Ranged and Sentinel fun with Brand

This started with a personal experiment of selecting 2 random heroes from each sphere (cards through Angmar Awakened and Treason of Saruman) and building a fellowship with 6 of those 8 heroes. I got lucky with Glorfindel and Merry as my choices from so I was guaranteed one viable deck. From I had Brand son of Bain as a choice, so took up the challenge. I did eventually swap in Beravor for another hero to make these decks better and worth publishing as a Brand son of Bain fellowship that is actually playable and fun.

As far as play goes, this strays from my usual mode of one combat deck and one support deck. Erkenbrand and his deck are the defenders, with most of the defenders able to sentinel defend any enemies that end up engaged with the other deck. The second deck really shouldn't get too many enemies anyway because of its low starting threat and Merry able to keep it low. The deck also provides card draw and Faramir to boost questing. Pippin and Beravor usually quest, with the latter being the usual target for Brand son of Bain to ready so she also uses her ability. Targets for the key attachments here are Fast Hitch on Merry so he can quest and use his ability and Steward of Gondor on Erkenbrand for resources and an extra bonus for Gondorian Shield. Protector of Lórien usually goes on questing characters from each deck unless Erkenbrand is desperate for more defense and hasn't gotten one of the other boosts yet. There's enough card draw here to draw most of both decks in a 7-9 round game, so there will definitely be cards available to discard.

Brand son of Bain and his deck provide questing and attack without worrying about defending. The first Rivendell Bow goes on Glorfindel so he can join in the ranged attack fun, the others can boost the attack of the already ranged Sylvan allies. The first Unexpected Courage goes on Erkenbrand as the primary defender. This deck may need a bit of resource help from the other deck, so Envoy of Pelargir usually sends her bonus to Glorfindel and I try to time Elf-stone to help bring in Legolas or maybe a Northern Tracker. Rúmil would be the other possible target, although if he can be played from hand it's not uncommon for him to trigger 4 or 5 direct damage.

It's been a long time since I used Brand son of Bain, so it was fun to pull him out of the bike spokes and put him back on the table.