Sneaky Beards: A Solo Deck for Nightmare We Must Away Ere Br 1.0

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• 1.0

I challenged myself to beat all of the quests from The Hobbit saga boxes using only dwarf heroes that were in the book (and not use Dain in any scenario he wasn't around for). I tried many different options to fight my way through the first scenario, We Must Away Ere Break of Day. It was just too difficult to build up a force quickly. I finally opted to go the sneaky route. Lo and Behold it worked! It worked so well I did it again and again. My record with this deck is 4 out of 5. (The loss being a first turn Mince Them Fine with no A Test of Will in hand.) So if this scenario gets you down, I suggest giving this deck a try. Your opening hand is looking for a side quest and A Test of Will. The trick here is to quest very carefully and avoid advancing while you build up a quest army.

I know all of my followers are not dwarves. I just couldn't swing it. But the swordsmen and shipwrights all have nice beards and could almost pass as dwarves. The Zigil Miners are not used for their ability they are usually thrown in front of the trolls or a Murder of Crows if need be. Same thing goes with extra copies of Bofur. Use A Watchful Peace on those Troll Camps to place them back on the top of the deck. Bilbo will horde resources to play Gandalf or get rid of sacks. Once you have a Troll Camp in the Staging area with a couple of O Elbereth!, a good questing team and a chump blocker or two in play, you are ready for Quest Card 2. Bring the trolls down one at a time if you can. Block one then send him to the bottom of the deck with O Elbereth!, then Bilbo releases someone from the sack. Use Dwarven Tombs and Map of Earnil to recycle A Test of Will or O Elbereth! or The Galadhrim's Greeting. Don't forget to lower your threat by one if you pop Bofur in and out during the quest phase using Nori's ability. A lack of card draw is the only real challenge I found with this deck. An Unexpected Courage would also be nice but it's not completely necessary.