Yep. Thats true. A second Burning Brand is attached to Gandalf himself. With Shadowfax (or U.C.) you can defend against up to 3 enemys each round, which is more than enough. Because of that I removed the Silver Lamp from my deck. There is no need/use for it.

Anyhow. I tried that combo with Galadriel instead of Glorfindel, as suggested above. That works, too. I just did not play enough games to finaly state something, but so far it seems to me that Galadriel's version has two drawbacks.

- Light of Valinor has to be attached to Elrond. Which, itself, is not bad, but: You (either need a copy of U.C. attached to him or you) have to send him questing and then use Vylia to get an ally out. (I am not that sure weather you are allowd to send that ally questing, too.) Basically, you are bound to a certain sequence to do this and that.

- That version of the deck tends even more into "managing your deck" and away from "managing the quest". Which is a nice new effect to the game mechanics, but it takes aaaaages.

I believe you can perform actions at the same time as committing characters in the order you choose. So it would go:

1. Commit Elrond with LoV

2. Exhaust Elrond/Vilya and put ally into play

3. Commit ally without exhausting because of Galadriel

It's quite fun to play the siege/battle quest where you, say, put Gwahir into play with Vilya, put an eagle into play from discard, quest them without exhausting, then have them tear apart the enemies in the combat phase. But yes, I find any game with Galadriel's mirror to take much longer with the constant deck/hand shuffling.

Hmm, not sure about that play with Elrond. I think I remember reading somewhere (another forum member will no doubt remember where) that all characters must commit technically at the same time, so that Elrond's use of Vilya needs to happen before he quests and benefits from Light of Valinor. Any ally added after you commit all characters simultaneously would not be able to quest in addition. But this may well be a misremembering on my part.

Ah, FAQ:

Ah, FAQ:

Q

: Does a player commit his characters to a quest at

once, or one character at a time? When can a player

trigger responses to committing his characters to a

quest?

A

: A player commits all characters he wishes to

commit to a quest at once. Responses to the characters

committing (such as those on Aragorn and Theodred)

can then be triggered in the order of that player’s

choice. After a player has committed his characters

(and triggered any responses to those characters

committing), the next player has the opportunity to

commit his characters to the quest.

So this play would also not be legal?

1. Quest Theodred and another leadership hero, place resource on that hero

2. Use resource to play Sneak+Gandalf

3. Quest Gandalf

Interesting. Though I can't say it's affected me much.

So this play would also not be legal?

1. Quest Theodred and another leadership hero, place resource on that hero

2. Use resource to play Sneak+Gandalf

3. Quest Gandalf

Interesting. Though I can't say it's affected me much.

Yes, seems illegal....

But if you have spirit Bofur and a spirit Hero, you can use his Quest Action before resolving quest (counting willpower vs threat) after you reveal all cards from encounter...

So this play would also not be legal?

1. Quest Theodred and another leadership hero, place resource on that hero

2. Use resource to play Sneak+Gandalf

3. Quest Gandalf

Interesting. Though I can't say it's affected me much.

Yes, seems illegal....

But if you have spirit Bofur and a spirit Hero, you can use his Quest Action before resolving quest (counting willpower vs threat) after you reveal all cards from encounter...

Yes I use this often. I guess with regards to Elrond, in a Vilya deck I always put UC on him first so that he is able to use Vilya then defend later with burning brand. So as long as I do it in the order:

1. Use Elrond/Vilya

2. Ready Elrond with UC

3. Quest Elrond (LoV) and ally

4. Defend with Elrond later

Then it's fine? It's quite confusing since every turn order reference I look at has the "Commit characters" step in green indicating that actions can be taken throughout the step. I accept the ruling but I think this step should have been red, with a green step in between committing characters and revealing encounter cards.

So this play would also not be legal?

1. Quest Theodred and another leadership hero, place resource on that hero

2. Use resource to play Sneak+Gandalf

3. Quest Gandalf

Interesting. Though I can't say it's affected me much.

Yes, seems illegal....

But if you have spirit Bofur and a spirit Hero, you can use his Quest Action before resolving quest (counting willpower vs threat) after you reveal all cards from encounter...

Yes I use this often. I guess with regards to Elrond, in a Vilya deck I always put UC on him first so that he is able to use Vilya then defend later with burning brand. So as long as I do it in the order:

1. Use Elrond/Vilya

2. Ready Elrond with UC

3. Quest Elrond (LoV) and ally

4. Defend with Elrond later

Then it's fine? It's quite confusing since every turn order reference I look at has the "Commit characters" step in green indicating that actions can be taken throughout the step. I accept the ruling but I think this step should have been red, with a green step in between committing characters and revealing encounter cards.

Yeah, this latter way works no problem. I agree with you, the rulebook does not really make this clear (that's where I first went to check the rule) but I remembered the FAQ entry because it struck me as a sensible ruling, but one that's clarifying a major grey zone in the main rulebook!

I have built a deck based on these 3 heroes. I just uploaded a "guide" for it. Check it out if you want:

https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/180099-guide-gandalfelrondspirit-glorfindel/

Cheers!

I don't get how you even beat something as simple as Journey Along the Alduin. Unless you get a really really great draw you can't do anything against the troll. And if you pull another baddie during set up and your first encounter pull and you are dead. Takes at least 2 turns to set up the engine and most nightmare decks will destroy you.

I have played the deck before Gandalf was even out, haha. Yes, it is probably the strongest one. Well, I think Celeborn, Galadriel, Haldir might just top it sometimes, especially as a cooperative deck. The Silvan can do a better round for sure. But yes, these two are both great, thematic and strategic win. I would like Gondor and Rohan to come close. But they haven't got the little extra. Boromir, Imrahil, Beregond is a great supportive deck but cannot do much on their own. Rohan is just alright, not consistently great. Their specialities still come short: the staging area attack, for instance.