Tall Tales - A Fellowship & Side Quest Deck 1.0

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• 1.0

Cirdan, Samwise, and Thurindir putting together a competent team of individuals with the fellowship contract! This fellowship leans toward solid performance and variety instead of speed. By turn 4 or 5 though you have a very formidable team.

Without belaboring all the possibilities here are some general strategies:

Card Draw

Cirdan alone is excellent for grabbing allies more quickly. Together with Prepare for Battle you have what I think is a super-powered combination, and most especially in solo play. Drawing 3 cards every turn you are bound to find what you want. Therefore it is my go-to Thurindir side quest.

Resource Acceleration

Yes, this deck does quite rely on Steward of Gondor. So if that is not in your opening hand then you will likely want Gather Information from Thurindir. The benefit of that side quest is that it doesn't cost any resources. Though if you have Double Back and Prepare for Battle (one in opening hand, other via Thurindir) then that buys you time to get Steward out, with more beneficial side quests at your aid.

Opening Hand

You should have at least 2 allies that will likely be waiting until turn 2. Steward of Gondor is almost always a keep as you can play Prepare for Battle and draw into anything else you need. A Very Good Tale works well even on 2 allies that cost 2 as the heroes can handle quite a bit of early questing/combat.

I always wait to pick out a side quest until I see my opening hand. It will vary with the encounter and what I will prioritize. I love seeing a sidequest in my opening hand so I can play 2 early for the bonuses.

Heroic Allies

1. Rosie Cotton for buffing Sam. Give her Sword-thain and Sam is a beast defender or attacker, especially with Rally the West giving her 4 .
2. Thalion of course in a side quest deck.
3. Treebeard for combat.

With these 3 at hero status you usually in "win more" mode.

Other Allies

4. Arwen Undómiel for her buff.
5. Quickbeam for .
6. Gimli a do-everything guy.
7. Halfast Gamgee for that bit of resource smoothing, really a nice touch now and then, and only costs 1 almost right away!
8. Ioreth was an initial favorite, but I find I do OK with out her. Plenty of lore resources for healing.
9. Bill the Pony, easy to play, can really help that first round of questing or chump blocking.
10. Ghân-buri-Ghân can be discarded easily to get a more useful ally in play. I tried other allies like that (such as Háma, but he was the only one that stuck.
11. Faramir can be a bit overkill for questing, so could replace with another combatant, but if you are carrying the load in a multiplayer game it's great.
12. Bofur is a bit tricky, because he's great initially, but to keep in play you need to not quest successfully. So he is usually brought out later, after sidequests are done. Though if you have 8 out and need to power quest for 1 resource you get up to 11 extra !
13. Ceorl I initially included to trade out to another player to get in another ally, but that actually doesn't work. I kept him for combat and pretty cheap.

Other Cards

Light of Valinor is great early on to take the place of an ally, or otherwise to manage combat. Protector of Lórien, I'm not sure I acutally have used it, but good to have something to do with extra uniques. Dúnedain Message only occaisionlly comes in handy, but sometimes need to get Double Back out in a bind and it's great, or if you have to use Thurindir for Gather Information.

Legacy Blade usually goes on Sam, the killing machine with Rosie. Thurindir is usually questing for 6-7 toward the end so he's doing that. Círdan the Shipwright could take it, but is usually defending.

Performance

This deck has done really well in almost every scenario I have played. I don't keep very good track of my quests, but I've even losing a hero the deck can hold it's own. Played across from my friend who was running a Radagast/Eagles deck and we handled the Temple of Doom really well. I tried it solo and lasted a little while! I have beat the Voice of Isengard box, Lost Realms box, Conflict at the Carrock, and Return to Mirkwood.

I have done a lot of experimenting with this deck, mostly trying to avoid Steward of Gondor, but have decided on keeping this. The only other deck I saw on RingsDB with these three heroes was by Seastan, and he used Legacy of Númenor to get resources quickly. That played fairly well, especially if you focus on 2-cost allies and include Elrond's Counsel, but in the end I preferred Steward of Gondor. Using The Storm Comes was kind of interesting, but the other side quests were much more useful in this deck.

Any comments or suggestions are welcome.

I tried to justify this combination of heroes with some fanfic. So if that interests you I posted it on Reddit!