Breaking of the Fellowship - Combat Deck - Specialist Deck S 1.0

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• 1.0

This deck is one of three that make up the Fellowship for Breaking of the Fellowship for my Specialist Deck Series.

The purpose of the deck is to provide the combat power for the fellowship in this quest. For that reason it is heavily skewed towards and thanks to Aragorn we will attempt to engage most of the enemies and keep them away from the other decks.

We also have a few allies with sentinel and a small amount of ranged capability, including Rivendell Bow for Aragorn, which lets him deal with two enemies in one (kill one and engage the other). Merry lets Aragorn double up on his attacks and even with the three decks we hope to clear most or all enemies each round.

Finally, Sam Gamgee provides us with access to while also keeping our threat low and questing well. This deck's low starting threat means that Sam also synergizes with Aragorn's ability.

Onto the deck:

Beorn - We want combat power and it doesn't get any better than this. If we get Steward played onto Aragorn it's possible to play Beorn outright, but we'd usually expect to get him into play with the next card.

Beorning Skin-changer - We have a lot of expensive allies so we need to have something to play for cheaper. This guy fills that role, but also allows us to get some of our expensive allies into play easier.

Boromir - As in the Fellowship description, it wouldn't feel right coming to this quest without Boromir. He's a strong combat ally, and if our threat stays low he is even more valuable.

Déorwine - Deorwine is a decent sentinel defende with built-in Shadow cancellation, just what we want to help out the other decks.

Giant Bear - Another huge combat ally. Also likely to come into play with the Skin-changer. As a bonus, the bear has an emergency button in case we need it.

Gimli - Another sentinel ally who can also quest. His ability is highly likely to trigger every turn. If it doesn't he probably isn't needed for combat anyway.

Legolas - An excellent attacking ally and very useful for both his ranged and his draw ability. If the Silvan deck manages to get Silvan Tracker into play, he can even help to soak archer damage.

Rosie Cotton - An auto include in any deck with Hobbits, she turns Sam into a powerhouse. One of the partner decks is also running Fast Hitch and she's a great recipient.

Snowbourn Scout - Another of our necessary cheap allies. Primarily a chump-blocker. It's unlikely the progress will amount to anything, although not impossible in combination with the Silvan deck.

Treebeard - This is a combat deck so we just have to run one of the best combat allies in the game. The fact that he is neutral makes him that much easier to play and his built-in readying pushes him over the top.

Winged Guardian - This ally is both low cost and a decent sentinel defender, so is the perfect fit for this deck.

Bow of the Galadhrim - The primary function of this card is to play it on Haldir of Lórien in the partner deck. With one copy he can one-shot half the enemies in the encounter deck. With two he can kill all of them. If we do draw a third copy, it can go on one of the Silvan allies, probably Legolas.

Rivendell Bow - The purpose of this card is to give Aragorn ranged, massively increasing his utility. If we draw multiple copies, there are a number of potential targets among the three decks.

Steward of Gondor - We have a large number of expensive allies and this will be necessary to be able to play them. Aragorn is the ideal target, since StwB gives him the sphere icon.

Sword that was Broken - Speaking of which, this card fulfils two purposes in the deck. One is that when the decks are separated to different staging areas, this is by far the weakest at questing and it needs all the help it can get. The other minor benefit is to get another sphere icon, although that's not strictly necessary since there are so many cards.

Warrior Sword - This card should ensure that we are killing the enemies we need to. Aragorn will be the primary target, and we have a wide range of other options in the deck for copies two and three.

A Very Good Tale - This is one of the ways we can manage to play so many expensive allies. If we can exhaust 5 or 6 cost worth of allies I think this is worth using, even if it means we only get one new ally into play.

Campfire Tales - A card that doesn't see a lot of play with fewer players, this can do really good work with three decks.

Foe-hammer - We will be trying to get out weapons for Aragorn and this is a great way to capitalise on that.

Open the Armory - 10 cards is a lot to search and we will be happy to see any of our 9 weapons with this.