nice fellowship

one thing:

"Also since Glóin will eventually carry Vigilant Guard Treebeard's ability will be incredibly powerful."

will not work. you have to put the dmg on treebeard, to get the bonus. you can only heal after, not dodge the dmg, because then you did not pay the cost for the benefit. (same with honour guard, dori etc.)

@doomguard i am aware of that, however the purpose of the maneuver is not to give treebeard or (usually we only use it for willpower during questing, and in that case treebeard does take damage) but only to have an excuse to damage gloin, which only requires us to trigger treebeard's ability, wether or not it resolves.

Treebeard's ability is limited to 5 times each phase, which means during the combat phase (after resolving enemy attack obviously) and during the refresh phase we can deal up to 10 damage to gloin, stopping once he has only 1 hit point left, so that we generate maximum resource before we heal him at the start of the next round.

after some closer looks:

i would change the elvesdeck.

• either put in the hero arwen and make it 3 hunters, then the deck needs much of re-arrangements
• or put in more healing. specially if you want to use treebeards ability. +3 warden and +3 healer of imladris. with much elvenlight, that can be used by eowyn (or eowyn and arwen if she is the normal hero) there is constant healing
• 3 hunters with self preservation put on treebeard

why hero-arwen and not motk:

• using her ability can give galdor a res and with 2 green there is more otential, specially when using healers (both cost 2 warden and imladris).
• elvenlights can be used 2 times a round
• 3 hunters is possible

i think motk arwen is not that important. yes, treebeard can defend the initial attack on the aragorndeck. but with save song of mocking and about 6 hp on gloin (1 of pipe, boots or ring of baharir is nearly sure) is that really necessary? and if there is an enemy from the start, that makes need of more to survive, treebeard can engage him (he can be engaged by aragorn later). specially if you cannot use gloin for treeberads boosting-ability.

having this in mind, the elves should be rearranged.

i think, the desperate allieance -galdor-combo is not this much important, and more a lategame-benefit, but than it is not so much needed. gives more room for more important cards in that deck. 3 light of valinor. why? 1 is enough, it will not do this much at all.

i miss some Song of Hope at gloin. until the 3-card-combo (steward, blood, grappling hook) stands it, it helps.

@doomguard thanks for your comment!

on having more healing: At first i was running Self Preservation and Ioreth, but after a few games i realised i was rarely using them because most of the time The Grey Wanderer's healing was sufficient to keep Treebeard healthy. I already have 2 Warden of Healing and Imladris Caregiver is just a worst Song of Healing. If we change the lin-up and lose a bit of , we can compensate with Self Preservation on Treebeard to leverage his ability more.

On Light of Valinor: 1 for 2 is pretty efficient, however i agree it is not that vital compared to a Círdan the Shipwright or Glorfindel. The reason i run 3 is simply because of Éowyn: Drawing extra copies is no big deal, as we can just discard them to her ability.

However i agree we can reduce the number of copies, even all the way to zero, if we need deck space.

On three hunters: Absolutely possible if we end up moving away from Messenger of the King, i just havn't found any interesting restricted attachment yet for that specific deck.

On (MotK) Arwen Undómiel: First of all, the main motivation behind my choice was starting threat: with a starting threat of 5, the total starting threat of that deck is 23 which is just below the hobbits's 24, which is perfect for our strategy.

Second of all, giving Treebeard sentinel is very useful, not for the purpose of defending attacks on aragorn or gloin, but to defend attacks on Éowyn: some quests will force each player to engage an enemy, or make the players start the game with an engaged enemy each, or have a boss who attacks each player in turn. Against those kind of scenarios, giving treebeard sentinel is the difference between doing fine and needing to start over/pick another scenario.

Many of my decks and fellowship are highly specialized and have a bunch of scenarios they cannot tackle. i like the idea of this one being able to adapt to it's strategy not going perfectly as planned. Moving away from (MotK) Arwen Undómiel is absolutely possible, but unless the elvesdeck obtains some form of defense many scenarios or encounter cards would become impossible to overcome.

On Arwen Undómiel: I agree she would work really well with Galdor of the Havens and Éowyn, that is defenitely a deck one could build. However that deck would have a starting threat of 27, which is too high for this fellowship.

On Galdor of the Havens+Desperate Alliance: I also agree that tech is not necessary to the fellowship working, i just think it fits well with using Éowyn and running the kind of curve and redudancy those 3 other decks have.

Overall, i think the first 3 decks are decided, and can only change the numbers of copies of some cards for optimization, while the fourth deck can be changed completly, as long as it follows certain requirements:

• Having a starting threat of 23 or less (to make sure the aragorn deck always engages first) (this will probably force us to use some Messenger of the King)

• Being able to quest for about 8 or more (ideally 10 so that treebeard doesn't need more healing that what The Grey Wanderer provides) (this probably forces us to use Éowyn)

• Having access to for Ring of Barahir, Spare Pipe and the events

• Including a hero that is ready during the combat phase (for Healing Herbs). (non questing heroes with an exhaust ability might be interesting there, like (MotK) Gléowine, (MotK) Henamarth Riversong, (MotK) Ioreth, Denethor, and Beravor)

• If possible, have some built in emergency defense/at least one hero with a lot of HP/give Treebeard sentinel

I'd love to see what hero line-up you come up with

Merry Christmas!!

@doomguard i've given some though to your comments. Here are a few ideas:

Song of Hope: Having large amounts of resource doesn't turn a bad card good. If i am spending a card and 3+ resource on developing more willpower, i might as well play Erestor, Faramir or even Denethor and not have to spend 3 resource a round to maintain it.

Elven-light: the deck doesn't have that many cards to discard (especially if we cut copies of Light of Valinor), and on one use a turn Silver Harp beats Elven-light after three rounds (two if Forth, The Three Hunters!). We might consider using Silver Harp instead of Elven-light.

ideas for changing the hero line-up of the fourth deck:

• swapping Galdor of the Havens for Denethor. A small change that lets us scry on every round that we did not need to use Healing Herbs.

• swapping Galdor of the Havens for Thurindir: we already have a side-quest subtheme because of the way we make progress, replacing Desperate Alliance and Light of Valinor with The Long Defeat and The Road Goes Ever On would replace card quantity with card quality from Gather Information, and on the long run we gain on (but thurindir will need a courage to quest). Plus since The Long Defeat and The Road Goes Ever On are attachments they synergies with Reforged and Second Breakfast.

• replacing (MotK) Arwen Undómiel with Glorfindel: this lets us use Forth, The Three Hunters! and Asfaloth, but we lose a bit on our capabilities to defend that deck. Also enables hero Arwen Undómiel.

• (MotK) Ioreth+Círdan the Shipwright+Arwen Undómiel quests only for 7 but has some nice discard mechanics and can heal even without Healing Herbs.

• having no hero: playing Healing Herbs on treebeard and counting on his action from The Grey Wanderer to heal gloin, however that means losing a defense from treebeard precisely on the round where we need it the most since gloin is taking a beating. Probably not worth it considering we want as many Fast Hitch, Healing Herbs and Explorer's Almanac as possible

Also any option which removes hero Galdor enables treebeard to play ally Galdor of the Havens, which he could use (during my games treebeard was the first one to run out of cards most of the time)

So far my favorite option is replacing Galdor of the Havens with Thurindir

here are 2 different options. not exactly the questpower in round 1 , but several other options: ringsdb.com

Very interesting! here's a few comments:

First of all, i really like your idea of using a Fast Hitch to ready our Healing Herbs user, since we have a lot of them available Folco Boffin would very easily be able to quest. I also like fitting Forth, The Three Hunters! for cost discounts and more willpower come lategame. I like the inclusion of Lembas, which would help a lot with the early game.

• The One Ring is restricted, so in order to equip Armor of Erebor and Citadel Plate Glóin would need a golden belt, and even then it would not be possible to equip a second plate. Given his low defense i think extra copies of Song of Mocking would work just as well as Dúnedain Signal or Armor of Erebor, gloin would take a bit more damage but would not need to exhaust which makes it more reliable.

• I'm still not convinced on song of hope. I understand that it is flexible (no cost at all to pay when the willpower is not required) but given how gloin has a lot of resource and we play Explorer's Almanac most of the time i would rather just pay ahead the full cost for a willpower ally, regardless of wether we are going to need the willpower this round. Cards that would serve a similar purpose while also advancing the rest of our game plan include Celebrían's Stone (help flip Hunter contract), Denethor (i would not actually play him but if we want pure resource to willpower he does as good a job), Elrond or Galadriel (spend 3 to gain 3 this round plus a card), Wellinghall Preserver (3 for 3 plus some healing for treebeard), Erestor for card cycling or even Dwarven Sellsword.

• Given how our main targets for healing are always the same, Imladris Caregiver is almost a strict downgrade of Song of Healing

• Reforged is incredibly useful and flexible, i think it is one of the cards we want 3 of always, so i would rather cut something else if needed.

• Overall i prefer the Forth, The Three Hunters! version over the ally version, since i would not play Imladris Caregiver and Warden of Healing can fit in other decks in the fellowship.

• Considering the discount from the contract on Keen Longbow, your whole deck has 7 resource to spend in the whole deck, 4 of which being on cards that are not essential (Protector of Lórien and Keen Longbow). The only card you want to be able to play right away is Fast Hitch. Therefore, you can have all the resource you need just from a single hero, which means you want to replace either Bifur or Folco Boffin with a non- hero, which can enable more resource, and more restricted attachments for the contract.

• since we are playing Forth, The Three Hunters!, Silver Harp is superior to Elven-light, so we should probably run 3 of Silver Harp.

Assuming Arwen Undómiel and Forth, The Three Hunters! are here to stay, here are the potential changes i can see in the hero line-up, to account for our use of sphere:

• swapping Bifur for Glorfindel or Galadriel. Glorfindel enables us to have 6 from the start (8 after Folco Boffin gets a Fast Hitch). Galadriel will need Nenya to contribute to the quest which is not ideal since the first round is the most critical for , but she has a lot of nice tools for card draw and makes use of an additionnal Silver Harp with Mirror of Galadriel.

• replacing Bifur with tactics Éowyn or Sam Gamgee: gives us access to another sphere, adds some solid , and enables a potential emergency defender with the readying ability.

• replacing Bifur with spirit Éowyn, means we start at 24 threat which increases the risk of unwanted engagment, but also gives the best willpower and discard synergy.

• replacing Folco Boffin with Frodo Baggins, and replace Bifur with Thurindir (which sets us at 23 threat during engagment checks if we quest succesfully). We do not get to use Frodo Baggins's resource until Thurindir gets a Unexpected Courage but we start questing at 7 without needing to draw anything and we get Thurindir's setup ability and boost.

the critical time are the first 2 rounds if enemys are angaged from the start, or through the encounterdeck enemys come engaged into play or attacks without engaging, right?

for that, the armor or sign are good options. you can discard an restricted attachement if you play another one for that slot. so, giving gloin the erebor armor and replace it later on with something better, seems fine to me. and with the armor bifur could defend well. so if the safety from the start is the point (like 3. of grey haven, dunlandtrap and other szenrios).

the point was, to compensate the sentinel, that motk arwen gives, and for that, i would not replace bifur. remaining him gives the option to play 2 bows in 1 round, or a lembas and a bow,.....

are treebeard and pipin not enough targets for healing herbs? the deck can remain 1-2 hitches even without folko for pippin.

i saw the ressourses-ratio after making the deck and suggested replace folko with glorfindel (and then a few modifikations with the attachements, to optimize)

the mainreason i prefer elvenlight is, that you can use it earlier. you dont need 2 ressources before you can use it, and, you can use both.

you rely heavily on healing herbs and their recycle. i do not like this that much and prefer healing with characters. more flexibility, if healing is not needed,they can quest,if times becomes hard, they can chump. but this is a matter of stile, i think both ways are nearly equal in efficiency.

another idea to realise the early defense:

i do not like sam, because he did not get his bonus or refresh if the enemy is engaged from the start, and thats the situation we need defense in that deck the most. a different hero to think about is really Fatty Bolger he starts with the same defense as bifur, can get pipe and boots and hitch and is spirit, so better usage of resources.

On the first round, playing Dúnedain Signal would require to use The Grey Wanderer on Glóin during planning, since he needs to play Well Preserved first. That means he can defend with sentinel once on first round at the cost of not questing, and has no healing available, and with 1 he reduces the damage taken by 1.

Having another deck play Song of Mocking on him and him keeping The Grey Wanderer's healing available means he can "defend" an extra attack on another deck (by triggering Song of Mocking an additionnal time on another hero) and heal 3 damage before taking damage from another attack, which means he can take 2 more damage and will generate at least 1 more resource.

Armor of Erebor compares better than Dúnedain Signal. Let's compare it to Song of Mocking.

Playing Armor of Erebor: we spend 2 resource, put gloin at 2 and sentinel. We will want to use The Grey Wanderer for resource generation and healing, so Glóin will not be able to commit to the quest if we want him to defend. During combat, he will defend an attack, reduce the damage taken by 2 with his 2 , and be able to heal 3 damage by activating The Grey Wanderer, then trigger Song of Mocking to take the damage from undefended attacks directed at aragorn and himself.

Playing a second Song of Mocking: Glóin can now commit to the quest. Instead of defendig with sentinel, he will trigger his second Song of Mocking to protect the fourth deck, then heal 3 damage with The Grey Wanderer before taking more damage from undefended attacks on aragorn and himself.

so armor means we spend 2 and a card, and lose 2 on the first round, but Glóin takes 2 less damage.

Song means we spend 1 resource and a card and Glóin takes 2 more damage, but we gain 2 on the first round.

Taking 2 more damage is both a good and a bad thing since it also means 2 more resource. Given the amount of healing we have, i think the 2 are more precious (especially since by playing Arwen Undómiel we have higher threat and cannot play Éowyn), and also since resource are less constrained than resource we gain on our ability to develop. Not having to spend 2 on Armor of Erebor means we can play Spare Pipe or Ring of Barahir first round, which compensates for the extra 2 damage.

As to comparing Song of Mocking to using (MotK) Arwen Undómiel, it is more tricky:

Song of Mocking lets us play Arwen Undómiel which generates resource and Forth, The Three Hunters! which also generates resource through discount, as well as more late game.

(MotK) Arwen Undómiel means we are not reliant on drawing a specific card on the first round to face those scenarios, lets us in general do far better at dealing with scenarios that have too many enemies for gloin to face early on, and by having 5 threat lets us play higher threat heroers with her like Éowyn, which boosts our early game a lot.

playing Keen Longbow does absolutely nothing until the contract is ready to be flipped, so waiting one more round to play it is no problem at all. Having 2 heroes generating is useless unless you have 2 Fast Hitch in hand, and even then it only delays the second one by a round. You need a lot more resource than .

i guess we could just rely on Pippin and Treebeard to use Healing Herbs, but we will still need a hero in the fourth deck anyway, because we want as many Fast Hitch as possible.

i agree normally Elven-light are better, i'm talking about Silver Harp only in the case in which you have the Forth, The Three Hunters! discount on the harp making it cost the same.

"i think both ways are nearly equal in efficiency" That is just factually not true. You cannot heal 15+damage from gloin during combat using allies. There have been a lot of games i would have lost without Healing Herbs.

I agree Sam Gamgee is not great. Fatty Bolger is an awful hero, i woud rather play Glorfindel. However to include Glorfindel i would also replace Bifur with Thurindir, you get similar stats but gain Thurindir's setup and willpower boost. You no longer have a hobbit hero but Fast Hitch and Boots from Erebor will go on Merry and Pippin anyway, and since Thurindir has 4 hp it's like he has boots already. I think Thurindir is great in this fellowship.

giving Glorfindel Light of Valinor also helps with the defense problem, since he can defend and survive an attack if it's not too big.

My conclusion would be to put extra copies of Song of Mocking in the Aragorn and Treebeard deck so that gloin can protect the fourth deck from damage, and for the fourth deck have a hero line-up of either Arwen Undómiel, Glorfindel and Thurindir with Forth, The Three Hunters!, or (MotK) Arwen Undómiel, Éowyn and Thurindir with Messenger of the King.

15+ dmg, thats huge. had not mentioned that it piles this much. o.k. then the much herbs-version is needed.

the safety-options are only for such szenarios like fortress of nurn, where everyone has an str 4 enemy engaged from the start. for such cases: the only 3 things, that favours fatty over glorfindel is,

• that he can be buffed with either pipe or boots to defend a str 5 attack (and +1 from shadow is not this uncommon) and need less healing.
• the drinking song is more effective.
• he can get hitch

i agree allies generate more heal on the long run but since gloin has Well Preserved what really matters is how much we can heal in a single round. And yes it piles up that much on big rounds, take a couple undefended attacks with eventually a shadow and you quickly go into double digits in damage.

Spare Pipe goes on Glóin ideally but if needed it can go on any hero, Glorfindel Fatty Bolger or other, and since Boots from Erebor only give +1 HP any hero with 4 or more hit points i just as good as a Fatty Bolger with boots, but fatty without boots is awful. He has more defense but also less hp and willpower. If we are running a hero that is supposed to defend instead of questing Denethor at least does something useful during the 90% of the time that deck doesn't need defense and can hold an herb until pippin gets his fast hitch

i guess Drinking Song is a nice card but having an actually useful hero is also nice.

Hitch would never go on fatty. I would play it on Pippin first so he can use healing herbs, then merry. Giving him a hitch nets you +1 at best which is not worth a Fast Hitch.

One thing i want to stress is while we want to be able to deal with scenarios that force a defense on the fourth player, we are also in need of a lot of willpower. Without a good amount of flat willpower from round 1, we struggle to complete our side-quests, we struggle to clear locations fast enough (Explorer's Almanac and Strider's Path let us clear more than one location a round but only by making progress!), and if we fail questing we raise our threat which is very counter-productive to the strategy. In my Galdor of the Havens+Éowyn+(MotK) Arwen Undómiel version, i very often had to use both Éowyn's ability AND Treebeard's ability.

Making concessions on the amount of willpower we have access to early on should not be done lightly. That is why i dislike giving Glóin sentinel instead of Song of Mocking, and why i think Éowyn is a better use of the 9 threat hero slot than Arwen Undómiel.

I might be wrong, that would especially depend on the decklist we run: if we have a curve high enough to use the triple resource we produce each round with arwen+another spirit hero, and if we have enough density of playable cards on the first round that generate , Arwen might be better. But adding all those restricted attachments (and light of valinor for glorfindel) we will quickly run into problems of deck-space.

I already have an updated list for the version i lean towards (using (MotK) Arwen Undómiel, Éowyn and Thurindir), i will try to build a version with Forth, The Three Hunters! and Arwen Undómiel, Glorfindel and Thurindir (i think thurindir is solid) and see if it holds up.

I think Arwen Undómiel+Éowyn+Folco Boffin with Forth, The Three Hunters! might also hold up.

Great Decks! Why not use Keeping Count ? That can do a good combo with Grappling Hook in multiplayer games.

@kainveus that's a great idea! with how many kills Merry and Aragorn are counting, it could be an excellent alternative to Gondorian Fire on rounds when Glóin is spending his resources. It doesn't happen that often however and you do need two copies, but if we have no use for it it can always be discarded to Éowyn so why not!