Born Aloft specifies that it only works on allies, so it's necessary to get the sword-thain off first.

24 minutes ago, sappidus said:

It is. But I don't think he needs it in the Quest phase…? He can just Born Aloft Faramir and Vilya in a Sword-Thain pre-set on top of his deck (not a Bartered and Wizard Pipe'd copy), unless I'm missing something.

Born Aloft doesn't work on allies.

You could start the game with Beechbone in play and two damage already on Faramir. Add Vigilant Guard to Faramir's setup. During the quest phase you use three quick strikes on Beechbone (mixed in between the global readying effects), trigger his response each time, and move the damage to Faramir. This gets Faramir out of play for you and frees you up to Vilya another Sword-thain onto Rosie. Use a Gandalf's Search to stack one on top of your library instead. Put Faramir's Born Aloft on Beechbone instead and you stay under Strider threshold.

This gives you one less option for recurring Faramir, which costs you one ready. Because of the way willpower gets multiplied, each lost ready costs you 16 total attack, so this should put Rosie at 2295 attack.

@sappidus also mentioned that I could put the Celebrian's Stone on Galadriel to begin instead of the Mirkwood Long-knife, (which means she no longer needs elf-friend). This nets her +1 WP and lets me start with the third elven-spear on Rosie for +3 attack. Then I can use a Long Lake Trader to move Celebrian's stone over to Rosie after Nenya. In order to remain under Strider threshold I can use Desperate Alliance to send away one of my heroes.

This nets me +1 willpower and +3 attack, which because of the way willpower gets multiplied means 11 more attack. This gets me back up to 2306.

My solution is very similar, as I arrived at the same general strategy of using Galadriel/Faramir during the quest phase, swapping Sword-thain from Faramir to Rosie mid-phase. My solution varies in a couple aspects:

1. I have willpower-granting item attachments like Celebrian's Stone, Mirkwood Long-knives, Necklace of Girion, etc. on Galadriel, then once I use Nenya I move those attachments to Rosie using Long-lake Traders (who get readied plenty with Grim Resolve)

2. I get Sword-thain off of Faramir by using Treebeard hero + Song of Mocking. After I use Galadriel, I also kill her off with Treebeard + Song of Mocking. If you've dealt 4 damage to Treebeard during the resource phase, 3 damage to Galadriel during the planning phase, and 2 damage to Faramir in the planning phase, you should be able to kill off Faramir/Galadriel/Treebeard all in the quest phase, freeing up Sword-thain for Rosie (played via Vilya) and also activating Strider.

3. Then there are some really minor differences about certain attachments, like I used a different song on Faramir so that all the Songs of Hope could go on Galadriel/Rosie for maximum potential.

4. I did miss a few of these tricks though, like being able to play Bulwark by discarding a player card attachment. Neat!

2 minutes ago, Seastan said:

My solution is very similar, as I arrived at the same general strategy of using Galadriel/Faramir during the quest phase, swapping Sword-thain from Faramir to Rosie mid-phase. My solution varies in a couple aspects:

1. I have willpower-granting item attachments like Celebrian's Stone, Mirkwood Long-knives, Necklace of Girion, etc. on Galadriel, then once I use Nenya I move those attachments to Rosie using Long-lake Traders (who get readied plenty with Grim Resolve)

2. I get Sword-thain off of Faramir by using Treebeard hero + Song of Mocking. After I use Galadriel, I also kill her off with Treebeard + Song of Mocking. If you've dealt 4 damage to Treebeard during the resource phase, 3 damage to Galadriel during the planning phase, and 2 damage to Faramir in the planning phase, you should be able to kill off Faramir/Galadriel/Treebeard all in the quest phase, freeing up Sword-thain for Rosie (played via Vilya) and also activating Strider.

3. Then there are some really minor differences about certain attachments, like I used a different song on Faramir so that all the Songs of Hop could go on Galadriel/Rosie for maximum potential.

4. I did miss a few of these tricks though, like being able to play Bulwark by discarding a player card attachment. Neat!

Vigilant Guard would be a better solution to killing off Faramir and Galadriel so you can keep the Songs of Mocking on Rosie for the WP boost. And using Beechbone instead of Treebeard lets you keep Elfhelm in your lineup for another +2 WP / +1 attack net on Rosie. (Also, Song of Hope is limited one per hero, so you can put one on Rosie, one on Galadriel, and one on Faramir without sacrificing anything.)

Necklace of Girion is a good candidate to move via Long Lake Trader, though. That'd get me another +2 WP on Galadriel, which would get multiplied out to +16 attack on Rosie for a total of 1322.

2 minutes ago, Some Sort said:

Vigilant Guard would be a better solution to killing off Faramir and Galadriel so you can keep the Songs of Mocking on Rosie for the WP boost. And using Beechbone instead of Treebeard lets you keep Elfhelm in your lineup for another +2 WP / +1 attack net on Rosie.

Can Beechbone trigger enough times to kill off both heroes? I don't think he can.

Combining both should get you enough damage to kill Elrond as well after he's done with Vilya. This would let you use 3x Strength of Arms one of the times you sneak Faramir in.

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(Also, Song of Hope is limited one per hero, so you can put one on Rosie, one on Galadriel, and one on Faramir without sacrificing anything.)

Good point.

2 minutes ago, Seastan said:

Can Beechbone trigger enough times to kill off both heroes? I don't think he can.

Combining both should get you enough damage to kill Elrond as well after he's done with Vilya. This would let you use 3x Strength of Arms one of the times you sneak Faramir in.

Good point.

He can trigger three times with Quick Strikes, which is enough to kill off Faramir provided he entered the round with two damage already. I never needed to kill off any other heroes to get under the Strider threshold.

Good point about Strength of Arms. I had an iteration that used Elfhelm + Hero Sam + Galadriel before I was using Vilya to double-dip on Sword-thain, and I Desperate Allianced away Galadriel to open up Strength of Arms. If I used Treebeard instead of Elfhelm I could kill off Galadriel, Hero-Faramir, and himself, then Desperate Alliance away Elrond to open up Strength of Arms. The biggest problem is if you're triggering Faramir after Galadriel is gone (and presumably has already Nenya'd), you're not double-dipping on his willpower bonus.

Still, swapping out Elfhelm (who gives +2 WP / +1 Att) for Treebeard so I can Strength of Arms for +3 WP should result in a +7 attack net. So 1329 attack.