I have changed my decks once again but have decided to start a new thread for these new decks I am using as there are two hero changes (even though one is just a swap and not a new addition per say) and quite a few other changes. I figured this was enough for these new ones to deserve their own thread.

Decks are as follows:

The Grey Company

Line of the Half-Elven

Just destroyed Across the Ettenmoors first attempt!

Was an actual cake walk.... had a ridiculously strong end game board state.

Getting Legolas out early is insane and his ability combined with Arwen's ability makes both decks just churn through cards.

You may have discussed this in your longer thread, but have you tried rolling with Vilya/Stargazer in the Elrond deck? I've found that hero lineup to work extremely well with Vilya/Stargazer.

Hmmmm I don't like running Vilya cause of cards like test of will, hasty stroke, elven light and elwings flight but with Stargazer you could easily avoid this sort of thing....

Also you need to exhaust him and I like to use him for questing/backup defense and would rather use the copy of UC on someone like Aragorn or Elrohir.... Miruvor could be useful though as you could put it back on top of your deck then play it for free with Vilya or use it to simply ready Elrond and use Vilya to play something you have placed on top of your deck with Stargazer...

if you were going to include lets say 2x vilya and 2x Stargazer into these decks what would you take out to include them?

I'd be tempted to try to also find room for 2x Master of the Forge in the Elrond deck (especially if you're finding room for Vilya & Stargazer). With that many attachments, MotF basically is 'draw a choice attachment once per round); even better, he also reshuffles your deck, which is synergistic with Stargazer, as it gives you fresh cards every turn.

I think you can afford to lose these cards:

1x Warden of Healing

1x Asfaloth

1x Double Back (you have lots of threat reduction already and how often do you have a free turn to side quest)

1x Hasty Stroke (most shadows dealt to you are likely defended by Gildor or Elrond with Burning Brand, so these will likely be used to help your other deck)

And the remaining two cards (should you go for the two Master of the Forge) should be some mix of Ranger Spikes, Lembas, Galadhrim's Greeting.

If I included Vilya/Stargazer (And few more high-powered allies), I'd probably drop Lembas, Galadriel's Handmaidens, Ranger Spikes, and/or Hasty Stroke, depending on the scenario.

I've been using Lords of the Eldar in my solo games and love it with plenty of readying effects and Noldor allies. I'd think that it would be awesome with you two-handed Noldor approach.

Thanks for the feedback TipsyGamer!

Master of the Forge is a good idea considering how many attachments I run... it would definitely help with healing when I don't see any Wardens of Healing by getting me lembas if I'm lucky or can just help get UC, Brand or Asfaloth into play faster.

Even without Vilya (which I am still hesitant about), the Stargazers may also be great... especially right after using Master of the Forge's ability.

I am hesitant to remove some of the cards you have mentioned however:

Warden of Healing is just so **** good with Elrond and in many of the harder scenarios it is great to have two in play healing all characters each turn.

Asfaloth is key to location control and extra copies can be discard to Arwen's effect anyway.

Double Back you have a very good and fair enough point but I have a weakness for side quests and love having 2 in each deck... With 3 copies of the Handmaiden, Greeting and Elrond's Counsel though you are probably right that it is unnecessary.
Hasty Stroke is integral as even with Burning Brand attached Gildor or Elrond can only defend one or max two attacks (with UC or Miruvor) each turn and Elrohir is still the key defender for both decks once he has sentinel so shadow cancellation is super handy and often saves me from a defeat in many occasions. Elrohir has the defense and readying but cannot receive Burning Brand so can easily fall to ridiculous shadow effects which many quests now feature.

Ranger Spikes and Lembas.... hmmm.... could potentially cut ranger spikes back a copy for something.. not sure about lembas though as it often saves the day both healing and providing an extra defense out of Elrohir... greeting wouldn't come out especially not if I take out Double back...

May remove a copy of ranger spikes and double back to include either Stargazers or Masters of the Forge... hmm..

Thanks for your feedback DavidnTanya!

You seem to agree that Lembas or Ranger Spikes could be cut down... with Master of the Forge it would be easier to still see one of the 2 remaining copies of each card in most games and would help to eliminate the loss of the third copy of each card....

The Handmaidens are pretty key as they not only provide threat reduction but have an awesome 2 willpower for their meager cost of 2. If I was to remove any copies I would need to substitute in other 2 willpower allies like Sailor of Lune.

I used to run Lords of the Eldar in the old versions of the decks but replaced it with Elwing's Flight.

Elwing's Flight is really only good on certain occasions or in certain quests however so I may ultimately change it back to Lords of the Eldar...

Honestly I'm thinking of dropping Burning Brand..... Elrond is far more useful as a quester and unless Gildor or Haldir see play there is no other eligible target for it.

Some games it is useful but in many others it is completely wasted and does next to nothing or only cancels one or two shadow cards all game....

I may take out x2 burning brand, 1x ranger spikes and 1x double back to add two masters of the forge and two stargazers...

I've played a few more scenarios (The Dark Riders quests while the kids were napping) and I'm finding willpower to be plenty without the Handmaidens, but I'm doing solo and not picking up the slack for a second, combat heavy deck. With Gildor, Galdor, and Erestor on the table and Lords of the Eldar in play (with readying), I'm questing for 22 right there. That's a mid-game push, but I'm really impressed.

With the brothers to handle most combat, Burning Brand does seem unnecessary.

So I made my first changes to the new decks based on some of the feedback I received.

Removed x3 Elwing's Flight and x1 Double Back from Line of the Half-Elven and replaced them with x2 Vilya and x2 Imladris Stargazer.

Removed x2 Horn's Cry from The Grey Company and replaced them with x1 Gimli and x1 Eldahir (upcoming leadership ally from the new cycle).

Ultimately I realised you guys were right and Double Back is overkill with all the other threat reduction in the decks, plus too many side quests can be a bad thing and can really slow you down. I did not however remove any copies of the other various cards suggested as they all seem too vital or are cards that often save me from a defeat (hasty stroke, healers, greeting have all saved me countless times) and in the end I removed the three copies of Elwing's Flight instead.

Honestly Elwing's Flight is not really performing very well in the decks anymore... all it really does is allow you to commit a few extra characters to the quest for a big push then ready those same characters for combat after giving them +1 willpower.

It is actually not that great as a support card to provide readying in emergencies as the heroes you quest with are often not very useful for combat anyway and so it is pretty much always used as a quest boost instead. The decks are pretty good at keeping the staging area relatively clear as well as questing once they get started however (and are only really weak while they ramp up) so Elwing's Flight is more useful early game. At a cost of 2 and sort of needing to discard the first copy first to make it worthwhile/more useful however means it is often a mid to late game card.... early game those spirit resources are far better spent on Handmaidens, Test of will/stroke, LoV, UC, Miruvor and using Elven Light each turn for card draw.

Late game it is near useless and does very little other than the readying effect as you already have high willpower and don't really need the extra boost. The readying isn't great either as there is plenty of readying within the decks already.

I considered changing the x3 copies back to x3 copies of Lords of the Eldar as LotE can be used for one more resource to not only boost willpower far more (looking at about at least +3 willpower via Arwen, Glorfindel and Elrond and potentially up to 7 if you have Gildor, Lindor, Galdor and Galadriel in play, more if you quest with Elladan or Elrohir) and provide an even bigger boost to questing but it will also boost Elrohir and Elladan for combat giving them both extra def and attack. If you have LoV and/or UC on Glorfindel and Elrond you can make use of more than one boosted stat with both of them as well...... to be completely honest as I am typing this I am considering finding three other cards to remove so I can put Lords in after all!!!! If you guys can think of further cards to change for LotE let me know!

INSTEAD I put in the suggested x2 Stargazer and x2 Vilya and played a game of Journey down the Anduin to test out the changes.

I rigged the decks to start with a Eldahir and a copy of Vilya and Stargazer in opening hands just so I could try them out..
Absolutely rocked the house! Vilya allowed me to play Haldir, Greeting, Gildor and a Warden of Healing over the course of the game for free which allowed more resources for lower cost cards and Eldahir's ability!

Eldahir is a great new ally and although I only got him out later in the game and only used his ability twice he was great and got buffed to 4 defense each time. You don't have to block the enemy that you revealed the shadow card from with Eldahir so if its too nasty for him you can block with buffed Elrohir or a chump blocker if it has some uber nasty effect that will discard or kill Elrohir. The lore resource is well worth both looking at a shadow card and the potential buff to Eldahir. Vilya playing cards for free over the course of a game will allow me to use Eldahir's ability more often when he sees play which is great.

Gimli went back into the decks because a) Horn's Cry has just been under performing big time and isn't very good in the decks and b) I have a soft spot for him and he and Legolas joined The Grey Company to travel the paths of the dead alongside Aragorn and arrived at Pelennor Fields with The Grey Company so are a thematic win in the deck (I know technically Elrohir and Elladan aren't part of The Grey Company but they traveled with them from Rivendell and fought alongside them and are technically blood related to the Dunedain considering Elrond's brother was the start of the Numenorians who the Dunedain are in turn descended from). I really want to see a Halbarad ally to include in the decks...

Loving the new changes and about to take on the last quest in the new deluxe box Raid on the Grey Havens. Might try The Dream Realm again after that and see if I can finally beat it with the new help from Vilya....

Thanks for the help guys!

Yea, Vilya can be amazing, but I tend to build without it now because I see it as a crutch and Elrond has some pretty good stats that go to waste when you always use Vilya. Usually, though, the cards coming into play can make up for it.

yeah that was how I used to feel and would hate wasting Elrond's stats or when Vilya would fail and would reveal a card it couldn't play or a duplicate of a unique card already in play. Cards like UC and Miruvor allow you to both quest/defend with Elrond and use Vilya though which is pretty handy. I use it fairly sparingly and only if I don't need Elrond to quest if I have sentinel set up and won't need Elrond as an emergency defender. I usually don't use it blind very often either and will only use it when I can rig the deck with Stargazer and know I'll be able to play something great like one of the high cost allies or a great attachment for free. I'm considering getting a second core set or at least another set of the x1 cards in the core set (on ebay) just for another copy of UC and Swift Strike both of which are amazing cards in these decks.

Playing the LOTR Saga Campaign with these decks!

Initially I was using that great campaign log someone on the community created (I forget who, my apologies!) http://lotr-lcg-quest-companion.com/campaignlog and was recording every single aspect of my games including score, long and detailed notes on each game and a cumulative campaign score. Before beating Knife in the Dark however I went ahead just to look at how the new boons (Valiant warrior, tireless ranger etc) would look on this campaign log and after selecting them went back and recorded everything properly for the quest including the boons again. Somehow this resulted in my campaign pool displaying two copies of Valiant Warrior and Noble Hero instead of just one.... I tried to change this by changing the hero Valiant Warrior was attached to and then changing back hoping this would perhaps help remedy the problem but instead this gave me a permanent +2 starting threat for each deck that I could not undo or remove even though I had swapped heroes but then swapped straight back to the initial one....

Couldn't find any way to go back a quest, edit quest results, delete the last quest and relog it. Nothing.... the errors which admittedly were my fault were completely undoable and so I had to abandon that campaign. Frustrated and without thinking I deleted that campaign before recording all the scores to re log them and so was left with no recording of my quests up to Flight to the Ford........ this was devastating and there was no way I was going to redo all these quests so I decided to instead forge ahead and just not record scores (still remember campaign boon and burden choices as they are fairly obvious/not that many at this point) so am going to ignore scores for this particular run through of the campaign (which is actually really awful because I think this might be a winning line up and may last all the way to the end of the campaign so would have loved to have an overall campaign score...) and keep going.

Here is my progress so far, I will update this post as I continue:

Losses: None, beat this one first go

Losses: None, beat this one first go

QUEST 5 - Journey in the Dark

Losses: Yet again beat this on the first go, it did get extremely close towards the end though and there were several moments that multiple heroes were 1 hitpoint off death (mainly due to non stop archery...) and healing with an early Warden was just non stop every round, often double healing by using lore resources to ready him. Only just managed to keep up with archery and just a few more points on any given turn could have sank me completely.. I almost got enemy locked on stage 1 as well (yep enemy locked instead of location locked cause you can't engage or attack enemies on stage 1 and this quest has heaps of enemies... so you get so many in staging by the end of stage 1 if you don't beat it quickly). I also got lucky and managed to explore Seat of Seeing so got to remove a burden from the campaign pool as well!

*By exploring Seat of Seeing I was able to remove Overcome by Grief from the campaign pool.

*Elladan and Arwen are taken captive for the purposes of the next quest

Losses: Three losses! This one was pretty **** hard for my decks as Elrohir suffered without Elladan around and without Arwen and Elven Light on the other side there was no extra resource acceleration (except Steward and quest effects) and the card draw engine was more or less shut down for the Half Elven deck. When I finally won I had to destroy Grisnahk and Ugluk and it was a very long hard slog to the end.... many Gandalfs (sneak attack and hardcast) and vilya + stargazer helped immensely but I still suffered many set backs. There are actually some truly devastating effects in this quest and some of the direct damage effects combined with archery result in some serious damage across the board. I had to literally spend a turn exploring Gather Information to get a healer in hand when things got seriously dire.

Managed to beat it with 24 pursuit value allowing me to earn two boons.

Losses: At least 8 losses probably more.. this one absolutely romped me. It took absolutely everything both decks had and then some.. many concedes both early and a fair way in.. when I did beat it however after the initial 3 or 4 rounds I had a ridiculous board state (StwB was boosting willpower by loads, vilya and gildor were playing many powerful cards for free) that ramped up into a ridiculous amount of allies. I also cleared both Gather Information and Send for Aid allowing me to fetch further key pieces of each deck. Towards the end it became a complete walk in the park which has never ever happened for me in this quest. The new decks are certainly the most powerful ones so far once they get started that is. They can be a little slow to start and so many times they just couldn't cut it for the first few rounds while combo pieces like vilya or stargazer were played. Slew a ridiculous amount of Orcs... definitely missing the -1 defense ability of Tactics Aragorn but Fellowship Aragorn with Stwb and Leader of Men questing every round and readying heroes almost every turn was just amazing.

*Beat it starting on stage 2A so avoided Poisoned Counsels

*Used Seat of Seeing to remove Overcome by Grief from the campaign pool

Playing through Saga mode has made me realise that the copies of Burning Brand are next to useless and almost never play much of a role in the decks. They are almost a dead card because so rarely do I set up Elrond or Gildor as a defender and nine times out of ten Elrohir takes on the role of defense all on his own and allies like Gimli or Eldahir are used as backup instead. Even with UC on Elrond if you end up getting Vilya out as well or beforehand it is usually more useful to use Vilya and then quest with him (or vice versa depending) rather than use him for defense. He is more helpful with defense towards the start of the game anyway because as soon as you get Elven Mail on Elrohir he is not really needed anymore.

I've replaced Burning Brand with x2 Lords of the Eldar which was previously in the decks and was great back then but had to be taken out to make way for new cards I wanted to try out. I have no doubt it will perform well in the decks especially now that there are a few more Noldor allies in the decks. It can also boost Noldor allies defense to help Elrohir in defensive duties for a turn taking some pressure off his resource pool.

One of the main weak points of the decks is that many of the great allies in the Grey Company deck are leadership allies that are quite cost intensive but you also need to save and be careful with leadership resources on Elrohir for defensive duties. Aragorn with StwB can gain the leadership sphere and help out with this issue but ultimately it is a very strategic choice you must constantly make when playing these decks, can I play Gimli/Eldahir/Galadriel/Naith Guide/Orophin/StwB and still have enough leadership resources on Elrohir or other tricks up my sleeve (feint, swift strike, backup defenders) to defend all enemies safely this round?

Now readying effects on Elrohir help you to more safely spend resources on allies and both Lembas and Miruvor are amazingly cards for this. Lembas heals damage from previous defensive duties and readies him for another defense. Miruvor can both ready and add a resource to his pool allowing him to defend against a further two attacks!! Due to how useful these two cards are to these decks I am putting in a third copy of Miruvor and removing one copy of LoV.

Good idea with the Lembas and Miruvor. I've definitely undervalued those cards. I like sticking Lembas on solid questers/attackers. I can take an undefended attack, heal the damage, ready and then counter attack. It effectively doubles my action advantage.

I'd drop Haldir in favor of Erestor for even more card draw. Elrond can pay for him or put him into play with Vilya.

I like the Silvan ally direction with the grey company deck. I wonder if the brothers synergize better with Silvan or Dunedain? I think I'll try both.

Yeah Lembas is also amazing when you haven't seen Warden appear yet and it can heal a whopping 4 damage with Elrond in play. That particular use of yours is quite clever, I either put it on Elrohir so he can quest and heal and then still defend multiple attacks OR on rare occasion on someone like Aragorn so he can quest and then attack or Elrond so he can quest/use vilya and then defend. If one of them has damage on them all the better but I will still use it if they don't just for the readying effect, especially if I have a Warden of Healing out anyway. I hadn't though of taking an undefended attack first which allows you to lower the overall amount of enemy attacks and it is ALMOST like you are getting three actions out of that hero cause it is sort of like they are defending but not really. I will need to make sure I give this a try! Thank you!

Hmmmm yeah I've actually been considering including Erestor for a while now so we are definitely on the same page there! Not sure what to remove though.. why do you suggest taking out Haldir?

Yeah Silvans are just so great at this point in the game, you can be selective with which ones you use depending on your deck and they can be some of the most cost effective allies in their respective roles or spheres. Orophin has amazing stats for 3 cost and is a great quester or attack and has ranged and a bonus ability. Naith Guide while costing 2 and only having one willpower allows you to quest with a character without exhausting it which is just amazing, especially in the first few rounds of the game. The Marksman (that we haven't quite got yet but it has been spoiled in the current cycle) is just ridiculously strong for 3 cost and has not only 3 attack and ranged but negates 2 of an enemies defense for the turn which means on their own the turn they enter play they can take out a 3 armour 3 hitpoint enemy thanks to Aragorn's additional -1 to enemy defense.

Rumil has a great ability and 2 in willpower for tactics is extremely rare. Legolas is ridiculous once he gets going and draws you an additional card almost every turn.

In the other deck the Handmaidens for just 2 cost bring 2 willpower and a little threat reduction. Haldir is great as well and can quest defend or attack for either player which is some amazing flexibility. He can even be buffed with a Rivendell Blade or Cloak of Lorien!
The Noldor allies are definitely amazing as well but as far as low cost allies go the Silvan are unbeatable. I think that most powerful Noldor decks will usually include several Silvan allies as well not only because of how useful they are but how well they work with Noldor characters and decks to begin with.
Even though the decks are at their heart Noldor themed To the Sea is unnecessary because most of the Noldor are meant to be played with Vilya anyway and O Lorien lowers the cost of many allies in both decks providing a discount of at least 3 or 4 in most games which allows you to more easily play the Noldor for full cost if need be as well as getting all the key attachments in play quickly as well.

If you give the brothers a go with a more Dunedain centric deck let me know, would love to see the deck list
Thanks as always for your feedback and insight!

Haldir isn't bad, but for me, he is a dedicated quester with no special ability. Erestor can do the same with a handy ability on the side. That's assuming you're putting both into play with Vilya. If not, the Lindon Navigator is cheaper, doesn't exhaust to do her work, and synergizes with Lords of the Eldar. The ranged attack with Haldir might come in handy in a pinch though.

If you give the brothers a go with a more Dunedain centric deck let me know, would love to see the deck list

I'm on my phone right now, but I can try to post my list this evening after work.

EDIT: Here's the list:

Updated both decks and made them on the new Ringsdb:

http://www.ringsdb.com/decklist/view/312/the-grey-company-2.0

http://www.ringsdb.com/decklist/view/311/line-of-the-half-elven-2.0