The Black Riders

My attempt at creating a 2-handed deck for The Black Riders, which I've just retaken after a far too long break from the game. I've only included cards from the TBR saga box, the core and the mirkwood cycle.

The main idea is to set Sam Gamgee and Fatty Bolger up as defenders by means of Hobbit Cloak. Fatty's ability is also useful to set progress on the active location.

Try to use Strider's Path early on the first rounds, as it will buy you some time to get your decks running.

Glorfindel, Aragorn and Merry are your main attackers, who you should equip with the daggers and the caches. This way you can get plenty of attackers to deal with the riders across the board. It's useful to attach unexpected courage to Glorfindel, as once you get the steward on Aragorn he can easily pay for readying.

Try to get the songs early on too using Rivendell Minstrels, as they are an effective tool to resource smoothing who are also helpful when questing and exhausting characters for hide tests.

Don't underestimate the power of Mr. Underhill, it's a card that can really save the day if you end up having to deal with more attacks than you can actually take. That's why I've included ally Gildor Inglorion to be put into play by means of Elf-stone, just the same as Beorn, so that you can use both Gildor from the encounter deck and discard him once you place his ally version on the board, and save some of Frodo's resources to pay for neutral and fellowship cards.

There's plenty of card-draw to help at threat reduction. It's worth paying for Dúnedain Watchers, as they can help you survive nasty shadow effect. Gildor's counsel is also helpful if you need to go on a quest rush.

In my experience the decks can take a bit of a time to set up, but they provided a fun thematic experience. I'm sure it can be improved in many ways, so feel free to make any suggestions.