You are playing Nightmare mode.
Arrows thick as the rain came whistling over the battlements, and fell clinking and glancing on the stones. Some found a mark. The assault on Helm's Deep had begun...
–The Two Towers
Begin with the standard quest deck and encounter deck for the Helm's Deep scenario.
Remove the following cards, in the specified quantities, from the standard encounter deck:
1x Isengard Uruk
3x Uruk-hai Fighter
3x Wild Hillman
3x The Hornburg
1x Deeping Wall
2x Postern Door
2x Reckless Hate
Then, shuffle the encounter cards in this Nightmare Deck into the remainder of the standard Helm's Deep encounter deck.
Finally, flip this setup card over and place it next to the quest deck. Its effect remains active throughout the game, which is now ready to begin.
8
2
8
Cannot have attachments.
While Host of Isengard is in the staging area, it gains:"Forced: At the end of the round, place 1 progress on the current quest (bypassing any active location)."
4
2
4
Forced: When Bloodied Berserker is dealt a shadow card with no effect, either place 2 progress on the active location, or Bloodied Berserker makes an additional attack against you.
Shadow: Attacking enemy gets +1
While Helm's Dike is the active location, each enemy gets -10 engagement cost.
Forced: When Helm's Dike is explored, shuffle the encounter discard pile into the encounter deck and discard cards from the top until an enemy is discarded. Add the discarded enemy to the staging area.
Each enemy gains Toughness 1.
Forced: When Hornburg Wall is explored, exhaust each ally in play.
Shadow: Discard a non-objective attachment you control.
Immune to player card effects.
The players cannot travel here unless they are at stage 4B.
While Glittering Caves is the active location, it gains: "Skip the combat phase.Forced: At the end of the round, add Glittering Caves to the victory display and raise each player's threat by 2."
When Revealed: Either remove 1 resource token from Theof Helm's Deep, or each location in the staging area gains archery 1 until the end of the round.
Shadow: Attacking enemy makes an additional attack against you after this one.
When Revealed: Each player exhausts a character he controls. Until the end of the round, characters cannot be readied by player card effects.
Shadow: Until the end of the round, defending character cannot ready.