Has anyone built a Hobbit-only combat deck? Not a secrecy "splat a bunch of secrecy allies on the table," but one which focuses on the Hobbit trait itself. Typically we see Hobbits in a questing role, or a versatile secrecy ally swarm, but certain recent cards (notably Tom Cotton) make Hobbit combat more possible. There seem to be different directions you can go with it. This post is basically a collection of thoughts that I had while making my own.

My deck is on Ringsdb here . It does give up a good deal of effectiveness for the sake of novelty, as you're forced to include many Hobbit cards that don't, on their own, bring a lot of combat utility to the table, and the deck doesn't have a clear identity. Does it want to bounce Hobbits in and out of play to take advantage of Tom? Does it want to keep threat low? Does it want to boost up heroes, or rely on an ally swarm? It uses a bit from all of these approaches simultaneously.

For my Hobbit combat deck, I wanted to include Tom for sure, because I haven't had a chance to use him seriously. I also like tactics Merry in general, and he's your best Hobbit attacking hero, so I chose him as a firm 2nd. The 3rd slot is then up for grabs. You can do Sam for access to some combat ability if you keep your threat down, including cards like Staff of Lebethron and Hobbit Cloak, and also Bill the Pony. But Lore has some key cards as well, such as healing, readying (Fast Hitch), and of course card draw. You also have access to the Burning Brand card, but you would need a Song of Wisdom to put it on Tom, and including songs in the deck kind of undermines Tom's ability. You could even put it on Pippin, who could receive a Ring Mail and Rosie's boost. Another route you can go is Spirit/Tactics, at which point you can include Frodo as the 3rd hero for an excellent 2nd defender. However, by taking Spirit as your third sphere, you gain next to nothing else from a Hobbit toolkit in terms of combat utility. I used Pippin in my own deck, putting starting threat at 20.

Another problem with using Hobbits for dedicated combat is engagement. Due to their low threat, you're really never going to get more than 1 enemy per turn, and you have no ranged and no sentinel. Dunedain have a similar problem, but deal with it through enemy engagement effects and higher threat in general. Some events like Tireless Rangers or The Hammer-stroke can help, but they are events and therefore very restricted in what they can accomplish. An attachment that lets you pull enemies over would be useful. One alternative would be to use Halbarad or even tactics Aragorn in the deck, but then why bother trying to use Hobbits at all.

Friend of Friends is great for this type of deck, but I dropped it after play-testing. It can go Tom & Merry, boosting attack, defense, and hit points, but it costs card slots and comes into play late, most of the time. Alternatively, put one on Pippin instead of Merry, for more flexibility and an immediate good target for Merry's ability.

Sword-thian versus Resourceful . . . The resource generation from Sword-thain takes a long time to pay for itself. Resourceful can pay for itself and then some, but only if you get at the start. However, either one can be useful if you use it to convert 1 resource to another (if you need more Lore and less Tactics, use tactics resources to pay for Resourceful/Sword-thain, or vice-versa). Sword-thain has the obvious advantage of boosting Pippin and Merry's abilities further, but that alone doesn't seem worth the inclusion. I went with Resourceful in my deck.

The Sam ally can be worked into a Hobbit combat deck, but he's expensive if you're not using Frodo. Wandering Took can lower your threat if someone else will take it for you at least temporarily, which can help you buy Resourceful after round 1. My own deck does not otherwise attempt to control its threat, so eventually you get to a point where you lose Tom's resource match exemption.

If you wanted to get more serious about threat control, cards like Unseen Strike, Take No Notice, Taste it Again, and In the Shadows become more attractive.

Would love to hear others' thoughts on the topic!

Maybe you can get your partners to send you Wandering Tooks, which is also a tribal thematic win.

Well, I guess the deck needs to be lower threat to some extent, so maybe not so good, heh.

Hobbit combat decks are interesting, because until the defender gets set up (Tom, usually) they are very brittle. I have tried the following:

The partner deck was a questing hobbit deck using Merry (sp), Folco, and Fatty Bolger (because I hadn't used him yet) and pipes to lower threat/draw cards. It ended up with super low threat and the whole deck drawn, but was kinda boring to play. Besides rounds where I could ignore an enemy's threat and reduce my threat by its threat at the same time, it was not that varied. It *is* kinda fun playing all the pipes though.

When I play hobbit I usually put the secrecy stuff inside. It is such a waste to let them aside when you have anyway an initial 20 threat like you. And it work very well with threat diminution and hobbit pipe mechanic. Does it already fall to the "too many allies" tags? To me it is only when we play timely aid + a very good tale ^^.

Tom Cotton is the best hero available for this tech (good defense and give attack to other hobbits). It is the character in the whole game to wear hobbit cloack and staff of lebethron. When you play it, raise the shire is excellent and we enjoy to look for Magot farmer or bilbo baggings ally, with spirit cards to low the threat. And finally Pippin lore have a good ability to make you draw, to heal and to put ally with enough attacks in play.

So? My advice is not to play the 4 sphere but to play Tactics/Lore/Spirit and ask to another play to have many hobbit cloack and staff in their decks to feed you.

Even like this you will not be a very good fight decks, though. Especially if you play with deck with higher threat since they will have their own enemies because of engagement check. I really prefer to put hobbit deck side by side to create good synergies.

Here are my own build of what I talk:

http://ringsdb.com/fellowship/view/4813
http://ringsdb.com/fellowship/view/4814
http://ringsdb.com/fellowship/view/3599
http://ringsdb.com/fellowship/view/4439
http://ringsdb.com/fellowship/view/4495
http://ringsdb.com/fellowship/view/4452
http://ringsdb.com/fellowship/view/4501

It's a good point that this is going to work best only if you have some pre-planning about what decks are playing next to it. Probably would be disappointed with the results if you take it to a pick-up 4-player game.

I guess the deck I published is technically quad-sphere because it includes cards from all 4 spheres. I think of it as a 2-sphere deck really (tactics, lore), the only off-sphere cards are allies that enter play via Tom's resource exemption, or through their own effect.

I'm perfectly happy to have lots of allies. I just mean, I don't want to put in cards like Celduin Traveler, or cheat Gildor into play, etc. Trying to stick to Hobbits only. The Warden of Healing is the only non-Hobbit ally in the bunch.

5 minutes ago, GrandSpleen said:

I'm perfectly happy to have lots of allies. I just mean, I don't want to put in cards like Celduin Traveler, or cheat Gildor into play, etc. Trying to stick to Hobbits only. The Warden of Healing is the only non-Hobbit ally in the bunch.

The requirement to have mostly hobbit allies was also my guide (just Halbarad and Gandalf otherwise for me). That is probably the biggest limitation for hobbits in some ways is that the heroes do so much work and yet are fragile. Hard to muster up a lot of attack without Tom's boost or attachments.

I find they can be really quite punchy. How do you manage without Bill the Pony for hit points? I always worry until he's out!

The other deck had cancels available for 'deal 1 damage to every exhausted character' effects in Passage through Mirkwood & Treachery of Rhudaur. I got hit anyway, but all the Hobbits have at least 2 HP, so you can heal it off. Tom with 2 Ring Mails is a 5 def, 5 HP defender, which is darn good. There are plenty of enemies with more than 5 attack, or shadow effects that put it higher, so he needs regular healing. Hence the need for the Wardens, and Lore in general. But HP ended up not being a concern. With a Resourceful on Pippin, you can even use a single Warden twice per turn if you need to. In one game, I deliberately brought Tom up to 4 damage from a direct damage effect, just because I knew I could heal it off fine.

I was thinking of this deck all day (I love so much hobbit decks ^^). My main concern is that you are forced to keep one enemy engage with you to enable Tom ability. I have played Tom many times and I always want to kill my enemies on the turn I engage them. I only want Tom ability to be a side effect, not something you have to rely on.

I also think that 2 tactics heroes is way too much. I don't say tactics merry is not good, but you just don't have enough good tactics cards (in hobbit specifically, but it is sadly also true for the major part of the themes of the game). I think Sam Gamgee will really be a good hero to replace it since it still can attack for 2 (instead of 3) and quest for 3. With it you can cast leadership ally: Rosie and the worst hobbit ally (keen eye), but also bring bill. Another way to go is to play Frodo for having bilbo and sam ally, wandering took and many cools events.

Here is two decklist to illustrate:

With Sam Gamgee : http://ringsdb.com/deck/view/112526
(If I have to play it myself I will probably play 3 we are no idle instead of some 2x unique allies just in order to get all the cards in the deck most easily in hand, I let it that way since it is a minor change that can make you dislike the deck because it lower the number of allies inside)

With Frodo Baggings : http://ringsdb.com/deck/view/112533

Those Sam and Frodo versions look pretty much the same as mine did when I starting putting all this together. Losing 1 attack from Merry isn't a big deal, but starting at 21 or 22 threat is a big deal, if you hope to use Resourceful. If you don't want to keep an enemy engaged to activate Tom's ability, you are definitely going to want that Resourceful. You have threat reduction in both decks, but that's deck space devoted to non-combat cards. One thing I liked about having two tactics heroes was that it allowed for playing Ring Mail immediately when I draw it.

Tom's ability is hard to build for, because you're right: you want to kill the enemies rather than leave them engaged. I wish we had a Hobbit version of the Andrath Guardsman (after you play it, choose an enemy engaged with you, that enemy cannot attack you). Make it a Tactics Hobbit and add the condition that the enemy's engagement cost needs to be higher than your threat. Would slot in perfectly for a Tom deck!

I thought about a Wait No Longer + Good Meal combo to activate Tom, but you have to use Wait No Longer in the quest phase, so that doesn't work.

There's always Forest Snare. It's expensive. But I see that you are willing to include the 3-cost Galadhrim's Greeting in a deck with only 1 Spirit hero, so maybe the Snare could also help out with Tom needing to keep enemies engaged.

Keep one enemy engaged is not an option to me. Not only it required fast hitch but it also a big problem if, suddenly more enemy come. It increase also A LOT the chance to have trouble with shadow cards (you see 2 times more shadow cards in a game, with the same number of shadow annulation it could increase the chance of having very problematic shadow by 80%).

Ring mail is worst than hobbit cloack and it cost 1 more. It is a good way to illustrate what is problematic with cards you need to play when you play many tactic heroes.

Galadhrim's greeting is suppose to make you draw with hobbit pipe. When every deck is secrecy and/or hobbit you may have many hobbit pipe among the decks so every galadhrim's greetings draw 5 cards or more cards. It is also a card needed in the mod or late game, not a card essential to enable your engine so it is way more easy to get 3 resources at this moment.

But I agree that being in secrecy would be even better. It is possible if you use SpiMerry instead of Frodo but I think that ally Sam is too important. You have enough threat reduction so you can play resourceful a little bit later when you have them in beginning hand.

I take it you are not a fan of Dunedain decks? Keeping enemies engaged turns out to be less troublesome than I imagined it would be, with Dunedain, mostly thanks to Armored Destrier. But even with this Hobbit deck I made it work OK. Tom would like to ride a Destrier, but you'd have to set it up (and anyway, my deck isn't using leadership).

I think we're just going to disagree about some cards. Ring Mail beats Hobbit Cloak for me, hands down. Yes it's more expensive, but Hobbit Cloak is completely deactivated if you find yourself engaged with a low threat enemy, or if your own threat gets too high. Since my combat deck doesn't mess around with threat at all (with the exception of Wandering Took), Ring Mail is a better fit.

Could you explain how Galadhrim's Greeting is going to draw you 5 cards? Max would be 3 Hobbit Pipes in play. Where are the other 2 coming from? Are you talking about 2-player games with 2 decks running Hobbit Pipes? In which case you're using the 2-threat option for GG and not the 6-threat option.

You know, Folco Boffin might sub for Pippin in my deck. Losing the draw would hurt, though. Pippin's +engagement cost ability was actually a nuisance in my deck. In yours, I imagine you want to keep it because you're trying to stay under enemy engagement costs. My version of the deck doesn't mind either way... some cards are stronger (and Tom only work) if I keep threat low, but when threat got high the deck still functioned fine. In my Treachery of Rhudaur game I ended around 40 threat.

Folco would put starting threat a bit lower, giving me a moment to find Resourceful. He also brings 2 attack to the table instead of Pippin's 1. I wouldn't ever be using his discard ability, though. Well, I doubt I'll try him in this deck, but it's fun to think about.

I love and talk so many about Dunedain that the last 2 events I go there was someone who copy my dunedain deck ^^. In Dunedain you have huge bonuses by playing in a counterintuitive way. Here the only reward is to be allowed to play average allies...

Of course there is some choices bounded. Keeping a threat low to get bonuses work well with hobbit cloack for sure. It is also useful for raise the shire, pippin ability and plying resourceful so it is interesting to stick to a low threat.

I already show you my many decklist of secrecy decks working in synergies. So yes all the spirit decks play 3 hobbit pipe so everyone can smoke at the party. As I say -and you admit- this deck will anyway probably not be satisfying if not played with low threat deck. That is why I don't agree to your spirit of wanting that enemies see you.

Folco is an interesting hero. I play it (basically every of my three hands secrecy have both Pippin and folco) when I want to be at 20 on the beginning of the game (because I play LOT of secrecy cards on those decks) but here not drawing almost each turn is such a mess, don't you think?

Yeah, it is hard to give up Pippin. The deck suffers a bit for draw, despite 9 (nine!!) draw events included in it, and Pippin helps. Sometimes those Fast Hitches are just in the bottom 20 cards of your deck.