The Company of Brok Ironfist 1.0

• Versions
• 1.0

This deck has served me well during Con of the Rings, with victories against NM The Three Trials, the Dread Realm, Across the Ettenmoors, Fate of Numenor, Flight of the Stormcaller and The Thing in the Depths. In true solo, the deck has also won several quests by itself, thanks to the ridiculous stats these Dwarves can obtain. This particular build was a part of a 3p victory over Siege of Annuminas in preparation for the Con.

The basic premise of this deck is obvious, get to 5 Dwarves, then to 9 unique characters, and work from there. The 5 Dwarf threshold will allow you to get to 9 unique characters very quickly, since Glóin and Dwalin become very cheap once you the 5 Dwarves. To further help you with this, A Very Good Tale will bring out allies more quickly, which can help you to reach Fellowship as soon as turn 3 in some cases.

From Fellowship, you can kill off any Dwarves you see fit in order to exchange them for others. Dori tends to take a hit and then make place for some later game Dwarves, such as Azain Silverbeard or Brok Ironfist.

Yes...Brok Ironfist is in this deck. While I won't deny he is too pricy for his stats, this deck gives every Dwarf character +3 , +2 , +1 , and +1 through Hardy Leadership. This turns any Dwarf into a powerhouse, although Defence becomes an issue at some point. But if you keep chumping with your allies, you will have enough resources to quickly get back to Fellowship. For this, To me! O my kinsfolk! is also especially useful. This event can revive any Dwarf in your discard pile for a while, giving you the Fellowship boost for at least a little while.

Heroes For this deck, Dáin Ironfoot will be your most important hero. He provides extra buffs on top of Fellowship and will carry you through the majority of the early game. He doesn't just sit around though. I have packed plenty of Defence attachments for him to do some proper defence with. Use Cram and Armored Destrier to ready Dáin Ironfoot in order to get the attack buffs for your allies. Dain shouldn't ever die to any attacks, since you can give him a fair pool of hitpoints with Ancestral Armor and Hardy Leadership. His defence will also be pretty high, through Ancestral Armor, Armor of Erebor, and a possible Arwen Undómiel if no-one is playing her. She can be swapped for Armor of Erebor and provides you a faster Fellowship buff.

Thorin Oakenshield has great stats with Dain out of the gate, getting a base 4 and 4 , making him a good target for early Cram as well if you manage to get a Destrier on Dain early. Thorin will also start generating more resources once you get past 5 Dwarves. Now, you won't need all of these resources at some point after you've hit the 9 unique characters, but the resources can be used to pay for anything in your hand and to pay Ioreth and Dúnedain Remedy for healing. This is something Dwarves often struggle with, so having plenty of cash will keep them healed up. I added Parting Gifts to the side-board in case you find yourself with enough cash to hand some to other players. The lack of Errand-riders in a Fellowship deck is pretty bad if no other players run them for you. You can end up with plenty of cash just sitting on the table, but know that you can now easily pay for Brok Ironfist ;)

Bifur is a pretty important hero as well. Not only does he allow easy access to allies like Bombur and Dori, but with Narvi's Belt on him, paid from the other two heroes if you find it in your opening hand, he can get any 2-cost card out on the table every round. This can allow you to play more expensive Leadership cards like Gimli and Brok Ironfist more quickly. It also helps with the many 2-cost Leadership attachments. Narvi's Belt also allows you to fuel the ability on Azain Silverbeard during the late game, if the Belt is yet unexhausted. This is another use for extra resources that you might find yourself with. For most of the game, Bifur will be questing, being happy to collect any money he can, and then paying for any of the effects in this deck.

Allies Since all allies had to be unique for Fellowship to work, I was a little restricted with my options. No Longbeard Map-Maker to funnel resources into, no Erebor Record Keeper to get to 5 characters quickly. Luckily, there are plenty of unique Dwarf characters to get the deck working. I included them all in this deck, giving you enough choice to skip out on a few you might not like. The and ones are paid for with Narvi's Belt and can also be brought back with To me! O my kinsfolk!. Chain allies into each other with A Very Good Tale and you will find yourself with stat buffs that will last a good long while. Ioreth was an easy include, as she allows you to heal and get to Fellowship even more quickly at 0 cost. Most Dwarves are 1 offs, but To me! O my kinsfolk! can bring them back to your deck once you've drawn through it.

Card draw Speaking of card draw, this deck needed some. I found I was paying for more cards than I could draw during games, so I added in some Legacy of Durin which is still great post-errata. You are usually just playing one 3-cost Dwarf per turn anyways, so there is little need for more than one trigger per round. We Are Not Idle also provides deck-thinning, though you are more than welcome to use its other ability to make some more cash, perhaps during a set-up round of Temple of Doom. Daeron's Runes is another obvious, yet thematic pick, so that you can get rid of any duplicate uniques that you might draw into. King Under the Mountain was added as well, in part for the theme, though being able to dig through your deck for more allies proved useful. A great combo would be to look at the top 2 cards, discard Brok Ironfist, bring him back with To me! O my kinsfolk!, play A Very Good Tale with him and another ally (Ioreth?) and then get 2 3-cost allies into play. But the added card draw by itself is useful enough.

Other cards I've spoken about most other cards already, though some deserve more mention. The Arkenstone boosts all of your allies with +1 willpower and is great in any Fellowship deck. It is another thematic inclusion in this deck, so I will add it in as well. Durin's Song is an amazing card (totally not biased because of my screenname) that boosts your Dwarf heroes with an additional +2 to all stats until the end of the ROUND! This can make Thorin into a 7 hero, and even then you can trigger more copies of this event on him. It is also great for a little willpower boost, but can also be used for several boosts if you ready the Dwarf hero. The fact that it lasts until the end of the round just blows it out of the water for me. Lure of Moria is just icing on the cake in most instances. Mid-to-late game you will be generating enough resources to play this card every round, which means your entire army of double-boosted Dwarves (excluding Ioreth) will be readied to dish out some attack. With Azain and Thorin both attacking for 5 by themselves, you can lay waste to plenty of smaller enemies. Bofur was an interesting choice in this deck, since both versions have their use. I went with Bofur for his 2 attack, which is more useful than his one point of defence. With buffs, he can now attack for 4, which can be enough to kill some smaller enemies, or join in with the big guys.

That's about all there is to say about this deck. I hope you will enjoy it and I look forward to seeing your comments! For some victory pictures, see my recap of Con of the Rings: https://visionofthepalantir.com/2019/10/13/con-of-the-rings-2019-experiences-and-memories/