I have a couple of guys playing through the game with me in progression order, but I’m the only one who collects the game and has been playing long term. So that puts me in charge of building our fellowship. Up til now we have been playing decks I already had on hand. But now I’m feeling like I want to build a fellowship from the ground up.

I have the whole card pool but only 1 copy of any pack, including the core. I regularly build 2 person fellowships for my own 2 handed play, but now I am building a 3 person fellowship. How do you usually approach this?

Usually I do decks that fill specific roles, but don’t pay too much attention to how the card mechanics between decks actually synergize with each other. By synergize, I’m thinking of: the card effects from a partner deck will have an impact on your own game state. Like playing tactics Eomer across the table from a Silvan deck, or putting two Dwarf decks together with Dain on the table. Do you have some clever ways that your decks have synergized with each other?

I guess I’m just looking for some inspiration. Currently I have a Harad deck, a pretty traditional blue and purple Rohan deck, and a leadership Gondor deck built or in the process of being built, but I could totally change direction if I hear a fun idea.

Both of the guys I’m playing with are experienced with table top games and familiar with LotR LCG at this point. We are playing through scenarios in progression order, but not limiting deck building in that way. Whole card pool is open. Thanks for any replies!

I played a very few game with 3 other players to initiate friends to the game. First time I build monosphere decks, and the last time I build :

-a mono tactic with eagles and ranged characters to help others players to kill their enemies. I also put TAragorn to pull enemies from the others (and mablung to generate resources)

- a gandalf deck, which brought quest and combat capacities, and healing with elrond + warden of healing

-a hobbit deck for some quest power, but which can also kill some enemies. I put in Faramir to boost willpower and Gleowine to give some card draw

-a leadership/spirit rohan deck, which was the main questing deck, with Erkenbrand to defend until the mono tatic kills with its ranged characters

Every deck could handle an enemy, at least defend it until the mono tactic do its job. They could all contribute to quest (except the first one), and important cards were split among them (healing and treachery cancellation for gandalf, threat reduction and some stat boost for rohan, willpower boost and attack cancelling effects for the hobbits, and a lot of stuff to kill things for the mono tactic)

Here’s a specific question. I tried building a fellowship for 3 players using the “nine walkers” as heroes. You have some flexibility due to multiple versions of several of the heroes. Currently I have Legolas (tac), Gimli (lea), Gandalf as one deck contributing moderately to willpower and handling combat. Merry (sp), Pippin (lore), and Sam as a willpower heavy “elevenses” kind of deck. Then Aragorn, Boromir (both tactics) and Frodo in the third deck, which proves to be the hardest to build. Too much threat raising. Currently that deck uses tactics resources to buff up heroes and handle combat, and spirit resources mostly to play down cheap spirit willpower allies. But it sorely lacks draw because my card pool is stretched thin across 3 decks.

Any other ideas about decks to build using these 9 heroes for a 3 player fellowship?

I personally would switch Boromir and Gandalf.

You could switch Aragorn to his Lore version, then you can reset your threat when it gets too high.

Yes. I personally choose Lore Aragorn and spirit Legolas way above the tactics one. So I end playing only Boromir in tactics, it is fine since I do not really find tactics strong or interesting. And 3 heroes spirit, witch is perfect especially if you can duplicate important cards like test of will.

I would personally play it like this:

- Hobbit (Sam/merry/pippin): http://ringsdb.com/deck/view/127030
- Fight (Boromir, Legolas/Gimli): http://ringsdb.com/deck/view/46223
- goodstuff (Gandalf/Aragorn/Frodo): http://ringsdb.com/deck/view/127033

Thanks for the fellowship. It looks powerful indeed. How do you think the Hobbit deck will fare with cards like Timely Aid and Resourceful while the other two decks are running Deep Knowledge and Legacy of Numenor?

I don’t proxy cards so I won’t be able to run as many staples as you, like Daeron’s Runes in both of the lore decks. It makes it harder to solve the card draw problem when I stretch myself out so thin. I’m still thinking about swapping Boromir and Gandalf’s positions in my own fellowship, as suggested here.

The hobbit deck is supposed to be the first player. So he can play all his secrecy cards (there is many allies too) before anyone play doomed cards (still during hobbit planning, so hobbit can still play cards thanks to the draw and/or resources). There is usually one or two turns break before he can play others secrecy cards, but with many double back, merry ability and the events that reduce threat he can get back to secrecy. I usually prefer to play secrecy deck one with another so I can enjoy many interactions, and really choose about enemies engagement (not just let the others players handle all of them ^^) but doomed cards are too powerful outside secrecy so I think this is the best compromise. I already play this kind of fellowship and it worker well.

There is no that many cards in more than 3x (in fact I should even play more of them, like hobbit pipe but I haven't thought about when deckbuilding): only daeron's rune and test of will. And you may have 6 test of will if you buy 3 core set. I hope so because only 3 test of will at 3 players is really problematic. But 6 is good, sometime even better than playing 9. I think that you should remove test of will and Daeron's rune from Hobbit and play:
+2 fast hitch
+2 staff of lebethron (can go on Boromir or Frodo or Sam, only Gimli is not eligible)
+1 double back
+1 good meal
And in Gandalf deck -1 fast hitch for another galadhrim greeting (also in core set, you should have 6 of them if you have 6 test of will).