like it says.....ive made one on cardgamedb, because i cant wait for it to arrive. i still think the dwarf card pool still has a bit to go, but that should be sorted with the ad. packs

I tried solo 2 decks vs multiple plays of Anduin and Emyn Muil.

First deck was Dain - Bifur - Thalin, second was Dain - Bifur - Dwalin. They are definately viable, but tricky to play correctly. When you use Dain, you need to micromanage and count a lot. Unless you have Unexpected courage, this is rather painful (new erebor dwarf also helps but is costly). Dain's abilities (+1 attack for every dwarf and great block/HP) are not really working well together. What I really loved, was easy initial willpower (without Eowyn!) and minstrels - songs engine. I had 3 copies of During Song and 1 copy of Taunting song in the deck and it worked wonders.

if you haven't been using ironfoot form the time he was released your doing it wrong.. "dwarf deck" or not.. one of the best heroes around for multiplayer games.

Still I think that making "tribal" decks in LoTR-LCG is not a good deck making strategy. Like eagles has only been available from the release of return and is still pretty weak in many areas. None of the other tribes are really working imo. Rohan has some good effects but is still not powerful enough as a single mono tribe. I really just think that trying to build these decks are a bit of a waste of time for now... instead decks based on engines or roles is the way to go at this stage.

im talking more thematic play here....so my question really is...is it possible to make a thematiclly correct deck that is ok, not great, but do able for lets say at least half of the quests?

what exactly is a thematicaly correct deck? I mean that is impossible isn't it?

Oh heck yeah.

They're really powerful! I've played 2 player duel dwarf decks for my first few games of Into the Pit. We were running Thalin, Gimli, Dwalin and Bifur, Gloin, Dain and the questing boost is so sweet from Dain, even enough to match the really tough locations coming out of Moria! It works so well to have the player who's not controling Bifur to have steward of Gondor on him and feed Bifur some extra resources. The one thing that was really lacking was some card draw! Gleowine was my buddy most of the games.

All this being said, we actually lost our first three games against Into the Pit, even one where we switched and my wife played all Spirit deck (with Eowyn) and I did a tri-sphere Dwarf deck with Bifur, Dain, Gimli. The win came when we went back to mostly Dwarves with Eowyn thrown in (my wife's idea, I think she's used too much as a crutch!) the line up was Eowyn, Dain, Dwalin and Bifur, Thalin, Gimli.

Into the Pit is such a great challenge, I love it! The key is to not get stuck outside the gate or you can get swamped by location build up.

booored said:

well my view of a correct theme deck is that all the cards have to have some significance to the deck, apart from 'thematically neutral' cards (i.e. shadow of the past, self preservation) its easily managable to make one of these, my question is can one be made that works

No, it is not possible yet. The dwarves simple lack the quality allies. I mean, there are quite a few of them, but not enough to build the whole deck. When I was doing a "dwarf" deck, I included all nice dwarves with good abilities or cheap cost, so they would be improved by Dain. But still, there were not enough dwarves to include, so I added Haldir, Minstrels, Trackers, Wassals etc. And I had quite a lot events not really related to dwarves.

As far as Eagles go, I may say that I run somewhat "eagle" deck. I have 3 wassals, 2 thorondors, 2 misty eagles and 3 radagasts in my Eowyn - Theodred - Legolas deck. The theme is not really important for me, I just play those cards because they are all good on their own and sometimes they work together. Honestly, I can't really imagine playing more eagles right now.

on that point does anyone know what cards to expect from the upcoming packs...i mean obviously dwarves and noldor as we go to rivendell, but are we going to see more eagles?

Why not? We have seen dwarves in shadows of mirkwood.

guciomir said:

yes, the reason i ask is that mirkwood had some pretty random card focuses- rohan for instance- so have we had a clue yet if we are in for some other random card focusing?

I'd like to see more Silvan types.. I think that tribe is by far the weakest in LoTR at the moment, if your talking about trying to make proper tribal decks.

richsabre said:

Also the other option is the eagle deck can start to fade but the time of the "creature" deck may be at hand... we might not see eagles but I think wolves might be a possibility? Still I see no reason for not having more eagles coming.. I mentioned this b4.. but there aren't really any more factions in LoTR... so we WILL be seeing eagles again.. simply as they have to print something.

Looks like we'll probably be seeing at least one more eagle, at some point.

Lightdarker said:

Cool pic.. still ... what is it about tolkien's works that make people draw crowns that look like tiaras that a 8 year old girl in a pink tutu wears.

EDIT

Hey LightDarker.. how did you make a link with alternitive text in it?

are all the types of beings (not evil) on middle earth accounted for? edit: got some- the dead army, ENTS, the Woses, whatever in middle earth tom bombadil and goldberry was (its never been decided, not even by the man himself), stone giants as in the hobbit, lets see, add any i forget...

men (gondor/rohan/dundain/breelanders etc)

noldor

silvan

dwarf

hobbit

istari

creature (wolves, squirrels etc)

eagles

the dead

woses

ents/ huorns

other sprits (bombadil/ goldberry)

giants

beornings

not sure they can use ents though, as they only awake during the war and FFGs game is all set b4 then... like they can probably have them.. but it wouldn't fit a theme... undead is defiantly going to come at some point and I am VERY much looking for ward to that... can not go wrong with undead art!! Not sure what a woses is.. and everything else in your list we have seen cards for already. Still point taken, there is more to come for sure.. but still Tolkiens world is not as "fantastic" as the modern fantasy, so expect all the cards to be of the same ilk. I do not think we will see much in the way of changes in player cards.. just more of the same.. so there was a complaint in this thread about an axe.. well get ready there will probably be 20 different dwarf axe cards after a few years

booored said:

im actually looking forward to this, i like to have a choice in my weapons...for instance...mirkwood bow/lorien bow/ bow of Bard/ gondorian bow/ rohan bow etc. etc. oh the fun the designers could have with weapons is endless

I'm very excited to start seeing artifact weapons, like Sting, Glamdring or Orcrist, as well as weapons that either grant or have their own abilities as opposed to giving straight attribute buffs, like Dwarven Axe.

@booored: To do a link like I did, highlight whatever text you would you to make into the hyperlink, and click on the "Insert/Edit Link" button. Put in whatever URL you would like, hit OK, and voila!

I am working on a good Dwarf deck right now...finding it hard to win so far though.

To contribute, I like to play two-player games primarily, so here are two complementary Dwarf-heavy decks I've pieced together. Keep in mind that:

1) For better or worse, I'm one of those players who likes to build decks that have a high likelihood of victory against ANY scenario.

2) I haven't actually received my copy of Khazad-dum!

3) I have not laboriously analyzed any quest and encounter card spoilers, so these are just cards chosen because they work well together.

Here goes!

Deck 1:

Major Tactics / Minor Leadership (Threat 31)

Hero (3)
Thalin (Core) x1
Gimli (Core) x1
Dain Ironfoot (RtM) x1

Ally (17)
Faramir (Core) x2
Gandalf (Core) x3
Snowbourn Scout (Core) x3
Vassal of the Windlord (TDM) x3
Veteran Axehand (Core) x3
Winged Guardian (THfG) x3

Attachment (20)
Celebrian's Stone (Core) x2
Citadel Plate (Core) x3
Dunedain Mark (THfG) x3
Dwarrowdelf Axe (KD) x3
Dwarven Axe (Core) x3
Horn of Gondor (Core) x3
Steward of Gondor (Core) x3

Event (13)
Durin's Song (KD) x2
Feint (Core) x3
Khazad! Khazad! (KD) x2
Quick Strike (Core) x3
Sneak Attack (Core) x3

The primary role of Deck 1 is combat. The Eagle and Snowbourn Scout allies should all serve as damage sponges, while attachments should be played on the heroes and characters in both decks that benefit the most (i.e., Citadel Plate on Gimli, Dwarven Axe on any heroes, Dwarrowdelf Axe on Veteran Axehand, Erebor Hammersmith, even Zigil Miner, etc). Dain himself makes for a spectacular defender, just make sure he is exhausted last of any Dwarf characters. If there aren't many enemies to deal with, Deck 1 can also contribute heavily toward questing, and no matter which player has enemies engaged with them, it possesses a number of events to make eliminating them pretty simple. Horn of Gondor and Steward of Gondor can be played on whichever player needs them most, although Thalin in Deck 1 and Bifur in the other deck are probably prime targets.

Deck 2:

Major Lore / Minor Spirit (Threat 26)

Hero (3)
Bifur (KD) x1
Beravor (Core) x1
Dwalin (KD) x1

Ally (26)
Zigil Miner (KD) x3
Northern Tracker (Core) x3
Miner of the Iron Hills (Core) x3
Henamarth Riversong (Core) x2
Gildor Inglorion (THoEM) x2
Gandalf (Core) x3
Erebor Record Keeper (KD) x3
Erebor Hammersmith (Core) x3
Daughter of the Nimrodel (Core) x2
Rivendell Minstrel (THFG) x2

Attachment (11)
Unexpected Courage (Core) x3
Song of Travel (THoEM) x2
Self Preservation (Core) x1
Protector of Lorien (Core) x2
Ancient Mathom (AJtR) x3

Event (13)
A Test of Will (Core) x3
Hasty Stroke (Core) x3
Lore of Imladris (Core) x2
Stand and Fight (Core) x2
The Galadhrim's Greeting (Core) x3

The primary role of Deck 2 is support, as it has all the cancellation effects and has The Ghaladrim's Greeting to help reduce the threat of Deck 1 - Dwalin himself should be more than enough to keep Deck 2's threat low, especially if he has attachments from Deck 1. In any case, Bifur and Dwalin together quest for 5, and Erebor Record Keeper quests for 2 for a single resource, given Dain's ability. Unexpected Courage is great on Beravor, and if Bifur has lots of resources, using Erebor Record Keeper to ready Dwarves for questing or combat is theoretically fantastic. A goal is to get Song of Travel on Bifur as soon as possible, to better enable Deck 2 to get out the expensive Northern Tracker while still having excess resources to pay for cancellation effects. Bifur's own ability to gather resources helps expedite that process, and makes Gildor Inglorion more affordable, which starts somewhat of a resource generation engine with Zigil Miner, should you choose to tinker around with that, but in any case provides a very welcome solid defender and excellent 3 willpower. Deck 2 should also be able to deal relatively well with combat, as it has both strong and disposable allies, many of which can benefit from Dwarrowdelf Axe from Deck 1 and combine with heroes such as Dwalin (a great recipient for Mark of the Dunedain, Dwarven Axe, etc.), in order to easily dispose of even powerful enemies. Beravor and Ancient Mathom have great card draw, and Erebor Hammersmith (in addition to being a fantastic ally), bringing the latter back from the discard pile is awesome. Protector of Lorien is icing on the cake. There is a little bit of diverse healing available in this deck, and I'm not entirely sure if its too much or not enough for Khazad-dum (given how many disposable allies I include), but we'll have to see!

I'm excited to put these two decks together once my copy of Khazad-dum finally arrives, but until then, to anybody who wants to give 'em a shot, have at it! Feel free to suggest any changes.

Can't really comment on your deck as my copy of kaz is not here and I do not like to look at spoilers... one thing to note.. you are missing a MAJOR draw engine that you could run..

By placing Son of Bane or w/e he is called on the opposite deck to where Beravore is. He can then join in attacks to untap her. This, imo, is a very powerful combo for Beravor.

Also... I tend to make multiplayer decks that fit roles, as in questing and a face melting ago deck... As I said I do not know the Heroes.. but I do know Gimi, so that heavy hitter might be best to NOT be teamed with Ironfoot. Place Ironfoot in the sneaky questing event type deck, as that deck will not ever really have cards in the staging area, meaning ironfoot will nvr untap. The ago gimi deck you might want to have the option to tap down all 3 heroes each turn to kill and block, (with help from brand) and as a plus.. due to ironfoots mass defense.. if a mob dose get though to your quest deck, you have a always untapped hero for defense.

I think a lot of deck builders are still lagging behind the concept of LoTR-LCG.. and that is that it is co-op. Yes.. having deck roles is defiantly the way to go.. BUT.. the heroes and the card pools do not necessarily have to match those roles. Only allies need to be cast form the decks. All attachments and events can be played from either deck. This is the thing I think a lot of people haven't caught onto. You can build these decks (I mainly play 2 or 3 player) but build them as if they are a single deck. Cross casting, so cards that are integral to the deck performance can in fact NOT be in the deck itself.. but the sister deck.

DurinIII said:

I think this is and will the case in most tribal decks .. personally I think making tribes is just the wrong way to go about it at the moment. You would be much better off making a normal deck that is just heavy in one tribe .. as forcing an entire tribal deck will just leave you so weak in other areas... of course this is compounded if you are playing solo, as a solo deck needs to be very versatile and fill all roles at once, while co-op decks can focus on a single task and fit tribes much better.

I'm a little confused as to whether or not you're suggesting that the two decks I posted are an example of someone approaching deck building without highly synergistic play in mind, but rest assured that they were designed from the ground up based upon how they can benefit one another.

When I first started playing this game (two player), I definitely tried to build each nevertheless complementary deck with a distinct "role." I tried to maximize the synergistic effects between the two, of course, but basically focused on one being largely combat and one being largely questing and support focused. However, as time has gone on, I feel that both of these decks ended up being complete overkill in their respective departments, and with Khazad-dum I believe there is a large enough pool of cards to easily construct two delightfully flexible and synergistic decks that excel at both combat and questing (and that can bounce back and forth between these roles as needed), with each additionally providing something "extra" that the other cannot by itself contribute (i.e., Spirit and Lore's card draw/healing, Tactics and Leadership's resource generation and combat attachments/events, etc).

You mention using Brand son of Bain, but I've never personally cared for him much, as to benefit from his ability, a number of requirements must be met:

1) The other player must have an enemy engaged with them (potentially putting them at risk of losing heroes/allies, etc)

2) The other player must have a character currently exhausted that can benefit from readying (pretty easy though, when you have Beravor)

3) Your attack must be sufficient to kill, and not merely wound, that enemy. Unless the other player can contribute to combat, 3 alone (more with Dunedain Mark, Blade of Gondolin, etc of course), is not amazing.

4) You must not have used him to quest or block earlier in the round (I don't like that he has 2's for both of these statistics, given his combat ability and measly 3 hit points. I think its a waste of starting threat).

Gimli to me seems like a no-brainer to include in any deck with Dain Ironfoot (3 willpower and 3+ attack? Yes please), but there are many reasons I think Thalin, specifically, is a stronger choice than Brand son of Bain for building these decks (since I definitely want two Tactics heroes). Thalin costs 1 less threat, but with Dain in play has equivalent willpower and attack values - plus, when committed to the quest, some enemies die outright when revealed from the encounter deck, and for all others, they take 1 less point of attack strength to kill, which ends up being a respectable global effect quite similar to Dain's (global weakening, instead of global buffing). Additionally, and very importantly, as a Dwarf he is eligible for attachments such as Dwarven Axe and Dwarrowdelf Axe that Brand son of Bain may never possess, and he is eligible to be targeted by Erebor Record Keeper in the other deck for readying - in that way, not only can he deal his global damage, but an ally that may otherwise do nothing (if using it for questing is not necessary), can be used to allow him to block (he has 1 more hit point than Brand son of Bain), or participate in a large attack against a powerful opponent. Considering the current pool of attachments, and events such as Khazad! Khazad! and Durin's Song, it is easy for Thalin's attack strength to far surpass that of Brand son of Bain. It really makes me wonder, though, if FFG is planning on ever doing much with the "Dale" character trait.

I made the decision to put Spirit and Lore together in part for the Gildor Inglorion / Zigil Miner combination, but also to allow for convenient song fetching by Rivendell Minstrel (since I made the judgment call that Steward of Gondor would probably be best suited for play on Bifur). I chose Bifur over someone like Eowyn because for a lesser cost, his willpower is quite similar, and as an added bonus he has all the delightful Dwarf synergy. Plus, I believe that our present card pool is gravitating toward heavy Lore being more useful than heavy Spirit in "Dwarf heavy" decks (hence two Lore heroes, for their resources), so his ability to receive extra resources, while not great, can be useful, especially if he has Song of Travel attached, so that he can pump out the useful, expensive Spirit cards that would likely otherwise never see play, such as Northern Tracker or perhaps Stand and Fight.

The idea of the Tactics/Leadership deck being better suited to handle powerful combatants means that it'll take on the majority of the big enemies that require lots of readied characters to handle (hell, you could even use Dain to block and have Erebor Record Keeper, etc ready him to regain his global buff for subsequent attacking), while it can let smaller opponents occasionally trickle through to the other player whom will still likely possess capable defenders (Erebor Hammersmith, Gildor Inglorion), and disposable blockers (Henamarth Riversong, perhaps Miner of the Iron Hills). All in all, I'm very excited to give these two decks a go, and with the exception of some likely tweaks here and there, I think they are likely to prove very effective. I've never actually played a game using Thalin before, but I'm eager to see how he does!

Edit: I have to agree though, that making a deck with strictly a thematic or "tribal" focus (even Dwarves), at least at this point in the game's development, is definitely going to lead to some less than optimal builds. But of course, to each's own, and everybody certainly plays this game (and gets the most enjoyment out of doing so), for different reasons!

This site has THE most lame forum software in history.. how can you do multiple quote boxes?

efidm:

When I first started playing this game (two player), I definitely tried to build each nevertheless complementary deck with a distinct "role." I tried to maximize the synergistic effects between the two, of course, but basically focused on one being largely combat and one being largely questing and support focused. However, as time has gone on, I feel that both of these decks ended up being complete overkill in their respective departments, and with Khazad-dum I believe there is a large enough pool of cards to easily construct two delightfully flexible and synergistic decks that excel at both combat and questing (and that can bounce back and forth between these roles as needed), with each additionally providing something "extra" that the other cannot by itself contribute (i.e., Spirit and Lore's card draw/healing, Tactics and Leadership's resource generation and combat attachments/events, etc).

I'm not saying your decks are bad, I do not even have Kaz yet they may work great. I'm just talking about deck construction in general. What you say here is still how I like to build my decks. As in deck roles.

What I was trying to say in the other post is that you do not need to build your decks as autonomous units. The only cards that have to be in a deck are the allies, everything else can be placed in any deck, and cast onto your partners cards. This is the core co-op idea that most decks I see on the net are missing. You do not need to worry about your deck being able to function by itself. You can mix and match heroes with out any regard as to what cards the deck engine requires the player to put into the decks. The reason this came up is that it "looks" like a combat deck (the one with Giml) and Ironfoot is 100% needed to make that deck kick ass, his ability is crazy good. Still he dose not need to be in the combat deck, he can be placed in the control deck, in fact that is a better place for him, as it is the combat deck that will be tapping a lot to defend and attack, while the control/quest deck can easily afford (due to that over powerness you spoke of) have 1 (or better yet 2.. Elenore owns) heroes untapped every turn. So Ironfoots table effect is never turned off, so the combat deck is always buffed and has a xtra slot for defense and attack. As a bonus, Ironfoot's defense . hit points allows the quest deck to defend any enemies that slip past. Then of course you think, well, how can my combat deck cast the cards it needs to function.. well unless they are allies... it doesn't have to. You partner can cast them for you.

efidm:
1) The other player must have an enemy engaged with them (potentially putting them at risk of losing heroes/allies, etc)
2) The other player must have a character currently exhausted that can benefit from readying (pretty easy though, when you have Beravor)
3) Your attack must be sufficient to kill, and not merely wound, that enemy. Unless the other player can contribute to combat, 3 alone (more with Dunedain Mark, Blade of Gondolin, etc of course), is not amazing.
4) You must not have used him to quest or block earlier in the round (I don't like that he has 2's for both of these statistics, given his combat ability and measly 3 hit points. I think its a waste of starting threat).

I like brand. I mean Brand + Support of the Eagels and Vassel is already hitting for 6.. and that can EASILY get set up fast as the combo only costs 4. With Gimli on turn 1 with out anything else happening you have 5attack running + the untap effect, witch as you say combos like madness with Beravor, and lets face it.. most Gimli players might over commit to the quest on turn one and leave any attacks undefended to add wound counters... so an attack with the power 7/8 + draw 4 cards is a VERY common turn 2 effect when running Brand.

efidm:
Edit: I have to agree though, that making a deck with strictly a thematic or "tribal" focus (even Dwarves), at least at this point in the game's development, is definitely going to lead to some less than optimal builds. But of course, to each's own, and everybody certainly plays this game (and gets the most enjoyment out of doing so), for different reasons!

"Tribal" is a term i picked up from Magic The Gathering, and as that is the original CCG game, it has basically transferred to every other game.. it just means grouping cards by class, like dwalfs for example. I think when people on this forum talk of thematic decks they are talking about decks that are restricted by the lore of the stories.. a kind of role playing or something.

Narsil0420 said:

I think your wife is onto something, kind of a snow white and the 7 dwarves deck!!!

Last night I picked up my copy of Khazad-dûm, and I have to confess... when I sat down to build my first deck to tackle the mines, I could not help myself but try and make it as dwarfy as dwarvenly possible. richsabre, I don't think you had posted this thread yet, but I'll admit, I thought of you and your intense fondness for theme decks when I started building. So, I'm glad you began this thread so I can share my experience with you here. I tried the first two adventures, one game each, and after this very brief introduction, I can confidently say that I'm very excited to play these guys some more!

I decided to pick all cards that were either explicitly dwarven or at least "theme neutral."

For my heroes I went with Dáin Ironfoot, Bifur, and Gimli.

Allies by Sphere:

Leadership: Brok Ironfist (x1), Longbeard Orc Slayer (x2)

Lore: Erebor Record Keeper (x3), Miner of the Iron Hills (x3), Erebor Hammersmith (x3)

Tactics: Veteran Axehand (x3), Veteran of Nanduhirion (x3)

Support Cards by Sphere:

Leadership: Narvi's Belt (x3), Durin's Song (x3)

Lore: Ancestral Knowledge (x3)

Tactics: Citadel Plate (x3), Dwarven Axe (x3), Dwarrowdelf Axe (x3), Quick Strike (x3), Khazâd! Khazâd! (x3), Feint (x3)

Neutral: Boots from Erebor (x3), Song of Battle (x2)

I have to admit... i was skeptical. But I thought it would be fun to give things a go, armed to the teeth in dwarfs. It was!

The first adventure, Into the Pit, actually went quite well. I had the good fortune of being able to quest through East Gate fairly quickly, and I was off! It was a very fun match, with a lot of enjoyable decisions to make along the way. I drew and played a pretty steady stream of allies, and they all came in handy. Thanks to Dáin, even the 0 willpower folks would quest for 1 when he was left standing. This allowed me to move quickly and still have guys ready for battle. Veteran of Nanduhirion was a beast! To my shock and delight, I won the first game with a final score of 127! I was flying pretty high. And I moved on the adventure two...

Supposedly, the first adventure has a difficulty rating of 5 and the second has a difficulty rating of 3, but the second adventure crushed me and my deck in to little dwarven pieces. Granted, I was not drawing allies at the rate I needed to keep up with the constant stream of enemies coming my way, and I'm not sure I managed using the Book of Mazarbul as efficiently as possible. I still had fun though, and I'm going to take The Seventh Level for another spin... well, right now. I'll be using my all-dwarf deck again before I break down and start messing with the wonderful themeieness of it all. Good times in the deep!