"Do not be hasty, that is my motto. But if I had seen you, before I heard your voices - I liked them: nice little voices; they reminded me of something I cannot remember - if I had seen you before I heard you, I should have just trodden on you, taking you for little Orcs, and found out my mistake afterwards. Very odd you are, indeed. Root and twig, very odd!" --Treebeard, The Two Towers

An Alternate Art Starter Deck

Inspired by AutumnRose's work on her two incredible alt-art starter decks (Flight to the Ford and Where the Stars are Strange), I have prepared my own unique starter deck. I decided to focus on two traits that I feel pair quite well thematically: Ents and Hobbits. This deck also has two smaller sub-themes: Songs, of which our Hobbit friends are quite fond of, and Doomed, something that the Ents brought upon Isengard.

Hobbits

The Hobbit trait is all about staying unnoticed to build up your strength before striking. Frodo Baggins can be used to keep your threat from rising much (if at all), while Bilbo Baggins helps you get through your deck faster. If the Doomed route is of interest to you, Folco Boffin can be chosen instead and comes with a large one time threat reduction. Just make sure you have played a Song of Wisdom before ditching your only Lore hero! Cautious Halfling gives you a peak at the encounter deck (and maybe a free draw) before helping with questing or chump blocking. Hobbit Archer provides some bonus attack and even Ranged if playing multiplayer. Merry and Pippin are here to help with questing, with the latter having a helpful combat ability. For attachments, Fast Hitch just might be the best Hobbit attachment around while Boots from Erebor and Ring Mail can be used to toughen up an extra Hobbit defender if needed. Red Book of Westmarch will make questing even easier for Frodo and his friends.

Ents

The Ents are a powerful group of cards with a couple drawbacks: high threats for the heroes, and taking a bit to set up due to entering play exhausted. Quickbeam can ready himself at the cost of some damage to help out as needed while you get his friends into play. The ally version of Treebeard just might be the best Ent card available - he is essentially a fourth hero for playing your Ents, while also giving you the option to spend his resources to ready any Ent if needed. Leaflock helps with questing, Wandering Ent is your main defender, and Booming Ent your main attacker with Quickbeam and Treebeard filling in wherever needed.

Songs

Songs are interesting attachments that are often low or no cost but provide a nice bonus to your heroes, often stacking. Love of Tales can be used to accelerate your resources early and allow you to play Ents quicker, possibly allowing you to save Treebeard's resources for his readying ability. Song of Healing is a great way to allow Quickbeam to ready himself but heal the damage quickly. Song of Hope can give Frodo even more willpower in a pinch. Song of Kings and Song of Wisdom help with resource smoothing.

Events

The events included with two main things in mind: resources (Gaining Strength, Tighten Our Belts, and A Good Harvest), and combat (The Dam Bursts and Unseen Strike). They are all low cost, allowing you to focus most of your resources on allies and abilities and only use them as needed.

Doomed

Playing solo, or not afraid of making some enemies at the table? Then Doomed events are for you! Doomed events provide a great benefit (card draw, resource acceleration, damage prevention) at the cost of a threat increase to all players. If you want to gamble, Folco's one time use of a 7 threat reduction would allow you to play a good combination of Doomed cards without a major hit to your threat level.

Customizing the deck, or other uses for its cards

Most of the "best" cards for Hobbits and Ents are part of the in the revised content releases. This starter deck has a few good cards you can pull out and drop into any RCO Hobbit Deck and instantly improve it. It also provides you access to every Ent card officially released for this game, including a card some consider one of the strongest allies period in ally Treebeard. The Doomed events are also often staples in decks that need a fast start. If you like the idea of keeping the Root and Twig deck together, try swapping out Bilbo for Pippin and adding in some strong Ent allies such as Wellinghall Preserver and Derndingle Warrior.

Print this deck

I have set up a Make Playing Cards project with ALeP backs that can be found here. If you wish to use official backs, a PDF of the deck that can be sent to MBPrint can be found here. A photo album with high-res versions of each individual card is available here.