Deck Tech: Arrows Up and to the Right 1.0

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Hey all, welcome to week four of deck tech. Last week was an all tactics all the time deck with Beorn and Hama here.

This week we're summoning the varied hosts of Gondor, in preparation for eventually being able to bring them to the inevitable battle of Pelennor Fields.

As you can probably guess, based on the presence of Hirluin the Fair, this is an outlands deck. Mono-leadership so we can play Lord of Morthond, and Faramir to help us get more use out of the ridiculous stats once the army is ready. And this enables us to do ridiculous things with Strength of Arms if we need to.

Obviously Théodred doesn't fit the Gondorian theme, but sometimes sacrifices have to be made for consistent, low threat, resource boosting. If you aren't a huge fan of the thematic break, I recommend subbing in Boromir for a little bit more attack power.

For Gondor!

Quest 1: The Steward's Fear

Attempt number one goes pretty well, overall, but the encounter deck decided to ruin everything. The plot was Poisoned Councils for a threat boost every round, and I drew all three copies of False Lead while the plot was active.

And to make matters worse, our vile villain was the Daughter of Berúthiel, and I had hit 46 threat when I engaged her.

So, attempt number two. This one starts off with a Steward of Gondor on Hirluin to start the flood. And once he had the Gondor trait, I was able to use Envoy of Pelargir on the next two rounds to pass him even more resources from the other two heroes.

This time I also saved up every clue from the underworld deck in the staging area, so once we were past the engagement phase, I grabbed them all and moved on to stage 3 without having to engage the villain that turn. The plot this time was Up in Flames and the villain was The Hand of Castamir.

Final round, I quested with the whole host, readied everyone with Strength of Arms, and then cleaning up the villain was easy from there.

Score: 106. 7 full rounds, 36 threat, 3 vp, 3 damage on heroes.

Quest 2: Siege of Cair Andros

Still in full on Gondor mode, and convinced that the deck can handle something difficult, I decided to take on the Siege of Cair Andros.

Which goes about as well as you'd expect the first time. I opted to let some undefended attacks go through in exchange for building up a bit more board presence. But by the time we'd made it to stage 2, the extra encounter cards meant I just got buried in orcs. At least I hit 50 threat before everyone died.

So, attempt number two I decided: no undefended attacks. The encounter deck does enough to damage those locations without my help.

Again, I got the Steward early for Hirluin. But this time I had a Sneak Attack Gandalf combo to defeat an early enemy, and then subsequently refill my hand by paying for Gandalf the hard way. Add in a couple of Warrior of Lossarnach and I cleared out The Banks quickly. Damage was piling up on the others, thanks mostly to shadow effects, but I did clear them both before they were destroyed.

One Master's Malice popped up while I was questing, but it actually was a welcome reprieve at that point. I only had a few non-Leadership outlands allies in play, and getting an encounter card that didn't add any more threat or make an attack with a potentially crushing shadow effect was a welcome break. Though the loss of the Knights of the Swan did make the last stage a little tougher.

The last stage was almost back breaking. Just before I progressed, the encounter deck revealed the Mumak. Wisely, I decided to let him stay in the staging area. The next card off the encounter deck was the Orc Vanguard, shutting down spending resources from all three of my heroes. So I quested with everyone for each of the next two, relying on Faramir's ability to ready a Hunter of Lamedon to prevent an undefended attack.

And so we limped across the finish line, unable to spend more resources and engaged with two orcs we could not defeat. (Plus the Mumak and the Vanguard waiting in the staging area.)

Final score: 99. 7 full rounds, 35 threat, 0 hero damage, 6 vp.

Quest 3: Voyage Across Belegaer

After siege, this quest felt like a nice, pleasant boat ride. I won, but it was very slow.

I started out with Steward in hand again, and a host of outlands allies. And Naralenya makes the first one even cheaper. The encounter deck didn't let us off easy, though. First round revealed a second Rolling Seas for a lot of threat in the staging area, and I wasn't ready to go off course and engage the first ship enemy with only a few allies on board.

Once I had more allies out, I did voluntarily go off course, and engage the ship. That and four or five Boarding Party treacheries were the only enemies I engaged during the quest, though I did get both of the Umbar Captains.

Clever play helped me avoid engaging all the ships at the end of the game. One of the quest stages added a Fog Bank, and I didn't travel there until the round I was going to hit 37 threat. So no ship enemies made engagement checks, and I avoided a bunch of pirates. The following round was the last round, so I sailed with twelve allies, played Strength of Arms and quested for 45.

Weirdly, I never drew any of the draw effects during this quest, so I was just plodding along at one card per round. By the end, I had over 30 resources on my heroes, and could have had even more if I'd replayed Steward after a corsair stole it.

Final score: 131. 10 full rounds, 37 threat, 3 damage on heroes, 9 vp.

Play Tips

1. Herald of Anórien is a huge boon. He brings in Warden of Healing and accelerates your outlands swarm using resources from the other two heroes. You should basically always trigger his doomed ability.

2. Forlong tells the best tales, because he'll ready up again for subsequent phases of the turn.

3. It's not too big of a deal to throw away your outlands allies. Even if each stat is only getting one boost, it's still a ton of stat points you can throw around. Just be careful about keeping one of each sphere if you have Forlong.

4. Don't be afraid to quest all out. Faramir's response means you should be very easily able to prevent undefended attacks.

5. Strength of Arms is the deck's only real "oh shit" button, so I'd be a bit careful about using it frivolously. Final round, though, you might as well play it if you have it.

Next Week: Next up is a janky deck based on all of the attachments that trigger when a location is explored. Ranger Provisions, I'm looking at you.

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