Into the Pit with Dwarves 1.0

• Versions
• 1.0

This is a solo progression deck (using two core sets) focused on Dwarves for the scenario Into the Pit, in the Khazad-dum deluxe expansion.

The basic strategy is to get many dwarf allies out and keep Dáin Ironfoot ready for their stat boost. Erebor Record Keeper and Unexpected Courage can help Dain also take part. They also provide some insurance against Watchful Eyes, in case Miner of the Iron Hills does not come along. Dwalin should finish off attacks when possible to get his threat reduction.

Shadow of the Past is very useful against Patrol Leader. Henamarth Riversong can be used to see if it will be worth attacking Patrol Leader, which is useful when you have multiple enemies and are trying to decide whom to attack. Otherwise his ability is great to use at the end of the round to see what you will be questing against the following round. Note that there are 14 enemies in the encounter deck, out of 54 total. So (on average) there is about 25% (13/53) chance of drawing an enemy when trying to deal damage to Patrol Leader.

Steward of Gondor and Narvi's Belt should go on Dwalin, and Bifur should take a resource from Dwalin each round after Dwalin gets Steward. If Steward does not come around, there are enough cheap cards and allies to do reasonably well. In fact most cards cost either 1 or 2, so you can gamble with Zigil Miner if you like (on average, without knowing the other cards, guessing 1 with Zigil Miner you can expect to collect about 0.9 resources from his search each round, with 50% of the time getting exactly one, and 20% of the time getting two). I usually keep him for questing or combat since Dain makes his stats a very respectable 2, 2 , and 1 .

Ancient Mathom is a good a combination with Ancestral Knowledge. Aside from Gléowine this is the main card draw engine. If Dain stays ready through end of combat, we can exhaust him (during the last action window in combat) to play Ancestral Knowledge on an active location with Ancient Mathom. Also Into the Pit has two required locations (First Hall and Bridge of Kazhad-dum) which are not immune to card effects. Don't forget to pick up Ancient Mathom from the discard pile when bringing in Erebor Hammersmith.

Note: the encounter deck has one terrible treachery card: Sudden Pitfall (When Revealed: The first player must discard 1 questing character he controls, if able. This effect cannot be canceled. / Shadow: Discard the defending character from play.)

So first of all (if we haven't already discarded this card) we should try to include (expendable) allies on the quest whenever possible. Second, if we want to defend with a hero then shadow cancelation is crucial. Currently there are three cards to help with that: 1x A Burning Brand and 2x Hasty Stroke. Before one of those is available, if Sudden Pitfall is still in the encounter deck, try to defend with expendable allies. Note that on the Bridge of Khazad-dum location players cannot play cards, so ideally Burning Brand is already on Bifur to defend and we do not spend more than one turn at this location (if you really do not want to travel there you can consider using multiple Sneak Attack + Snowbourn Scout combos, as long as you have a plan for Patrol Leader in stage 2).

Other shadow cards in this deck typically give the enemy a +1 through +3 attack boost. So the biggest attack we might need to defend is 7 (with Patrol Leader with a bad shadow card). Durin's Song can be used to help if we're defending with a hero. Durin's Song increases in power if you have a readying effect (like Unexpected Courage) as the Song lasts until the end of the round.