Dúnedain Pacification 1.0

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• 1.0

Sometimes you just want to enjoy the story. Of course, you want to be able to tell glorious tales of defeating many foes, but you don’t want to be bothered with combat, dying, losing, and all that stuff. It’s a bit of a paradox, but that's ok. After all, it’s not a crime to want to have sex but no children.

Concept : The first turns are setup to make the player invulnerable to undefended attacks. How? By increasing Glóin’s hit points to 9 and putting Livery of the Tower on him. If the encounter deck cannot muster above 8 , then it won’t be able to take down Glóin, because he will keep cancelling the damage by spending the resources he gained from suffering damage, whether it’s enemy attacks, archery or any kind of direct damage from treacheries. There are many quests that can’t deal more than 8 damage at a time. For these quests, it doesn’t matter how many enemies you are engaged with. In a recent playthrough, I had 10 engaged enemies (including 2 Cave Trolls hitting for 6 ), and they just couldn’t do anything. Having that many engaged enemies is a blessing for the Dúnedain archetype, whose allies can achieve impressive numbers in all stats. With combat now an afterthought (you don't even want to kill them, because they boost your allies and Heir of Valandil), they can do battle questing (with Fornost Bowman) or siege questing (with Guardian of Arnor) equally well. The only unknown comes from some particularly nasty shadow effects. For example, Peril in Pelargir has "Lose all your attachments if undefended", and Into Ithilien has "raise your threat by X, where X is the number of engaged enemies". Multiple copies of Hasty Stroke and Dúnedain Watcher have been included to deal with those.

Quick set-up tips : Glóin needs Steward of Gondor to become Gondor before you attach Livery of the Tower to him. With 1 Boots from Erebor, you are now able to take any number of 4 attacks undefended. Citadel Plate usually enters play through A Good Harvest. Narvi's Belt can also provide the missing icon.

You may think that's a lot to set up, but getting the full setup done in 2 to 3 turns is not unusual. Steward of Gondor pays for itself, and the other combo pieces cost 0 except for Citadel Plate, so the main problem is getting the cards in hand. In your starting hand, look for as many combo pieces as possible, and card draw/search, ideally Heed the Dream. When you have Heed the Dream, the key is to activate the second part of its effect to get the exact card you need. To pay for the effect, I usually get Glóin to tank one attack (of course, going this route, you'll need to fully heal him afterward, using Athelas or Ioreth). With Boots from Erebor on, you can expect him to tank 5 (e.g., Southron Company in Into Ithilien) and get 4 resources out of it.

If you can't set up quick, you'll need to play the game normally for a few rounds. By "normally", I mean defend (sigh). Frodo Baggins gives you some safety while your combo pieces fall into place. When your combo is in place, Frodo can also back you up in the unlikely event an enemy manages to go over 8 through shadow effects. Hopefully that happens before Aragorn gets to trigger his threat reduction.

Weaknesses : Obviously, the deck is worth peanuts if enemies don't show up (I wouldn't if I were them, as being allowed to live is kind of humiliating). You're also likely to lose if you can’t set up Glóin, because Dúnedain allies don't do much on their own. They need enemies to befriend !

Also, there are quests that just don't want you to just enjoy the story. The Dunland Trap is one of them, and it is properly horrible for this deck. The 2nd quest stage makes you lose Livery of the Tower, Citadel Plate and Boots from Erebor, and you can't keep them in hand because of the forced effect of the 1st quest stage.

But that's OK, because I don't believe the game would be as great if you could just bulldoze through all the quests using the same decks and strategies.

Multiplayer tips : Using Steward of Gondor can be a bother if another deck requires it (personally, I think having an indestructible deck on the table is worth Steward of Gondor, but others may disagree). In that case, you may have to replace it with In Service of the Steward. You'll then miss resource acceleration and may have to tank more with Glóin to get the resources for Heed the Dream.

Another card to consider would be Song of Mocking : redirect all damage to another player to Glóin. But that may be unnecessary if Guardian of Arnor becomes a +10 sentinel defender.