With Master Burglar attached, Bilbo Baggins is arguably one of the best questing heroes in the game. Why? It’s because of his 3 (from Master Burglar), and his ability to boost his willpower even further. As a bonus, you can deal 1 damage to the enemy that boosted Bilbo’s once you have quested successfully. If that enemy gets a boost from a treachery card, Bilbo gets that much more , basically canceling that effect. Oh, and I forgot to mention that he does all this for only 8 threat, provided that he has Master Burglar attached. So, next time you need more willpower in a deck, look for Bilbo Baggins.

if i had to think of a word to describe gimli+legolas, it would be "okay". they're not bad, but not particularly good at anything either; just "middle of the road"

getting 4 willpower, 4 atk and 2 defense from them sounds great at first, but sam already offers 3 willpower and 2 atk by himself, and if you pair glorfindel with him that's another 3 atk (all of that for a measly 13 threat, instead of the 20 you have to pay for gimli+legolas) then for 2 resources you can play light of valinor + hobbit cloak and end up with more willpower, and a tougher defender, for only 1 less attack (which can easily be covered by an ally - and you can play bill the poney for free with sam on the board)

and that's assuming allies don't exist... for 1 card and 1 resource you could simply play a snowborn scout to chump block, which is much better than tanking a 5-dmg hit with gimli (then you can use one hero to quest and another to attack, and benefit from whatever abilities they have)

so the main benefits of gimli+legolas are the multiplayer keywords, which can be quite helpful in 4-player games, but we're able to do so many crazy combos in multiplayer that these two hardly stand out

gimli can be used to ready other heroes, and you can use his ability with full board knowledge to get the most benefit from it, but there are so many ways to ready heroes in the game that i find him to be a little excessive

Galdor is one of my favorite Noldor allies. He's not super flashy: his stats are okay, especially compared to allies like Glorfindel, Guardian of Rivendell, or Gildor Inglorion; he's somewhat expensive; and he simply isn't a key card to get into play as soon as possible. But his ability fits so nicely with Noldor decks, and it ends up being quite effective.

Noldor feature three heroes who can make easy use of Galdor's ability. With only Círdan the Shipwright, you discard due to his forced effect, and Galdor can thus draw you another card during the resource phase. With Erestor, if you have any cards in hand at the end of the round, then his forced discard will allow you to draw another, leaving you with five cards after drawing during the resource phase. And with Arwen Undómiel, you can discard a card, gain a resource, and draw a card from Galdor. This latter combo is especially potent with Elven-light: you can discard Elven-light for a resource, draw a card from Galdor, then play Elven-light, likely with the resource you gained for discarding it, drawing you two extra cards every round at a cost of zero resources.

The Noldor archetype has a ton of ways to use these cards. Accelerate your boardstate with To the Sea, to the Sea!, heal your characters with Imladris Caregivers, put Elven Jewelers into play, discard cards to be able to play a Guardian of Rivendell, ready Glorfindel, keep a Lindon Navigator in play, or even play the cards you drew.

So if you're using Galdor, it will be in a deck where he gets you one extra card draw every round. We can compare him to an old core staple, Gléowine, who costs 2 to give someone at the table one extra card per round. If we then say that Galdor's ability is thus worth 2 resources on its own, that leaves us paying 2 resources for a 2/2/1/4 ally, which is pretty close to just as good a cost-to-stat ratio as Quickbeam. But we're not really going to pay 4 resources when we have Arwen Undómiel, Erestor, and To the Sea, to the Sea! No, he can be pretty easily discounted to 1 resource, at which point he accelerates your boardstate, provides questing or attacking (or both if Narya is in play), and can be boosted by Lords of the Eldar. Extremely solid, even if a Noldor deck already has so much going for it that he's not a key card.

Beyond the good combos mentioned above, he also goes great with Legolas, and if you want to build something janky with the early Noldor cards Watcher of the Bruinen or Trollshaw Scout, Galdor's your man. Er, elf. Galdor's your elf.

Maybe I am not seeing something, but this seems pretty good to me. It’s a free event that is easy to use and should get you 2 or 3 damage at really no cost, and the enemies can’t mitigate it with defence.

Chump block with a veteran axehand or a galadthon archer or any other cheap 2 attack ally and get two more damage out of it. Solid. Get three damage if you block with a stronger unique ally like, say, Azain silverbeard, and then play another copy next turn.

The real question, though, is whether this works with hero Beorn when he dies since it doesn’t target him?

I really underestimated him a long time. Yesterday we played with 4 players and I played him with the other two Core-Set Spirit-heros Eowyn and Eleanor. I drew three Unexpected Courages quite soon und he dealt with many enemies, leaving the biggest ones for the Tactics deck. I think he really shines in Multiplayer games.