Armory of Orthanc 1.0

• Versions
• 1.0

Note: Prince of Dol Amroth is a proxy for Thorongil which releases in Fortress of Nurn.

Sometimes you just get a crazy idea when thinking of decks, and this one is the latest of these ideas. I wanted to make a Bartering Beregond deck to work. 4 iterations later, we arrive at this crazy deck that has worked quite well for me during the Con of the Rings 2020 replacement convention.

The idea is just like any other Forth, The Three Hunters! deck, where you load up your heroes with as many attachments as possible. The heroes in this deck all have their own roles to play, but with so many attachments boosting their stats, they can often serve 2 roles.

Let's get through the negative bits first. The deck is mostly designed to work in multiplayer, as you get a strong Ranged and Sentinel hero at the end. That does not mean the deck can't work in true solo, as I have beaten some of my testing quests with it. The problem is often your starting willpower, especially if you cannot find Silver Circlet or Celebrían's Stone in your opening hand. Towards the end of the game, the contract will solve your willpower issues, but your teammates will have to carry you for questing in the beginning.

The second problem is that threat is always an issue with a Saruman deck, especially now that we cannot use allies to lower our threat. So I decided to not add a ton of threat reduction, but you have 3 strategies to get around your high threat. The first is to get Thorongil on Beregond to give him access to . This not only helps smooth out your resources (which isn't generally an issue, but it is a nice addition) but you now also get Spirit Beregond's threat reduction once per round when defending for yourself.

The second and third option revolves around getting rid of Saruman once he has done most of his tasks. I rarely use The Fall of Gil-Galad but with the attachment on Saruman you can lower your threat by 13 at the cost of a hero. Bard son of Brand can cover your attacking options, but this is an escape tool to use in the final rounds of the game to give you the ability to stay in the game a little longer and help out your team.

The third option is to use Helm of Secrecy to swap Saruman for Lore Aragorn. Most of the attachments can carry over, and you shouldn't have to worry about the damage either. You will lose Saruman's Staff, but this trick allows you to get back down to your starting threat level, which saves you enough time to use the final few Doomed events.

With the negatives out of the way, let's look at your starting lineup of heroes now, and see what role they fill.

Bard son of Brand is here to give you access to all kinds of Restricted Items. His built-in sphere match with any Item gives you the flexibility to play most of the attachments in this deck onto him. He is usually the main quester of this deck, getting a Silver Circlet, Windfola, and Celebrían's Stone to boost his willpower. He can also wield the different weapons in this deck so that you can get a secondary attacker if you ready him with Defiant Challenge or Unexpected Courage. He can also wield the Keen Longbow and Spear of the Citadel thanks to his sphere match.

Beregond is here to do what he does best, defend as many attacks as possible across the table. You can easily power him up with attachments thanks to both his ability and the contract lowering the cost of many attachments. Livery of the Tower is especially good on him, since you are not going to need many resources past the early game. This 0-cost Restricted attachment can save you some hitpoints and can get you threat reduction after you attach Thorongil to him. The standard kit for Beregond is expanded in this deck, thanks to the contract and the Golden Belt. He can now equip Gondorian Shield, Spear of the Citadel, Raven-winged Helm, Livery of the Tower, and even a weapon like Blade of Gondolin to hit back hard after you ready him. You can get quite a lot of uses out of him through Unexpected Courage, Defiant Challenge, Behind Strong Walls, and Desperate Defense. Healing is done mostly by the contract, plus you get some damage cancellation abilities in here as well. You can even swap in a Citadel Plate on him for just 1 cost before you flip the contract if you want.

Saruman is here to give access to the Doomed events and to serve as an attacker. His initial attack of 4 is already quite useful, but it only costs you 1 resource to give him a Keen Longbow. This allows him to use his attack across the table, and add 3 direct damage to each attack if you can afford it with cards. Card draw might be a bit of an issue thanks to the low cost of this deck, but with Foe-hammer and Deep Knowledge you can hopefully keep your hand full of cards. Saruman can also use Word of Command to find some combo pieces that you need for this deck. The first thing I would look for is Saruman's Staff, which you can play for free if you use Bartering on a 2 cost attachment on Beregond. You can also use Word of Command to find some of the 1-of cards in this deck.

The Doomed events speak for themselves and are a nice way to ready Saruman if you need both his willpower and attack strength. This allows you to play the Unexpected Courage on other heroes, and using the events to ready him. Saruman is also the usually recipient of the other weapons in this deck, like the Blade of Gondolin. I prefer this blade over the Dagger of Westernesse, since you won't be getting much use out of the Dagger with Saruman. The extra progress from the Blade is nice to get through location locks, although its attack boost only applies to Orcs.

The rest of the cards really speak for themselves. Open the Armory is here to find you more attachments, the Doomed events can ready heroes, draw cards, and even scry the encounter deck. Bartering can get you discounts on cards like Thorongil, Saruman's Staff and Unexpected Courage if you return cards from Beregond. Extra copies of cards you might get after you filled all your Restricted slots can either be played on other players or be tossed for the Keen Longbow for more damage. You will also find that you save a lot of resources during the mid and late game. Beregond will use his resources for Livery of the Tower but Bard and Saruman can use theirs to fun kickers for cards that other players have, like Ioreth, Súlien, Ceorl, Robin Smallburrow, Eldahir and others.

The deck was a lot of fun to bring to the table, and I did not expect it do this well against some of the quest. I hope you all will enjoy the deck too, and I am looking forward to hearing your thoughts on it.