Dunhere'n'Éomund deck

Complementary deck to play with a Tatics/Leadership Rohan deck, collections up to Against The Shadow Cycle + The Hobbit Saga + The Lord of the Rings Saga.

Background

We are playing weekly The Lord of the Rings Saga (no campaign mode) in 4-players. We like to build decks to play any encounter mission (permiting few ajustments). Our last game was against the corsairs of The Siege of Gondor. We used this deck, the Tatics/Leadership Rohan deck, a Leadership Gondor deck with Balin, Prince Imrahil and Boromir, and a Tatics/Lore deck with Beregond, Bard son of Brand and Beravor.

Strategy - Dunhere'n'Éomund

This deck intent to ready all Rohan characters when Éomund leaves play. We achieve this effect either by sacrificing Éomund in a defense, play Éomund with Sneak Attack during quest phase, or discarding Éomund with Ride to Ruin or Helm! Helm! during the attack step. Théoden and Théodred improve resource management. Valiant Sacrifice and Gandalf try to fill the lack of a stable draw mechanism. Gamling is able to return a discarded Rohan ally to your hand, increasing our play options. We recommend the use of Mustering the Rohirrim to find Éomund or Gamling in order to build this combo.

Dúnhere has a very interesting ability that permit to target enemies in the staging area when he attacks alone. This gives the opportunity of not optionally engage enemies and eliminate in stage. We can improve this strategy either by increasing Dúnhere attack with Dúnedain Mark or weapons and events of other players, or by combining damage of Éomer, or by explore direct damage (e.g., Gandalf, Spear of the Citadel). Dúnhere can become ready when we discard Éomund with Ride to Ruin or Helm! Helm!, or when we use Spare Hood and Cloak and Westfold Horse-Breaker.

Location are directly managed with Ride to Ruin, The Riddermark's Finest and Snowbourn Scout.

Sideboard

We choose Nor am I a Stranger over Unexpected Courage only because we want advantage of Éomund combo. Háma is a excellent ally, but we play him as a hero. Northern Tracker is a must have card in 4-player games, but he isn't a Rohan and we choose to stick to the plan. West Road Traveller is a good option if you need more willpower on the board. Ancient Mathom concedes a powerful draw, but not necessarily your draw. A Light in the Dark is very strong with Dúnhere strategy and it can avoid attacks. The Galadhrim's Greeting is a must have card when threat reduction is essential.

Synergy with Tatics/Leadership Rohan deck

We run this deck with a Éomer, Éowyn and Háma deck that explores Háma ability to return Foe-hammer and weapons to draw cards. Gúthwinë is attached to Éomer to enable a Elfhelm combo.

We recommend to attach Golden Shield to Théoden and Herugrim to Éowyn in order to improve the performance of this attachments.

Considerations

To put in practice both Dúnhere and Éomund strategies are still a challenge. We take some rounds to put into play Gamling and Éomund. In final rounds, every enemy must be engaged due high threat levels. We constantly ready Beregond to defend, acting as a support deck. We get stuck playing the same cards returned to hand by Gamling until find a draw card. However, after we played Gandalf, we drew a Valiant Sacrifice that enable us to going further. Even with Théoden and Théodred, this deck is resource-greedy for Spirit.

We appreciate the comment of Uruk-guy. In fact, we end up with extra Leadership resources. The amount can be used to pay a Gandalf or other Leadership cards like Grim Resolve. We could replace Spare Hood and Cloak with Ever Vigilant. Or we can move resources with Parting Gifts or we can give Théodred the Spirit sphere with Song of Travel.

This is work in progress. We hope to improve both decks and share a fun experience. Namárië!