Dunhere shows his quality 1.0

• Versions
• 1.0

When I just had a core set, Dúnhere was a hero who always sounded great fun on paper, but I could rarely get to work in practice. Now that I'm a few expansions down the line, I thought I'd give him another shot, and he was every bit as fun as I hoped he could be. I'm certain there are even more Dúnhere-suited toys to come too, so I'll probably revisit to build a true Dúnhere power deck down the line.

I put this deck together with Massing at Osgiliath in mind, and it won 2 out of 3. I always felt able to choose between questing or combat power as needed, so I'm pretty confident this deck could perform against a wider range of quests too.

Clearing the staging area with Dúnhere is our primary goal. Apart from that, there's a reasonable emphasis on location control (important for managing the East and West banks in Massing at Osgiliath).

The Heroes

Dúnhere is here to hit enemies in the staging area of course. Give him his Daggers of Westernesse and watch him slay.

Aragorn is someone I've not used in a good while, so I wanted to be reminded of how powerful his frequent readying can be. Combined with his balanced stats, he was always just where he needed to be.

For my third hero, I wanted access to the sphere, without compromising too much on , so Gimli made the perfect choice.

A typical first round will involve committing both Aragorn and Gimli to the quest for 4 , then immediately readying Aragorn to get us ready for some round 1 combat if needed.

The Allies

The bulk of combat is being left to our heroes, so most of our allies are selected for either questing power or location control. Northern Tracker and West Road Traveller in particular help to keep you clearing both banks of the Anduin in Massing at Osgiliath.

Gandalf should almost always be played for threat reduction, to keep enemies at arms length for Dúnhere to snipe.

And I can rarely resist including a Gondorian Spearman in any tactics deck, but here in particular his ability can deal the finishing blow to enemies that Dúnhere couldn't quite one-shot.

The Attachments

It's the Dagger of Westernesse that really lets Dúnhere sing of course.

Steward of Gondor and Celebrían's Stone give us our resource smoothing. I've deliberately skewed the cards in this deck towards , with the aim of hitting at least 2 resources a round early on. If you're lucky enough to draw Celebrían's Stone (I only have the one core set and don't like to proxy, so just the one for me), then Aragorn opens that up for you (and with a Steward of Gondor fuelling two spheres and his ability, you'll be in a fantastic position). But if not, you'll usually be best off playing the Steward of Gondor on Dúnhere.

The Events

Quick Strike and Unseen Strike will keep Dúnhere hitting hard and often. And I really enjoyed using Fresh Tracks to keep a problematic enemy in the staging area for the single round Dúnhere needed to kill them.

The Galadhrim's Greeting, along with Sneak Attacking Gandalf will keep your threat low enough to avoid too many engagements.