Tag: f

Faramir (Leadership Ally)

Matt Kell (kattattack22)Leave a comment
  • Player Card Categories
    • Willpower Bonus
    • Messenger of the King

Faramir shows his quality right in the Core Set.

Background

Faramir was the younger brother of Boromir. He was a brave warrior who loved lore and music and was disliked by Denethor, his father, for his gentle nature. After Boromir’s death, Faramir commanded the Rangers of Ithilien and found Frodo and Sam on a mission. Despite initially holding them captive, Faramir showed his quality and did not succumb to the lure of the Ring. He was later struck down during the War of the Ring and almost burned alive by his father. He was saved by Gandalf and healed in the Houses of Healing. There he met Eowyn, fell in love with her, and the two later wed.

Card Theme

The ally can be a representation of Faramir as the Rangers of Ithilien captain. They had to fight against superior numbers. As a result, he had to keep them moving and carefully choose their battles. It would take tremendous willpower to keep fighting in that situation and keep his men alive.

Card Synergies and Interactions

Cheap Allies

The more allies, the more targets to gain +1 willpower when he exhausts. Gondor, Outlands, Silvan, and Hobbits all have pretty low cost making it easy to play several in a few short turns. Gondor in particular has several allies in Leadership fitting in quite nicely with ally Faramir. Outlands typically has Leadership access thanks to Hirulan the Fair being in Leadership while also providing resource smoothing for Outlands allies. Silvan similarly typically uses Celeborn and/or Thranduil heroes. Hobbits have Leadership Frodo and Sam heroes to provide Leadership access.

Mustering

Cards that can put allies directly into play can help build the ally swarm and maximize his willpower boost.

Ally Readying

There’s no limit on Faramir’s ability other than how many times a player can exhaust him. Ally readying effects are more limited than those for heroes. The Core Set provided one in the same sphere, Ever Vigilant. Later expansions introduced some repeatable ally readying with Leadership Frodo hero, Leather Boots, Spare Hood and Cloak, and Narya. Although Spare Hood and Cloak either needs to have Faramir exhaust and move it to another character or a Long Lake Trader.

Global readying effects not only help by letting Faramir use ability twice, but allow the player to send all their allies to the quest and ready for combat.

Sword-thain and Messenger of the King

Both cards can make Faramir a hero. This opens up many more readying cards like Unexpected Courage for multiple uses of his ability. Messenger of the King has the big advantage of letting Faramir be a hero right away and get to using his ability more than once. It however limits readying him to just once per phase. Faramir then could only double boost a player’s willpower. Sword-thain doesn’t have this upper limit. It is less reliable since a player needs to draw and play both 4 cost cards.

Quest Specific

Faramir’s ability helps more in quests with stages where it is better to rush through them. The classic example is Stage 2 of Journey Along the Anduin. It has players reveal an additional card each turn and keeps enemies from engaging. It can be very easy for too many cards to build up in the staging area with the extra card and each player limited to engaging 1 enemy per turn. Wastes of Eriador has a similar Stage 2 where during Night the players have to discard an ally. Staying in that stage can be very detrimental as the effect combined with enemies eats away at the player board state. Questing through the stage minimizes the negative effects in each of these scenarios. Journey in the Dark, there is an objective that counts down until the arrival of the Balrog. Questing quickly through before the Balrog arrives makes the scenario much easier. Desert Crossing in the Haradhrim cycle has a time limit with players losing when they reach 60 temperature and the temperature rises every turn. Questing quickly is key to winning that scenario.

Another common situation in scenarios is players just need to quest through the last stage to win. The Hobbit Over Hill and Under Hill has this in We Must Away Ere Break of Day, and Dungeons Deep and Caverns Dim both have this. Dungeons Deep and Caverns has the added twist of treacheries all gaining surge. The Dread Realm also puts a little twist on this with requiring all locations to be explored and placing progress from the quest on each location in play. Similar to the situations above, it deals damage to characters if any locations are still in play and lingering for multiple turns can be punishing.

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 rate Faramir Leadership ally at 3 rings. His ability is undeniably powerful considering how vital questing is to the game. He is a little costly at 4, but in the sphere with the best resource acceleration cards its really not bad at all. If anything the main downside is he can be a win more card if played late in the game. Especially as the card pool grew to include more efficient questing allies. Still he provides an tremendous boost and with as an action, and it can be used after staging. Messenger of the King enabled providing this willpower boost ability. It also opens up many more readying cards making a double boost much more consistent, but it caps the usefulness of those effects given the limit once per phase limit. Even if a player doesn’t use his ability, he has a decent 2 defense and 3 hit points to help defend some weaker enemies.

  • Dave – 5
  • Grant – 4
  • Ted – TBR
  • Matt – 3

External Links

Sample Decks

100 Willpower by Seastan

The deck has lots of resource acceleration, card draw, and ally readying to maximize using Faramir’s ability.

100 Willpower

Main Deck

Hero (3)
Círdan the Shipwright (The Grey Havens)
Denethor (Flight of the Stormcaller)
Erestor (The Treachery of Rhudaur)

Ally (24)
3x Anfalas Herdsman (The Steward’s Fear)
3x Envoy of Pelargir (Heirs of Númenor)
3x Errand-rider (Heirs of Númenor)
3x Ethir Swordsman (The Steward’s Fear)
3x Faramir (Core Set)
3x Hunter of Lamedon (Heirs of Númenor)
1x Ioreth (A Storm on Cobas Haven)
2x Warden of Healing (The Long Dark)
3x Warrior of Lossarnach (The Steward’s Fear)

Attachment (8)
2x Light of Valinor (Foundations of Stone)
3x Narya (The Grey Havens)
3x Spare Hood and Cloak (Over Hill and Under Hill)

Event (18)
3x A Very Good Tale (Over Hill and Under Hill)
3x Captain’s Wisdom (The Thing in the Depths)
3x Daeron’s Runes (Foundations of Stone)
3x Ever Vigilant (Core Set)
3x Gaining Strength (The Steward’s Fear)
3x Wealth of Gondor (Heirs of Númenor)

3 Heroes, 50 Cards
Cards up to A Storm on Cobas Haven

Sideboard

Attachment (6)
3x Thrór’s Key (On the Doorstep)
3x Thrór’s Map (Over Hill and Under Hill)

Decklist built and published on RingsDB.

Frodo Baggins (Spirit)

Matt Kell (kattattack22)Leave a comment
  • Player Card Categories
    • Damage Cancelation

Background

The nephew of Bilbo Baggins and his designated heir. The One Ring was left to Frodo along with Bag End when Bilbo disappeared after his 111th birthday. This all lead to Frodo carrying The Ring first to Rivendell and eventually all the way to Mount Doom where it was destroyed.

Card Theme

Frodo’s ability to cancel damage once per phase appears to represent him as the ring bearer. It makes sense that Frodo can avoid danger using The One Ring to turn invisible much like his uncle did many years before. In the books, we see Frodo do this to escape Boromir when he tried to take The Ring. Earlier he tried to do this as well to escape the Ringwraiths although they could see him as they were also bound to the Ring. The Ring also draws the attention of its master hence why its use raises the player’s threat.

Card Synergies and Interactions

Threat Reduction

Threat reduction offsets the threat gained by using Frodo’s ability. A deck packed with threat reduction can utilize it with little risk of losing due to threat. Hobbits have access to a couple nice threat reduction events, The Shirefolk and Elvenses that provide a nice amount of threat reduction for a reduced cost compared to the Core Set staple, The Galadhrim’s Greeting. Elrond’s Counsel also works well for cheap threat reduction as long as the player(s) control a Noldor. Galadriel can fulfill that requirement and provide repeatable threat reduction. The classic hero pairing with Spirit Frodo is Lore Aragorn because Aragorn can reset threat back to the starting level once per game.

Another way to lower threat in a large chunk after using Frodo’s ability several times is Vanish from Sight + A Elbereth! Glithoniel!. The basic setup is engage a lower engagement cost enemy but higher than 20. Let’s say 25 for illustrative purposes. The player uses Vanish from Sight so threat is treated as 20 and plays A Elbereth! Glithoniel! The player gets to treat their threat as 20 for A Elbereth, put the enemy on the bottom of the deck, and set their threat to 25.

Hobbit Pipe

Players will want threat reduction to make the most use of Frodo’s ability and most of it is available from events. Hobbit Pipe allows the player to also draw cards as well from this dynamic.

Sam Gamgee Ally

Sam Gamgee similar to Hobbit Pipe will have plenty of triggers to use his ability. Any time Frodo cancels damage Sam can ready and get +1 to all stats for 1 resource. Most times this will make him into an attacker with 2 attack. Two defense while reasonable in the first cycle, won’t be enough to help him survive an enemy attack in later cycles.

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 rate Frodo at 3 rings. He’s a very solid defensive hero with a very useful ability. It is not difficult at all to include enough threat reduction to avoid threating out despite using it heavily. Often just pairing him with Lore Aragorn is enough. His 2 willpower can even help out in questing if need be because the damage cancelation also works on an undefended attack. The only real downside is the ability is limit once per phase. This can be problematic in later scenarios when boss enemies can get multiple attacks or multiple enemies can build up. Then other defenders with higher defense and hit points that can turn into a “super defender” like Spirit Beregond or Messanger of the King Jubayr are going to be a better choice.

  • Dave – 3
  • Grant – 3
  • Ted – TBR
  • Matt – 3

External Links

Sample Decks

Smoke Yourself Thin by NoSoup4you

A threat reduction focused deck using Hobbit Pipe as a card draw engine.

Main Deck

Hero (3)
Frodo Baggins (Conflict at the Carrock)
Gandalf (The Road Darkens)
Sam Gamgee (The Black Riders)

Ally (19)
3x Bilbo Baggins (The Road Darkens)
2x Bill the Pony (The Black Riders)
2x Errand-rider (Heirs of Númenor)
3x Galadhrim Weaver (The Treachery of Rhudaur)
1x Pelargir Ship Captain (The Morgul Vale)
2x Skinbark (The Land of Shadow)
2x Treebeard (The Antlered Crown)
2x Warden of Helm’s Deep (The Antlered Crown)
2x Wellinghall Preserver (Across the Ettenmoors)

Attachment (16)
2x Dagger of Westernesse (The Black Riders)
2x Expert Treasure-hunter (On the Doorstep)
2x Gandalf’s Staff (The Road Darkens)
3x Hobbit Pipe (The Black Riders)
1x Shadowfax (The Treason of Saruman)
2x Steward of Gondor (Core Set)
3x Unexpected Courage (Core Set)
1x Wizard Pipe (The Road Darkens)

Event (15)
3x Daeron’s Runes (Foundations of Stone)
2x Hidden Cache (The Morgul Vale)
3x Island Amid Perils (The Nîn-in-Eilph)
3x Smoke Rings (The Black Riders)
3x The Galadhrim’s Greeting (Core Set)
1x Will of the West (Core Set)

3 Heroes, 50 Cards
Cards up to The Land of Shadow

Sideboard

Event (1)
1x Flame of Anor (The Road Darkens)

Decklist built and published on RingsDB.

Flame of Anor

Matt Kell (kattattack22)Leave a comment
  • Card Talk Season 5 Episode 51
    • Video episode
    • Audio episode
  • Cycle
    • Lord of the Rings Saga 
  • Set
    • The Road Darkens
  • Player Card Categories
    • Attack Bonus
    • Discarded from Deck
    • Readying

Highest attack boost from an event card, perfect for slaying Balrogs.

Background

Gandalf mentions the flame of Anor during his fight with Durin’s Bane.

I am a servant of the Secret Fire, wielder of the flame of Anor.

J. R. R. Tolkien. The Lord of the Rings The Fellowship of the Ring, Ch. 5, The Bridge of Khazad-dum

There are a couple theories as to what Gandalf is referring to here. He could be revealing he is the weilder of Narya with a flame red gem. The other is based Anor’s meaning in Sindarin which is Sun. Then it could be that he is wielding the light and fire of the sun.

Card Theme

The link between mechanism and theme on this one is going to rely a bit on the game LOTR is based one, Magic the Gathering. In Magic, a player’s deck is flavored as a library of spells their planeswalker knows. The cards in the players deck can similarly be considered knowledge as card draw effects are primarily in the Lore sphere. Flame of Anor represents Gandalf unleashing his knowledge of magic to attack.

Card Synergies and Interactions

Deck Manipulation

The magnitude of the attack boost is determined by the cost of the deck’s top card. There are a few ways to try and improve the bonus. Wizard Pipe can take any card in the player’s hand and put it on top. Imladris Stargazer can choose from any of the top 5 cards. Gandalf’s Search is much maligned for how costly it is for its effect, but it can rearrange any of the X top cards the player pays to see.

High Cost Cards

There are only 2 cards in the entire card pool that can maximize the attack boost, Brok Ironfist and Beorn. After the Core Set, there weren’t any other 6 cost cards designed. Brok generally isn’t worth the 6 cost and generally better to use with Flame of Anor. Beorn is a little more of a decision between using for the attack boost or playing. Beorn after all can attack for 8 with his ability. Although, 6 Tactics resources for 1 attack at 8 while Anor can do the same for 1 resource is more cost efficient.

There are over 30 more options at 5 cost that can also work. Many of them are powerful options for a large variety of decks. Examples include global readying from Grim Resolve and The Free Peoples, the variety of options offered by Keen as Lances, or hero revival from Houses of Healing. Additionally, many strong unique allies are also at 5 cost like the 3 Harad allies, Glorfindel, Gildor, both versions of Gandalf, and Radagast. The Over Hill and Under Hill Gandalf and Radagast allies not only can benefit from Flame of Anor’s effect, but it can discard additional copies that are no longer needed.

Dwarf Mining Bonus

There are a couple cards that give additional effects if discarded from a player’s deck. Ered Luin Miner is a great 2 for 1 since it will set Flame of Anor’s attack bonus to 3 and put the ally into play. Hidden Cache is a bit of a nonbo since it won’t give an attack bonus, but 2 resources can be great.

Quest Specific

Flame of Anor is great to include for Journey in the Dark and not just thematically. The Balrog’s 9 defense is difficult to overcome. It’s immunity to player card effects prevents any defense reduction effects like Rivendell Blade. Using Flame of Anor to boost Gandalf’s or Saruman’s attack with a 6 cost card can get any other attacking heroes or allies to damage it. It also can work well in the the original Balrog Fight scenario, Shadow and Flame. Basically any boss fight scenario is where Flame of Anor can get the most mileage. The list below has more possibilities:

  • Watcher in the Water
  • The Morgul Vale
  • The Three Trials
  • The Antlered Crown
  • Deadman’s Dike
  • Battle of Carn Dum
  • A Storm on Cobas Haven
  • The King’s Quest
  • Mount Gundabad

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 rate Flame of Anor at 7 rings. The main reason is the limited number of characters it works with. It has to target an Istari character of which there are 3 of in the game each with a hero and ally version. Gandalf’s 2 versions make that 7 possible targets, but 2 of the ally versions are only in play for a single round. Getting Flame of Anor to work with Core Set Gandalf of Saruman ally would take some luck or lots of card draw. Over Hill and Under Hill Gandalf ally or Radagast ally at least can stick around although Radagast ally’s attack is low at 1. The other inconsistency in the card is the reliance on the cost of the card being discarded from the deck. There are at least cards to set it up and make it more consistent. Wizard Pipe among them in particular works well with both Gandalf and Radagast heroes. Still it can be much to build around for a single event. A powerful event especially when a large attack boost is really needed. It just won’t make it into very many decks and be somewhat situational.

  • Dave – 6
  • Grant – TBR
  • Ted – 3
  • Matt – 7
  • Average – 5.33

External Links

Sample Decks

Desert Pilgrims by kattattack22

The original idea was to have Northern Trackers and Thror’s Key to negate the Forced effects on locations in Desert Crossing. They still can, but it’s not going to single-handedly win the scenario for you.

Main Deck

Hero (3)
(MotK) Firyal (Messenger of the King Allies)
Arwen Undómiel (The Dread Realm)
Gandalf (The Road Darkens)

Contract (0)
1x Messenger of the King (The Land of Sorrow)

Ally (10)
1x Bilbo Baggins (The Road Darkens)
1x Firyal (The Mûmakil)
1x Glorfindel (Flight of the Stormcaller)
1x Ioreth (A Storm on Cobas Haven)
3x Northern Tracker (Core Set)
3x Warden of Healing (The Long Dark)

Attachment (15)
3x Expert Treasure-hunter (On the Doorstep)
2x Gandalf’s Staff (The Road Darkens)
2x Lembas (Trouble in Tharbad)
1x Shadowfax (The Treason of Saruman)
3x Silver Circlet (Wrath and Ruin)
2x Thrór’s Key (On the Doorstep)
2x Wizard Pipe (The Road Darkens)

Event (26)
3x A Test of Will (Core Set)
3x Daeron’s Runes (Foundations of Stone)
3x Deep Knowledge (The Voice of Isengard)
3x Drinking Song (Mount Gundabad)
2x Dwarven Tomb (Core Set)
3x Elrond’s Counsel (The Watcher in the Water)
3x Elven-light (The Dread Realm)
2x Flame of Anor (The Road Darkens)
3x Hidden Cache (The Morgul Vale)
1x Will of the West (Core Set)

3 Heroes, 51 Cards
Cards up to The Land of Sorrow

Sideboard

Ally (12)
3x Ered Luin Miner (Temple of the Deceived)
1x Glorfindel (Flight of the Stormcaller)
2x Ioreth (A Storm on Cobas Haven)
3x Mirkwood Explorer (The Thing in the Depths)
3x Rhovanion Outrider (Temple of the Deceived)

Attachment (11)
2x Ancestral Armor (Roam Across Rhovanion)
1x Asfaloth (Foundations of Stone)
2x Protector of Lórien (Core Set)
3x Self Preservation (Core Set)
3x Unexpected Courage (Core Set)

Event (4)
1x Dwarven Tomb (Core Set)
3x Reforged (The Fate of Wilderland)

Player Side Quest (2)
2x Rally the West (The Black Serpent)

Decklist built and published on RingsDB.

Tame & Flame: a Radagast + Gandalf Deck by Imrahil13

The original idea was to have Northern Trackers and Thror’s Key to negate the Forced effects on locations in Desert Crossing. They still can, but it’s not going to single-handedly win the scenario for you.

Main Deck

Hero (3)
(MotK) Halfast Gamgee (Messenger of the King Allies)
Gandalf (The Road Darkens)
Radagast (The Fate of Wilderland)

Contract (0)
1x Messenger of the King (The Land of Sorrow)

Ally (23)
3x Beorn (Core Set)
3x Beorning Skin-changer (The Withered Heath)
3x Eagles of the Misty Mountains (Return to Mirkwood)
3x Giant Bear (Fire in the Night)
1x Gwaihir (Trouble in Tharbad)
1x Halfast Gamgee (The Crossings of Poros)
1x Ioreth (A Storm on Cobas Haven)
1x Landroval (A Journey to Rhosgobel)
2x Loyal Hound (The Fate of Wilderland)
2x Meneldor (Roam Across Rhovanion)
3x Messenger Raven (The Fate of Wilderland)

Attachment (15)
1x A Burning Brand (Conflict at the Carrock)
2x Expert Treasure-hunter (On the Doorstep)
1x Favor of the Valar (The Battle of Carn Dûm)
1x Gandalf’s Staff (The Road Darkens)
1x Gondorian Shield (The Steward’s Fear)
1x Narya (The Grey Havens)
2x Radagast’s Staff (The Fate of Wilderland)
1x Song of Battle (The Dead Marshes)
3x Steward of Gondor (Core Set)
2x Wizard Pipe (The Road Darkens)

Event (13)
3x Daeron’s Runes (Foundations of Stone)
3x Drinking Song (Mount Gundabad)
3x Flame of Anor (The Road Darkens)
3x Sneak Attack (Core Set)
1x Word of Command (The Long Dark)

3 Heroes, 51 Cards
Cards up to The Land of Sorrow

Decklist built and published on RingsDB.

Fellowship of the Ring

Matt Kell (kattattack22)Leave a comment
  • Player Card Categories 
    • Willpower Bonus

A very thematic Saga only card that has a pretty big drawback and some opportunity cost.

Background

Title of the first book in trilogy. Also name given to the company charged with destroying The One Ring.

Card Theme

The mechanism here is very thematic as the company is very strong when they are together. The willpower bonus highlights their determination as they traveled from Rivendell through Moira and Lothlorien to Argonath. The Fellowship was broken when Boromir tried to take the Ring forcing Frodo to leave the Fellowship, and shortly after Boromir is killed protecting Merry and Pippin from the Uruk-hai. This card reflects that by forcing it be discarded if a character is destroyed.

Card Synergies and Interactions

Willpower Based Abilities

There are certain cards that provide a bonus based on a character’s willpower stat. Prime among them is Rosie Cotton. Her ability provides great flexibility and can help in both questing and combat with a Fast Hitch to ready her. Note this assumes you play her with Messenger of the King or Sword-thain to benefit from Fellowship of the Ring’s bonus. Spirit Aragorn while his ability seems lackluster gets much better the more willpower he has. Especially if he has any sort of action advantage to quest and lower a location’s threat like the from the readying staple Unexpected Courage. He even has a couple thematic options. Strider in a Grey Wanderer deck or 2 hero deck lets him quest without exhausting. Thorongil can also give him the ability to ready by spending a resource from his Leadership version.

Rohan heroes also have a couple attachments that can take advantage of the willpower boost besides more than just questing. Herugrim applies that willpower to attack and Golden Shield applies it to defense. There is also one very notable attachment that can basically double the willpower bonus for a character, Nenya. Fellowship of the Ring will boost Galadriel hero’s willpower. Then exhausting Nenya to add her boosted willpower to another character that also has boosted willpower results in getting the bonus twice. It can be even tripled if Galadriel’s willpower is added to Rosie who then adds her boosted willpower to a Hobbit hero.

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 rate this card at 8 rings. It is limited to only the LOTR Saga scenarios by virtue of being a Fellowship sphere. It can’t even be used in all of them since Fellowship Aragorn doesn’t have the Ring-bearer trait. The very limited number of scenarios it can be used in makes it just not up for consideration in most decks despite its effect is fairly powerful. A global willpower boost is great. This in most decks will add 3 or 4 willpower which is really good for the 2 cost. Normally 2 willpower for 2 cost is nice and efficient as seen in many Spirit allies and Celebrian’s Stone. This is balanced with a significant drawback, it is discarded if a character is destroyed. There are already a number of encounter effects that can force an attachment to be discarded and this drawback only makes it harder to keep in play.

Then there is the consideration of what else Fellowship resources can be used for. The first Fellowship versions of Frodo have very powerful abilities. Canceling an encounter card or an attack are well worth 1 resource. Then to play Fellowship means foregoing these game saving effects for 2 rounds. Depending on how the scenario is going, this could be a large opportunity cost.

  • Dave – 6.5
  • Grant – TBR
  • Ted – TBR
  • Matt – 8
  • Average 7.25

External Links

Sample Decks

Hobbits BoF July 2020 Solo League by kattattack22

I made this deck for a solo league challenge to beat Flight to the Ford, Breaking of the Fellowship, and Mount Doom. It’s a fun voltron style deck that builds up the hobbit heroes than use an ally swarm. The various songs help smooth resources plus add willpower for Fireside Song to build up Pippin and/or Folco into super quester(s). Sam is meant to be a mega defender and Merry with his bonus is the primary attacker.

Main Deck

Hero (5)
Folco Boffin (The Dungeons of Cirith Gurat)
Frodo Baggins (The Mountain of Fire)
Merry (The Black Riders)
Pippin (Encounter at Amon Dîn)
Sam Gamgee (The Black Riders)

Attachment (37)
2x Celebrían’s Stone (Core Set)
2x Dagger of Westernesse (The Black Riders)
2x Expert Treasure-hunter (On the Doorstep)
2x Fast Hitch (The Dead Marshes)
2x Fellowship of the Ring (The Road Darkens)
2x Fireside Song (Beneath the Sands)
1x Gondorian Shield (The Steward’s Fear)
2x Hobbit Cloak (The Black Riders)
2x Ring Mail (The Long Dark)
2x Self Preservation (Core Set)
2x Silver Circlet (Wrath and Ruin)
1x Song of Battle (The Dead Marshes)
2x Song of Hope (The Black Serpent)
1x Song of Kings (The Hunt for Gollum)
1x Song of Mocking (The Dead Marshes)
1x Song of Travel (The Hills of Emyn Muil)
1x Song of Wisdom (Conflict at the Carrock)
2x Staff of Lebethron (The Land of Shadow)
2x Steward of Gondor (Core Set)
2x Strider (The Drowned Ruins)
2x Unexpected Courage (Core Set)
1x Windfola (A Storm on Cobas Haven)

Event (13)
1x A Test of Will (Core Set)
2x Deep Knowledge (The Voice of Isengard)
2x Drinking Song (Mount Gundabad)
2x Feint (Core Set)
2x Frodo’s Intuition (The Black Riders)
2x Power of Orthanc (The Voice of Isengard)
2x The Wizards’s Voice (The Voice of Isengard)

5 Heroes, 50 Cards
Cards up to Wrath and Ruin

Deck built on RingsDB.

The Road Darkens – Minimum Purchase 1 by Darkling Door

Deck made for The Ring Goes South using only The Road Darkens and the Core Set. See Darkling Door’s blog post for more details.

Main Deck

Hero (3)
Aragorn (Core Set)
Éowyn (Core Set)
Gandalf (The Road Darkens)

Ally (22)
2x Bilbo Baggins (The Road Darkens)
2x Faramir (Core Set)
3x Galadriel (The Road Darkens)
3x Guard of the Citadel (Core Set)
1x Henamarth Riversong (Core Set)
2x Lórien Guide (Core Set)
2x Silverlode Archer (Core Set)
3x Snowbourn Scout (Core Set)
2x Son of Arnor (Core Set)
2x Wandering Took (Core Set)

Attachment (13)
1x Celebrían’s Stone (Core Set)
3x Fellowship of the Ring (The Road Darkens)
3x Gandalf’s Staff (The Road Darkens)
2x Steward of Gondor (Core Set)
1x Unexpected Courage (Core Set)
3x Wizard Pipe (The Road Darkens)

Event (15)
2x Common Cause (Core Set)
2x Ever Vigilant (Core Set)
3x Flame of Anor (The Road Darkens)
2x Hasty Stroke (Core Set)
2x Sneak Attack (Core Set)
2x The Galadhrim’s Greeting (Core Set)
2x Valiant Sacrifice (Core Set)

3 Heroes, 50 Cards
Cards up to The Road Darkens

Sideboard

Hero (1)
Frodo Baggins (The Road Darkens)

Decklist built and published on RingsDB.

Ring around the Rosie (saga) by Chad Garlinghouse aka TheChad

short deck description

Main Deck

Hero (3)
Merry (The Wastes of Eriador)
Pippin (The Black Riders)
Sam Gamgee (The Black Riders)

Ally (18)
1x Bill the Pony (The Black Riders)
2x Celduin Traveler (The Nîn-in-Eilph)
3x Gandalf (Core Set)
2x Ithilien Lookout (The Dunland Trap)
3x Master of the Forge (Shadow and Flame)
1x Quickbeam (The Treason of Saruman)
3x Rosie Cotton (The Mountain of Fire)
1x Treebeard (The Antlered Crown)
2x Warden of Healing (The Long Dark)

Attachment (18)
1x Celebrían’s Stone (Core Set)
3x Fast Hitch (The Dead Marshes)
2x Fellowship of the Ring (The Road Darkens)
2x Fireside Song (Beneath the Sands)
3x Friend of Friends (The Mountain of Fire)
2x Resourceful (The Watcher in the Water)
1x Song of Hope (The Black Serpent)
1x Staff of Lebethron (The Land of Shadow)
3x Sword-thain (The Dread Realm)

Event (15)
3x A Test of Will (Core Set)
3x Elevenses (The Thing in the Depths)
3x Frodo’s Intuition (The Black Riders)
3x Sneak Attack (Core Set)
3x Timely Aid (The Redhorn Gate)

3 Heroes, 51 Cards
Cards up to The Mountain of Fire

Sideboard

Attachment (5)
3x Hobbit Cloak (The Black Riders)
2x Hobbit Pony (The Wastes of Eriador)

Decklist built and published on RingsDB.

Forth, The Three Hunters! – Community Review

Card Talk: An LOTR LCG PodcastLeave a comment

by Jonathan Gillies

  • Player Card Categories 
    • Healing
    • Willpower Bonus

Background

The contract references Aragorn, Gimli, and Legolas pursuing the Urak-Hai after the breaking of the fellowship in The Two Towers.

Card Theme

This card harkens back to the core of The Lord of the Rings where a few brave souls can change the fate of the world. Rather than relying on hordes of allies swarming. Your three heroes must be brave and bold enough to risk this journey alone. But are given significant aid from the Valar and their gifts (cost-reduction), blessings (willpower boosting) and their healing (yeah still healing). I can really see how the developers wanted to create that feeling of a small band of heroes working alone to overcome the armies and traps of the enemy as they sprint across locations.

Card Synergies and Interactions

This contract combos with strong heroes that can get the most out of its boosting by being capable fighters and questers. As such it requires and works best with as much readying as you can throw at it: Leadership Aragorn, Spirit Legolas, Leadership Frodo, and Sam Gamgee are all excellent candidates for this contract. Arguably and ironically (since he is dead by the time of this contract’s namesake) Tactics Boromir is the best hero to make this really work with his ability to ready often throughout all phases of the game and help you with hide, escape, sailing, fortitude, racing and other tests. He’s always ready for you.

Anything else that helps with giving your few characters more actions such as Light of Valinor, Unexpected Courage x3, Shadowfax, Magic Ring, Steed of the North, Steed of the Mark, Rohan Warhorse (lots of mounts here), readying events and all of those delicious food-readying items are key to include.

Heroes that draw cards will help you get this contract flipped sooner and Erestor can do often do it round 1.

This deck excels in most quests because it completely ignores any effects that harm allies. And while you get to entirely avoid any treacheries, enemies or other hindering affects that target allies, this also can make quests where you have an objective ally you have to protect become extremely hard and create more auto loss events. Likewise when you are always defending with heroes shadow effects that discard the defending character are often game over in that moment.

Also Pelennor Fields, while beatable, absolutely requires having Will of the West in your starting hand as you have no allies to be put into play. Meaning your entire deck is discarded on the second phase and you skip right to the third much harder one. Also Wind-Whipped Rain and other discard all attachments you control are game-Enders. But still overall the benefits far outweigh the negatives of this contracts deck-building requirements. Also Ranger Summons or other players sending you their allies (looking at you Rider of the Mark and Blue Mountain Trader) is a great way to sneak in some allies into your deck. As there is no restriction on side B of the contract or gaining allies through other means.

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.

Alright hear me out here. I have been playing a Forth, The Three Hunters Gandalf, Spirit Legolas and Tactics Boromir deck for a solid year and a half now as I have been taking on every single quest in the game with the same deck, no changes or substitutions. And I can honestly say that this card is a 1, it’s the one contract to rule them all.

Firstly it completely opens up a new style of play that wasn’t really practical before. This is something the contracts were meant to do generally, but this one takes the cake for sheer power and changing up the game to the point that it almost feels like a different game entirely. Traditionally in our lovely game you are trying to build up an ally swarm as quickly as you can and then once you have raised the shire (or perhaps all of middle earth) you can casually walk through the game with your horde of allies both unique and not. This contract limits you to your three heroes only, and suddenly this game shifts from a classic strategy game horde builder to a classic dungeon crawler. This also feels so much more thematic as often it’s the work of a few heroes against the forces of the enemy that wins the day. You have to choose strong heroes because that’s all you have to take on the horrors of the enemy. Then with your heroes you slowly progress through the quest looking for more loot (oops I mean items, loot is another deck right?) to make your heroes stronger. Once you have two restricted attachments per hero suddenly your heroes becomes super powered, charged with willpower bonuses and by the end your fully levelled up mecha-warrior heroes battle their way to the finish.

Now next let’s talk about power, Bond of Fellowship is great to start with an extra hero, and Perilous Voyage helps with card draw and some crazy fun on the B side, but this contract is hands down the strongest of the lot. You are given an cost reduction of 1 for each of your heroes first restricted attachment EACH ROUND! That is essentially three free resources a round (or 4 with saga heroes) if your deck is full of restricted items (which it should be!). Helping to increase your board state is incredibly helpful and just ask Beregond how much he likes his cost reduction. So three extra resources a round of purchasing power is a great way to accelerate the often most difficult part of quests which is getting your engine going. And if you aren’t hurting for questing too badly you can even delay flipping your contract a few rounds to further utilize this early game acceleration.

But what happens when you flip that contract? All of a sudden you get a willpower boost for EACH restricted attachment on your heroes. And 2-4 extra willpower per hero makes questing a breeze for the second half of the game. Also you get the added benefit of a built in healing of 1 on each of your heroes a round. This greatly boosts your characters survivability as you have no chump blocking allies around.

But wait there’s more! While attachment-hating quests can completely ruin your burglar’s turn decks, and Escape From Dol Guldur ends your grey wandering before it begins, this contracts negative is actually a benefit. Think about the standard flow of the game traditionally. You are trying to increase your board state to build up your engine and then power through the quest as you deal with enemies that pop up and clear locations. The encounter deck always wants to attack you by filling the staging area with locations, swarming you with enemies (or strong attacks/damage), stealing your cards/resources, blocking your questing and finally attacking your board state. So many treachery cards and enemies specifically target allies. As they assume every player has some. When you don’t have allies at all, then a good chunk of the encounter deck more often then not will simply miss in their attempts to hurt you. This gives you more time to further build up your board state and be able to crush whatever remains.

One must also talk about the weaknesses of this contract to balance out the sheer power of it. And while you get to entirely avoid any treacheries, enemies or other hindering affects that target allies, this also can make quests where you have an objective ally you have to protect become extremely hard and create more auto loss events. Likewise when you are always defending with heroes shadow effects that discard the defending character are often game over in that moment.

Also Pelennor Fields, while beatable, absolutely requires having Will of the West in your starting hand as you have no allies to be put into play. Meaning your entire deck is discarded on the second phase and you skip right to the third much harder one. Also Wind-Whipped Rain and other discard all attachments you control are game-Enders. But still overall the benefits far outweigh the negatives of this contracts deck-building requirements. Also Ranger Summons or other players sending you their allies (looking at you Rider of the Mark and Blue Mountain Trader) is a great way to sneak in some allies into your deck. As there is no restriction on side B of the contract or gaining allies through other means.

When playing with this contract you do need to make sure you have a ton of readying so Unexpected Courage x3, Shadowfax, Magic Ring, Heroes that ready other heroes, and all of those delicious food-readying items are key to include. And Tactics Boromir is permanently glued to this contract for me for all of the cards that need you to exhaust a character outside do the traditional questing and fighting phases including but not limited to hide, sailing, and escape tests.

All in all this contract is the best example of how one single card can completely change how a game is played, how it feels and how it turns a novelty idea in the before-contract times into one of the most powerful archetypes in the game. That is why this card is a 1 to me and it’s extremely hard for me to not just always want to build another Forth, Three Hunters deck.

*for reference,
https://www.ringsdb.com/decklist/view/18333/thethirdagegba3hunterstheonedeck-2.0

TLDR: This contract completely changes the entire gameplay feel, takes the teeth out of the encounter deck since there are no allies to harm, and gives you crazy early game resource acceleration and second half power questing.

  • Jonathan – 1
  • Dave – TBR
  • Grant – TBR
  • Ted – TBR
  • Matt – TBR
  • Average – 1

The Third Age GBA (3 Hunters THE ONE DECK!) by Christian_Medic

this is the deck I have beaten every single non-nightmare quest in the game with, and a share of nightmares that I have as well:

Main Deck

Hero (3)
Boromir (The Dead Marshes)
Gandalf (The Road Darkens)
Legolas (The Sands of Harad)

Contract (0)
1x Forth, The Three Hunters! (The City of Ulfast)

Attachment (38)
1x A Burning Brand (Conflict at the Carrock)
1x Arod (The Treason of Saruman)
2x Blade of Gondolin (Core Set)
1x Blood of Númenor (Heirs of Númenor)
1x Captain of Gondor (The Antlered Crown)
3x Dagger of Westernesse (The Black Riders)
2x Dwarven Axe (Core Set)
1x Favor of the Valar (The Battle of Carn Dûm)
1x Gandalf’s Staff (The Road Darkens)
3x Golden Belt (Challenge of the Wainriders)
1x Gondorian Fire (Assault on Osgiliath)
3x Gondorian Shield (The Steward’s Fear)
1x Light of Valinor (Foundations of Stone)
1x Livery of the Tower (The Flame of the West)
1x Magic Ring (The Crossings of Poros)
1x Miruvor (Shadow and Flame)
1x Raiment of War (The Thing in the Depths)
1x Rohan Warhorse (The Voice of Isengard)
1x Shadowfax (The Treason of Saruman)
1x Silver Circlet (Wrath and Ruin)
1x Steed of the Mark (The Morgul Vale)
1x Steward of Gondor (Core Set)
1x Strider (The Drowned Ruins)
1x Unexpected Courage (Core Set)
2x Unexpected Courage (Two-Player Limited Edition Starter)
1x Vigilant Guard (A Storm on Cobas Haven)
2x War Axe (The City of Ulfast)
1x Wizard Pipe (The Road Darkens)

Event (10)
1x Dwarven Tomb (Core Set)
1x Elven-light (The Dread Realm)
1x Foe-hammer (Over Hill and Under Hill)
3x Open the Armory (The Dungeons of Cirith Gurat)
1x Power of Orthanc (The Voice of Isengard)
2x The Galadhrim’s Greeting (Core Set)
1x Will of the West (Core Set)

Player Side Quest (2)
1x Double Back (Escape from Mount Gram)
1x Gather Information (The Lost Realm)

3 Heroes, 50 Cards
Cards up to Challenge of the Wainriders

Decklist built and published on RingsDB.

Fellowship Frodo Baggins (TBR) – Community Review

Card Talk: An LOTR LCG PodcastLeave a comment

by Owen Watson

  • Player Card Categories 
    • Encounter Control

Background

Black Rider’s Frodo is really thematic in my eyes. Exhausting the One Ring symbolizes putting it on and vanishing from usually an enemy and then running away and finding himself someplace different, like a location.

Card Theme

Throughout the books and movies Frodo (against Gandalf’s strict warnings) has used the ring to escape deadly situations and flee the servants of Mordor. For me, this card represents his heroic escapes and him fleeing from one situation and falling into another.

Card Synergies and Interactions

This card combo’s really well with other Hobbit heroes for a few reasons. Reason number one is that Frodo has 0 threat, meaning with a few Hobbits (who, besides a few exceptions, are the lowest threat heroes in the game) you can have easy access to Resourceful (which can be brought in for cheap due to the Secrecy Keyword and help provide Frodo with resources for him to use for his ability, as well as to pay for Neutral and Fellowship sphere cards. Another reason for Hobbits is that Frodo’s Intuition is in-sphere for Frodo. For a cheap total of 2 resources, you can give each hero +1 Willpower AND draw 1 card for each hobbit hero you control, thus drawing you as much cards as you have Hobbit heroes. Throughout the whole Saga campaign, the only quests that seem to not work so great with Frodo are the ones that have cards in them that have negative effects if the One Ring is exhausted (ex. Morgul Wraith). For the most part, considering Frodo can only be used in LotR Saga quests, his ability is great and has little to no negative effects.

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 strongly believe that this deserves a 3 rating and is the best Fellowship/Saga hero in the game. Let me explain why it is (Black Riders) Frodo Baggins.

First, stats: 2 willpower is pretty good for a Hobbit hero, so no complaints there. This version of Frodo will be questing almost every time so his 1 attack and 2 defense don’t really matter unless he has some way of readying. 2 HP is a bit on the lower side, so it’s usually a good idea to have strategies in place to cancel direct damage effects or simply by giving him attachments that boost his HP.
Lets talk about his sphere. He is one of the 7 (8 counting ALeP Scouring of the Shire) Fellowhsip sphere heroes. Unfortunately, belonging to that sphere means he can’t be used outside of LotR Saga quests, but on the plus side you get access to all of the Fellowship cards which for the most part are really helpful with willpower.

Now let’s talk about what makes him so great. His ability. By spending one resource and exhausting the One Ring, you can choose and CANCEL the effects of a card revealed from the encounter deck. You heard that right. CANCEL! If you reveal a tough enemy you can’t deal with until your deck is set up, no problem, simply trigger his response and shuffle the card away. One too many locations? Nasty treachery and no Test of Will? He can solve them all. There is a couple of downsides to his ability however. The first and most obvious one is that you have to shuffle the card back into the Encounter deck and reveal another card. Imagine if the encounter deck is almost empty, the odds of drawing the same card again would be pretty good. Another thing to point out is that you could draw a worse card then the one you just canceled which could screw you over. And finally, throughout the Saga quests there are cards that have effects which are very nasty if the one ring is exhausted, and because you need to exhaust the One Ring to use Frodo’s ability, you are running the risk of having something nasty trigger. This is why, in my opinion, Frodo is one of the best cards in the game.

  • Owen – 3
  • Dave – TBR
  • Grant – TBR
  • Ted – TBR
  • Matt – TBR

Sample Decks

Three is Company

Main Deck

Hero (5)
Fatty Bolger (The Black Riders)
Frodo Baggins (The Black Riders)
Merry (The Black Riders)
Pippin (The Black Riders)
Sam Gamgee (The Black Riders)

Contract (0)
1x Bond of Friendship (The Fortress of Nurn)

Ally (16)
1x Barliman Butterbur (The Black Riders)
1x Bilbo Baggins (The Road Darkens)
2x Bill the Pony (The Black Riders)
2x Bywater Shirriff (The Fate of Wilderland)
1x Farmer Maggot (The Black Riders)
2x Gaffer Gamgee (Mount Gundabad)
2x Gandalf (Core Set)
2x Odo Proudfoot (Under the Ash Mountains)
1x Robin Smallburrow (The Drowned Ruins)
2x Rosie Cotton (The Mountain of Fire)

Attachment (13)
2x Ancient Mathom (A Journey to Rhosgobel)
2x Dagger of Westernesse (The Black Riders)
2x Fast Hitch (The Dead Marshes)
2x Hobbit Cloak (The Black Riders)
2x Red Book of Westmarch (The Land of Sorrow)
1x Spare Pipe (The Land of Sorrow)
2x Unexpected Courage (Core Set)

Event (19)
2x A Good Harvest (The Steward’s Fear)
2x A Test of Will (Core Set)
2x Drinking Song (Mount Gundabad)
1x Feint (Core Set)
2x Frodo’s Intuition (The Black Riders)
2x Halfling Determination (The Black Riders)
2x In the Shadows (The Land of Shadow)
2x Raise the Shire (The Mountain of Fire)
2x Sneak Attack (Core Set)
2x The Shirefolk (Mount Gundabad)

Player Side Quest (2)
1x Gather Information (The Lost Realm)
1x The Storm Comes (The Sands of Harad)

5 Heroes, 50 Cards
Cards up to The Fortress of Nurn

Decklist built and published on RingsDB.

The Hobbit Bond of Friendship For July Solo League

Main Deck

Hero (5)
Frodo Baggins (The Black Riders)
Merry (The Wastes of Eriador)
Pippin (The Black Riders)
Sam Gamgee (The Black Riders)
Tom Cotton (The Mountain of Fire)

Ally (18)
1x Barliman Butterbur (The Black Riders)
1x Bilbo Baggins (The Road Darkens)
1x Bill the Pony (The Black Riders)
2x Bywater Shirriff (The Fate of Wilderland)
2x Cautious Halfling (Wrath and Ruin)
1x Farmer Maggot (The Black Riders)
2x Gaffer Gamgee (Mount Gundabad)
2x Gandalf (Core Set)
1x Halfast Gamgee (The Crossings of Poros)
2x Halfling Bounder (The Sands of Harad)
1x Odo Proudfoot (Under the Ash Mountains)
1x Robin Smallburrow (The Drowned Ruins)
1x Rosie Cotton (The Mountain of Fire)

Attachment (7)
2x Hobbit Cloak (The Black Riders)
1x Hobbit Pipe (The Black Riders)
2x Hobbit Pony (The Wastes of Eriador)
1x Ring Mail (The Long Dark)
1x Sword that was Broken (The Watcher in the Water)

Event (22)
2x A Good Harvest (The Steward’s Fear)
2x A Test of Will (Core Set)
2x Drinking Song (Mount Gundabad)
2x Feint (Core Set)
2x Frodo’s Intuition (The Black Riders)
2x Halfling Determination (The Black Riders)
2x Raise the Shire (The Mountain of Fire)
2x Sneak Attack (Core Set)
2x The Galadhrim’s Greeting (Core Set)
2x The Shirefolk (Mount Gundabad)
2x Tighten Our Belts (The Nîn-in-Eilph)

Player Side Quest (3)
1x Gather Information (The Lost Realm)
1x Rally the West (The Black Serpent)
1x The Storm Comes (The Sands of Harad)

5 Heroes, 50 Cards
Cards up to Under the Ash Mountains

Decklist built and published on RingsDB.

Firyal – Community Review

Card Talk: An LOTR LCG PodcastLeave a comment

by Daniel King

  • Player Card Categories 
    • Encounter Control
    • Encounter Scrying
    • Messenger of the King

Background

Firyal was created as means of fleshing out the Harad characters. In the book/movie they are the bad guys, but there is a line from Sam where he wonders if the Harad man that he just saw slain was really a bad guy or if he would have rather stayed home. We get a string of Harad heroes for the game and I love that.

Card Theme

Firyal is meant to be an efficient scout and quester, which her ability emphasizes.

Card Synergies and Interactions

Player Encounter Cards

She can potentially combo with player cards that generate encounter cards like Tom Bombadillo! and Flight of the Eagles.

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.

Firyal is the best lore hero in the game. As a primarily solo player I find her ability to filter the top of the deck to be incredibly useful. In solo play you have to do everything on your own. You have to be able to quest, defend and attack on any given turn. Firyal allows you to get rid of something that you can’t handle that turn. If you have an enemy still engaged with you from the previous round, you might use Firyal’s ability to get rid of an enemy from the top of the deck in hopes of seeing a location. She can also help you get rid of those impossibly difficult treacheries if you don’t have a test of will in hand or want to save it. Finally, because she is a unique ally, she is a great target for the contract, Messenger of the King. Having her amazing ability and 3 will power from turn one is a great deal for 9 threat.

  • Daniel- 2
  • Dave – 3
  • Grant – 3
  • Ted – 2
  • Mark Chan – 3
  • Matt – 2
  • Average – 2.5

Sample Decks

Firyal is pretty good by Daniel King

Well rounded deck featuring Firyal as a hero with a fair amount of location control.

Main Deck

Hero (3)
(MotK) Firyal (Messenger of the King Allies)
Beregond (The Flame of the West)
Glorfindel (Foundations of Stone)

Contract (0)
1x Messenger of the King (The Land of Sorrow)

Ally (21)
2x Arwen Undómiel (The Watcher in the Water)
1x Elfhelm (The Dead Marshes)
3x Erebor Toymaker (Mount Gundabad)
1x Firyal (The Mûmakil)
2x Gléowine (Core Set)
2x Henamarth Riversong (Core Set)
2x Northern Tracker (Core Set)
2x Quickbeam (The Treason of Saruman)
2x Théodwyn (ALeP – Children of Eorl)
2x Treebeard (The Antlered Crown)
2x Warden of Healing (The Long Dark)

Attachment (21)
2x A Burning Brand (Conflict at the Carrock)
3x Ancient Mathom (A Journey to Rhosgobel)
2x Asfaloth (Foundations of Stone)
2x Blood of Númenor (Heirs of Númenor)
3x Light of Valinor (Foundations of Stone)
3x Protector of Lórien (Core Set)
2x Song of Wisdom (Conflict at the Carrock)
3x Unexpected Courage (Core Set)
1x Warden of Arnor (The Three Trials)

Event (8)
3x A Test of Will (Core Set)
3x Elven-light (The Dread Realm)
2x Hasty Stroke (Core Set)

3 Heroes, 50 Cards
Cards up to ALeP – Children of Eorl

Deck built on RingsDB.

Feint

Matt Kell (kattattack22)Leave a comment
  • Player Card Categories
    • Attack Cancelation

Best when played tactically.

Background

A feint is an attack meant to mislead an opponent and open them to another attack. the card image shows a sword fight which can employ feints. In the books, it is used to describe battlefield tactics. The flavor text refers to the one instance it appears in The Hobbit. The men of Dale put up a token resistance to the Goblin vanguard. This is a feint intended to get the Goblins to following the fleeing men into the battleground of their choosing, the valley between the arms of the mountain. The other instance of it is in Lord of the Rings as Aragorn leads the armies of men to The Black Gate. Near the Crossroads, they are ambushed by Orcs and Easterlings, but it was an easy victory for them. Aragorn believes that it is a feint to give them a false sense of the Saruon’s military strength.

Card Theme

A deceptive move or battlefield tactic is hard to simulate in a card game where the opponent isn’t another human player. The result of it, however, the advantage gained can be. Here the designers gave the player that plays this card the biggest advantage in canceling an attack and get the first swing at the enemy.

Card Synergies and Interactions

Event Recursion

Hama hero and Book of Eldacar let you replay this card up to 6 times. If you have 3 copies in your deck, that’s 9 attacks canceled in a game. Twelve if you manage to draw each copy again. It’s very possible to “Feint Lock” a big enemy so they don’t even have a chance to attack. It was easier before the errata that limited Hama’s ability to 3 times per game.

Discard Recursion

The other way to get more plays of Feint is to shuffle it from the discard pile back into your deck. Nori ally is the only in sphere option for this effect. He does enable a strategy where a player thins there deck to a few cards. Then endlessly recycles those few cards. It is not easy to achieve and takes quite a bit of set up and enemies for him to destroy each round. Outside of Tactics, Will of the West, Galadhrim Weaver, and The White Council can also shuffle it back into the deck.

Quest Specific

The core set scenarios provided a few great targets for Feint. It works well for the Hill Troll in Journey Along the Anduin to get a free hit on it and avoid having to raise threat by chump blocking. It also prevents the Marsh Adder, Chieftan Ufthak, and Nazgul of Dol Guldur from triggering their additional effects when they attack along with avoiding dealing with their relatively high attack.

Against the Shadow cycle featured many shadow effects that had players add additional shadow cards to an enemy. This is where having Feint to prevent seeing a shadow at all and avoid the Shadow chain can be huge. The first three quests of the cycle also had some enemies with very strong attack including the Orc Vanguard with 8 attack that even could give Tactics Beregond with a Gondorian Shield pause. Haradrim cycle features many enemies with additional attacks. The were-worms in Desert Crossing will all attack when engaged as well as the combat phase. Hight attack enemies were not limited to the earlier cycles as they periodically appeared in each cycle.

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 rate Feint at 2 rings. Once you can play it, it’s almost always helpful. Even if you have a strong defender, it works as shadow cancelation as well since you never reveal the shadow card. You also get the action advantage of not having to defend freeing up a character to quest, attack, or use an ability.

The challenge with this card is when to play it. You can easily hold onto it the whole game saving it just for when you need it. It feels like a waste to stop an attack from a single enemy with 4 or less attack, but sometimes you have to. Besides that a player could want to save it for when they have to engage 2 or more enemies in a single round. Another concern can be seeing a surprise big enemy like the second Hill Troll in Journey Along the Anduin.

The main reason I don’t give it a one is the prevalence of enemies with immune to player card effects. Understandably, the boss enemies often have this to avoid being “feint locked”. Still it makes it much less useful because those enemies who you’d most need it for, it won’t work. In those cases the deck space is better spent on action attachments with a strong defender like Beregond, Erkenbrand, Grimbeorn, or Dain

It’s still very helpful to deal with an unexpected enemy or ones with additional attacks. Although a strong defender with Armored Destrier and/or Unexpected Courage is generally better. Overall, it’s a great emergency button card.

  • Dave – 1
  • Grant – 1
  • Ted – TBR
  • Matt – 2
  • Average 1.3

Sample Decks

Deck Tech: Beorn SMASH! by chrsjxn

Title really says what the deck does. It does also feature many ways to recur Feint and make good use of it.

Main Deck

Hero (3)
Beorn (Over Hill and Under Hill)
Háma (The Long Dark)
Mablung (The Nîn-in-Eilph)

Ally (30)
2x Bofur (Over Hill and Under Hill)
3x Dúnedain Hunter (The Lost Realm)
3x Eagles of the Misty Mountains (Return to Mirkwood)
3x Envoy of Pelargir (Heirs of Númenor)
3x Gandalf (Core Set)
3x Gondorian Spearman (Core Set)
1x Gwaihir (Trouble in Tharbad)
3x Knight of Minas Tirith (Assault on Osgiliath)
3x Landroval (A Journey to Rhosgobel)
3x Vassal of the Windlord (The Dead Marshes)
3x Winged Guardian (The Hunt for Gollum)

Attachment (11)
2x Blade of Gondolin (Core Set)
3x Book of Eldacar (Encounter at Amon Dîn)
3x Gondorian Shield (The Steward’s Fear)
3x Secret Vigil (The Lost Realm)

Event (9)
3x Feint (Core Set)
3x The Eagles Are Coming! (The Hunt for Gollum)
3x Trained for War (The Drúadan Forest)

3 Heroes, 50 Cards
Cards up to The Lost Realm

Decklist built and published on RingsDB.

Folco Boffin

Matt Kell (kattattack22)1 Comment

Mirlonde for Hobbits not that they needed one.

Background

Folco Boffin is a friend to Frodo. He that helps Frodo load up his belongings in a cart for the move from Bag End to Crikhollow. After they finished and had lunch, Folco returned home.

Card Theme

What little screen time Folco has in the books fits pretty well his abilities. Frodo’s move is cover for him to head East and travel to Rivendell. Folco, unwittingly, assists in that deception as seemingly just another Hobbit helping his friend move. Nothing out of the ordinary at all. He even returns home after helping and having lunch with his friends. Nothing there to draw the attention of Sauron. This is consistent with the idea of threat being the awareness of Sauron and his minions to the activities of our heroes. The more heroic and active in opposing to this plans, the more threatening they are to Sauron.

Card Synergies and Interactions

Secrecy

Folco’s low base starting threat makes it fairly easy to put him in a 3 hero line up to start with 20 or less threat. Just looking at heroes with effective starting threat cost of 7 or less there are 10 unique possibilities. 13 options including other sphere versions of the same character. This isn’t counting the low threat options available thanks to Messenger of the King contract.

  • Bifur
  • Eleanor
  • Tactics Eowyn
  • Fatty Bolger
  • Leadership Frodo Baggins
  • Spirit Frodo Baggins
  • Spirit Glorfindel
  • Spirit Merry
  • Tactics Merry
  • Mirlonde
  • Spirit Pippin
  • Lore Pippin
  • Smeagol

Roughly half of these listed above are Hobbits that makes Folco even cheaper. This extends the time you have in Secrecy or more flexibility to include a higher threat cost hero.

You can then utilize 2 great resource acceleration cards Resourceful and Timely Aid. Although you will need Leadership for Timely Aid it can very much worth it wirh expensive but powerful allies like Treebeard and Beorn. Both who are great ally defenders for the generally low defense and low hit point Hobbits.

Even if you are sticking to mono-Lore Secrecy is on a few great Lore cards providing even more resource acceleration from the discounted cost. Ithilien Lookout is a very solid combat ally with its 2 attack and tremendous value at 1 cost. The ability to discard an enemy from the encounter deck is very helpful for the squishy low hit point Hobbit heroes. Then there are 2 of the best encounter control cards, Out of the Wild and Risk Some Light. Needful to Know is another Secrecy Lore card, but even free the chances of reducing your threat after raising it one are not great. Woodmen’s Clearing is a much better option that always costs 0.

Hobbit Engage an Enemy with higher Engagement Cost than your Threat Bonus

Folco’s low starting threat, particularly with other Hobbit heroes, facilitates the Hobbit abilities centered on engaging enemies with higher engagement cost than your threat. Most important among these and in sphere for Folco, Gaffer Gamgee. Attack cancelation is huge for the generally low defense and low hit point Hobbits. The only other in sphere effect is Lore Pippins card draw which drawing more cards is almost always good.

Out of sphere, many of these abilities are simple stat boosts like that of Leadership Sam, Tactics Pippin, Hobbit Cloak, Dagger of Westernesse, Taste it Again!, Hobbit Archer, and Bywater Shirrif. You also get readying effects from Sam, Pippin, and Taste it Again! There’s a little ally mustering from Odo Proudfoot and Raise the Shire. After that it’s a few miscellaneous effects like Farmer Maggot’s direct damage, Tom Cotton’s resource smoothing, and shadow cancelation from Staff of Lebethron.

Houses of Healing

If you want to take advantage of Folco’s sacrifice ability, Houses of Healing is a good in sphere option to bring him back immediately after. The 5 cost is high but easily reduced with the number of Healer characters available in Lore. Elrond, Ioreth, Warden of Healing

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 rate Folco at 4 rings. He’s a solid hero for enabling Secrecy or the Hobbit engagement mechanism. It’s not difficult to get his threat cost down to 4 or 5. Not quite the stats for cost value of Spirit Glorfindl but still a free stat or 2. His stats are very efficient as well with 2 willpower, 2 attack and 2 hit points. Equally good at questing or attacking. A decent target for Fast Hitch to leverage both of those stats. He also offers some emergency threat reduction by sacrifing him. Easy to bring him back with Houses of Healing in the same sphere.

His low threat cost consistently makes him a third hero choice when building Secrecy Hobbits. It’s also for that reason he’s rather limited to those type of decks. Alone he is just a Lore Hobbit hero at 6 cost putting him in direct competition with Lore Pippin. Lore Pippin in most cases is going to be better for the card draw. There are some 2 hero decks that run him for the single Lore resource then sacrifice him first turn, but they’re fairly niche.

I also find his efficiency rather boring. After setup, he’s just going to help with questing or attacking. He doesn’t have an interesting ability that you can trigger throughout the game or build around like many of the other Hobbit heroes. He just serves a particular role in deck building and does it well.

  • Dave – 4
  • Grant – TBR
  • Ted – 6
  • Matt – 4

Sample Decks

Deck name and creator

short deck description

Fast Hitch

QuetzalLeave a comment

A card so nice, they reviewed it twice (at least).

TL;DR It’s a Hobbit staple.

Background

Hobbit stats are rubbish: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever, about that. If you’re of the persuasion the first statement would read better with the word “stats” omitted, then you are probably off to find a better use of your time. Unless you’re getting into extended fan-created content (ALEP: The Last Alliance Contract) from here on, the following discussion is clearly in the context of Hobbitish application.

Card Theme

The source material for Fast Hitch comes from Sam and Frodo’s journey through the Emyn Muil. Our beloved podcast hosts appreciated this context the first time around, but a veil of forgetfulness had passed over all of them by the second time they discussed this card. Please reference The Two Towers: Chapter 1. The Taming of Smeagol to delight yourself with the fullest quotation.

After the elven rope gifted to Sam by Galadriel comes loose:

Sam did not laugh. “I may not be much good at climbing, Mr. Frodo,” he said in injured tones, “but I do know something about rope and about knots. It’s in the family, as you might say. Why, my grand-dad, and my uncle Andy after him, him that was the Gaffer’s eldest brother he had a rope-walk over by Tighfield many a year. And I put as fast a hitch over the stump as any one could have done, in the Shire or out of it.”

Even though an internet search today for fast hitches will result predominately in towing hitches, the demographic most interested in them is unsurprising: Farmers (and tangentially modern farming certainly relies on fast tow hitches to quickly attach and unattach equipment from tractors). The ability to quickly secure loads, equipment, or produce is key to agrarian values and skills that just such a Gamgee Hobbit family would have prided themselves on and found essential to efficiently cultivating lands.

Hopefully, it is obvious why knotting knowledge and the ability to quickly fasten loads would thematically represent action advantage for Hobbits. In the source material, the fact the elven rope loosens itself and returns to its owner is a sore point for Sam, but it also allows them to continue their quest sooner, without having to leave the rope behind.

Of note, in knot tying theory, a hitch is a knot used to fasten a rope to another object. Clearly an accurate use in this circumstance. Another thematic win is achieved by designing this card for the Lore sphere; from the core rules, “the sphere of Lore emphasizes the potential of a hero’s mind. Intellect, wisdom, experience, and specialized knowledge are all under the domain of this sphere.” A small quibble is it would have been nice if there was a Gamgee hero with the printed Lore icon; a MotK Gaffer is the closest we come.

Synergies and Interatcions

In the greater context, Fast Hitch compares most directly with the core staple Unexpected Courage; attachments that provide a repeatable readying effect. Note that Fast Hitch can be used on any character, not just heroes.

It’s easy to ask, “name a Hobbit that’s not a good target for Fast Hitch?” Clearly they all are, but one must consider the opportunity cost that exists. Because of this, there are clearly better targets for the readying. Also, should multiple Fast Hitches be stacked on a single character, or should they be spread around.

There exist two main strategies for building for Fast Hitch: you are planning to sufficiently boost a Hobbit’s stats to make the extra actions pay off or you are planning to use actions that require a character to exhaust. But let it be stated, Rosie Cotton merges these two strategies in powerful ways.

Stat Boosting

  • Characters that have above average or stat boosting abilities: Sam Gamgee (Leadership), Tom Cotton, Tactics Merry
  • Attachments for boosting Hobbits: Hobbit Cloak, Staff of Lebethron, Sting, Ring Mail, Friend of Friends, etc as well as plenty of others (i.e. play an off-theme Steward of Gondor, then Gondorian Shield becomes quite effective)
  • Events for boosting: Halfling Determination (best for combat as you might get multiple uses out of the boost).

Ability Triggers

Characters with abilities you may want multiple uses of:

  • Firstly, MotK Rossie Cotton: if her power isn’t self-evident, more in the next section.
  • Tactics Merry: top attack potential for Hobbits, with an attacking buddy they can really mow down the enemies. Top thematic points for pairing with a partner deck triggering Tactic Eowyn’s ability. You will have to figure out some potential ranged damage though (partner attack w/printed range, Dunedain Cache, etc.)
  • Spirit Merry: even though Hobbit Pony may do it better, questing-readying-triggering is quite effective.
  • Other more niche cases include Spirit Pippin and Tactics Bilbo Baggins

Peak Power

If your ambition is to feature Fast Hitch in the most powerful ways, building around MotK Rosie Cotton is your objective. Making Rosie a hero (yes, Sword-thane is similarly viable, but requires considerably more resources to set up), opens her up to all willpower boosting effects that target heroes (consider Fireside Song, Red Book of Westmarch, Celebrian’s Stone, Necklace of Girion, Stone of Elostirion, Strider, Courage Awakened, Hobbit Pipe + Smoke Rings, etc.). Having multiple hitches on Rosie will allow her to quest, then ready and exhaust to boost another questing Hobbit, while finally readying and exhaust to boost a combat hobbit. Not to mention all the decision points of whether you want to trigger her ability; you might want to limit your progress, while a big enemy reveal might have you prioritizing combat. It is still incredibly strong even if you can’t get her willpower boosted.

Defending enemy attacks is always a vital part of this game. As such, our defense capable Hobbits can greatly benefit from Fast Hitch: Sam Gamgee, Tom Cotton, and Spirit Frodo.

Even though Hobbit decks tend to be tri-sphere, you still must have access to Lore. There are only 3 printed heroes that are Lore Hobbits. While A Good Harvest, Song of Wisdom, or intentional discarding an attachment and playing it with Reforged can work, they are probably a bit too big of a momentum hit unless you’re utilizing those cards in other ways to facilitate your deck. Also note, the Bond of Friendship contract plays nicely with a couple of Fast Hitches. Additionally, Fast Hitch is a nice inclusion for many of the saga quests, since the extra hero is often a Hobbit and may have some nifty utility in the quest.

Rating, Conclusion

Even though their stats are rubbish, a pleasant side effect is that giving Hobbits action advantage through Fast Hitch doesn’t feel overpowered. Many decisions underlie skillful play of this card that is thematically appropriate for the hiding in the shadows, tricksey Hobbit archetype.

You knew it before you read all this, Fast Hitch is a near auto-include in any Hobbit deck. There are many shenanigans yet to be uncovered if you’ve extended your LCG experience with the ALEP fan content; the Last Alliance contract opens up the Hobbit trait to any other trait archetype.

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.

Dave: w/Hobbits 1, w/out Hobbits 10: overall 5

Grant: 3

My rating: 4 — I agree with Dave’s logic to split the difference between it’s usefulness with or without Hobbits; but as the card pool grows beyond the official FFG releases, there are more ways to use Fast Hitch than a strictly pure Hobbit deck.