Bilbo Baggins (Lore Hero)

They done the first version of Bilbo dirty.

Background

Bilbo once a respectable Hobbit from a respectable family that didn’t go off having adventures, went on an adventure to burgle treasure from a dragon. Along the way, he won or found a magic ring (depending on the telling) that would change the course of Middle-Earth. That however is another story. Bilbo aided by the magic ring, verbally sparred with a dragon in trying to burgle some treasures. In so doing provoked the dragon to attack a nearby town leading to its demise and liberation of a Dwarven ancestral home and its treasures. Elves, Men, and Dwarves afterwards nearly came to war over the liberated treasures until the host of goblins, orcs, and wargs arrived. Bilbo was soon knocked out in the fighting but survived to take a nice stash of treasure home to retire on.

Card Theme

The game is set in the 17 years after Bilbo’s party and presumably living in Rivendell while finishing his book. It follows then that as he is compiling and recording the lore of his adventures that he can give additional knowledge to the heroes he is with. Knowledge often is represented by the cards in this game. The Lore sphere is full of examples cards representing Middle-Earth’s knowledge, stories, and songs with Gleowine, Daeron’s Runes, Deep Knowledge, Erestor, Drinking Song, and Mithrandir’s Advice representing the knowledge, stories, and songs present in Middle Earth.

Card Synergies and Interactions

Discard from Hand

Sting and Other Stat Boosts

Sting, Bilbo’s sword provides the 3 stats to equal his threat cost. The resulting 2/2/3 stat line also starts to make Bilbo a reasonable target for action advantage like the Hobbit specific and in sphere Fast Hitch attachment. Rosie Cotton offers the most versatile way to boost Bilbo’s stats. It can even become much stronger if Rosie becomes a hero via Messenger of the King or Sword-thain. There are of course many other stat boosters than can improve Bilbo and really the cheap readying from Fast Hitch.

Thorongil

Quest Specific

The Ringmaker cycle is full of card draw hate. Enemies will make extra attacks or other effects when a player draws a card. Some effects will penalize the player for having cards in hand.

Deadman’s Dike and Under the Ash Mountains both have players lose the game when they run out of cards in their deck. Drawing additional cards only accelerates the end of the game in those scenarios.

Ring Rating

Card Talk uses the highly scientific yet arbitrary scale of 1 ring for the card to rule them all to 10 to be cast back into the fiery chasm from whence it came.

I hate to give this low a rating to one of my favorite characters, but this version deserves it. The big drawback is that he has little stats for his threat cost. He was the first hero released after the core set, and it shows. The passive card draw is good, and I’m sure people appreciate that it goes around the table in multiplayer. The additional 3 threat over his 6 stats was too much. It isn’t even just that he is 3 more threat, but his stats are incredibly inefficient. His best stat is defense at 2. In the early days of the game, 2 defense might mean a hero could defend and not take damage. The problem lies that he also only has 2 hit points. One bad shadow and Bilbo can’t defend anymore or is dead. It would be a long time before decent cheap hit point boosts would be available besides Citadel Plate. Pretty much It was up to Protector of Lorien with either Burning Brand or Dark Knowledge to make him into a reasonable defender. The alternative was for 1 more threat play Beravor that had also a card draw ability and enough hit points to defend well enough to survive long enough where healing could help.

Later on, the game provided the update of Lore Bilbo with Lore Pippin hero.

It was also mentioned briefly that the card draw always going to the first player is very nice in multiplayer. Lore with encounter scrying, encounter control, and victory display effects can make for a great support deck. If the other players have questing and combat covered, providing some all around utility is always appreciated. Lore Bilbo will still get played, but the situations where he works well are few making him a niche hero.

• Dave – 9
• Grant – 8
• Ted – TBR
• Matt – 7
• Average – 8

External Links

• Tolkien Gateway
• Hall of Beorn
• Ringsdb

Sample Decks