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Preferred Player Count: 1-4
Rating: .5
Premise
My preferred setup to run the Bond of Friendship contract in an RCO environment. Bond of Friendship is probably the most powerful contract in a full-cardpool context and also very, very strong with RCO cards. An additional resource, stats and the ability to run all four spheres far outweigh any downsides the contract has in my opinion. I decided to run Hobbits since they are a) a very nice fit thematically and b) work really well with the contract due to their low starting threat.
How To Play
There is no specific card to target in your opening hand, I just look for tools suited to the specific scenario you go up against. I really like to see card draw (as always), so cards like Gléowine, Gather Information, Horn of the Mark or Gandalf/Sneak Attack are cards I tend to keep. With low starting threat, setup threat reduction with Merry as well as a decent defender with Tom Cotton, you usually have some time to turtle and look for your pieces before things get really rough, meaning that with decent draw, you will outpace most things easily.
Considerations
Angbor the Fearless is very nice for quests taxing you on threat (like Dire quests), where he can be a very good stat monster. Wandering Took and Elevenses are certainly decent, they just missed out due to competition however. Feint is never bad but felt like an overkill (considering that you have Gaffer Gamgee and Tom Cotton ready to go). Heed the Dream is another great card that ended up being chopped due to the intense competition for cards in lore. Frodo's Intuition is a straight include for saga quests, I usually include it over Friend of Friends (which is fine but not very needed most of the time).
Enjoy!!!