Contents

For our complete run-through, see:

1. The Hobbit Saga
2. Core Set & Shadow of Mirkwood Cycle
3. Khazad-Dûm & Dwarrowdelf Cycle
4. Heirs of Númenor & Against the Shadow Cycle
5. The Voice of Isengard & Ring-Maker Cycle
6. The Lost Realm & Angmar Awakened Cycle
7. The Grey Havens & Dream-chaser Cycle
8. The Sands of Harad & Haradrim Cycle
9. The Wilds of Rhovanion & Ered Mithrin Cycle
10. A Shadow in the East & Vengeance of Mordor Cycle
11. Thematic Campaign ~ From Bag-End to Rivendell
12. Thematic Campaign ~ Fly you Fools!
13. Thematic Campaign ~ A Red Sun Rises
14. Thematic Campaign ~ To Mordor
15. Thematic Campaign ~ The Battle of the Pelennor Fields
16. Thematic Campaign ~ The Hour of Doom Hangs Still
17. Thematic Campaign ~ We Wants It, We Needs It

The Fellowship

I was actually fairly impressed and surprised by the synergies between the decks, like:

• Bard son of Brand helping retrieve your whole Eagle army in case your Eagles of the Misty Mountains die to soon or to a bad shadow effect
• To Arms! working across the table to ready a buffed-uo Eagles of the Misty Mountains
• Eagle of the North triggering Lanwyn

Valiant Daletermination

Ok so this is your classical Dale deck and thus pilots as such. I've definitely re-used an old list of mine so you'll find every advice to piloting there. However, I've made a couple of changes, with the new cards that have been going out, new errata, and to adapt it to the current cycle:

• -2 Thror's Map because this card has been errata'ed to be discarded after triggered, which makes it less attractive. It's a bit sad, but that errata was way overdue in my opinion, as that trivialized the Travel Phase. The Ered Mithrin cycle has some nasty Travel effects, we'll just have to make do!
• -1 Warden of Arnor, -2 Rhovanion Outrider and -1 Ravenhill Scout. Specifically for this cycle, I don't think those are relevant cards. You don't want to explore those 1-point locations right away in Journey up the Anduin and in any quest with the Deep keyword / Lost Caves deck, it's pretty useless. Plus, the other deck have Meneldor, what else do you need?
• -1 Wiglaf and -2 Descendant of Girion because I'm not playing high cost attachments.
• -1 Long Lake Trader because I never use his ability actually.

From there, the card draw being the weak point of the deck, I had in the mind of replacing those (mostly allies) cards with attachments:

• +2 Round Shield
• +2 Squire's Helm
• +1 Guardian of Esgaroth
• +1 Valiant Determination (this card is SO good)
• +1 Wild Stallion
• +1 Knight of Dale
• +2 Dale Messenger. I underestimated that card. What a great great addition to the Dale archetype. You don't want to see her in your opening hand, but mid/late-game when it's time to heal a bit of damage, she's really useful.

Those attachments and allies bring a more combat-focused twist to the deck, which is welcomed in this cycle, especially since The Windlord takes some turtling time to set up.

Sideboarding

Of course, pack both decks with every side quest you can cram in them for Journey up the Anduin (and a couple more scenario).

Playthrough

• Journey up the Anduin: 1/2, we won by not revealing a single card from the Evil Creature deck during the first quest stage. We ended up with our threats in the late 40's but just in time to snatch victory!
• Lost in Mirkwood: 1/2
• The Oath: 1/1, yeah I like to play the Starter Set quests as part of the Ered Mithrin cycle.
• The Caves of Nibin-Dum: 1/1
• The King's Quest: 1/2, get some side quests, it also helps
• The Withered Heath: 1/3, same
• Roam Across Rhovanion: 1/2
• Fire in the Night: 1/2. First attempt was a total fail, as this quest really require that you should be able to defend soon against Dagnir. We swapped out Lanwyn for Beregond and a few attachments and events for Gondorian Shield x3 and Desperate Defense x3 (a really great card here, as Dagnir doesn't get a shadow card for her early attack)
• The Ghost of Framsburg: 1/1. What a long and fastidious scenario. Next time, I'll be packing a few Shadow of the Past.
• Mount Gundabad: 1/2.
• The Fate of Wilderland: 1/9.

The Fate of Wilderland is a very very very frustrating quest. The 8 first losses were suffered with the two decks verbatim as shown above. Victory was achieved with the following changes to Gwaihir's deck, since turtling wasn't really an option and we needed muscle:

• -1 The Grey Wanderer
• -1 Strider
• -3 Timely Aid
• -3 Radagast
• -3 Resourceful
• +1 Radagast
• +1 Beorn
• +1 Radagast's Staff
• +3 Woodmen's Clearing
• +2 Landroval
• +1 Meneldor

Beorn hero can be absolutely insane in the current meta, if you're just a Gwaihir's Debt of Landroval away to take 5-6 defenses early in the game and still attack for 5 once a round. We killed enemies, had time to build our strengths a bit (especially on the Dale side) and then t'was alright.