enough. There is a 5 in the hex in the bottom corner of her card, which represents her Strength threshold. With only 2 minions on her board, she isn’t ready to fight. So she will muster instead, and take 2 more minions onto her player board. Finally, the QoS takes a secret at site #8, which she rules. She immediately places the secret on the Banner of the Darkest Secret, making it a little harder for an Adventurer to grab from her.

With the QoS’s turn over, it is time for Blue to see what they can do. Their first action is to campaign at the Barren Coast, which will make it a touch more difficult for the Queen to take it in the future. Their 3 warbands make quick work of the bandits, and they leave 2 warbands behind. They are about to do something pretty shady, though–Blue moves to the bottom site of the Hinterland and discovers the Narrow Pass. This will be annoying for future travel, but what can you do? Blue is there to take a free action by performing a ritual at the Altar that is on this site. It is the Altar of Blood, which forces blue to sacrifice a pawn they have left at a site–one of the 2 warbands they just left behind at the Barren Coast. But secrets don’t come cheap, and this was a necessary sacrifice. (Right?) The Altar goes back to its drawbag, and now Blue is up to 4 secrets.

Why so many secrets? Blue is lining themselves up to work on two vital tasks: Possibly finding a Vision that allows them to win by taking the Banner of the Darkest Secret, and freeing prisoners on the map. The other new free action in cooperative Oath is to free a prisoner–an action that we will see in detail shortly, and which requires a lot of secrets if you want it to go well. With their final 2 Supply, Blue moves to the Drowned City with the intention of picking up another secret at the beginning of their next turn.

Round 4

We are reaching the halfway point of this game, and victory feels so far away. But the Adventurers fight hard, and this game may be closer than you think. Before Red can continue their journey to rule the most sites, however, the Queen of Shadows will once again have her say.

Fortunately, she doesn’t gain a secret at site #2 because Blue conquered it last turn. Whew! The Queen swaps sites 5 and 8, then tries to take over site #6. The Strength on this card is once again 5, and she has only 4 minions on her player board. That means that she will not try to take the Shrouded Wood, and will muster instead. She now is up to 6 minions on her player board, and the Adventurers are starting to sweat.

The QoS will then attempt to get favor from site #7, but no luck–it’s still unexplored. This ends her turn.

Before moving, Red takes the opportunity to Muster twice at the Shrouded Wood. It’s good to have friends in the Order suit! They are now rocking 7 warbands and are ready to go take from sites from the Queen of Shadows. They move to the Marshes, the other site in the Cradle, and campaign there. Since there is only 1 minion there, and the Queen of Shadows will only get 2 defense dice on top of that, Red decides to roll 4 attack dice instead of the full 7.

This turned out to be a tough battle–2 of Red’s warbands are killed, but they come out on top with an attack value of 5 vs. the Queens’ defense value of 4. Red drops off 1 of their warbands at this site, and now, a major development has occurred! They now rule 3 sites, while the Queen of Shadows rules only 2. Red is now the Oathkeeper! They also hold the Vision of Conquest, which means that if they can stay in the lead and Blue can get a third Vision out, they will get to claim a Title card–a major step towards victory in cooperative Oath. To make sure they can hold the lead, they travel to site #7 in the Provinces and reveal the Mountain. It is a bit harder to attack here, since the site forces attackers to subtract 1 die, but we were ready for this. Red Campaigns against the bandits and rolls 3 dice vs. 1 defense die for the bandits. The bandits are once again overcome without casualties, and Red becomes the ruler of four sites on the map. YES. Red has spent all their Supply, and will have less of it next turn because so many of their warbands are out, but this ought to be well worth it.

Blue needs to make some moves so that they are contributing as much as Red, but first, the Queen of Shadows goes again. What is she up to this time? First, sites #1 and #3 will swap. Then she’ll take a relic from site #2. Unfortunately there is one, so she swipes the Dragonskin Drum. At least she ignores the text on all cards, so we don’t have to worry about her getting even more minions! At site #3, she wants to grab favor, but she doesn’t rule the site. At site #4, however, she gains a secret to put on the Banner of the Darkest Secret. Blue had better find that Vision and grab the banner sooner rather than later. Finally, the Altar of Banishment appears at site #6. To use this Altar, a player must discard one of their faceup advisers–an a annoying but manageable sacrifice to make in exchange for a secret!

Speaking of secrets, Blue begins their turn by picking up a secret at the Drowned City. Things are looking good on the secret front. They next decide to Search the world deck for another elusive Vision. This will put Red in a position to claim a Title card, and Blue needs some direction when it comes to their own victory conditions. Blue has a very successful Search–the second card they draw is the Conspiracy! They keep it facedown and prepare to use it. Getting the Banner of the Darkest Secret was a possibility, but the Conspiracy is usable within the next round or two–as you will soon see.

To finish up their turn, Blue decides to use their secrets to free some prisoners. First, at the Drowned City, it’s time to try to release poor Herald from his cruel isolation. To do this, Blue rolls an attack die for each of their 5 secrets, while the Queen of Spies will have 1 base defense and roll 1 die for each of her minions present at the site. Since there are none, Blue has absolutely no problem jailbreaking Herald. However, Blue did roll a skull, which forces them to exhaust one of their secrets for the remainder of the turn. Their next attempt to free a prisoner this turn will be just a bit weaker.

For now, though, Herald is free! Blue takes the prisoner token on them as a trophy, and then takes the freed denizen card into their hand as if they had searched. They decide to discard Herald to the Hinterlands, since they have 3 advisers and he can’t be played to the Drowned City–it’s a zero-capacity site.

Next, Blue spends their final 2 Supply to move to the Great Slum. It is here that they will set up their wicked Conspiracy next session. Since they are out of Supply, they do try to take a free action to free the Field Promotion card that is trapped at the site. Their odds this time are weaker–they have 4 unexhausted secrets and roll 4 attack dice. The Queen of Shadows will get a base defense of 1 and will also roll 3 defense dice because there are 3 minions at the site.

This roll is a bit more difficult–Blue has rolled 3 swords, while the Queen of Shadows has 3 defense (1+2 shields). Blue can, however, sacrifice a secret in order to reach a total of 4 attack and succeed in freeing the prisoner. They choose to do so. There is room at the site to play Field Promotion, but Blue chooses to discard this denizen instead. They need room at the Great Slum to set up the Conspiracy.

This concludes Round 4. Our Adventurers have made great strides towards reclaiming the world of Oath from the evil Queen of Shadows. But only time will tell if they can fully erase her blight from the land.

ed note: please congratulate Liz on winning the Golden Geek Award for Best Podcast this year!

OATH AAR – Queen of Shadows
PART 1 ~ PART 2 ~ PART 3 ~ PART 4

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