Hey there. I'm wanting some different perspectives of how many allies are the ideal amount to run in a deck focusing on ally mustering, and in particular a very good tale.

Recently I ran a mono leadership Gondor deck with Boromir, Amarthiul, and Halbarad as heroes. It was a pretty successful build as I was able to muster the troops more often than not with reinforcements and a very good tale. I ran 30 allies. My problem here though was that I was unable to include as many events and attachments as I wanted. I also would have to mulligan regularly as starting hands would typically be swamped with allies which in turn would limit my play options.

Any insight or experience, please share.

Seastan's had 31 and seemed to do alright ( https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/194378-very-good-reinforcements/ ), but definitely depended on opening hand. If you can get Reinforcements and A Very Good Tale both in your opening hand, it's about as golden as it gets, but if you don't get either one, you're quite gimped, especially if you include many non-Leadership allies.

It's a very high risk, high reward deck

I haven't done the math, but it's a fairly simple calculation if you wanted to look it up. My rule of thumb is that half my deck should be allies if I am running A Very Good Tale. Obviously more allies is better. My two regular decks that use it have 30/50 allies and 42/61 allies (more than 50 cards because of Erestor).

Seastan's had 31 and seemed to do alright ( https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/194378-very-good-reinforcements/ ), but definitely depended on opening hand. If you can get Reinforcements and A Very Good Tale both in your opening hand, it's about as golden as it gets, but if you don't get either one, you're quite gimped, especially if you include many non-Leadership allies.

It's a very high risk, high reward deck

It's mainly just A Very Good Tale that you need. Without Reinforcements, you should still have two high cost allies in play by turn 2 with the help of Sneak Attack or Ranger of Cardolan. A first turn Steward on Amarthiul would also get you a good shot at 2 permanent allies by turn 2.

So yeah just look for A Very Good Tale in your opening hand. Odds are you will be able to play it very quickly.

Thanks for the feedback chaps. It seems like the idea is to aim for 30+ allies with regards to that particular card.

I hope we get more ally mustering options in the future. Herald of Anorien has impressed me, especially in this Gondor build.