Deck idea

Swarm the encounter deck with hobbits.

Basic strategy

• Play The One Ring and Inner Strength on Tom Cotton, to do most of the necessary blocking.
• Horn of the Mark on Merry for card draw. Have [Gaffer Gamgee] and Curious Brandybuck jump in and out to help and don't feel too bad if a hobbit dies, also for Horn of Gondor.
• Red Book of Westmarch is probably best on Pippin, as he always quests and the extra resources are valuable for . Still, also Merryand Sam Gamgee will profit from it; Tom Cotton not because he hardly ever quests. If playing with Frodo Baggins (see sideboard), Frodo is the preferred choice.
• Wait with playing allies to play them in bulk, such that you can swarm an enemy with boosted hobbit allies (due to Tom Cotton's +2 attack ability).
• Thorongil on Merry for extra attack power.
• Sword-thain on any hobbit ally, just because it rocks to have five Hobbit heros (and to boost ThorongilMerry & Pippin).
• Let one enemy live engaged with you if possible, to boost Tom Cottonand Raise the Shire.
• Use Raise the Shire to look for Odo Proudfoot, to look for another hobbit.

Side board

• Frodo Baggins can be a worthwhile replacement for Sam Gamgee, also to ready Merry, but in many cases turns out to be too expensive.
• If played in saga mode, the Hobbit Cloak and/or Staff of Lebethron becomes indispensable because you cannot use The One Ring.
• For attack heavy quests, The Shirefolk can safely be replaced by Hobbit-sense (which might be better anyway, if you do consistently use Merry instead). With Hobbit-sense, it is possible to, if you are attacked, nullify their attack for one round, such that you can play hobbits with boosted attack the next turn to hopefully kill the enemy.
• To kill really large enemies, it might be valuable to include Dagger of Westernesse, replacing Knife-work.
• Second Thorongil might be better than Sword-thain, to increase the chances of a boosted Merry.

Play experience

Found it fun so far and quite strong, as long as you are not swarmed with (too big) enemies early on. And I can totally enjoy the theming of a large gang of hobbits, coming out of nowhere, to bang into large enemies. Largest number of hobbits on the table so far was 17.