A fun but really effective dwarven Fellowship deck that is super powerful! Thorin Oakenshield is an absolute beast, questing with 5 or attacking for 4 if you flip the contract. Basically, with Dáin Ironfoot's boosts and the contract's boosts, there should be nothing stopping you. So you just need to flip that darn contract. Easy, right?
Mulligan for Fili. You can get him on round 2 and get Kili as well, getting you to your 5 dwarf threshold. From there, Thorin Oakenshield will rack up resources allowing you to pay for all your great attachments and allies. For getting the rest of the allies out, look for Narvi's Belt, A Very Good Tale, or a ally early on. These will allow you to get to 9 characters even faster. With the accelerated card draw thanks to Ori and cards like Daeron's Runes and King Under the Mountain, you should be able to get draw your allies, and Thorin should be able to pay for them, especially if he has his belt. Elf-stonehis another fantastic card that will get you those out of sphere allies.
The star of the deck, though, is Path of Need. This INSANELY powerful card will save your butt every game if you play it, and by the end of the game, if things go right, you should have it in your hand to play. It is so awesome, and has helped me beat quest after quest, mow down hoards of enemies, and win tough quests that I thought I would lose. Load up Dain with some defending toys (Protector of Lórien, Dwarven Shield, Durin's Song) so he can defend the board, then all your heroes attack each enemy in turn (And you get Dain's attack boosts on each hero, including himself, since he is not exhausted). Using it for the combat phase does mean you will have to forego one round of questing, but that is totally worth it if you need to wipe out an enemy army or take out a boss. A great combo with this is Ever Onward. Don't quest at all so you keep Path of Need, play Ever Onward and don't raise your threat, then kick ass!!!
Keeping the contract on side B can be hard, but you can always chump if you really need to, because you should be able to get allies back. That's why there are a lot of copies in here.
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