Escape from Mount Gram Fellowship

This is a fellowship my son and I designed specifically for Escape from Mount Gram, which we just got.

The starting heroes were Elrond and Círdan the Shipwright. Elrond can pay for all the allies; Cirdan can pay for the Leadership ones once Narya is found, and Aragorn can pay for both once he gets Celebrían's Stone. The scenario, of course, starts you off with a low threat — 13 for deck 1, 12 for deck 2 — so we made use of secrecy to get out Resourcefuls. This also means you don't need to worry about using high-threat heroes; we just picked what seemed best. (We considered using Quickbeam instead of Beorn, but went with Beorn for his defense.) We hadn't meant to do 51 instead of 50 cards in deck 1, but we seem to have miscounted; it didn't affect anything, though.

We designed the decks to be mostly captured, having a small normal deck. Deck 1 drew its entire deck by round 1 (3 card starting hand plus 1 drawn card), ending up with 3x Resourcefuls and one Strider; it would play two Resourcefuls and the Strider on round one and quest for five, usually freeing some cards. Deck 2 drew fewer (and was thus a little less reliable), but we hoped to see Light of Valinor and a Resourceful in round one, and with Cirdan's ability you have a decent chance of getting them (you draw 5/12 by round 1, phase 1). Once we ended up discarding a Resourceful to Cirdan's ability, and several times we discarded A Test of Wills, Hasty Strokes and Unexpected Courages, but it didn't end up mattering.

We tried to go slow through stage two, to build up our ally army before hitting stage three — but actually goofed the first time & quested through early, and still won.

We've played it four times so far, and won every time: the fellowship beat the scenario thrice, and Deck 1 beat it in solo once. We haven't tried Deck 2 in solo yet, but it's a little less reliable, so we're not sure if it would work as well. We don't have the Nightmare deck, but might try to get it and see if the decks still work.

Good combos: Derndingle Warrior defends, damaging itself to boost its shielding to 5; Wellinghall Preserver, having quested, readies & heals the Deringdle Warrior. And, as always, Henamarth Riversong really sings in solo play (and isn't bad in fellowship, either).

Fun quest!