I thought of an interesting combo, that I'm wondering if anyone else thought of:

Attach Path of Need to the active location. During staging, when a location is revealed, use Strider's Path to swap out active locations. Your heroes are already committed to the quest so you don't have to worry about exhausting for questing anymore. I assume you clear this new active location, so you travel to the location with Path of Need still attached. Then defend and attack without exhausting.

This works best 3+ players where you're more likely to reveal a location each round, or if you are playing 1-2 players you can use scrying, Shadow of the Past , etc. to make sure you get locations. If scrying says no location is coming (in 1-2 player), then make sure you only quest with enough to succeed without clearing the location. If you are playing with 3+ players, then use multiple players with Strider's Path and/or use Scroll of Isildur and lots of card draw to grant yourself many uses of Strider's Path .

Anyone see any hitches in my plan?

That sounds like fun. You'd have to figure out how to reliably access a Limit 1 per deck card, and you're committing a lot of cards to the combo, but I'd love to see someone pull it off!

I have a video about this deck concept a little while ago ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muYPFmkn0TI ). I use West Road Traveller to do the location swap, but I mention in the comments that Strider's Path would work as well. It does have hitches though - repeatable scrying of the upcoming encounter cards is easy in solo (Henamarth) but it gets trickier with more players if you are trying to commit the right amount of willpower. But cards like Eowyn, Bofur, Treebeard, and Protector of Lorien can provide the necessary willpower flexibility.

You could also use "Second Breakfast" to bring back "Path of Need".

Given the required setup, you will not want to 'over quest" just to preserve the combo when players' don't have "Strider's Path" ready and/or no location has been scryed off the encounter deck. Though all characters are ready, for whatever combat that may arise after questing, if there's no enemy in play after questing, then all of those 'under questing' characters would have deliberately been held back (and not make any progress on the quest) for nothing, which just slows you down.

A small hitch, but you can't use Scroll of Isildur on Strider's Path because Strider's Path is a response.

Could you provide a decklist? I would like to play such a deck.

Could you provide a decklist? I would like to play such a deck.

https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/186274-seastan-play-sessions-youtube-channel/?p=1757337

Yeah, this is very powerfull combo. I used Path od Need + SP or WRT with great success in A Knife in the Dark scenario in Black Riders. As far as I remember I also brought it back to my hand with Erebor Hammersmith and played it again for even more fun . Those pathetic Nazguls flew from Weathertop like chickens

A small hitch, but you can't use Scroll of Isildur on Strider's Path because Strider's Path is a response.

Oh right. I always forget that. I'm loving all the other suggestions though too.

So, another solo deck where this works that I just tested: Gandalf/Denethor/Spirfindel. You start at less than 30 threat which gives you setup time, and Gandalf uses Word of Command to get Path of Need out of the deck, which you play using A Good Harvest (quick) or Wizard Pipe (slow). Then you make Denethor your super defender with Steward, Blood of Numenor, and Burning Brand. Every turn after combat you get to use Denethor to scry and get rid of the bad encounter cards.

Good job finding a deck which can use Gandalf and Spirifindel!

Seriously though, I'm glad you are finding these angles on the game because I think that it helps the designers get a better idea of how to build a better game.

Good job finding a deck which can use Gandalf and Spirifindel!

I set out to finally build a deck with Gandalf and Spirfindel that was bad. Didn't work.

Can't use scroll with strider's because it's a response

Can't use scroll with strider's because it's a response

Yup, someone mentioned that already.