Deck Tech: Hobbit Starter Deck 1.0

• Versions
• 1.0

Hey all, welcome to week 28 of Deck Tech! Last week I kicked off the Starter Deck series with an Arwen focused deck. It used a couple big boxes, a couple of adventure packs, and a single core set to make a deck that quested like crazy and drew a whole lot of cards.

This week we're doing another Starter Deck with a bit of a lighter buy in, and it will set you up to play through the Lord of the Rings saga expansions pretty well.

The Rules:

All of the starter decks are going to follow all of these rules, meant to help people who want to buy in and play one of these as written.

1. If I use cards from an adventure pack, I'll mark the preceding deluxe expansion as required. Who wants to buy quests they can't play?
2. Each starter deck will use only a single copy of the core set, because extra copies are useful but not very fun.
3. Each starter deck is meant for solo play, because that's what I do the most. And it's a good way to try the game without needing a group.
4. The writeups are going to be a slightly different format from the usual Deck Techs, focusing on basic strategy more than playing multiple quests. And every quest I do play through is going to be from the expansions the deck requires.

How to play:

These three hobbits start you off with a few very useful abilities, and they don't need any other cards to get rolling. Pippin allows you to avoid enemies for a little bit longer than normal (33 threat for the dreaded Hill Troll in Journey Along the Anduin, for example).

Sam Gamgee quests for more than the others, and when you do engage an enemy he readies for a pretty formidable defense. Or if the enemy is big enough that you don't want Sam to take the hit, he can swing back at the enemy more effectively than you might think.

As you might expect, Sam is going to be the key hero in this deck. Hobbit Cloak and Dúnedain Warning are here to help him defend larger threats. Fast Hitch tends to go on Sam to make sure he can defend multiple times. And we want to put at least one of the Dagger of Westernesse or Blade of Gondolin on Sam, so he and Merry can attack together and ready Sam again.

Sneak Attack and Gandalf are in this deck as a basic combo again. But don't underestimate Sneak Attack and Beorn. Beorn can come in, use his ability for +5 attack, and then return to your hand because of Sneak Attack. And Merry can ready him if they kill something together.

Also, just in case you have a defense emergency, Barliman Butterbur can take undefended attack damage instead of your heroes. Even if he's exhausted. So you can commit him to the quest and then let an enemy kill him with an undefended attack if you need to. Or you can use him to defend a weak enemy, and if he survives he can still take an undefended attack from a stronger one.

So, let's take on a quest.

Quest 1: Conflict at the Carrock

I'll note up front that this quest playthrough is a little bit unusual. I didn't see Grimbeorn to help out with the trolls, and he would have been very helpful.

My opening hand has a Fast Hitch for Sam right away, and a Feint to help avoid any awful attacks early on. So I keep it.

And then we start the awkward dance of Conflict at the Carrock: Questing enough to avoid your threat going too high without advancing to Stage 2 before you're ready. If you haven't played this one yet, I recommend you try to progress slowly early on.

This time, I've got a few chump allies early on for some defenses, and I only make one progress on the quest in the first three rounds. And then, before I have to deal with any enemies, I play Dúnedain Warning and Hobbit Cloak on Sam.

I accidentally make a few extra progress one round, but am forced to engage a Misty Mountain Goblins. The Goblins remove progress whenever they attack, so I keep them engaged for a few rounds to intentionally stall, using Gandalf a couple of times to reduce my threat.

But that only lasts until round nine, when I accidentally mis-count by 1 and make just enough progress to move on to stage 2. My goal was to quest for enough that I wasn't likely to raise my threat while making it impossible to move on. Unfortunately, sometimes I'm bad at arithmetic.

From here it becomes a big slog. Faramir allows me to quest like crazy and clear out some locations. But each troll is going to take me a couple of rounds to kill, which could be a problem.

And, unfortunately, I haven't managed to kill three of the four trolls before my threat rises to 37 (their engagement threshold with Pippin on the board), and I have to deal with two at once. My chump defenders take a lot of hits for me, and I luckily draw the final Gandalf to help me finish off two trolls in one round.

Final score: 192. 15 full rounds, 45 threat, 0 damage on heroes, 3 vp.

Play Tips:

1. Halfling Determination is a great card to save for late in the game. If you can use it on Sam and ready him multiple times, he can use the stat boosts a few times.
2. Valiant Sacrifice is really nice in this deck, since there are a good number of defensive allies that usually die. Snowbourn Scout, Barliman Butterbur, Gondorian Spearman.
3. Feint and Forest Snare should be saved for emergencies or particularly annoying enemies. I used Forest Snare to keep a Wargs engaged with me, to avoid them ever returning to the staging area.

Packs Needed:

1. 1 Core Set
2. Conflict at the Carrock
3. The Dead Marshes
4. The Black Riders

Recommended Additions

1. Daeron's Runes
2. Resourceful
3. Celduin Traveler
4. Ithilien Lookout
5. Timely Aid

Next week: I'll be back from vacation, so look forward to your regularly scheduled posts. I'll be continuing the Starter Deck series for at least one more week.

Blog: Look for a community spotlight most Thursdays on the blog, and it has an RSS feed if that's your thing. There probably won't be a spotlight this week.

Twitter: Follow @LOTRDeckTech to get notifications whenever I post a new deck, new blog post, or something random on the twitter feed!