Solo Revised Core Deck with Dunhere, Gloin, and Beravor 1.0

• Versions
• 1.0

Goal of deck

I wanted to develop a deck with Beravor, Dunhere, and Gloin using only revised core cards that performed generally well at least against core quests (except Dol Guldur). I chose this combo of heroes, mostly because I hadn’t explored Dunhere and Gloin as much as other heroes in the core. And Beravor seemed like a better third hero than Glorfindel (which led to too much starting threat for Anduin).

Assorted Questing notes below:

Journey Along the Anduin

Attempt 1. Hero died Roud 1

I got the The Brown Lands first round; threat went up to much; no chumps; so hill troll kills a character first round.

Attempt 2. 100 + 33 + 3 - 4 = 129

• Had Sneak Attack Gandalf; used to lower threat and quest strongly.
• Later on got Unexpected Courage on Beravor, which is a great way to use her, but have the option to draw cards if attack / defence is not needed. I generally
• I also got Lórien Guide and #Faramir with array of arrays to allow for strong questing
• Glóin ultimately had Steward of Gondor, Lórien Guide, and for phase 2 Celebrían's Stone. This allowed me to quest in two phases. I played Gandalf and had enough characters to hold back so that the coming out of Phase 1 was manageable. And the finished off the last enemy after that.

Lessons learnt:

• Power in the Earth was not what I was looking for.
• A major challenge in this quest is when you get The Brown lands, and especially if you get it when there is an active location. Secret Paths is really what I needed. So I’ve now swapped it out.

General Brown Lands Strategy

• Have Secret Paths in the deck to nullify it.
• Try hard to quest enough to clear the active location each round.
• Protector of Lórien is good at providing variable willpower; and combines well with a deck with Beravor which provides card draw.
• Northern Tracker is also a solution.
• In general, you just want to build up a lot of questing power in Anduin for Brown Lands and Phase 2. Things that help Faramir with lots of cheap allies. Celebrían's Stone, Protector of Lórien, etc.
• Lorien Guide further helps with clearing the active location.

Early game threat management

• Gandalf is probably the key to threat management. Sneak Attack Gandalf gives you that in Round 1. Careful spending in Round 1 can let regular Gandalf in play in Round 2.
• The Galadhrim's Greeting is an option at the start of Round 3.

Alternatively, a chump plus Forest Snare is another option.

Blocking hill troll

• Another option would be Protector of Lórien on Beravor which would give 4 + 2 + 3 = 9 effective hit points + block. So, that would be enough against the hill troll’s 6 (for one round), even with some kind of shadow increase.

The Oath

Attempt 1: 80 + 26 - 3 = 103

• Fairly easy win.

The Caves of Nibim Dum

Attempt 1: 140 + 37 + 1 = 178

• This felt like a long scenario. I got to the end of my deck. But gradually I built up my army of allies. In particular, I spent a long time in Phase 1 getting everything set. In the end I had 12 allies, unexpected courage on everyone, celebrian stone, steward of gonder, and to protector’s of lorien.
• In the early phase I had Cave Troll and Goblin Troop in the staging area, but I didn’t want to engaged which created a few challenges.
• I didn’t get Protector of Lórien to quite late, but that was quite good in the end as I had a lot of card draw and quite a few useless cards. But it did slow down my ability get Beorn into play.
• I still had Forest Snare in the deck, but that’s mostly pretty useless in this quest, because all the major enemies don’t take attachments.
• Dunhere is great for forest
• I was able to Sneak Attack Gandalf a bunch of times.
• I ultimately have a lot of resources based on whoever gets given Steward of Gondor. Probably I could plan accordingly and give more cards to them. Admittedly Gandalf can and Stand and Fight can come from that pool.

Deck tweaks:

• A third Sneak Attack might be good to combine with Gandalf or Beorn.
• Probably for this one, I’d consider adding a 3rd Northern Tracker and 3rd Lórien Guide both for location management, and because I just had so much resources on spirit.
• Possibly even Fortune of Fate could be useful. That said, I still want to avoid losing a hero or attachments.
• The leadership deck might be slightly light. I have 3 copies of Faramir, because of how essential the questing boost is. But only one Faramir will typically be played, so I could do with perhaps an additional moderate cost ally

Elven Assembly (3rd Fan Contributed Scenario): 40 + 32 + 3 = 75

Fairly basic quest (at least on this attempt). I also had a lot of Gandalf (2 sneak attacks, and 2 regular draws)

Forgotten Ruins (4th Fan Contributed Scenaio): 70 + 31 + 0 = 101.

One of the more interesting in this series so far. This proved to be relatively straight forward.

Ungoliant’s Lair: 130 + 33 + 1 = 164

This was quite a fun quest with interesting challenges as it progresses. I managed to naturally control my progression, so that the progressive increases on limits for allies and attachments were okay. I may have made a mistake in playing sneak attack gandalf at one point. In general, I also had a lot of card draw, which worked well with Protector of Lorien on Gloin for controlled questing, and Beravor for very strong defence against Ungoliant’s Spawn (although I suppose there was a risk I would get a shadow card which would remove block).

Escape from Dol Guldur

Attempt 1: Gloin as prisoner. Beravor died end of Round 2; treachery, dol guldor orcs, and shadow card to dol guldor orcs. Otherwise, it wasn’t a terrible start.

Attempt 2: Beravor as prisoner. Threat = 50 at end of round 4. Each revealed card added threat. I did get Steward of Gondor and Sneak Attack Gandalf, but it was just too much.