I recently purchased the Black Riders expansion and thought it would be fun to play 4 out of the 5 hobbits it comes with. I know that isn't a requirement, but it seemed thematically appropriate enough to at least try. So I've made several iterations of a Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin deck. I have played the Shadow of the Past quest 4 times now and each time I can get to 3b but eventually my threat reaches 50 or the Black Riders destroy my hobbits one by one. It seems like a great deck up until that point. Is it possible to beat this quest with the hobbits, or does FFG anticipate you'll compensate with other characters? I am relatively new to the game. I started back in December and have 1 core set, the first 2 Shadows of Mirkwood adventure packs, and the Lost Realm deluxe expansion. And now the Black Riders. So my card pool isn't huge. Does anybody have any suggestions? I know more cards would be helpful, and when the funds arrive, more cards there shall be! But any help in the meantime would be great. Thanks to anybody who can help!

I've beaten that quest with the three hobbit decklist contained in Black Riders. How similar are the decks you are constructing? From the expansions you have, I think Dunedain Warning (for Sam) is the one card I would *definitely* want in the deck. Gather Information can also extend the time spent on stage one.

I've definitely been including Dunedain Warning, and Sam has been key with his readying move. Merry has been my warrior, of course, and Pippin has been great about getting me more cards. In fact, I've never had such an easy time acquiring cards. Only drawing one card a turn has always irked me, but I even ran out of cards one time with one iteration of this deck. As for how different they are, I've mainly been switching up allies, trying to have more allies that cost less for the sake of having more willpower on the board in case I need to do a hide test. I thought about Gather Information, but with only one copy allowed in a deck I didn't know if it'd be worth it. I keep wondering if Fatty would be a better choice than Pippin so I can get spirit in there and all those threat reducing cards and Unexpected Courage, but I'm just not sure. Frodo and Sam are almost always my main "questers"... I usually leave Merry ready in case of attack, and Sam is my defender since he'd be able to ready if a Black Rider engaged me. Pippin I sometimes will commit based on how many other allies I have on the table. I sometimes use him for hide tests. I've got my staple Gandalfs, of course. Are there any specific allies you'd recommend I include? I also have two Protector of Loriens in there and I thought maybe I should add Celebrian's Stone too. I only have one core set, so I'm a little limited.

I guess not having Fast Hitch is hurting quite a lot since it's an exceptional action advantage card.

Perhaps you should try going for some Elfstone to put in play some heavy weight from the core set like Beorn, Faramir and the Northern Tracker. I guess you are already using Sneak Attack + Gandalf right?

Can you perhaps build your deck on RingsDB so we can give you more specific suggestions?

Typically this hero lineup is used to put a flood of allies on the board, who then do most of the work. Sam in particular and Merry are making big contributions with their stats, but most “stat contributors” in a classic Merry Pippin Sam deck are high-stat allies like ally Treebeard, Gildor, etc, and they are getting accelerated into play with things like Timely Aid, A Very Good Tale. That’s my understanding of how people tend to successfully use this particular version of a Hobbit deck.

I would not swap out Pippin for Fredegar -- although he gives you access to threat-lowering cards, you don't have access to many yet, his ability raises your threat, and his stat distribution isn't helpful for you.

Celebrian's Stone provides two willpower for two resources, so would definitely be worth having in your deck. Yes, you only have one -- if it doesn't show up, you don't play it, but if it does show up, it will be useful.

Gather Information is limited to one copy so may not show up, but all cards that are never drawn are equally useless. The question is whether a 1x card would be useful if drawn. In this quest, GI is particularly useful in the first stage (only one progress needed, gives time to setup) and in the third stage (main quest needs no progress tokens)

Another option could be for you to play with a smaller (let's say 40 cards) deck to account for your smaller collection.

This was the first good lineup for (start-in-secrecy) decks and there's a lot of those out there, but since it only has one turn in secrecy (starts at 20 threat, no non-Gandalf threat reduction until Shirefolk was released) it can be a bit hit or miss in that role. Neither Timely Aid nor AVGT made the cut in my analysis of Sam/LoPippin/TaMerry decks:

https://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/9372/a-stereotypical-hobbit-deck-1.0

With that said, he lacks access to Timely Aid and AVGT, plus a number of useful hobbit buffing attachments like Friend of Friends, Staff of Lebethron, and Fast Hitch. He also lacks most of the big allies Timely Aid wants to find. However, he *does* have access to Elfstone, as Alonewolf pointed out, and the quest doesn't lack for reasonably easy to clear locations. Beorn and Faramir would both be dead useful, I'm less sold on Northern Tracker for one-deck play in this quest. I'd be tempted to try Rivendell Minstrel/Song of Wisdom/Burning Brand, but I have a weakness for hard to assemble combos (though the card draw available helps).

Gandalf aside, the most important available ally is Henamarth Riversong. If he's out, the quest becomes vastly easier.

If you're including any copies of Guard of the Citadel, replace them with Weather Hills Watchman -- same cost and stats, but can pull a Warning out of the deck (or Dunedain Mark, if you're using that).

Just now, dalestephenson said:

Beorn and Faramir would both be dead useful, I'm less sold on Northern Tracker for one-deck play in this quest.

The Northern Tracker was more for use in combat than anything else.

1 minute ago, dalestephenson said:

the most important available ally is Henamarth Riversong

Indeed.

This is great feedback. Thank you to all who are responding! One thing is abundantly clear: I need more cards, haha. And I shall get them! I am going to go ahead and put my deck on ringsdb and then I'll post a link here in case anybody wants to take a look and offer suggestions. I keep hearing about this Fast Hitch. Which set does that come in?

Fast Hitch is in Dead Marshes. If you take a look at the stereotypical deck I linked above, you can see the set by hovering the mouse pointer over the card. Most cards in that deck that you don't have are from later Saga releases.

https://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/15963/hobbitsvsblackriders-1.0

Here is the current deck. I couldn't figure out how to include Frodo in my hero lineup, so I put him on the sideboard. Not sure if there is a certain way I was supposed to do that. They didn't seem to have The One Ring from the Black Riders set either.

Any feedback is appreciated!

Add Gleowine for sure, it's a must. Besides that perhaps try using some Radagast's Cunning/Secret Paths (instead of Take no Notice) to help questing/conserving actions for Hide test and adding some Erebor Hammersmith (good stats for the cost and it can get back some attachment discarded to Protector of Lorien). But I don't think you could have done much better with your card pool.

Since you're using Songs, I'd prefer Minstrel of Rivendell over Sarn Ford Sentry, and include one copy of Song of Wisdom and Song of Kings. Radagast's Cunning is certainly a good idea, since you start with a four threat enemy in staging, will add another to staging twice during the quest, and you won't be in a hurry to engage it until you're ready to take it down.

I loved Winged Guardians in general, but not in this quest -- Black Riders attack for 5, so they're just chumps. You'd be better off with Gondorian Spearmen, same cost and they can inflict a point of damage on the way out. The spearman can also help take care of the crow. But with Sam around, if you can stay under 35 I don't know that you need 3x of a defense-only ally in the first place.

I'd find room for Beorn and a third copy of Elf-stone. If you can cheat Beorn into play, he'd help out a lot.

I always consider Miner of the Iron Hills in quests with nasty conditions, which this has, but Frodo's cancellation ability -- and the requirement that you *must* past Hide tests if you want to win and a Rider is out -- might make him expendable here. Aside from condition removal, Erebor Hammersmith is more useful.

Great suggestions everybody. Thank you for your help! I finally beat the scenario!

How about for a two player game? My fiance and I are newbies as well, and jumped into the Saga expansions right from the core set. We've got Black Riders and Road Darkens. We're struggling to find a good pair of decks to use. We'd like to utilize the Hobbits, but finding a complementary deck to an all-Hobbit crew has proven difficult. Although, we haven't had much luck even without using them. Got to stage 3 in our first game, then proceeded to be location locked to Mordor and back. Our next two attempts, we barely made it out of Bag End.

Would the suggested two player decklist in Road Darkens be viable for Black Riders? Do we stand a chance with our limited card pool? Or are we in over our heads here?