Unlikely Fellowship 1.0

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• 1.0

I know what you're thinking. You're looking at that fellowship of 9 characters and wondering "what in Middle Earth do those characters have in common?". Well, unless you're a dedicated Tolkien scholar, what you probably don't know is that these people in fact all went to the same high school, and have kept in touch ever since. It's in one of those obscure appendices that -- let's be honest -- you didn't bother to read.

Now for their 30-year high school reunion the gang has decided to get back together and celebrate by going on a cross Middle Earth bender! Galion's got the brew, Gléowine's got the tunes, and Quickbeam's got the dance moves, and they're partying like it's 19... er, like it's the end of the Third Age! Galdor regales the crew with tales of high adventure at sea, while Glóin's gambling in town funds their adventures (but also regularly earns him scrapes and bruises from locals who aren't entirely convinced his winning streak is due to luck). Thranduil has always been a bit hard to get out of his shell, but can be seen cracking a smile now and then at Halfast's jokes (who himself is NOT amused that his friends still call him "Half-assed" as they used to in back in the day).

Unfortunately, all that merrymaking draws a lot of attention, especially while traveling through the more dangerous parts of the wilderness. There have been many close calls with orcs, trolls, and other foul creatures that crossed their path along the way. It doesn't help that Angbor, fuelled by "liquid courage", often starts yelling at them and taunting them with rude gestures. But the biggest foe they face by far is the dreaded Morning After. No one knows exactly what Ioreth puts in her infamous hangover concoction, but the boys know better than to ask too many questions or complain too vociferously about its dreadful taste, as they know they wouldn't get very far without it.

OK, so perhaps that might not all be 100% in accordance with canon. I wanted to create a deck that allows the Fellowship contract to flip as quickly as possible and came up with this. Despite its goofy theme, it's actually pretty effective. Theoretically you can flip it immediately on turn 1, but the probability is pretty low. Most of the time it happens on turns 2-4. Almost never past that outside of incredibly bad luck. By getting it turned over to Side B so quickly, hopefully you can use the early advantage of 9 characters with boosted stats to turn the tide in your favor.

Once you get the contract flipped, excess resources and useless cards can be converted to and through Song of Hope and Protector of Lórien. The latter is also a great way to get your hand down to 0 cards in order to trigger Galdor's action and draw new cards.

It's worth noting that Thranduil's action is a combat action. This effectively turns Feigned Voices into a free version of Feint, since you can immediately bounce Galion back into play without losing your contract bonuses (once per turn).

For the starting hand, I usually toss any card that isn't an ally, King Under the Mountain, Unlikely Friendship, or A Very Good Tale. The priority is getting all 6 allies in play ASAP since the stat bonuses are usually more impactful than any other card. While it may seem counterintuitive, I think that tossing Daeron's Runes and Drinking Song often makes sense. Since you are already replacing all unwanted cards in your opening hand, neither are really playable until you draw into more cards you're OK to get rid of. Better in most cases to immediately get a new card out of them. They are good to draw into a few turns later, however. Of course, each game is different and these aren't meant to be hard and fast rules. For example, Love of Tales + Song of Hope can get Gléowine immediately in play. And in certain scenarios where you need to face off against hard-hitting enemies, keeping Shining Shield might make sense.

If you hit 30 threat and still don't have the contract on Side B, it's worth considering triggering Pillars of the Kings to draw 4 cards . Even if you don't need the card draw, getting to 40 threat significantly powers up Angbor the Fearless and also Shining Shield, so it's worth doing as soon as it's safe to do so. In such cases, you might consider keeping it in your opening hand as well.