i usually play with bilbo- 1. i love the character and 2. his card draw is excellent, however i always find it hard to do something useful with him short term

so this time i decided to pair with leadership……in the end i had on him 3 dunedain warnings (+3 defense), burning brand (bye bye shadow cards) and fast hitch (multiple defending sorted)….and i was thinking….this guy is great! pretty much covered….and then i realised i could have gone one better (i didnt draw it though) with erebor boots… (+1 hit points)…

so we can turn this timid hobbit burglar into a 5 defense, 3 hitpoint, shadow immune, multiple defending wall…..awesome…and the beauty of it is, with the exception of the boots, none of them are limited, so i could have potentially had 3 hitches.

Yeah, Bilbo is far from useless, although at first glance, you are hard pressed to figure out what he can do other than draw. However, he can certainly be made very useful as a defender, mostly by giving him attachments. The one drawback here is that you do sort of have to build the deck around him, taking away space from other cards, plus it may be spotty going early on, when the attachments aren't there. However, it does work wonderfully once it gets going. Arwen is also another very useful helper to increase Bilbo's defense and decrease the over reliance on attachments.

yes you do have to free up a fair bit of space, though looking at it this way, bilbo with 3 fast hitches and kitted about like above is much prefferable than 3 mediocre lore allies that would have taken his place….not that i dont travel without my mirkwood runner buddies….never leave home in a lore deck without them

also thankfully bilbos large card draw really helps you to get the attatchments on him fairly early

I'm doing this with Elrohir, a Song of Wisdom, Burning Brand and Arwen. You don't even need the Warnings most of the time and he can refresh for 1 resource.

richsabre said:

Hey man you wake up??? Check my Glorifindel/Frodo/Bilbo deck witch is win against all scenarios. Use Protector of Lorien instead of D Warning and make him defense or will power +as much as you need depend on situation.

ahh but if you already have a POL in play on another hero to buff up willpower- then will you really have cards to spare to buff up bilbos defense each turn? to get to the point of bilbo with 3 dunedain warnings you have to discard 3 cards each time- POL isnt a permanent situation- so yeah its a toss up between flexibilty and consistency, id just rather have the consistency

Bilbo + Arwen + Burning Brand is good enough to block most attacks. And some Fast Hitches, of course.

If your making a super Hobbit blocker… why would you use Bilbo over Frodo? He has all the fast hitch advantages and stuff of Bilbo plus the advantage of the eating threat ability once a phase. Seams a much stronger option.

Also worth noting that Arwen can not be used in most of the Darrowdelf packs, as there is a objective card with the same name… … .

becasue i often bilbo in my decks just for his card draw then find it hard to do anything useful with him and he just endsd up a wasted slot

booored said:

Because Frodo is a quester while Bilbo is a thumb twiddler. And then you can attach BB to Bilbo without playing a Song first.

If I don't have Bilbo in my deck I often use Frodo for this purpose, that's true.

You are right about Arwen being an objective in two (not most!) scenarios. In that case, of course, you have to rely on Dúnedain Warnings and PoL. Or you just build a dwarf deck and watch Dáin holding off a hord of Goblins single-handedly.