Traveling Band

The goal for this fellowship was to use the new Burglar contract and defeat the new quest, Wrath and Ruin. This group thrives when traveling and clearing the active location. It's never been so much fun to travel. Additional notes can be found in the individual deck descriptions.

Strategy:

Dain is the cornerstone of the hero lineup. His instant access to 6 defense is critical in allowing a decision between having Thane Ulchor attack versus fetching another location for staging. Generally, the early rounds saw new locations and later rounds defended the attack, but if Dain's defense would go unused due to a lack of enemies, he would safely defend Thane's attack.

The tactics lineup provides the instant willpower needed to power through the active location and keep from getting location locked.

This fellowship maxes out at about 40 willpower but can reliably get to the low 30s. That might not be enough to handle this quest. That's where Súlien becomes an instrumental ally who is ideally played by mid-game. She becomes an unparalleled threat-reducer in staging once this quest gets to later rounds.

The Burglar contract can really escalate the number of quest points on the active location. This fellowship isn't a super-questing group, so it can stall if there are too many attachments on the active location. City Forum, for example, starts off with 5 quest points. If you have a loot card on there with Put Off Pursuit it suddenly becomes a 9 quest point location. Woodmen's Path is the remedy. I have held this card for exactly this purpose and gleefully watched it reduce the active's quest points by 8.

Summary:

I have several wins against Wrath and Ruin with this fellowship and it was a blast to pilot. The guarded cards are exciting to hit the table, particularly without the anxiety of additional encounter cards. It was also a lot of fun to see rarely used cards like Haldan and Sulien take center stage. Not sure what other quests this fellowship could beat, but I would add Dunedain Pathfinder to help get locations out in any other quest. Wrath and Ruin needs no help in that regard.