Dale 1.0

• Versions
• 1.0

Overview

I've decided to share some of the decks me and my friend group play with for particular cycles. This is Deck #1 in a 2-player fellowship, given to a friend of mine, while myself I'm playing the other deck. For more in-depth overhaul regarding structure and thought behind those decks please check out the fellowship description! (e.g. no shared cards in Decks #1, sticking strictly to the theme).

When the Wilds of Rhovanion first came out (since soon we will be introduced to the revised version of Ered Mithrin cycle) it gaves a brand new archetype around a trait that had appeared before but didn't had much synergy going on. Dale presents to us quite a unique strategy of playing attachments on your characters. While you definitely could do that before, not to the extent this archetype provides with new attachments and allies that get bonuses from specific items. It really feels like you are building yourself an army. And each of those soldiers really holds their weight. Without attachments I would say that Dale allies are average in terms of cost to stats ratio. But with corresponding items they can achieve absurd numbers, easily surpassing most of the hero roster of the game. Thanks to Brand son of Bain you benefit also from build in boost and card engine which is bonkers. No wonder Dale decks are consider top tier by the majority of the community (although I have some serious nitpicks that I will discuss further down the line...). The basic strategy of this deck revolves around getting allies on the table and then playing attachments on them for quite a number of reasons: get bonuses from the attachments themselves, get bonuses from allies' abilities, get +1 and draw a card. I constructed this deck so that each individual ally has it's "own" attachment but due to the reasons above don't shy away from playing whatever on anybody. At least you still get more cards from it and you can swap less ideal combinations with Long Lake Trader later. In general this deck suffers from quite a slow setup time and mediocore heroes in terms of stats. Espiecially is a concern here, so all the early game fighting should be left for the other deck in the fellowship (which is its main purpose).

Starting Hand

So we start with my first personal annoyance of the Dale decks which dependancy on one card - King of Dale. You absolutely need this in your starting hand. When getting it in your starting six cards keep it. If you don't get it mulligan. It's (unfortunately) that simple.

Heroes

We start with Bard son of Brand which is more of a support hero. You can play item attachments from all basic spheres with him (which means all attachments in this deck). For this reason his resources are the most valuable in here so keep that in mind. His other response lets you grab attachments from a character that left play which isn't ideal since you don't want to lose your allies. But still, sometimes it's necessary to take sacrificies and at least you get your items back. Statwise he is underwhelming in my opinion since with such balanced stats you really can't make the most of them. I almost always quest with him since he will have 3 with an attachment. For his dedicated attachment he will get Necklace of Girion since you want the most resources on him in particular.

Brand son of Bain is a linchpin of this deck. Without him this whole synergy wouldn't be as powerful. As I have mentioned before you get two effects from him. Firstly you get to draw a card each time you play an attachment on "naked" character. This ability single handedly creates a draw enginge which doesn't require any help from player cards. Secondly all Dale characters with a player attachment get +1 . It's really important to get massive numbers since the other deck in the fellowship lags behind on that. His stats are exact to Bard's though he has 1 more. It shouldn't make a difference though, you will probably want to quest with him. Some allies and the last hero make for more potent attackers. Of course he gets his own title, King of Dale.

Lastly we have Lanwyn. Safe to say she is here only because of her Dale trait, which makes her third and final hero with that affiliation. She doesn't have really any synergy with the whole attachments archetype but that doesn't mean she is a bad hero. Her statline is more focused compared to the other two and she has an in-built reading ability, albeit very conditional. It triggers of surge and gives you opportunity to either ready her or give her +2 . Which is more needed is depended on the current situation. Her ranged keyword is also nice to have. Another huge thing is that she is hero, which means you can play King of Dale on turn one. You can grant her Black Arrow for a one-time 8 !

The Deck

Each ally in this deck performs a certain focused role (with few execptions). Redwater Sentry is your dedicated defender. With Hauberk of Mail you get a 4 and 4 character. And it's free on him! On the opposite, Warrior of Dale is a focused attacker. Put a Bow of Yew so he can basically attack for 4 . For a dedicated quester we have North Realm Lookout that will equip Map of Rhovanion. With it he quests for 3 with one direct progress on the active location. He will also not exhaust, though this won't matter that much unless you got him Hauberk of Mail or Bow of Yew. There are also 3 utility allies, that being Dale Messenger, Long Lake Trader and Long Lake Fisherman. First one grants much needed healing since in this cycle you will face quite a lot of direct damage treacheries like Dragon's Breath. Long Lake Fisherman can get you some more cards that you currently need and even fish out King of Dale (how does that even work) when you couldn't find it during setup. Long Lake Trader is a very key ally here. Normally you might be tempted to wait with playing certain attachments on certain characters to maximize their stats. However that way you miss out on needed card draw and board advancement in general. With this guy you don't have to expierience this FOMO since he allows you to move attachments freely between characters. Only items though, so no Valiant Determination and Wild Stallion. He can also move an attachment just for sake of "stripping" a character so you can play another attachment in your hand for a card draw. For those utiliy allies we have Spare Hood and Cloak. Since they don't have their own bonuses from having attachments you can exhaust them via this attachment to ready another, more powerful character. And then you can bring the Hood back with Long Lake Trader. Last allies to cover are more general but extremely powerful and needed. Another nitpick I have for Dale decks is that their allies are very much focused on one role. You need to advance a quest? Can't do that with Redwater Sentry or Warrior of Dale you just draw. Or maybe you have trouble defending and all you allies are wimps in that concern. Introducing: Guardian of Esgaroth. Those guys can become monsters with just a few attachments. What you want on them is Valiant Determination and then Wild Stallion. With just those two attachments this ally becomes from all-1 stats to 5/4/4/4 beast that will not exhaust to quest. And you can even throw another attachment on them, just for good measure. Another good ally, though very costly is Wiglaf. That cost is fortunately somewhat reduced with a fact that he allows you to play an item on him for free. That being said I thought that Raiment of War would suit him well since he also has balanced statline that's worthy of a powerful hero. To sweeten the deal you can exhaust an attachment on him to ready him so you can get more value from him.

Attachments are self-explanatory here and I've mentioned above which character prioritizes which, so I won't go into much detail again. Concerning the most important card, King of Dale, there are two ways you can play around it. Firstly you play it alone on Brand son of Bain and spread out rest of the attachments on other characters. Or you can cram some more things on this hero since it reduces cost based on a number of attachments on this character. I would lean more into the first strategy since you can miss out on some key card drawing the other way. And you still reduce the cost of an ally by one since King of Dale counts itself and you also don't need a resource match for playing that way. Another cute attachment is Necklace of Girion. I'm not really a fan of Guarded attachments (especially that are either Location or Enemy) but it sometimes can have its uses. Just be careful in scenarios with Swarming Bats.

Very few events made room for other cards but those included are worthwile. Well Warned provides much needed threat reduction since you will face quite a lot of those threat inducing treacheries. To Arms! is a very simple card that allows you to get double duty from some allies. Lastly Traffic from Dale is in my opinion a bit overrated. In the early game it won't yield you that much and in the later game it becomes quite redundant. Still I feel its best place is in early game to quickly establish a board, even by just playing one extra ally.

Conclusion

That pretty much covers the basics of this deck. Please keep in mind it is designed to play with the other deck in a fellowship and for a particular cylce in a game. This decks is meant to represent most powerful combination of cards in a given archetype, but feel free to leave a comment regarding them, as even after some years of using them I change them slightly after some thought :) Feel free to try them, even with new players as I did!