I'm just starting to get into this game. I haven't done any deck-building yet, but it will be pretty tempting to play Eowyn every time.

She seems to be the best for actually accumulating progress tokens.

I've only played two games so far. The first one was two-player; I used the Spirit deck and my brother used the Tactics deck. With Eowyn and her special ability, we ended up usually pretty low on cards, but absolutely crushed the first scenario.

This morning I tried that scenario again solo with the Leadership deck and this time I was just creamed. I'm looking forward to tinkering with the decks and trying various things out, but Eowyn sure seems like the top choice for getting those Progress tokens.

I'm totally down with that character having a high Willpower, but with a base value that is at least double that of (almost) every other Hero seems a bit excessive.

I believe Eowyn's greatest strength is the boost she gives during the first couple of turns. It is hardest to marshal enough Willpower to get success tokens on those turns because you don't have many allies to help you. Eowyn makes questing those first few turns much easier. However once your questing willpower reaches around five her utility drops. She has absolutely no versatility because only thing she is good at doing is questing. (Still you can't go wrong with 4 willpower)

I never felt the need to use Eowyn. Using Protector of Lorien (thrice a deck) will give a better effect in a majority of games. I play a Spirit-minor deck and there Dunhere seems a better option indeed.

Protector of Lorien is essentially just Eowyn's action. Having it in multiples doesn't help you either since you can't count one discard for 3 willpower. I don't really see how that is better than a straight 4 willpower...

Mestrahd said:

It is infinitely better since you can not only discard multiple cards whilst questing but you can (at the same round) discard more cards whilst defending. Of course it is a different thing, attachment vs hero, but I find Eowyn very overrated around these boards, at least I never missed her in my games. Perhaps she is a bit more essential in solo, as I mostly play coop. Questing isn't all in this game, surely.

The problem with Eowyn with me is that she is not good at anything else than questing. 1 attack and 1 defense don't go very far.

But she has come in handy in several of the games I have played.

Mestrahd said:

Oh, I think we didn't understand each other firstly. You probably thought I meant having 3 copies of Protector on a Hero whilst I meant in the deck - to maximize the chance of drawing it...

And do you know that you can discard multiple cards using Protector? Each card will give the bonus, as with Eowyn, but there each player can only discard one, here only one player can discard but as many cards as he can or wants, and not only for questing but also defending.

Given that questing comes first, unless you have unexpected courage, the fact that Eowyn can't really fight (must be doubly embaressing for the Witch-King of angmar to have been taken out by someone with only 1 attack) doesn't really matter. She's always the first chracter committed to a quest, and unless you're one of the people who likes to stall on questing so that they can end up with a perfect score, achieved over 78 turns, what's not to like about 4+ willpower?

Mighty Jim said:

That was my take, the lack of defense and attack stats doesn't really matter, because you just commit her to the Quest each turn. Just make sure you've got some strong fighters to back her up.

Mighty Jim said:

Sure. But as I said, in a Spirit-minor deck I play Dunhere. And there's been many cases where stuff like Hummerhorns or Goblin Sniper came up and I felt very fortunate to have the Rohan Rider on my side. The Willpower of 4 wouldn't be very useful if the beastly crickets attacked.

gatharion said:

Her 3 HP is what keeps her from being over powered. Cards like Dol Guldur Orcs and The Necromancer's Reach are what I worry about when I play with her.

She is really useful in a solo deck because she allows you to get a foot hold in the game early on, while you don't have many allies etc in play. You can quest just with her and still keep on top of threat early on, leaving other heroes to defend/attack as needed.

She is probably less useful (or probably not missed so much) in multi player.

lleimmoen, who else is in your Spirit minor deck (which other sphere and heroes), it would be interesting to see which other heroes you use to get the willpower to quest early on, or is it more of a case of treading water in those early rounds untli you can get some allies and PoL into play?

Questing with just Eowyn is very tempting (especially with Favour of the Lady and Celebrian's Stone on her), until you run into Dol Guldur Orcs.

Really, of all the enemies in the game I think those Orcs are the ones who have hurt me most often.

ClydeCloggie said:

Only committing Eowyn and drawing Black Forest Bats also results in hairpulling .

Any sort of very heavy tactics deck(s) means very weak willpower overall. Nothing will fix this better than 4 willpower Eowyn and her faithful band of Northern Trackers..

pumpkin said:

Thanks for the interest. I play Dunhere with Aragorn and Theodred. So unless I get the Stone, the Willpower isn't that great. Most of my games are coop though with a Lore-Tactics (including Glorfindel who helps some deal). I think you are surelly right about the difference between the solo and coop play. I think it is very significant now.

PS: When I play solo, the first rounds are indeed tough with questing although Aragorn can both quest and fight. It is usually Faramir or Northern Tracker who get things going.

ClydeCloggie said:

Oh, I hate the suckers. There were games when I drew all three copies within four rounds of the game...

Out of interest, who do you guys usually group Eowyn with? It seems to me that a Lore deck is quite needed since her partial frailty with all the questing may be a big issue.

I am trying out a Denethor, Dunhere, Eowyn deck that is performing very well at the moment and has pretty low starting threat too

pumpkin said:

I went Dunhere / Aragorn which meant starting threat of 29. Basically against Anduin the first round would be hairy: you have to quest well to avoid a Threat rise, and then play either Gandalf or Galadhrim's Greetings second turn to avoid running into the Troll too early. My wins against that scenario invariably came after being able to pull off the aforementioned.

When I want to play Gimli/Thalin and Legolas I always end up using Eowyn as a 3rd hero.

ClydeCloggie said:

Yer my deck relies on having enough rounds to get a forest snare or enough fire power to deal with the troll before it engages from staging, having low threat helps with that quite a lot - not always successful though!

I play Eowyn, Eleanor, and Beravor. Eleanor, the additional cards from Beravor, and the lore cards help make up for Eowyn's frailty. Being able to cancel things like necromancer's reach is nice. It helps to mention that I play 2 player and the other deck is leadership/tactics heavy on ranged and sentinel cards.

For solo play she is the best.So far the key to win the scenarios is to survive the first rounds and Eowyn makes your life easier wen questing.Your other 2 options are Aragorn and Glorfindel but Aragorn needs celebrian's stone to be effective and you need Glorfindel for combat phase (or you need UC on him).Both Aragorn and Glorfindel need attachments to be effective but even then they are not as effective as Eowyn.

I really like Eowyn (she's been in my deck since day 1), but in a 3 player game Legolas ability can be equally helpful for the accumulation of progress tokens.

The problem with Eowyn imho is that she's so fragile.

Her combo with Stand and Fight is perfect for dual sphere games, as long as Spirit is your main sphere. Apart from the obvious benefit of having a Hero who quests like crazy, you may put expensive allies from the remaining spheres and play them with your Spirit resources.

Eowyn is boss.