I have built a few dwarf decks, dwarves being my favorite of tolkien's work, and usually strive for theme. I managed to pull off a secrecy deck using the the lore sphere dwarves, but found that it relied heavily on allies to remove threat. Likewise, I tried to make a dwarf deck using oin, thorin, and ori (i believe that was the heroes… generate coin and card for 5+ dwarves, reduce threat for playing dwarves). With this deck, I focused on having as many dwarves on the field as possible. Using "We were not idle" (exhaust dwarves for coin) and the Lure of moria to generate huge bank. I had all 4 spheres in my solo deck, and by the end game, I smashed my final enemy with 3 battle masters for a total of 57 damage.

The deck worked well enough, basically, during my final round I was able to sort of break the game using IDLE, Lure of Moria, and Legacy of Durin, where I generated huge amount of resources, drew cards, played more allies for more cards, and then would generate even more money. Between legacy of durin and my lore dwarf, I had my whole deck in hand, and played my 3 copies of IDLE and Lure in the same round, each time gaining more resources than the last.

I find it ironic that FFG seems to be making the focus of the dwarves their numbers. Two of our new heroes are based on having 5+ of them on the field, and ori (i believe the spirit hero) generates threat reduction based on how many dwarves you can play. Likewise, Dain becomes more valuable the more you can benefit from his bonuses, again, more dwarves = better.

However, in middle earth, the dwarves were of fairly poor population. Especially during the LOTR, most of their great cities had been conquered, and many of the dwarves fell with them. Likewise, dwarf women, who made up only 1/3 of the dwarf population, were very particular in their men. It was said that they refused to remarry. They also might have refused to marry if the dwarf husband they wanted was not single, and refused to settle for anyone else (I think this is particularly reflective of the dwarf mentality, as they seem to become fixated with the object of their desire, and cannot settle for less… be it a magic ring, their lost kingdom, or love interest). On top of that, some dwarf women just chose not to settle down. All if this caused for the dwarves to fall into decline, and, presumably, was eventually their undoing. They just faded out due to the population dropping off.

Anyhow, Just my blurb.

I agree with most what you said about dwarves. But that doesn't mean something is wrong with the dwarves in the LCG. On the contrary. Receiving bonuses when more dwarves are in one place to support each other is perfectly inline with the background. It doesn't mean wherever dwarves are, there are many, it means whenever there are many, they are strong! (But often there are few…).

That is true. One of the issues I do have with it though, is i feel like more than numbers, the dwarves should have Equipment and Resources. They do have this to an extent, but its hard to implement thematically. Equipment is not the issue so much, as dwarves probably have the best gear in the game, but axes are arguably worthless when you have a peace like the Erebor battle masters who are far more useful than any weapon. Resources is a little more problematic.

With resources, you have a few options. You can do a secrecy deck, and try for resourceful, which I'd say is appropriate for the dwarves, but the methods of achieving it are not. You again have to focus on threat reduction by Nori or by traveling to underground/mountains. I tried this on its own, and did not have much luck with it. In order to really get your threat low enough, you have to use Galadrims Greeting or Elronds council, which I feel are somewhat out of place within the decks. Elrond's council wouldn't be so bad, but you have to have a noldor in your group, and thats where it fails for me.

you can use IDLE, but, again, IDLE really only works if you have a bunch of dwarves to trigger with it.

You have thorin, who works well enough, but does require other dwarves (though 5 is not by any means a problem or unreasonable).

Stewart of gondor - out of place

Zigi - Zigi seems like the solution to the resource issue for the dwarves, but it actually isn't good or reliable unless its paired with other cards that give the player control of his own deck… cards like star gazers and gil galad. Again, really forcing you to break theme.

I know the game is still growing, and these are not really "issues", but i'm a bit of a purist and tend to play less competitive decks just for the sake of theme. Not really complaining either, as dwarves have gotten more than enough love from the designers. Just pointing out some nit picks.

Captain Poe said:

Really good post. Thanks for sharing it.

Well, actually, I think the dwarf tribal to be very thematic. Think about it this way: The Dwarves are dying out, all of their lands are taken over by the enemy: doesn't that make the dwarves even more concerned about the survival of their race. And wouldn't it make them want to be with their own kind?

Perhaps that is not very true, but from what I know about Tolkien Dwarves (and subsequently any other dwarves in any other piece of fiction ever), is that there may not be a lot of them, but they do have pride.

interesting post captain poe……there is certainly two sides to this topic, one which you put forward and the one that zalrus states-that they were in decline, many living in exile

however i do think, if we look at the dwarven mentality, it does indeed have a liking to band together-for instance where fortune and success cropped up, the dwarves tended to cluster together……we do not for instance see many (if any….id assume there was a few though) bands of smaller populations of dwarves….granted we see them in the shire and breeland,though the references are as travellers not dwellers.

so the dwarves are pretty much limited to the blue mountains and the iron hills, and throughout history, moria.

dwarves also are extremely vengeful- another trait of banding….take the war of the goblins and dwarves- pretty much started and carried out through the death of 1 dwarf- so we have thousands of dwarves banding together for 1 very specific purpose

compare this with men-and we have gondor and rohan and breelanders..all very much different despite their loose alliences throughout history

elves again are sort of drawn out, though i would say they share more in common with dwarves than men do

anyways-nice topic, and i shall keep thinking about this to see if theres anything i can add

rich

richsabre said:

About the only ones I can think off the top of my head would be the petty-dwarves…. and a few loners like Mim….

richsabre said:

True, but I think it's worth mentioning that they did this usually only when opposed or confronted by other races/groups. They could be as contentious amongst themselves as men were until faced with a common foe. For example… when the dwarves of Nogrod wanted to (and did) sack Doriath to reclaim the Naulamir, the dwarves of Belegost refused to join them, and tried to talk them out of attacking in the first place…

benhanses said:

yes and its stated in the hobbit(but never expanded) that there were evil dwarves…..

richsabre said:

THe Silmarillion does mention dwarves fighting for sauron in the first war of the ring as well. Though they did fight on both sides obviously.

Does anyone have themed decks that focus on equipment and strong dwarf heroes as opposed to sheer numbers? I really want to build one, but it seems like as soon as you try and use tactics, you its basically pointless to bother with weapons when you can just include a battle master and call it a day. I think that foe hammer and goblin cleaver might make weapons a bit more tempting, but I still am not sure that they really are worth more than a battle master. Of coarse, you could give a battle master an axe or two, but even that seems like a weaker combo then just adding in extra dwarves to block/quest with, and boosting the battle master that way.

I really want to build a dwarf deck that focuses on thorin, but i can't figure out how to best do this. He has great questing and attacking, making me think that spirit and unexpected courage are a must. But then if you want to get him gear you either need to include a tactics dwarf hero, or break theme by including rivendell mistrel in order to pull tactics songs with any reliability. I don't care much for thalin, who is best used as a quester, but is not a very good one. Maybe I need to revisit gimli, who I always felt was underwhelming, but maybe would fit well with this deck. I guess, where i'm struggling the most, is it seems like i need to tap into all 4 spheres in order to really have a solid deck, and its just tricky to do.

Anyone have any working combos since the hobbit expansion?

Captain Poe said:

… or you can just put a Narvi's Belt on him that will let him pay for any sphere he needs to.

I'm just using Narvi's Belt on Thorin. That way he can play EBM and Bofur easily along with a few other Tactics cards if you want. He can also contribute to purchasing from other spheres too since he makes good money. Thorin isn't really as good as Dain imo, but his 3 Will and resource ability are decent.

Just out of curiosity, what's your source of information regarding the stubbornness of dwarf women?

My problem with Narvi's belt, is how do you get it on him with any reliability? It seems like your odds of pulling it are just as slim as a song of battle, except it has the added penalty of being 2 Resources, and unique, so if you put multiple copies in the deck , you can't really get anything out of them. At least with song of battle, I can throw those on my other non tactics heroes. It would be much better if the new tactics dwarf ally functioned like the elven smith that allows you to draw any equipment. But as far as the dwarf themed cards, we only have standard card draw and the ability to grasp at weapons, specifically. While multiple copies can work fine with the Lore Runes card (discard 1, draw 2), you unfortunately can't really do much else with the extra copies of uniques. It be interesting if we could get a "Wandering Trader" down the road… something like "Exhaust Wandering Trader, and discard up to 3 equipment cards. Gain 1 resource for each card discarded this way".

As for your question on dwarven women:

Appendicies III, Durin's Folk:

Dís was the daughter of Thráin II. She is the only dwarf-woman named in these histories. It was said by Gimli that there are few dwarf-women, probably no more than a third of the whole people. They seldom walk abroad except at great need, They are in voice and appearance, and in garb if they must go on a journey, so like to the dwarf-men that the eyes and ears of other peoples cannot tell them apart. This has given rise to the foolish opinion among Men that there are no dwarf-women, and that the Dwarves 'grow out of stone'. It is because of the fewness of women among them that the kind of the Dwarves increases slowly, and is in peril when they have no secure dwellings. For Dwarves take only one wife or husband each in their lives, and are jealous, as in all matters of their rights. The number of dwarf-men that marry is actually less than one-third. For not all the women take husbands: some desire none; some desire one that they cannot get, and so will have no other. As for the men, very many also do not desire marriage, being engrossed in their crafts.

gatharion said:

My mother is half-dwarven, so….