Hello

Im about 3 months into this game and it blew me away and I typically play with a partner when playing this game. In addition, I typically play the combat heavy side.

Where my partner loves spirit and lore, i will play leadership and tactics. I really enjoy the power of tactics and the support from the leadership side.

Before my three Heros were (and without question) Gimli, Legolas and Aragorn.

For the last while, i have slowly been building my desk with the additional adventure packs and recently the Khazad-dum expansion. As I have been reading the forums for that push to bring me to the next level, i found myself becoming more and more confused.

I have been reading the hero cards of Dain, Prince Imrahil, Gloin, and Thalin, I have been questioning if it would be wise to swap legolas for Thalin (since I have new cards to grant my hero's the ranged ability). Or even swap Gloin for Aragorn to add that additional support to any obtained leadership cards with resource points. I have even considered going full dwarf with Dain, Thalin and Gimli but I like Aragorn and Legolas has never failed me.

With that being said Gimli has never failed me either, and i can't ignore his damage. He's a beast and as i read a thread before about how he has failed others, i couldn't grasp how He's failed them.

In addition, i am going to abuse this thread for an additional question away from heros. If i took the eagle route and added the Radagast Ally card to my desk and used him to add Eagle power, is that over complicating my deck? I have always viewed this direction as a cool direction but not work the time to set it up during play.

I appreciate your thoughts and comments.

any deck needs dain….in fact you can quite easily build a massivly effective dwarf deck around him and thalin/gloin or any of the other dwarf heros….so my advice would be to include dain in dwarf type decks

as for the eagle part, i think an eagle deck is a very good idea for a combat deck- there are some great cards that buff up attack and defense stats

Eagle deck may become even better if Gwahir is the next hero release! (*Fingers Crossed*)

A few thoughts:
First of all, sorry for the ridiculous post. My computer wasn't cooperating and I didn't realize I can't delete a post after it's made.
Now back to the actual response…
Dain can be a great hero with a Dwarf centered deck. Using all Dwarf heroes and a lot of Dwarf allies/events can make a really good deck. Putting Thalin in could be a big help with many of the Khazad-Dum (KD) orcs/goblins/uruks because they have really low hit points. Synergizing Thalin with Gondolian Spearman or the event card (the name escapes me) that deals 1 damage when a defender is declared can make Thalin an invaluable ally. If your friend has Dunhere as a Spriit hero many enemies might not even make it out of the staging area. Just be aware that Thalin's ability is only if he is committed to the quest which means you'll have two heroes left and whatever allies to help fight what's left. Dain is a strong defender and if he has Unexpected Courage he can multi task as necessary to really help you out. Something really cool with Unexpected Courage is that he can commit to a quest and add his willpower, ready up, and offer his ability to himself (+1 to his willpower) as well as any questing Dwarves.
Imrahil can be really handy if you have a lot of allies in play or you consistently use allies as fodder. IMO, his ability is a spin off of Aragorn's, you just need an ally to leave play. His attack strength is decent and can be buffed with attachments but be wary of treachery/shadow cards that force a discard of attachments from questing/defending characters.
Gloin can be useful. He is a decent quester and attacker. With Self Preservation or Daughter of Nimrodel he has the ability to be a resource factory. You need to be careful though because he doesn't have a lot of Hit Points unless you give him Citadel Plate or Boots of Erebor.
The biggest thing with changing your heroes is to understand the quest you are playing and what will suit you best. If you want to kill all your enemies and you worry less about questing (by relying on your Spirit/Lore friend) then you can go with bigger hitters. Legolas serves really will with his ranged and progress token abilities but it won't kill you to bench him. The same goes for Aragorn. He's really useful but he isn't essential to beating different quests.
In regards to an Eagle deck…
An Eagle deck can be extremely powerful but it takes time to build up. If you need more power more quickly it won’t hurt to modify your deck. Also, an Eagle deck won’t help you much with a Dwarf line-up. Dain really shines when you have a lot of Dwarf allies in play. Adding Radagast to an Eagle deck, however, can really offer flexibility when it comes to buying/healing Eagle allies or questing. If you find a deck that works really well for you than play it. If you are getting bored or have the itch to change things up than go for it. I would suggest writing down your current deck so you can go back to it if deck building proves too cumbersome/annoying/frustrating.
Those are some of my thoughts. Responses?

Hi All, i reviewed your suggestions and tried it out for a couple quests.

I believe you are all right. As i was aiming for a solid destroy deck regardless of the quest, I'm starting to see that you really need to know the quests to figure out the best match. And you are right, Dain is a really impressive support character but you really need to be sporting dwarves to fully appreciate him

Also, i am depending on my buddy to be the primary quester/supporter.

About the Eagles, Yes, it is slow to build. I've been trying them out and haven't had a chance to watch them really pay off but i'll give them another chance.

Thanks all for your comments, i'll post back if i encouter anyadditional road blocks.