I've contemplated how to make Dori a worthwhile hero, which would be an easier task in a world with Beregond in it. With Beregond as a comparison, the answer becomes -- in a dwarf deck with Dain, making him a 2/3/2/5 hero. That's Aragorn without the toys or special ability, but for two less threat.

Still, that's more valuable in general, he's still worse than Beregond at what Beregond does best -- defense. Dori's special ability has to do with defense, so what circumstances could possibly justify putting Dori on a team for defense instead of Beregond?

The problem has to do with actions, of course. Dori + hero can get to 4 defense instantly with a huge number of heroes, and can even get up to 5 defense (better than Beregond) with a number of other heroes. So Dori can easily produce Beregondish defense, it just requires Dori's action *plus* the other hero's actions. And while you can buff the defense of Dori and his target separately, you can buff Beregond to 6 for free with a single Gondorian Shield.

So it's a hopeless quest to make Dori better than Beregond -- no shame in that, he's one of the most efficient heroes in the game. But Dori's buffing ability can be strong *if you can get the other hero's action back*. I'm sure at this point you're thinking about Armored Destrier -- for two leadership resources, you can get the hero's action back, plus discard a shadow if there's any other enemies to defend against. Brilliant -- and not out when I was trying to make Dori shine.

So lacking the destrier, my focus was on two different leadership cards -- Heir of Mardil and The Day's Rising. Stick both of those 1-cost leadership cards on your designated defender, and with Dori's help he can defend, get a resource, and ready!

Now what sort of decks would benefit most from Dori's flexibility to buff a defense or defend at need on his own? Swarm decks -- chump blocking is the enemy of building up an army of allies. Dori can take a hit and can help practically every other hero take a hit, they can do that early while the army multiplies and becomes strong.

What sort of heroes work best for a designated defender? If you want the Heir of Mardil/Day's Rising combo to fire, you need sentinel (Day's Rising), and Noble (Heir of Mardil). There's a number of ways to get sentinel, but no ways outside the saga to become a noble, and just three heroes that are already both sentinel and noble:

1) Leadership Aragorn

2) Spirit Theoden

3) Tactics Theoden

Sadly, there's not a Lore candidate, since The Burning Brand is really, really good to have around if you want to make Day's Rising fire consistently. Since both of the combo cards are leadership, Aragorn stands out as the best candidate. And what are the two best swarms to pair up?

Dwaves and Outlands. So I had my lineup:

Aragorn/Dain/Hirluin (Outlands)

Thorin/Ori/Dori (Dwarves)

Powerful lineup, if high threat. Completely lacking in cancellation, but can crank up the power quickly, and with leadership available on both sides can get the two card combo together fairly quickly as well. The Dwarf deck can get to five dwarves on turn one with the help of We Are Not Idle. But there's two problems:

1) Thorin is noble, and with Dain ready he quests for four and attacks for four. Heir of Mardil really should go on *him*, even if you have to put Steward of Gondor on him to trigger it.

2) I really want Dori to be with his brothers. If I wanted maximum efficiency, I wouldn't put together Dori decks in the first place.

So I revised the Dori deck to Ori/Nori/Dori, not as awesome or quick as the Thorin version, but lower threat, provides some cancellation, and allows Ring of Barahir to get on Aragorn quickly, to make him an eligible Burning Brand candidate.

This combination also has a good reason to put Steward of Gondor on somebody besides Aragorn who isn't noble (Hirluin), at least if there are off-sphere Outlands and Aragorn doesn't have the toys to pay for them yet.

I then proceeded to create fellowships of just about every archetype I could think of, but always including Dori, Heir of Mardil, and The Day's Rising. Haven't played with all of them yet, and some of them (all of them?) really should have Armored Destrier added to them now. But this was the first I made, so it will be the first I publish. Still, there's a certain irony in sacrificing Dori's 2/3/2/5 action in hopes of getting Aragorn's 2/3/2/5 action back.

Does it make Dori shine? Probably not so much. Both swarms are diluted with attachments intended to making Aragorn a superhero, which leaves less room for other cards. If I weren't including 2 copies of The Day's Rising, I could include In Service of the Steward and Sword of Morthond, and put them both on Gimli to make the Best Outlands Ally Ever. But I think it's a setup where Dori isn't useless, because it becomes very rare that you have to chump with an ally.

Here's the first Dori fellowship, "Dori, Outlands, and the Dwaves":

http://ringsdb.com/fellowship/view/105/dori-outlands-and-the-dwarves

So how did it work in practice? Well, it's Outlands and Dwaves. How can it not work? Details to follow...

I used the fellowship to introduce my son to the game, so his first ever game he had the Dwarf deck, I had the Outlands deck, and we proceeded to take out Passage Through Mirkwood. Easy quest, easy time.

So naturally, we proceeded to Journey Down the Anduin, switching decks, but not bothering to add any of the sideboard cards, like Hardy Leadership or Warden of Healing or even Men of the West. It's not ideal to take on a direct damage quest without healing. It's also not ideal to take on Anduin with a starting threat over 30. Who knows, maybe we'll get lucky and have Sneak Attack with Gandalf in the opening hand....

We didn't. So the early game became trying to simultaneously quest successfully, block the troll attacks without chumping, or getting anybody killed, and build up an army capable of troll killing. We engaged the troll on the Dwarf side, since Dain's attack boosting is a clearer road to damage than waiting for red Outlands to show up, but the deck spit out plenty of other enemies we had to deal with. It took quite a while to finally take the troll down, but by the time we cleared stage one, we had mighty armies on both sides, plus a massively buffed Aragorn. The only problem we had is that treacheries and enemies had banged up practically everyone, and none of the copies of Test of Will had shown up yet. We had only one Honour Guard, and if it wasn't for Herdsman of Anfalas most of the Outlands army would be dead.

But we were in great position to finish off stage two, committing an insane amount of Outlands/Dain-boosted willpower -- and out pops two direct damage treacheries, killing off *everyone* in the Outlands deck except Aragorn (thank you Raven-winged Helm), killing off most of the dwarves, and killing Ori. Aragorn was still awesome, but without Men of the West couldn't reassemble his army -- meanwhile the dwarf deck only drew green cards and couldn't quest much without Dain. The massacre prevented us from clearing the active location, the deck spit out more locations, and we were quickly threat eliminated.

So there's the combat record of the deck -- a win against the easiest quest in the game, disaster at the Anduin. Still, with a little better luck -- or actually using the sideboard -- it would've ended up beating Anduin, which isn't bad with a 30+ threat deck and no quick offensive solutions. I suggested trying again, but my son wanted to try another deck against the quest and we did.

The second fellowship revolved around Spirit Theoden, so of course had to be Rohan -- and it had to be paired with Gondor for thematic goodness. Gondor likes a nice monochrome leadership deck, so I needed another spirit hero to go with Theoden and Dori -- I chose Merry for the thematic fit, the low threat, and the ability to keep Rohan's threat from rising and keep the enemies flowing to the combat deck (Gondor).

For the Gondor deck, Boromir was a requirement. By holding a single resource, he can boost Gondor attack everywhere, and also their willpower once Visionary Leadership is out. I paired him with Balin (to cover shadows) and Theodred (to feed Balin or even Boromir resources after I've spent them.) Boromir/Denethor/Faramir would've been a stronger and more thematic group, but didn't exist when I first created the deck. I did throw in three copies of In Service of the Steward, so that I could easily make Theoden Gondor even without using the Steward of Gondor on him.

When Theoden has Snowmane, Heir of Mardil (with Day's Rising or Steward of Gondor), and Herugrim he can be a triple threat hero, and he's the first target for willpower and defense boosts (plus Unexpected Courage), but since he lacks range he's primarily going to be quest (with Snowmane) and defend. Boromir can also defend at need, especially when boosted by Dori and/or a Gondorian Shield.

The full decklist can be found here:

http://ringsdb.com/fellowship/view/111/gondor-rohan-and-dori

So how did the Gondor/Rohan deck do in practice? I started it out with Journey Down the Anduin, and despite an utter lack of healing, it did pretty well. We had two turns to set up before the Cave Troll engaged, which was plenty of time to set up a solid defense, and then eventually built up the attack power to take it down. After that it was fairly straightforward, despite the lack of healing.

Next we went against Dol Goldur. Merry was the captive, which was fortunate because he wouldn't have survived the direct damage without it. Despite the one-ally limit we were able to make slow progress, and load up the attachments, so by the time the Nazgul came out we were able to block him without taking damage and take him out in one round.

Note that in both quests we mulliganed for Honour Guard. Love that guy, especially with a puny Hobbit hero on the table.

The third fellowship I built revolved around the third obvious target, Tactics Aragorn. But my son was more interested in skipping to "Dori and the Rings", which pairs a ranged combat deck (with Dori) and a Three Rings deck. The preferred target here is Elrond. Unlike Leadergorn and Theoden, Elrond lacks the sentinel trait, so he's not an immediate target for the Day's Rising/Heir of Mardil, and the fellowship doesn't even have a natural leadership hero to play either card. However, Elrond has a lot to recommend him as a star defender. He starts with 3 defense (5 with Dori), has hefty HP, and is already Lore for Burning Brand attachment. He can take Light of Valinor to quest and be ready. And if he's not needed for defense, he can use his action for Vilya.

Of course, if you put Elven Mail on him (gives Sentinel), then the noble Elrond could still enjoy the combo (or more likely, trigger Heir of Mardil with errand-rider or Steward of Gondor). But the main readying piece in this fellowship is Brand, son of Bain. Brand can ready a character when he kills with a ranged attack, and between Brand and Legolas killing is likely even before any ranged allies or weapons hit the table. Brand's ability can also be used to ready Galadriel for her ability (if she used Nenya for questing), or Gandalf for Word of Command. I also put a few allies in the deck with useful abilities requiring exhaustion. It's actually a little disappointing when nothing comes out of the encounter deck for Bard to kill!

Once it gets rolling the rings deck can be unstoppable. The danger point is at the beginning, since it's quite possible to start by questing for only 8 (Gandalf/Elrond/Brand), hoping that Dori and Legolas can handle combat nearly unaided, and Galadriel using her ability to keep the high threat level and hope that something critical shows up soon.

You can find the deck here:

http://ringsdb.com/fellowship/view/113/dori-and-the-rings

So how did Dori and the Rings work in practice? Once it got rolling, it was unstoppable. But its first time out was a disaster.

The quest was The Hunt for Gollum. The rings deck wants set up time and no punishment of high threat, the latter of which is sort of a theme of the cycle, but our opening hands had some quality attachments in it. But then "Old Wives Tale" hit in the setup, and as we lacked resources, all six heroes were exhausted.

So we go into the first turn with no heroes available to quest, attack, or defend, and a hand of attachments to make our unavailable heroes more awesome. But no playable allies. (I think the combat deck had Beechbone and the Rings deck had a 4-cost ally). Then the deck spit out a couple of clues and a Hunter to make sure a hero was going to die, along with our massive threat increase from lack of questing. We figured that was a good time to restart the quest.

The second time we didn't hit Old Wives in the setup, and we rolled easily to victory.

Next we moved on to Conflict at the Carrock. As you know, this naturally provides an easy first stage for setup (great for the Rings deck), and four trolls at once with a 32 engagement cost (which isn't so good when you have a 36 starting threat). So I piled in the threat-reduction sideboard, and supplemented it by sticking in one copy of the Leadership/Lore/Spirit sidequests. If we hit one (or either of our normal Gather Information), we can extend the time in stage one and get set up better for the flood of trolls.

As it turns out, we were lucky enough to get out a side quest at the beginning, and ended up completing all five side quests before finishing stage one. Given the extra time, by the time we went to stage two most of the Rings deck was either in the hand or on the table, and taking four hill trolls at once was no sort of problem -- not that we had to, because the threat reduction cards had allowed both decks to get under 32. The poor trolls never stood a chance.

The next fellowship to be tried was the third created, centered around Tactics Theoden. Tactics Theoden's big power is buffing the tactics hero willpower -- which isn't worth much to Dori, perpetually waiting for defense. Still, we want a mono tactics deck with another tactics hero we could cheaply ready:

TaAragorn/TaTheoden/Dori

With Wingfoot and Snowmane, Aragorn and Theoden can quest and still fight for the low price of a 1-cost attachment. And since we're mono-tactics, this is the perfect time to use the expensive original mono-tactics deck -- the Eagles deck. I stuff the tactics deck with all the cool Eagle related stuff, plus some helpful defense buffs and the Honour guards. Support of the Eagles will produce superpowered heroes, eventually. It justifies playing Radagast. And Radagast/Gwahir/Eagles of the Misty Mountains provide some 2 wp allies, albeit expensive ones.

To pair with the deck I needed a tri-sphere deck with leadership (Heir of Mardil/Day's Rising), lore (Wingfoot), and spirit (Snowmane). It should be low threat so that we only engage when we want to (i.e. when Aragorn can pull the enemy over to the killing side). So I paired with a hobbit deck:

Sam/LoPippin/SpMerry

That provides some good initial questing power. I didn't make it a questing deck, leaving few allies in, but stocked it up with all sorts of useful attachments for the other side, plus a couple fast hitches so Merry can quest and reduce threat. Since Merry should be able to keep them in secrecy much of the game, the Resourcefuls aren't dead cards outside the opener, and can help pay for the more expensive attachments or the few big allies.

You can find the fellowship here:

http://ringsdb.com/fellowship/view/112/dori-eagles-and-hobbits

So how did it work? We ran it against the next two quests in the cycle -- Rhosgobel and Emyn Muil. Not hard quests, but combat-light quests that would seem an ill-fit for an Eagles-focused deck, even before considering the carnage direct damage can do to a hobbit deck. I did go beyond the sideboard, adding in some temporary healing cards. And we mulliganed for Honour Guard.

The beginning was a bit dicy as our hobbits got banged up, and we were actually forced to have Pippin stand around at one point, lacking a Fast Hitch or Hobbit Pony. But the relative lack of enemies -- and their vulnerability to Eagles -- let us keep the progress going, and we quickly got the full contingent of Honour Guards out, prioritizing saving Wilyador from damage. Three honour guards (or even two) totally nerfs the quest -- we found two athelas before making it to the end, but we still had one of our own Athelas on Aragorn -- and only five damage on Wilyador.

Emyn Muil didn't go so quick, and with few enemies Arod didn't make a substantial impact. But we were able to keep questing successfully, use Honour Guards to keep the squishy hobbits alive, and I had gone beyond the usual sideboard to throw in Mirkwood Explorer. Once we could afford to get him out, he was able to build up enough progress to nuke a location and let us win.

We changed up fellowships for the final two quests of the cycle, and I'm left without knowing how well the fellowship would do against a truly combat centered quest. I think by the time we finished off Emyn Muil, Theoden had two Support of the Eagles on him and could defend for 12 without Dori's help.

Next on the docket was a combination of a Dunedain and a Traps deck, featuring Lore Faramir as the intended super-defender. Lore Faramir is noble and Gondor, so Gondorian Shield and A Burning Brand can make him a solid defender pretty easily. Ranger Spikes will also boost his offense, if it comes to that. And Forest Snare is the Dunedain's best friend. Since Dunedain takes the enemies, Faramir had to be in that deck, though I included a couple Dunedian Signals for the Weather Hills Watchmen to pull out.

Since Dori and Faramir were required, the obvious third is Halbarad, who can quest without exhausting and allows two optional engagements. The trap deck on the other side had to have Damrod and I added Haldir to be the attacking hero. For the third I threw in Theodred, who is no help for the traps, but can sling resources around, sometimes trigger Heir of Mardil on Faramir, and allows the key leadership attachments to be in the deck with better draw (the traps deck). Having only two lore heroes isn't much of a problem for the traps, since you really only play one per turn, and Damrod gets a discount on them.

The problem with the deck is that the initial questing is a bit weak, and the tri-sphere Dunedain deck can't afford to play big allies early. This wouldn't be a problem if we dispensed with the Lore Dunedain (really just Sarn Ford Sentry), and just went with Halbarad/Amarthiul/Mablung. But what fun is that?

The fellowship as published has cards through Flight of the Stormcaller. Armored Destrier and Entangling Nets would certainly be present.

http://ringsdb.com/fellowship/view/116/dori-traps-and-rangers

So how did it work? We sent the traps and rangers against the final two quests of the Mirkwood cycle, Dead Marshes and Return to Mirkwood.

Those don't really play to the strengths of the fellowship, especially RtM's brutal threat increases and nasty treacheries. But we managed to avoid the worst of the treacheries, and the trap card draw helped us get most of the key attachments out early (Heir of Valandil, despite being 3x in the trap deck, never showed up in either quest), and we beat them both -- though in the case of RtM, only when the help of multiple Gandalfs and with very little threat left.

The next fellowship we tried was Dori and the Ents. Leadership Faramir was the intended super-defender, and his readying ability works especially well with ents. I had the Ent deck be Treebeard/Dori/LeFaramir, and in the support deck SpGlorfindel/Bard/Theodred. With a tri-sphere deck getting ents out on turn one would be difficult, but eventually songs on Faramir and resources from Theodred and errand-rider would make them run smoothly.

It actually worked well in quests with time to build up, but working against two guess-your-deck quests the dual tri-sphere failed miserably and I rearranged the hero to improve our odds -- Theodred/Treebeard/LeFaramir with the Lore ents, and Dori/Bard/SpGlorfindel with the Tactics Ents. That made the ents come out earlier, and Faramir's readying was almost always used on a Lore ent anyways. So the dual tri-sphere decks were abandoned.

I also got my copy of Armored Destrier late in the process and tossed it into the Faramir deck, and it worked beautifully. But I haven't trimmed out two cards to replace it, so that deck is at 53 (50 + Gather Information + 2 Armored Destrier). It's a lore deck, so Daeron's Runes makes it a 50-card deck after cycling anyway. Getting it back to 51 cards the best cards to lose would be Dunedain Signal and The Day's Rising -- the latter relies on the former being played first, and Armored Destrier does the defend-and-ready effect by itself. However, it's worth two card slots to me just to have the *possibility* of the Mardil/Rising combo, since that's the reason I started making Dori fellowships in the first place.

So the final version has Faramir and the Green Ents with Dori and the Red Ents

http://ringsdb.com/fellowship/view/120/dori-and-the-ents

The previous post said a lot about how it worked -- as you might've guessed, we took this fellowship against the Hobbit saga, since it had Bard the Dragonslayer in it. Because it was a saga we also threw in Fast Hitch for bilbo.

For the first quest, we also added two leadership side quests (we were dual tri-sphere at this point), plus a lore and spirit side quest, in hopes of extending the mild set up time until we were ready to take down the trolls. It worked beautifully, the biggest problem when we hit the trolls was keeping one alive and not running through the deck too quick before we could get the treasure.

For the second quest we spent a long time scuffling in the initial stage because of the Stone Giants. We ended up killing all three stone-giants, then intentionally delayed through a reshuffle because a treachery took all of Bilbo's resources, and wound up killing a fourth. With all the time we spent in that stage, even with the allies we lost to Stone Giant engagement we were able to one-shot the Great Goblin and speed through the remainder of the quest.

The third quest had those blasted riddles. Managing the quest side wasn't a problem, but with three spheres and a variety of costs and types, Bilbo was getting killed. We improved the odds by switching to the published configuration, but Bilbo was still get killed. So we stripped out everything from either deck that didn't cost two, added every 2-cost leadership and tactics ally we could to fill the deck back out to 50, and then riddling went very smoothly indeed -- and the heroes and their mismatched ally armies were still able to handle the swarming goblins.

We went back to the tri-sphere for the spider quest. Bilbo ended up on the very-few ally side when we advanced, thinking that the extra spiders might quickly overwhelm the few heroes -- but they got no enemies at all and struggled to make progress, while on the other side the ent army faced and batted down an endless succession of spiders. Eventually they made it through for victory.

Moving on to the Lonely Mountain, we added Staff of Lebethron for the quest, the wonderful hobbit-friendly attachment that discards shadow cards from enemies with a higher engagement cost (Smaug!), to take care of the nasty extra attacks that a Burning Brand would not. We also shifted to the current hero lineup to make burgling easier. In the first turn we used Treebeard's self-damage to manage the questing so we neither burgled nor quested unsuccessfully, but after that it was open season on treasure. We managed to build Bilbo up to take a 6 attack with Dori's help, so we feared no failures and just kept burgling. Treacheries bumped the progress counter to wake up Smaug the Magnificent when we still had two treasures left, but by then we had Bilbo + Dori able to take an eight attack, and we just had to progress enough to get back to Lonely Mountain, which a spate of locations made difficult. By the time we got back we were tired, so we took one last treasure (one remaining), and went to the final stage. Bard, Black Arrow, and a horde of angry ents took Smaug down easily.

For the final quest we went back to tri-sphere, but without Gondorian Shield in the opening hand we couldn't make siege progress questing and survive, and with losing resources every turn we couldn't get the decks going. So we went permanently to the current lineup and that (plus Armored Destrier) made life much better. Turn 1 we put progress on the attack quest, Turn 2 we put progress on the willpower quest, Turn 3 we put progress *back* on the attack quest (darn encounter cards), Turn 4 we put progress on the siege quest and the situation was well in hand.

This was the first time we had played more than two quests with the same fellowship, but the Ents are powerful and fun. Dori's versatility worked well in these quests, he could and did defend on his own when they swarmed out, but he was also able to buff Bilbo, Treebeard, or Faramir as the situation and/or attachments dictated. It's easy to see Dori's action as a waste of an action, since it takes two heroes for one defense. But against dangerous enemies, the ability to add 2 def to the defense is often *way* more valuable than having Dori available to attack. I also find that I use Dori frequently for defending alone early while getting set up, so in the later stages in the game I have a banged-up Dori who can't really safely defend on his own, but can still bolster defense of any hero anywhere. Beregond may be better everywhere except a dwarf deck, but Dori is certainly not the Fatty Bolger of tactics.

It's been fun reading your attempts to make Dori make himself useful. I think he does a better job at showing his quality in 3-4 player, since a single hero's action is worth a little less there and his ability to pitch in as a defender, attacker, or buffer works a little better when there are more heroes on the table.

I was inspired by your quest, since I'd love to see Dori shine a little in lower player counts too. I eventually landed on a dwarven mining deck, which I've posted over on RingsDB . I'd love to hear your thoughts on it if you have a moment to take a look!

I enjoyed your deck. Armored Destrier is the best attachment ever for Dain.

I enjoyed your deck. Armored Destrier is the best attachment ever for Dain.

You mean Dori?

I meant Dain. Dain's a first-class defender, but needs to be ready to enhance the dwarven counterattack. Destrier does that beautifully.

I think it's also true that Armored Destrier is the single card that works best with Dori's ability. With Dori's help, every leadership hero can be a solid defender, and get their action back too.

It's also the leadership attachment that works best with (but not necessarily on) Elfhelm. The fellowship I'm playing now pairs a Caldara deck with Dori/Elfhelm/Amarthuil, and the Destrier is crazy good there. Even without Dori's help, Amarthiul can defend for 4, ready, and either defend shadow-less against a second foe for 4 or counter-attack for 4.

It's my favorite card from the new cycle.

The next fellowship had a Silvan theme, and Silvan means Celeborn. I split it into leadership/lore and tactics/spirit, using Celeborn/Beravor/Imrahil for one side and Galadriel/Dori/Legolas for the other, with Celeborn's deck being the engagement deck. Imrahil was chosen to take advantage of Silvans leaving play, Beravor was chosen because I wanted a lore hero, hadn't used Beravor yet, and didn't want to choose any of the lore silvans (Haldir's not a good fit for the engagement deck, Rossiel would need considerable deck space for her toys, and Mirlonde's ability isn't worth much as splash lore). On the other side Galadriel was chosen for the stat boost and Legolas for the theme.

Inside the decks I have a variety of Silvans and return-to-hand events, but also considerable deck space for hero attachments. In fact, every hero but Imrahil has an attachment that can't really go on anyone else. Celeborn was supposed to be the prime defender, since he can quest without exhausting with Light of Valinor, can get sentinel from Elven Mail, and is noble for the Mardil/Rising combo. But Beravor and Imrahil also have advantages as defenders, and in practice the defensive spotlight shifted around depending on what attachments came out and who was the least banged-up.

http://ringsdb.com/fellowship/view/119/dori-and-the-silvans

So how did it work in practice? We took the decks through Khazad-Dum and the first two quests of the Dwarrowdelf cycle, since I'm sure Celeborn and Galadriel would want to personally escort their granddaughters home. With the swarming enemies of the cycle, there was plenty of defensive work to go around, and Dori got to do a bunch of defending on his own, along with buffing Beravor, Imrahil, and Celeborn. It wasn't a perfect record (we got overwhelmed early once by swarmers), but we beat all five quests.

We also had the pleasure of dealing with two of the most unfair cards in the game, Sudden Pitfall and Sleeping Sentry. I'm not sure what's a better feeling -- revealing Sudden Pitfall when the first player has no questers (thank heavens Galadriel doesn't technically quest), or discarding Sleeping Sentry with Armored Destrier.

For the next fellowship I paired Dori with a Rossiel deck. Rossiel's deck was Rossiel/Mirlonde/Pippin to start at 19 threat, so that Out of the Wild can be played cheaply to grab a card for boosting Rossiel's defense or questing. Rossiel's deck is dominated by the usual VP events.

On the other side I thought I'd pair the deck manipulators with the deck cancelers, grouping Dori with Balin and Eleanor for shadow/treachery replacement. Between Eleanor, Balin, and Rossiel the hope is that a lot of teeth can be taken out of the deck.

Each deck has potential for a strong defender. Rossiel can defend for 4 with a VP trait match, and is the target for Light of Valinor so she can potentially quest for 4 (with a VP location match) then defend for 4. Eleanor is usually available for defense since she has to be ready for treachery replacement, and can defend for 4 with a Gondorian Shield. As a noble, she's also the only possible target for the Mardil/Day's Rising combo, though getting her sentinel in the planning phase to place Day's Rising is difficult (you have to use A Very Good Tale on Arwen to do it). More likely the Arwen ally will buff/sentinel whichever hero is likely to be defending this round, whether it's Eleanor or Rossiel or Dori. With Dori's help, Rossiel or Eleanor can defend for 4+ even before they get their 1-card buffs.

One thing the deck is lacking is a good attacking hero, since only Mirlonde and Dori even have 2 attack. Dori's deck can build up to a good attack strength, but Rossiel's deck is more limited since it is light on allies and only Quickbeam and Mirkwood Runner are very threatening by themselves. So the preference is to take enemies on Dori's side and leave the Rossiel deck to quest.

You can find the fellowship here:

http://ringsdb.com/fellowship/view/141/dori-and-rossiel

So how did it work in practice? I was hoping to take this deck against the first two quests in Dwarrowdelf, as Eleanor/Balin would nerf the obnoxious Sleeping Sentry and almost all the allies have willpower for Redhorn Gate. But my son wanted to do the Silvans for that part of the quest, so instead we took these two decks against the final four quests of the Dwarrowdelf cycle. Unfortunately, the most obnoxious treachery of the cycle (Sudden Pitfall) can't be cancelled by Eleanor, though there's always hope that Rossiel will fish it out of the deck (never happened).

For the most part, the decks did pretty well. We got lucky against the Watcher with a Durin's Door match on the very first try, but it wasn't too punishing. The swarmers in The Long Dark we managed to get past, since we have good defensive options for the swarmers and the attack needed for most enemies isn't too bad. Foundation of Stone was interesting when we got split up, since the attack power is concentrated more on Dori's side, but Rossiel was able to get a nameless in the victory display and defend well by herself, and eventually was able to reunite.

Then came Shadow and Flame. The Balrog was just too much to handle defensively even with Dori's help (doesn't help that Rossiel can't buff herself against the Balrog), so we were forced to chump block, but with our allies disappearing as soon as they were played we could never muster the attack necessary to take the Balrog down. We failed three times, none were close.

So we dropped all the way to easy mode, and reserved Eleanor for replacing Fiery Sword. Without that attachment, the Balrog was only attacking for 6, so Eleanor/Shield/Dori could take one attack safely and only have to come up with one chump per turn. Eventually we got her unexpected courage and built her defense up a bit more, so she could take both attacks safely if she didn't need to cancel the Sword. The staging area had been filling up with Goblins we were questing back, but once we didn't need Dori for Eleanor assistance, we could take them on and started trimming them down while we waited to assemble Balrog-capable damage. Then once enough allies came out to actually damage the Balrog, we happened to draw Gondorian Fire and that was all for Durin's Bane.

Next fellowship we played was a Caldara deck. The Caldara deck is the classic Caldara/Eowyn/Arwen deck, with the new Imrahil ally added and easy discarding, setting up Caldara for her self-sacrifice is easy. Mulligan for Elven-light, it turns Arwen's ability into card or resource, and coupled with Steward of Gondor can generate some insane card draw.

The other deck has the Elfhelm/Amarthiul combo, so mulligan for Armored Destrier. With it, Amarthiul becomes a 4 attack/4 defense monster, either defending for 4 and counterattacking for 4, or defending for 4 and defending again against a shadowless foe.

However, Amarthiul isn't sentinel, so Dori is reponsible for the early defense on the Caldara side, if necessary. The intended Mardil/Day's Rising combo was Arwen, since with Elven Mail she gets sentinel and Light of Valinor makes her ready for combat, and Steward usually will go on her (to power elven light), making her 4 defense with a Gondorian Shield. But even without it Dori can help her get to 4. While we were playing the Flame of the West came out, giving Eowyn 5 defense with a Golden Shield and making her another fine potential defender on the Caldara side -- she can quest and ready with Snowmane (takes a restricted slot) or Steed of the Mark (costs a resource). Herugrim instead of Golden Shield will make her a first class attacker. Imrahil is Gondor and a hero whenever Caldara is in the discard, so he can get to 4 with a Gondorian Shield as well. Dori's flexibility to buff whoever happens to be available (depending on which cards come up first) is invaluable here, and the Destrier looks good on him as well.

You can find the fellowship here:

http://ringsdb.com/fellowship/view/152/dori-and-caldara

So how did it work? Really well, sort of. My son wanted to play the LOTR saga next, so we got out the Black Riders box and started on the first quest. We sacrificed Caldara early to get extra willpower for hide tests, but we mostly cruised through this, fearing no Black Rider attacks from our willpower-laden, defense-buffed heroes and cruising towards the end....

And suddenly realized that we were playing the LOTR campaign with a *Caldara deck*, and there was our enabling hero, sitting in the discard and waiting to be added to the fallen hero list. So we stalled, stalled, stalled, until a copy of Fortune and Fate *finally* showed up, and we were able to bring back our fallen hero and end the quest. Memo to self -- campaign mode and self-sacrificing heroes don't mix well.

But as we had begun, we went on. We squeezed in the two print-on-demand quests next. The Old Forest was no match for us, and we finished Old Man Willow without ever really considering discarding Caldara. Fog on the Barrow Downs was tougher and we were constantly fending off the wights, but we made it through without sacrificing Caldara again.

Then came the next quest. No elven-light in hand or in the mulligan, no Outrider (added as a mulligan) to get rid of Ferny, so we were forced to discard Caldara again to get the upper hand. With some strong allies in play and Dori and Amarthiul on Destriers, we were able to make it to weathertop despite the lack of Elven-Light and Fortune or Fate. By then we had LoV on Arwen and Snowmane/Herugrim on Eowyn, so we were able to defend safely against six wraiths, use Eowyn and friends to eliminate the wraiths on their side one by one, then finally eliminate all but one on the "combat" side. Then we waited.... Finally an Elven-light showed up, and then it wasn't long until massive card draw (Eowyn can discard it every phase) brought us a copy of Fortune and Fate and we were able to avoid adding Caldara to the fallen heroes.

Then my son went off to college, so it'll be Christmas before I see how we do against the next quests. It does make a Caldara deck more challenging to play when she can't be out of play at the end of the quest, not all quests are nearly as conducive to end-game stalling as the first two Black Riders quests were. But that little quirk aside, these decks seem powerful and fun.

For the next fellowship I played, Dori assisted the mighty Boromir. Boromir is the ultimate self-readying superhero, but he starts without sentinel and he starts with only 2 defense, and Dori can help out with those two little problems. I also wanted to try out Idraen, and that meant using Glorfindel/Asfaloth.

The natural option would be to put Idraen and SpGlorfindel in a deck with Boromir -- reasonable threat, Elrond's Counsel, and two spirit heroes to pay for Galadhrim's Greetings. But I've never played with LoGlorfindel before, and I figured Boromir needed a handicap. So Boromir/Dori/Glorfindel became the lineup, while in the other deck I put Theodred/Balin/Idraen. But before I got a chance to try it, LeDenethor came out, and I couldn't resist both an alternate superdefender and a thematic connection to Boromir -- though it did bad things to the initial questing.

When I started playing with the deck I found it was too vulnerable to shadows, and revised it with Song of Wisdom/Burning Brand. Song of Wisdom worked well anyways on Boromir, since he could then pay for both spheres with his every-round allowance from his Dad. By providing Boromir with assorted readying effects (Heir of Mardil, Unexpected Courage, Armored Destrier if/when he gets sentinel), I was able to use Boromir multiple times without raising threat, which under the circumstances was a good thing.

You can find the fellowship here:

http://ringsdb.com/fellowship/view/158/dori-and-boromir

So how did it work? I actually picked this fellowship ahead of a couple others I created earlier because it seemed a natural thematic and capability fit for the Against The Shadow cycle -- the starting questing may be unimpressive, but make it battle or siege questing and it's quite powerful.

Peril in Pelargir I found that Boromir could battle quest, let staging happen, ready and clear the staging enemy of Harbor Thugs (Dori holding the scroll). The first time I quickly went through stage one -- too quickly, I got to stage three without much more willpower than I started with, at which point the encounter deck started to spit out 2-3 locations per turn and I got location locked. Going again, I was building up my questing army when some nasty cards took me down again. Third time was the charm, as I avoided overquesting early and won easily, though I did lose a hero to Umbar Assassin's forced effect in stage three.

I had bad memories of Into Ithilien, but caught a break when one of my decks had the Gather Information side quest in my initial hand. Although the deck excels at battle questing, I had Celador to help with conventional questing and the side-quest nerfed the threat and attack of the Southron Companies until I could finish them off. I actually finished stage one without Celador dead, which had never happened before (he wasn't even damaged), had enough of an army to quest through stage three, and then with my excellent seige questers was able to get through stage three before the forced threat knocked Boromir's deck out.

Then the Seige of Cair Andros chewed me up and spit me out. My decks excelled at battle questing, but obnoxious cards and shadow effects were wiping out progress and killing heroes. In three attempts I never cleared one of the starting locations and only made it to stage two once. That's traditionally the point where I drop to an easier level, but I was thinking that maybe I should abandon my handicapping, bring on Spirit Glorfindel, and try to build the best Boromir-with-Dori fellowship possible.

But instead I went with a smaller rework. The biggest problem had been cascading shadow effects. Although I had Destrier and Hasty Stroke, it wasn't enough. I added in Song of Wisdom and Burning Brand, which allowed me to set up Boromir as shadow-proof, and also let his resources get my lore cards out quicker. That was enough to make the difference, as one more try against Cair Andros let me clear all three starting locations. It took a lot of Boromir readying to get enemies off the table, and even with a Gandalf and a Galadhrim's Greeting I ended with threat 49 on Boromir's deck, but I won.

On to Steward's Fear. I had bad memories of this one too, and with weak initial questing I thought I'd be in trouble without Asfaloth. I managed to get some questers out and stay afloat through stage one without Asfaloth. Stage two revealed the threat-raising conspiracy, so I knew I had to work quick. Asfaloth came out, but with Roots of Mindoulian as the active location it took two turns to clear a location in staging, and I just couldn't quest strongly enough to clear the active location, as the "end without resolving" treachery came out in my first attempt and the locations kept piling up. When Boromir threated out, I conceded.

And then while cleaning up, I realized I hadn't used the previously discovered clue that places three progress, and that Asfaloth could place on *any* location. I could've cleared Roots first try even with the "end without resolving" treachery, and the Underworld card it had was the two-progess clue. Doh!

Second try on Steward's Fear I got the threat-raising conspiracy again, but this time was able to power through and finish for the win.

Druadan Forest worried me because of the willpower requirement and the constant attack on resources. It did take a while to beat, but it went down on the first try.

Encounter at Amon Din there was no danger of the rescued villagers being outnumbered, but the threat-raising treacheries made the end interesting.

Assault on Osgaliath was taken down the first time, the last turn going from five locations to zero (one from questing/active location, two from killing enemies, one from resources, and the final one from Boromir abusing City Harbor -- ending with 49 threat).

Blood of Gondor was the next to go. Took out the Black Numenorean in turn one. Never saw A Burning Brand, but Armored Destrier tossed a few shadows for me and most of the hidden cards were whiffs.

So that leaves a final quest I haven't played yet -- Morgul Vale. I have bad memories of this. The first time through with my Beorn's Path descendant decks, I lost three times with each deck, then three times with the two together, then repeated those nine losses in semi-easy mode (extra resource), then repeated eight of those losses before finally winning two-player in easy mode. Can't wait for this quest to punish me yet again for not being monosphere.

FWIW, I'm not sure I would've beaten Steward's Fear without Lore Glorfindel. Since he has higher threat than Boromir, he attracted Local Trouble, and once I got Light of Valinor out it was only a minor annoyance -- it would've crippled the deck on Boromir. The same turn I finally got rid of it with a Miner of the Iron Hills, the other popped out of the deck to afflict him again, so he ran interference for Boromir twice.