Book Club: To the King! 1.0

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• 1.0

To the King!, or Battle for the Hornburg.

"There suddenly upon a ridge appeared a rider, clad in white, shining in the rising sun. Over the low hills the horns were sounding. Behind him, hastening down the long slopes, were a thousand men on foot; their swords were in their hands. Amid them strode a man tall and strong. His shield was red. As he came to the valley's brink, he set to his lips a great black horn and blew a ringing blast." - The Two Towers

Another Book Club deck, long delayed since the last one, seems rather fitting?

We've got our theme hats on again to represent Gandalf's timely aid to the defenders of Helm's Deep, a single paragraph from the pages of The Two Towers, translated to a truly heart-stopping sequence in the movies. Though the charge is described as being on foot in the book we won't have that for our Rohan warriors.

This deck's almost singular focus to combat means it probably won't function solo and should be paired with something suitably quest focused. Though perhaps not quite as thematic, pairing up with a Théoden, Éowyn and Elfhelm deck might make for a less stressful two-handed experience.

Opening Hand:

Combat is the deck's main focus, and often there isn't a great deal of combat to do on the first turn unless the quest dictates you'll start with enemies in play or engaged. So what you're going to want in your opening hand is very dependent on what type of enemies you'll be facing. But as most of our key cards cost 2, Wizard Pipe is probably the absolute best card you can hope for in your opening hand, allowing you to drop a Firefoot or Armored Destrier on your first turn.

Failing that Shadowfax is a great start giving you some questing power in your opening turn, or if your companion deck has that completely covered allow you to trample all but the strongest enemies under-hoof

At the Table:

The release of Gúthwinë in The Mountain of Fire has given us opportunity to revisit Rohan's discarding allies mechanic, and with the release of the most recent adventure pack, Dungeons of Cirith Gurat, Tactics has some great allies to make the combat phase easier for Rohan.

If you're paired up with Éowyn then don't be afraid to just throw away a Rohan ally to get that extra willpower boost during the quest phase if you know you can Éomer can kill an enemy this turn as you can just return it to hand. But our best use of Gúthwinë is our combat tricks.

Pitching Grimbold as an emergency feint stings a little less knowing you can return him to hand with Eomer's blade, Westfold Outrider can get around Rohan's inherent lack of the ranged keyword, while giving Éomer a choice target for Firefoot to trample with his impressive +9 attack if he's loaded up with all his toys.

Our deck has 2 primary weaknesses, it's lack of threat reduction and card draw. Most of which can't be mitigated on it's own and will depend greatly on your companion deck to help you out in some ways. We don't have the weapons suite to make Foe-hammer work, and Secret Vigil isn't really thematically appropriate for our deck but could probably help with threat reduction in a pinch, Favor of the Valar seems more suitable for the moment Gandalf, Erkenbrand and a thousand Rohan warriors plunge into the Uruk ranks at Helm's Deep.

Sideboard:

The sideboard is a little all over the place, giving you some different options to either help with the decks weaknesses, or give you some other lines of play. We've got a few high cost unique allies that might deserve to get promoted to Hero status for their valour at the Hornburg.