A fast, vigilant Dunedain 1.0

• Versions
• 1.0

Vigilant Dúnadan is a card that can become very powerful at the end of a game, especially with the new Wild Stallion card. But it often take some time to set him up.

Early Game

This decks tries to bring the Vigilant Dunadan out as fast as possible, namely turn 2. Thurindir grabs as an turn 1 sidequest, which is normally Gather Information to find our Dunedain. If we already have one of this cards in hand, I normally would take The Storm Comes to play out our spirit guys but depending on the quest, if the enemies hit hard, Keep Watch is an option.

Then we need two tactics heroes who can play the Dunedain turn 2 and also have enough willpower to clear Gather Information. With Éowyn and Théoden, we should hit the numbers. All three heroes quest for 10 together, that can overcome a threat of 6 in the staging area which is what you can expect to face.

Coney in a Trap and Entangling Nets are great cards to see on round 1, because they allow you to quest with everybody while still having an option to deal with an enemy. If you don't find these cards, you might consider leaving Theoden back, depending on the engagement costs and attack strength of the enemies.

Mid Game

You next priority is to get cards to boost that help the VD to take bigger attacks. Warden of Healing, Honour Guard and Vigilant Guard on Theoden are the main in sphere options. The other is spirit acces via The Storm Comes or Song of Travel. It goes normally on Theoden, but if you looking forward to a k.o. with Eowyn and have Proud Hunters in hand she might be the better option. That allows yout to play Wild Stallion and Arwen Undómiel to boost the defense of the VD and get acces to Tides of Fate. Attack boosts are you most feared shadow effects and because spirit resources are rare, so i prefer this over Hasty Stroke. But depending on the quest a Halfling Bounder might have priority at this point.

End Game

At this point you should be engaged with a lot of enemies, defending pretty much everything with the VD. This allows Sarn Ford Sentry to draw a bunch of cards while Warden of Annúminas can quest for very high numbers, but you probably need The Storm comes to play this expensive cards. If you end up against a quest with a large boss or where you have to kill all enemies, you can swap in Fornost Bowman from the sideboard (I normally drop 1 Horn's Cry and 1 Vigilant Guard). Against quests that are not too punishing at the end you might replace all the Dunedain allies with some cards that help you early on like Noiseless Movement or increase the numbers of some cards to three.

This deck is designed for solo but is probably even stronger in multiplayer where other players can take some of the early pressure and you can handle even more enemies in the late game. An extra copy of Arwen and Tireless Hunters make sure that you can block for other players.