Here's a fellowship of thematic Rohan decks I've been working on for a while - based around the idea of Theoden's last ride to the Pelennor Fields. I've been keeping myself rather strictly to theme by only choosing unique characters who were present at the battle, and non-unique allies who are martial in nature.

http://ringsdb.com/fellowship/view/2994/a-red-dawn

There are a few thematic concessions - Steward of Gondor is the largest one, but I figure that it's rather appropriate given that the Steward - Denethor - called for the aid of Rohan, and so thematically it represents the Lord of the Mark pulling out all the stops to ride to the aid of his ally. Something like that. It's not so hugely out of place as it could be. Gandalf is another one - he was present at the battle but not with the Rohirrim for the ride. Given the ephemeral nature of core set Gandalf, I'm fine with it.

The other thematic concessions are minor - Westfold Horse-breeder is not a military-oriented character, but she was so essential to the function of the decks that she's in there anyways; I think she can represent an army . The Spirit version of Merry might seem counter-intuitive; the Tactics version is tailor made to represent the hobbit at Pelennor, and would also gain the willpower boost from Theoden. But the threat reduction granted by Merry is a good match for the way the Rohirrim kept to secret paths and arrived wholly unexpected at the battle. And my willpower is already bordering on excessive, I don't need extra readying, and above all I needed a Spirit sphere match.

The Tactics/Spirit deck is loads of fun to play. Boosting up Theoden to incredible power levels is amazing - quest for 5, ready and defend for 7, ready and attack for 4. Westfold Outriders give extra attack. For boss enemies, Eowyn + Herugrim does an excellent job. A 1-shot attack for 19 will take down almost any enemy in the game. Witch-kings of Angmar excepted. That one needs Merry, too .

The Leadership/Spirit deck is also fun. I love bouncing enemies back to the staging area with Fastred for Eomer to take out the next round. And hemorrhaging allies only to bring them back is even more fun. Don't be shy about discarding them, or about chump blocking. They'll be back. The best bit is that, unlike the other deck, this deck doesn't require a lot of setup. Just an Armored Destrier for Theoden across the table, and Guthwine and Steward of Gondor for Eomer.

If you use your side quests, take forever, and get all of the potential setup done, then your heroes alone can combine for 27 willpower, and all of them can ready to be ready for combat.

So there's my fellowship. Comments, suggestions, or other thoughts are much appreciated.

Awesome and thematic!

I notice you need two card pools to build this, which many people don't have. There are only a couple offending cards - do you have recommendations for people with a single card pool that want to construct this fellowship?

3 hours ago, Seastan said:

Awesome and thematic!

I notice you need two card pools to build this, which many people don't have. There are only a couple offending cards - do you have recommendations from people with a single card pool that want to construct this fellowship?

That's a good point - I primarily play on OCTGN atm, so it had only registered tangentially to me, and not as a problem.

The offending cards are Escort from Edoras, Westfold Horse-breeder, and Song of Travel.

Escort from Edoras is easily replaced in the tactics/spirit deck. Any 2 cost, 2 willpower ally will work. If maintaining theme (which for me is an essential part of these decks) is important, I recommend West Road Traveler. The martial theme is slipping strongly there, but you could call them camp followers of some sort.

If you need too keep that martial theme for some reason, the 3 cost Rider of Rohan is my preferred substitute. That cost makes for a significantly weaker deck (early editions of the deck tried for it - maybe 2xRiders and 1xGuthlaf - higher chance of seeing him), but if you prioritize day's rising and song of travel onto Theoden, it can be paid for.

If you're okay letting theme slip, I'd replace the escort with either 3x Arwen Undomiel or 2x Arwen and 1x Guthlaf (depending on how you feel about dead copies of her in your hand). Arwen makes Fastred significantly better at his job, and can help Theoden or Deorwine too, when needed.

The Westfold Horse-breeder is much closer to central to the decks' function. Mounts are how you get Elfhelm giving stat boosts. I think they are best removed from the Leadership deck - as the mounts in that deck aren't as essential to getting things working. Replace them with 1x Riddermark's Finest, 1x Westfold Horse-breaker, and perhaps either 1x Dunedain Message to get out gather information faster or a third copy of Song of Kings (see below).

Song of Travel is the most problematic, but I think there's a workaround. You end up with less overall willpower, but only slightly. In the Leadership deck, swap it out for Song of Kings, and put Steward of Gondor on Fastred. It makes him eligible for Armored Destrier, and that will give him a +1 defense boost - though you can't do that and Raiment of War, unfortunately (especially because I really like that second Raiment on Deorwine). I might swap the Raiment of War out for a Gondorian Shield at the same time. Theme wise, maybe he broke his own and picked one up off of a dead soldier, or maybe it was a gift from Gondor to Rohan a while back. It's not the largest thematic concession in the deck, and the +2 net defense from the song and shield almost makes up for the loss of 2 hit points. If the second Song of Kings shows up, you can always put it on Theoden for the extra defense.

Taken altogether, the changes make for less consistent decks (although I think swapping Escorts for either Arwen or West Road Traveller is a mechanical improvement when taken in isolation). If it's an option, I recommend borrowing copies of the Horse-breeder and Song of Travel from someone you play with for the night. If it's not an option for whatever reason (you're playing solo, you're the only one who actually buys the cards in your group, etc), then these changes are functional, I think. I'd have to run serious tests to see if there were better options, but here's my initial thoughts.

Having Eomund to ready all the character in play seem really good. All the rohan build I have made is based on this powerful things, even more since I can get in back with Guthwine. And with 2 deck rohans it seem even more powerful.

3 minutes ago, Rouxxor said:

Having Eomund to ready all the character in play seem really good. All the rohan build I have made is based on this powerful things, even more since I can get in back with Guthwine. And with 2 deck rohans it seem even more powerful.

First, I deliberately skipped Eomund for thematic reasons - he's long dead by the battle of pelennor fields.

With that out of the way, I think that Eomund could be useful, but he's very expensive. Without spirit Theoden's cost reduction, I'm not sure recurring him is worthwhile.

Even with it, it seems a "win more" card to me. I'm more than happy to be wrong, though - I'd love to look at one of your rohan builds that relies on it

@Seastan , do you have other ideas for substitutions for a single card pool? Thematic or not?

For multiplayer it look like http://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/6298/rohan-for-multiplayer-2.0

1 hour ago, Rouxxor said:

For multiplayer it look like http://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/6298/rohan-for-multiplayer-2.0

Ok, I can see how that might work. You're saving space on other readying effects (unexpected courage, snowmane, armored destrier, etc) by just relying on Eomund. And saving deck space on attack boosts by instead relying on lots of small attack values added up.

I've found that, with these decks, I generally don't need more actions. My allies mostly do one thing, and readying them doesn't open many more options. The heroes generally have enough actions to quest and combat.

If it weren't for thematic considerations, I'd probably include 1 or 2 copies as an emergency button, though.

Until very recently I also play few snowmane and heir of mardil (great with theodred). But yes I don't see the point of playing a lot of readying effects when one can do all this very well (and i play mustering so I find it very often). Add sneak attack to this and you can do very great at battle and quest for few resources.

On another hand I never like Westfold Horse-Breaker , especially outside of LeaPrince Imrahil and/or TaEomer builds. I really prefer unexpected courage or someone who quest at 2, not someone who do a little bit of each, but not very good.

And I don't see the point of playing rider of the mark over rider of rohan.

1 hour ago, Rouxxor said:

Until very recently I also play few snowmane and heir of mardil (great with theodred). But yes I don't see the point of playing a lot of readying effects when one can do all this very well (and i play mustering so I find it very often). Add sneak attack to this and you can do very great at battle and quest for few resources.

On another hand I never like Westfold Horse-Breaker , especially outside of LeaPrince Imrahil and/or TaEomer builds. I really prefer unexpected courage or someone who quest at 2, not someone who do a little bit of each, but not very good.

And I don't see the point of playing rider of the mark over rider of rohan.

Rider of the Mark is actually my shadow cancellation. If I use him, it costs the same as hasty stroke but I can use it multiple times. What I like to do is discard a shadow card with the rider, defend that enemy with Theoden or Elfhelm, and use armored destrier to discard another shadow card. Between the two cards, I generally don't have to worry about shadow cards much.

On the readying, the mounts were already in there to get the stat boosts from Elfhelm. Snowmane or the armored destrier readies Theoden as well as giving him +1 attack and willpower (assuming song of travel). That extra willpower equals an extra point of defense with golden shield too. Steed of the Mark gives Elfhelm +1 willpower and +1 defense in addition to readying also.

If I weren't trying to leverage Elfhelm, then Eomund's global boost would make more sense. But since I want the mounts anyways for Elfhelm, the extra readying seems superfluous in this context.

I've got a couple copies of unelected courage in one of the decks, but I am seldom excited when I draw them.

Westfold Horse-breaker is certainly a niche card, I'll admit. I like the extra flexibility I get out of it, though. I can choose the best hero to ready in an emergency instead of wasting unexpected courage on a hero I either don't need to ready every round, or who really should get other readying effects to be most effective.

For example, I really don't want to put unexpected courage on Theoden. Once he gets Snowmane and the Armored Destrier, it's kind of a waste, and could have been put to better use elsewhere. But with the ally, if i need Theoden ready this round, I can do it without worrying that I'm wasting future actions. And the 1 point of willpower until I trigger the emergency ability is nice also.

I haven't realized that Hero Elfhelm and Eomund make rohan deck go in such opposite direction. It seem now really logical. Thanks for the demonstration :).

I really prefer efficiency over thematic and for Rohan I will continue using Eomund for that.

Discard blind shadow seem so overcost to me. With many quest like you have in your fellowship having +2 willpower and 2 strenght is something more valuable to me. But it is your deck :).