I assume that you mean for us to comment on 'non-traditional' heroes that do not jump out as powerful (ie - not Dain, Spirit Glorfindel, Legolas, Eowyn etc).

Some heroes that I use that others may not are:

a) 'super cool hero' Beorn (as he was refered to by Mathew on the progression series): amazing early game hero that you can use to tank attacks and not worry about defense or attack for a couple of rounds letting you get out a bunch of questers and make good progress

b) Boromir: Like Brandon has often said, the tactics version is a beast! in some quests (ie - massing at osgiliath) where action advantage is paramount he cannot be beat. Partner him with Loragon or Spirit Glorfindel to avoid the threat problem

c) Dunhere: with the new dagger that has come out and various methods to push enemies back into the staging area, paring him with Faramir can make a interesting deck that can work well in certain quests

I basically agree with all of the above. I am a big fan of Boromir, as a character in the book, so I was very happy to see him so well designed in the game. Massing at Osgiliath was indeed the quest that won me over in terms of mechanics. However, the Leadership version, though I had not believe so in the time of its release, is more than competitive. It is a great fun to play a mono-Leadership Gondor deck with Boromir being the center piece, turning cheap allies effective force.

Dúnhere is excellent. The whole staging area attack is so strong, no defenders, no nasty shadow effects.

And also Beorn, he can sort of take Tactics Borormir's place, he does even better in the beginning, because it may well be you need both, the action advantage and keep the treat relatively low. Plus, now, there are more and more tricks to cooperate with Beorn though he is immune to player cards. I had a game in which Beorn was taking damage after damage, I sacrificed him in mid-game once I got Landroval. Then in the end, the other player revived him with Fortune or Fate. And often you can just abuse the ability till he hits 9 damage, especially if you do not care about score. Plus, the newly previwed Close Call will make things even better for Beorn.

I've always been fond of Lore Glorfindel. He can quest like a boss, attack like a boss, can handle some damage, and allows you to do some minimal healing without having to dedicate deck slots to heal effects. He is better than many give him credit for.

Definitely, the above is a very good point, Lore Glorfindel, especially if combined with Spirit and Light of Valinor. He is really overlooked because of the Spirit version but in a deck where you can manage threat (Spirit is again a natural choice as the other sphere), he is great, 3 willpower, 3 attack, and the minor ability can be quite a useful one. I now wish he was named differently and I could play him with the Spirit Glorfindel, haha.

Lore Glorfindel plus Elrond for the heal boost. You get very decent healing right from the start so I´m with divinity on this one.

How are you going to handle so much threat of Lore Glorfindel and Elrond combined with any other hero in existance?

How are you going to handle so much threat of Lore Glorfindel and Elrond combined with any other hero in existance?

Divide the Glorfindel and Elrond among 2 players?

Play with only 2 heroes?

Include a low-threat hero (hobbits anyone)?

Have some threat reduction?

Have a spirit player focus threat reduction on you?

Have a tactics player ready to defend you with sentinel / feint / quick strike etc?

Lore is trap-sphere. Use them?

Defend with Elrond (Burning Brand works well and if he gets damaged a bit you heal with Glorfindel) and attack with Glorfindel?

Lots of other options.

Dividing heroes will require at least two players

Playing with only 2 heroes will cripple your efforts.

Lowest 3-hero starting threat you can muster is 30(which is a lot) and will force you to stick into Lore exclusively.

Good luck to you on threat reduction with two lore heroes as basis, lol.

Two players, once again.

And again, two players.

There is only so much traps you can use.

And who will you quest with?

Lots of drawbacks.

Not every strategy is for solo players. Just like not every strategy is for multiplayer.

Alot of people here seem to enjoy playing 2-handed as well (not that I am a fan of it myself).

If you build deck for only a single player (where you might want to cover multiple spheres with one deck), than you do it vastly different from the get-go than people building decks for multiplayer (where mono-color decks is more prevalent).

So please refrain from berating suggestions based on the number of players in the game as builds vary widely on that basis.

If you want it to stand a bit more on it´s own then Light of Valinor works equally well on other heroes besides spirit Glorfindel as far as I´m informed.

Not really many drawbacks if you have just one more player; been using it quite successfully myself (albeit not particularly often).

Not saying it's impossibru, saying it's gonna be hard, even in multiplayer.

All I can suggest on that front is that you try out how it works for you.

Which of course doesn´t help you much if you exclusively play solo.

Elrond, Eowyn and Bifur, threat 29

Glorfindel, legolas, Mirlonde, threat 28

Doesn't seem unusable at all.

Even swap out Bifur or Mirlonde for a hobbit if 29 is too high. Even swap for a dwarf like Oin if you wanted tactics attachments or events. Balin for shadow cancellation, or Theoden/gloin for resource generation.

The problem with lore glorfindel is that the spirit version is better.

Whereas the lore one has a helping ability, with warden if healing it's often not needed as he's more cost effective.

In terms of the threat, spirit glorfindel is about 7 cheaper. That's more then a Glandrens Greetings can reduce your threat, which costs more than a warden of healing. So, basically if you get LOV in turn 1 or 2 his threat is about 6-7 lower.

So of we. Want to compare apples to apples:

A warden of healing and spirit glorfindel is cheaper and better healing then a lore glorfindel and a Glandrens greeting bc his upkeep for healing is worse then the wardens. As such, spirit would be the better choice

if you get LOV in turn 1 or 2 his threat is about 6-7 lower.

So of we. Want to compare apples to apples:

A warden of healing and spirit glorfindel is cheaper and better healing then a lore glorfindel and a Glandrens greeting bc his upkeep for healing is worse then the wardens. As such, spirit would be the better choice

IF you get LoV in turn 1 or 2 and IF you get warden of healing.

Some of the point the Glorfindel/Elrond combo is that you can factor decent healing into the equation from the beginning without thinking of card draw.

Also some players who care a bit less about score, as well as having alternatives to dealing with enemies (here the healing helps), might be tempted to not care about threat at neither beginning nor end of the game; as long as it stays low enough.

Saying flat out that spirit Glor is better than lore Glor doesn´t take that many perspectives into consideration; they each have their uses. I just happen to think that lore Glor is generally underrated as an alternative.

I myself care little if I finish the game with 48 or 24, I enjoy higher threat decks. However, they are risky, more enemies jump at you before you can prepare and you can also hit 50 more easily. The best thing about Spirit Glorfindel is that you can combine him with 2 high threat heroes and still be alright. And then you can only use him for attack or with Light of Valinor if you fear further threat increase. And of course, he is the only Spirit Noldor hero so far, thus he has got direct access to Elrond's Counsel, helping things further.

As I said above, Lore Glorfindel has become a very good hero, and he will get even better as we see more Noldor support (there still has been little despite the heroes).

I enjoy playing the Halflings. It's really challenging, thematic, and now that Black Riders is out, you can actually WIN every once in a while. No more super sad secrecy gamble, Merry has arrived.

I don't know who would care for score and why, I personally care about threat becaue it provides you so much needed breather, delays your natural defeat and makes threat boosting effects less devastating.

How are you going to handle so much threat of Lore Glorfindel and Elrond combined with any other hero in existance?

Run Elrond's Counsel, Core Gandalf, Dwarven Tomb (to recur Elrond's Counsel if you really need to). Also, Lore Glorfindel is great because you have the Lore resources to play Asfoloth on him. So, he ends up being able to quest for 3, attack for 3, put two progress tokens on a location per round, and also can heal any other character. Beast. Run him with some Spirit and you can also get Light of Valinor on him. Super good.

Lore Glorfindel, Spirit Frodo, Tactics Legolas, and I am sure you can win a majority of the quests. Light of Valinor, Arwen, Counsel, Weapons, Asfaloth, etc.

Lore Glorfindel is definitely underrated. For awhile, I was plowing through all the quests with mono-Leadership on one hand and mono-Lore, including Lore Glorfindel, on the other. I was able to beat most of the quests in the game, and had a memorable experience with Into Ithilien where I ended up a single progress token shy of victory. Anyway, Spirit Glorfindel is clearly the superior version, but that doesn't detract from the fact that Lore Glorfindel has his uses: not using Spirit sphere, playing mono-Lore, want something different, sick of Spirfindel's face, etc.

Yea I know that feeling. I'm REALLY spirfindeled-out.

He was such a auto include I did not look anywhere else for a while.

Haven't been using him for some time now, and I don't see him returning in the near future.

What I'm really hoping for is another Spirit hero with high attack. I don't think we should get a ton, as it's important to keep those sphere distinctions, but I'd like another 3 attack Spirit hero for my mono-Spirit decks that is NOT Glorfindel.

You might get your wish with a spirit Boromir or Aragorn version at some point.

But I don't see that happening any time soon.

My buddy mainly plays mono spirit now and faces the same problem: no attack power whatsoever.

What I'm really hoping for is another Spirit hero with high attack. I don't think we should get a ton, as it's important to keep those sphere distinctions, but I'd like another 3 attack Spirit hero for my mono-Spirit decks that is NOT Glorfindel.

Well... Dunhere is 3 attack if you work his ability

That is probably not what you meant but I think he puts emphasis on the type of spirit hero able to pull off a high(ish) damage attack in a way that still keeps the distinction of spheres.

While we are talking about spirit Glorfindel, I want to bring up something that seems odd to me. Why is it that his stats equal 12, but his threat is an insane 5, less than Hobbits. I know it's only 7 turns of questing, but it still seems too low to me. Is anyone else in agreeance? Speaking of Hobbits, Bilbos threat of 9 seems crazy as well, paying three threat for his ability.