With the new deluxe expansion comes the Fellowship card. In the two threads to the anouncements was discussed which heroes to chose to assemble the original members of the fellowship, as well as the fact that you profit from certain missions (and saga) when you have more than the usual 3 heroes at the beginning. But what is the fastest way to get a fellowship together, like any fellowship.

I am not a Seastan, but I could bet the best archetype for doing so is either Erestor or Caldara.

My first approch is the attached Noldor deck. It is not optimized (e.g. Thalion could be replaced for another copy of Steward of Gondor and maybe a warrior sword) to get the allies the fastest possible way.

What would be your approach?

I would say that perhaps a Dwarf Swarm deck built around Thorin's company (with Fili-Kili and SpBofur as ways to cheat into play more uniques) might be a very fast way to achieve that.

Also an Hobbit deck (with a free Bill the Pony) can perhaps get to nine uniques by turn 2 with some lucky draws

Good old fashion Elrond+Vilya deck should do it. 👍

On 7/7/2019 at 1:05 PM, Alonewolf87 said:

I would say that perhaps a Dwarf Swarm deck built around Thorin's company (with Fili-Kili and SpBofur as ways to cheat into play more uniques) might be a very fast way to achieve that.

Also an Hobbit deck (with a free Bill the Pony) can perhaps get to nine uniques by turn 2 with some lucky draws

With a Dwarf Swarm I'd usually go Leadership/Lore, but with SpBofur I'd tend to Leadership/Spirt. In that case there are exactly 6 unique dwarf allies (ignoring Brok) might work!

I never did build even a decent Hobbit deck. Mind elaborating your idea a bit?

On 7/7/2019 at 8:51 PM, stimpaksam said:

Good old fashion Elrond+Vilya deck should do it. 👍

I thought on Vilya, too. Round six and you got all of a fellowship together - even faster, if you are lucky with your combination of resources and the allies you do have in your starting hand. But you cannot bring Stargazers (probably a Gildor Inglorion might help but that is a costy ally), so to be effective that deck has to contain lots of allies. Different unique allies (so that Vilya does work every time). While they usually are strong, each single one has another flavor. Such a deck would be very inconsistent. In the end I do think this will not be a very good deck.

2 hours ago, Flrbb said:

I never did build even a decent Hobbit deck. Mind elaborating your idea a bit?

As heroes SpMerry, Folco/LoPippin, LeSam. The best possibile scenario would be: Turn 1 play Ioreth, Galion and Bill the Pony for free and nothing else, in the second turn play Rosie Cotton, Robin Smallburrow/Quickbeam and Bilbo Baggins, getting up to nine unique allies. With some luck in the draw and Drinking Song it could be not so farfetched. For the rest the deck can be built around Pipes, low threat and a few ents for defense hard hits.

By no means though this is the most powerful fellowship you can accomplish. I also think it's not the fastest as a Noldor Caldara deck would quite likely be even faster with some good chance to pull it off even in turn 1 (Caldara/Cirdan, Arwen as heroes, Emery and Galion played for free, SpImrahil played normally, SpBofur cheated into play after failing the quest, three other unique allies in the discard pile thanks to Arwen + Emery + Cirdan put into play by Caldara's effect counting Imrahil)

2 hours ago, Flrbb said:

With a Dwarf Swarm I'd usually go Leadership/Lore, but with SpBofur I'd tend to Leadership/Spirt. In that case there are exactly 6 unique dwarf allies (ignoring Brok) might work!

With Narvi's Belt spheres are not such a terrible restriction I think. You could have as heroes Thorin, Dain and Bifur, and as allies Fili, Kili, Dwalin, Azain, Gloin, Bombur and Dori.

I bet you could do it round 1. Ioreth, Galion, and Bill the Pony are all free. Henamarth is 1. That gets you to 7 already. Rosie is 2 cost, ally Arwen is 2.

With a deck of Galadriel, Sam, and Erestor (or Beravor), filled with card draw and including legacy of numenor, I bet you could get pretty consistent at doing it turn 1 or 2.

You could lose some consistency but gain some power by replacing one of those characters (probably henamarth) with OHuH Gandalf. You have the resources to fulfill the contact turn 2, if you get 1 legacy of numenor off. If you get 2 off, you can have the resources to get Gandalf in turn 1.

Haha. You guys are geniuses. Thanks.

But is it worth playing Galion in a non-Silvian-bouncing-deck, just to fulfill the contract one round earlier? :)

9 hours ago, Alonewolf87 said:

...For the rest the deck can be built around Pipes, low threat and a few ents  for defense hard hits.

Errrm... no. You cannot play "a few ents" with that contract ^^

Well, theoretically you could kill/discard two heroes, replace them with ents and bring them back via Fortune or Fate.

6 hours ago, Flrbb said:

Errrm... no. You cannot play "a few ents" with that contract ^^

Well it depends if you want to fulfill the contract in all the games or if you want to keep it fulfilled all the time. In any case there a few unique ent allies (Treebeard itself as a notable example) so even though you might start with that fast lineup of unique allies you might end up sacrificing some of them to then later play a few stronger ones.

6 hours ago, Flrbb said:

Haha. You guys are geniuses. Thanks.

But is it worth playing Galion in a non-Silvian-bouncing-deck, just to fulfill the contract one round earlier?

It's a valid question. But even after his enters play effect expires, he still has 1 willpower from the contract. You could run a more powerful ally, sure - the question is whether it would improve the deck versus an extra turn or two of having the contract's boost. And that would take testing to figure out

How about a Harad deck? Those powerful uniques should do it

On 7/17/2019 at 12:42 AM, MikeGracey said:

How about a Harad deck? Those powerful uniques should do it

A Harad fellowship would be good, though perhaps a bit slow to bring 3 5-cost allies into play from different sphere, though Kahliel does help with resource smoothing. While you can't use the Southron Refugee or the Tribesman, you will have the "Big Three" out withing a few turns, and those stat-boosts will be great! You could perhaps do some Very good Tale action to cheat some in play, any extra copies you discard can be returned with the Headdress. The other allies will have to be cheaper in order to get the contract's bonus going quickly. I can see a lineup of Hero1+Hero2+Kahliel, Yazan/Firyal/Jubayr/Ioreth/Henamarth/Ally1
Elrond would be a good combo here as well. Vilya could put these allies in quicker, his healing boosts Ioreth, and his multisphere ability allows to get the Harad allies in play quickly as well. Would be a fun deck to build once the contract is released.

Lately, I tried a Kahliel+Erestor+Denethor deck. That works better with Hirluin/Outlands, but is still possible. You also could play Ioreth and Henamarth.

Anyhow, I want that box. Now.

At least the rules pdf. Just. Something.

17 hours ago, Durins_Father said:

A Harad fellowship would be good, though perhaps a bit slow to bring 3 5-cost allies into play from different sphere, though Kahliel does help with resource smoothing. While you can't use the Southron Refugee or the Tribesman, you will have the "Big Three" out withing a few turns, and those stat-boosts will be great! You could perhaps do some Very good Tale action to cheat some in play, any extra copies you discard can be returned with the Headdress. The other allies will have to be cheaper in order to get the contract's bonus going quickly. I can see a lineup of Hero1+Hero2+Kahliel, Yazan/Firyal/Jubayr/Ioreth/Henamarth/Ally1
Elrond would be a good combo here as well. Vilya could put these allies in quicker, his healing boosts Ioreth, and his multisphere ability allows to get the Harad allies in play quickly as well. Would be a fun deck to build once the contract is released.

First Id like to say that while I have played this game for several years, this is the 1st time I posted on this forum, though I have kept up with it for a long time.

Im a big fan of your blog Durins Father, keep up the good work!

I like your idea about the Harad deck. My inital impression was not to necessarily get to 9 characters on round 1 or 2 but to really try get some of the best allies over several turns, like ally arwen and the twins with harad or something like that.

Also you could run the non-unique harad allies, just use them as discard fodder to ready a boosted Kahiel or Jubayr

This deck has a very high rate of activating Fellowship on turn 1: https://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/12421/therapidchargeoffellowship-1.0

It has never taken me longer than turn 2.