Look to the West

By Authraw, in Strategy and deck-building

Posted at

I recently built a Dunedain/Hobbit deck to pair with my wife's Rossiel/Hobbit Secrecy deck. I've been having so much fun playing it in the LotR campaign that I wanted to see if I could convert it to a Solo deck.

So this is what I've come up with:

Look to the West

Total Cards: (50)

Hero: (3)

1x Sam Gamgee (The Black Riders)

1x Halbarad (The Lost Realm)

1x Pippin (The Black Riders)

Ally: (23)

3x Gandalf (Core Set)

3x Ranger of Cardolan (The Wastes of Eriador)

3x Dunedain Watcher (The Dead Marshes)

3x Son of Arnor (Core Set)

3x Sarn Ford Sentry (The Lost Realm)

2x Bill the Pony (The Black Riders)

3x East Road Ranger (The Wastes of Eriador)

3x Weather Hills Watchman (The Lost Realm)

Attachment: (14)

3x Forest Snare (Core Set)

2x Hobbit Cloak (The Black Riders)

2x Steward of Gondor (Core Set)

2x Heir of Valandil (The Lost Realm)

2x Dunedain Warning (Conflict at the Carrock)

3x Athelas (The Lost Realm)

Event: (12)

2x Taste it again! (The Land of Shadow)

3x Descendants of Kings (Escape from Mount Gram)

3x Sneak Attack (Core Set)

2x Peace, and Thought (Shadow and Flame)

2x In the Shadows (The Land of Shadow)

Side Quest: (1)

1x Gather Information (The Lost Realm)

Strategy
Look for Steward of Gondor in your opening hand, although a sufficiently decent hand that contains Gather Information (to fetch the Steward) could be good too.
This deck has a tempo to it. At the start of the game, you're hoping to use Gandalf to lower your threat, and otherwise you're just questing with everyone. For a few rounds, you just ignore any enemies in the staging area.
Once there are two or three enemies in the staging area, however, try to engage two at the same time. Two enemies equal +2 to all of Sam's stats which typically lets him tank one without taking damage. Use the "emergency" cards like Descendants of Kings, Sneak Attack, or Ranger of Cardolan to help you defend. Ideally, you'd like to be able to keep one around and kill the other, but sometimes you have to let them both sit there. That's okay--it's kind of amazing how well this deck is able to defend all the enemies each round even though at the start of the round it doesn't seem like it should be able to.
The goal is to ramp up faster than the encounter deck does, dropping a bunch of expensive allies relatively quickly in the midgame, usually culminating in a "desperate push" turn where you basically just clear the board. You'll run out of momentum slowly after that, so ideally you want to beat the quest shortly thereafter.
Use Gandalf as threat management. Once your starting threat goes too high, you lose the opportunity to control your engagements, and then things go downhill quickly. I considered adding Tome of Atanator to the deck to help keep the momentum going longer, but I have no idea what I would cut, since it's all pretty important.
Thoughts
I have played it against a few quests now. It was able to defeat Journey Along the Anduin and Wastes of Eriador pretty handily. It failed Redhorn Gate Nightmare at the last minute, despite good control over the board state; the lack of willpower-boosting effects meant a poorly timed Snowstorm combined with Caradhras wiped the board. It also failed The Steward's Fear due to location lock, but I think a few more tries could have seen a victory there.
This is a really fun deck to play. It has this weird dynamic where it has a really strong midgame but is weaker at the start and end. It does work slightly better when paired with another deck, particularly one that has a strong endgame, but it's perfectly serviceable solo, too.
Posted at

Nice! I've also been tinkering with a similar deck, although I haven't been able to try it much because I don't have Land of Shadow yet. My deck is more about Sam and less about Dunedain, so I included Fast Hitch, Take No Notice (to make sure the threat triggers happen), and Staff of Lebethron to effectively give Sam a burning brand.

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Looks good! Hobbits seem like a natural ally to the Dúnedain and your deck looks solid. With 3 copies of East Road Ranger, have you thought about including more side-quests? Even if just to trigger their willpower boost in the lategame? How has the Dúnedain Watcher been working out for you? I've skipped her in my deck due to lack of leadership resources. Does she pull her weight compared to the other allies? And what about Weathered Hill Watchmen with so little signals to search. Is he there to chump in the early game? What's his role exactly?

it's kind of amazing how well this deck is able to defend all the enemies each round even though at the start of the round it doesn't seem like it should be able to.

This was my surprise conclusion too after trying out Dúnedain and why I like playing them the most of all traits now. Can't wait for the last AP to hit and try out what a pure-Dúnedain deck can do. Decks like this also show why I like them as a trait so much more than Dwarf, Outlands, Gondor or Silvan: you can combine them easily with other deck types to create something new.

Posted at

Thanks for the feedback! I was really surprised how well the whole Dunedain thing works. It's really fun to play because it's so different from any other tribe.

With 3 copies of East Road Ranger, have you thought about including more side-quests? Even if just to trigger their willpower boost in the lategame?

My multiplayer version of this deck includes a few more side quests, but I didn't find them to be all that useful in solo--it's typically not worth slowing down the game for the minor benefit they provided.

How has the Dúnedain Watcher been working out for you? I've skipped her in my deck due to lack of leadership resources. Does she pull her weight compared to the other allies?

The Watcher has been super helpful, and in a way continues to support the "emergency defending" strategy the Dunedain have. Because I'm often blocking with Sam (who has few hit points) a stray shadow effect could kill him. In practice, this doesn't happen often, but when you're defending so many attacks one of them is bound to throw a wrench in the works. The Watcher protects against game-ending shadows.

Plus, there aren't that many Dunedain allies yet, so she's also just an extra ally on the table, contributing +1 WP or +1 ATK when needed.

And what about Weathered Hill Watchmen with so little signals to search. Is he there to chump in the early game? What's his role exactly?

Weather Hill Watchman is basically just a cheap Dunedain. He can hit the table turn 1 (unlike any of the other allies in the deck). I might replace him with the new Defense-boosting Leadership Dunedain in Carn Dum when I get it, but I'm not sure--it is nice to have some inexpensive options early on. Plus, they hit on the two signals in the deck surprisingly often, interestingly enough. If I don't count on it, it's a nice bonus when it happens.

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I'd second Fast Hitch. It's such a cheap way to get extra actions out of Sam, and if you're going to try and hold enemies engaged you won't always be able to count on his own ready via engagement. At the least it's multiple reliable blocks, especially with a Cloak.

I see what you're trying to do with Forest Snare, but unless you plan on putting Steward on Pippin (negating the Heir combo) the 3 cost is really expensive with only one Lore hero. Too periodic and unreliable for my preference, have you seen it work regularly like that?

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I'd second Fast Hitch. It's such a cheap way to get extra actions out of Sam, and if you're going to try and hold enemies engaged you won't always be able to count on his own ready via engagement. At the least it's multiple reliable blocks, especially with a Cloak.

You know, I haven't been including Fast Hitch because Sam has his own readying, but you're right that it might be worth squeezing some hitches in so that I have more characters around to attack later. Plus, he's frequently defending for 5 defense, and it is a shame to only get one use out of that.

Might help me in my multiplayer version of this deck too--I have no problem defending 4+ enemies, but killing them has proved difficult. A few Fast Hitches might give me the actions I need to be able to actually kill some things. I'll have to give it a try.

I see what you're trying to do with Forest Snare, but unless you plan on putting Steward on Pippin (negating the Heir combo) the 3 cost is really expensive with only one Lore hero. Too periodic and unreliable for my preference, have you seen it work regularly like that?

I did put Steward on Pippin once, when I was staring at a hand of all Lore cards. But you're right that it usually goes on one of the Leadership heroes. I typically avoid 3-cost cards in my off-sphere, but in this deck I do regularly see at least two snares come out each game.

The reason it works is because there aren't that many things competing for Pippin's resources. Since I'm only engaging enemies every few turns, there's plenty of time to build up resources before the next one is needed. I can control the timing, so if there's an enemy (like a Hill Troll) that seems destined for a snare, I can just leave it in the staging area an extra turn or two and engage it on my terms.

And the more snares I get out, the less I need the resources for other things because of the combo with Heir of Valandil. I start playing 3-cost Lore allies for 1 (or free!) and the snares make it repeatable. That, in turn, frees up more resources for more snares.

So in most decks I would agree with you that it's too situational, but in this one I've found that it actually works.

Posted at

I can see that. Probably not to my preference - I HATE sitting there looking at good cards I won't be able to pay for for two or three more turns :) But I see what you're doing with it, and that makes sense.

Might also be that I had Heir of Valandil mixed up with Heir of Valandil ;)