An Army of Well Equipped Dale Soldiers (Solo/Multiplayer) 1.0

• Versions
• 1.0

I've started off with MrSpaceBear's Dale deck while playing the Grey Havens campaign true solo, gradually making changes here and there until reaching this point. I'm very happy with this deck; unless the Grey Havens scenarios are supposed to be easy (first time playing them), I can say this deck is very powerful.

It works great solo and should work great for multiplayer as well as there are few popular uniques: only Steward of Gondor; if anyone else brings it, replace the 3 copies with anything from the side deck. It's nice to have but not vital for this deck. In this case, consider replacing Gandalf as well because you may not have as much resources available.

Directions

Most important card is of course, King of Dale. There are several ways to get it: abuse Gríma's Action to flip A Perilous Voyage asap, search with Master of the Forge or Gather Information or Long Lake Fisherman, or simply draw a lot of cards with Brand son of Bain.

Most Hero-only attachments should go on Bard son of Brand to improve his King of Dale. Other attachments should generally be used on allies to trigger Brand son of Bain. If you need cards, use Spare Hood and Cloak on another Dale character even if unnecessary, just to trigger Brand's response. Also put any attachment on Master of the Forge so you can ready him with To Arms! and draw yet more attachments.

Steward of Gondor and Traffic from Dale should generally be played on Bard son of Brand to pay for the many attachments.

Save Traffic from Dale until you have a lot of attachments in play. Best number for Long Lake Fisherman is 2, unless you're looking for something else (e.g. an attachment with cost 1 or 0 that you could play the same turn... to draw more cards). A Very Good Tale will easily find you more allies, and generally they'll be Dales so you can play yet more attachments on them.

Remember to use Gríma when needed. However, I usually avoid using his Action after flipping A Perilous Voyage, unless I see I'm near the end of the scenario.

Sometimes the recursion goes so far that you get to draw and play a lot of cards in a single turn.

Oh and if you draw a spare King of Dale, you can exhaust the one in play to play an ally, then play it again from your hand (it discards the exhausted copy and enters ready) so that you can play another Dale ally the same turn.

Dale Messenger I'd generally save until needed (e.g. an effect that deals 1 damage to all characters).

If you already have King of Dale when A Perilous Voyage flips (or you finish Gather Information), you have many options to choose from, depending on the situation, but one solid option is the Master of the Forge or a Silver Lamp if there are nasty Shadow effects in the encounter deck.

Mulligan

First priority is of course King of Dale, but if you've drawn Gather Information or Master of the Forge in your starting hand, it's probably a good idea to keep it.

Reminder

While playing, remember to always trigger Brand son of Bain's response, and note that not every character in this deck is Dale. Keep in mind that Bard son of Brand can recover attachments from your discarded characters. Finally, generally use Gríma's Action to flip A Perilous Voyage asap, and remember that heroes do not exhaust to quest after flipping it (thus a Silver Lamp becomes very useful to have).

Many other characters also won't exhaust to quest (North Realm Lookout, Valiant Determination, Angbor the Fearless) and you can often ready with Knight of Dale's Valour, Wiglaf's Action or To Arms!. So you should usually have plenty of characters to defend and attack.

Enjoy!