I love this deck . I turned it into a three-sphere deck:

Hero (3)
Ori (OHaUH) x1
Nori (OHaUH) x1
Gimli (Core) x1

Ally (22)
Zigil Miner (KD) x3
Bofur (OHaUH) x2
Erebor Battle Master (TLD) x3
Erebor Record Keeper (KD) x3
Erebor Hammersmith (Core) x3
Dori (OHaUH) x2
Longbeard Map-Maker (CatC) x3
Gandalf (Core) x3

Attachment (12)
Ancient Mathom (AJtR) x3
Dwarrowdelf Axe (KD) x3
Dwarven Axe (Core) x3
Song of Battle (TDM) x3

Event (13)
The Galadhrim's Greeting (Core) x3
Feint (Core) x3
Dwarven Tomb (Core) x1
Goblin-cleaver (OHaUH) x3
Khazad! Khazad! (KD) x3
Burglar Baggins (OHaUH) x3

First game against the trolls: it took 13 turns for a Troll Camp to show up. Plenty of time for threat reduction from every dwarf played and three Greetings and three Gandalfs. Ending threat, even with a majorly failed quest along the way: 19. Collected all three trolls in order from middle to smallest to largest. Didn't get the treasure.

I may swap out the Map-Maker for Miners, because I never used their action, and the miners are 1 cheaper.

Also… has anyone used Burglar Baggins well at all? Thinking of swapping the event for something else.

I switched out the three "Burglar Baggins" cards for another Dwarven Tomb and two Will of the Wests, which I hear is needed for quest 3.

Played versus the trolls again, things got much dicier this time, though I still managed to pull a win. Treacheries cleared my board of dwarf allies after I defeated the smallest troll (forced to engage, unfortunately). Card draw was much harder to achieve as Ancient Mathom didn't turn up at all. I'm keeping the Map-Makers because their questing (at 1, granted, because I was out of Lore to pump them up) helped keep this game from ending up a total disaster.

Final threat: 47 (oof)
Dead heroes: none
Wounds: 3 on Gimli
Victory points: 12 (all trolls)
Turns: 13

I really wanted to add Fili and Kili, but that would require killing the Tactics sphere for Leadership, and this would be another deck entirely. I'm tempted to attempt a splash with a Song, though… I really needed tougher dwarf allies.

Current tally: 3 - 1 against the trolls.

In the last game (not the one I lost) I was desperately questing for the key. Found it in the last three cards of the encounter deck. And then quested out the deck anyways. Sigh. Dead Nori was not worth it.

I will keep at it UNTIL TREASURE, DARN IT!

ArachneJericho said:

To avoid loosing the treasure like this you should quest more carefully. Quest until there are only five cards left and if the key is still in the deck try to make only one point progress each turn. There is also "The End Comes" which allows you to reshuffle the encounter deck.

If you want to use tha advantages that Ori and Nori offer, you should focus your deck on dwarf allies. Fili and Kili are a must when playing with these heroes. "A Very Good Tale" is also increasing the synergy effects of Ori and Nori. I usually have 8-10 dwarf allies out after 4 turns. That's why I would skip Gimli as a hero and add Dáin. Playing with so many dwarves but without Dáin is a shame. If you keep Gimli skip at least Song of Battle and Burglar Baggins. And one of these many axes. Add "Durin's Legacy" and you will be able to draw 3-4 cards each turn, so even with only three weapon cards you should be able to get a hand on one of this very quickly.

OMG! Leptokurt! THANK YOU! With some modifications, which I'll cover later because I'm too excited right now, I GOT TREASURE!

Mind you, two cave entrances were the only things that kept me in encounter cards after I turned up both purse and key. The Baggins-resources-clearing card was unfortunately one of the cards constantly recycled, so that I had to get both key and purse. Sneaky Gandalf over two turns managed to damage the smallest troll for 8, followed by Dain singing Durin's Song to deal the final two.

Then it was a waiting game to get resources under Bilbo. Unfortunately the Baggins-resources-clearing card kept coming up, so it was forever (nearly 40 turns, or maybe even over 40 turns---call it 50 by this point for scoring purposes). I recycled my own deck twice during this time. I quested carefully as I could.

My ending threat was 16.

No wounds nor dead heroes! Lots of dead allies though. Protector of Lorien was what saw me through to the end; I discarded almost my entire hand to get through 26 threat (2 troll camps is awful even with 1 less troll in the staging area) in the staging area and through the Troll Cave and through the rest of the encounter deck (my hand being over half of my deck).

I definitely want three of Protector of Lorien. It was too useful a card and kept getting knocked out.

This is still the deck of dwarves whose names end in "i". I had all the -i dwarves out at one point… so that's Nori, Ori, Dori, Fili, Kili.

I am so happy. And I get to play with treasure in the second quest! And will all the dwarves whose names end in "i"! Thematic!

The deck:

Hero (3)

Dain Ironfoot (RtM) x1
Ori (OHaUH) x1
Nori (OHaUH) x1

Ally (23)
Gandalf (Core) x3
Fili (OHaUH) x3
Dori (OHaUH) x2
Erebor Hammersmith (Core) x3
Erebor Record Keeper (KD) x3
Longbeard Map-Maker (CatC) x3
Kili (OHaUH) x3
Zigil Miner (KD) x3

Attachment (11)
Song of Wisdom (CatC) x3
Legacy of Durin (TWitW) x3
Protector of Lorien (Core) x2
Ancient Mathom (AJtR) x3

Event (16)
A Very Good Tale (OHaUH) x3
Durin's Song (KD) x3
Ever Onward (KD) x2
Sneak Attack (Core) x3
Dwarven Tomb (Core) x1
Will of the West (Core) x1
The Galadhrim's Greeting (Core) x3

Thoughts:
- Reduce Fili and Kili by 1 each
- Reduce the Songs by 1
- Add another Protector of Lorien and two of some other card
- OR just add Treasure and go with it

Gods know I've played the first scenario enough times. -.- Okay, onto the next quest!

Glad you're enjoying the game Jericho! Your deck looks good to me, it should give you regular wins for the first two scenarios. You will soon realize, however, that the third scenario requires a mono-sphere deck (or two spheres, at most). In my decks I always have Arwen to give Dáin another point defense bonus plus a healer, but it's not really necessary.

Btw, I hope the troll was engaged when you used Gandalf's ability? Remember that one of the trolls' effects protects them from any damage when they're in the staging area.

leptokurt said:

Yup, I had to take an extra turn to ensure he was engaged. Oof, it was a long game to navigate.

I'm trying to decide whether I should count this game as a loss, because I didn't realize until now that Protector of Lorien had errata. You can only use it 3 times per phase, you can't simply dump your hand (whut? They didn't see massive draw coming down the line?). I would have been eaten by threat.

Hmmm. :-/ I don't like how they nerfed some of the cards.

I played once more, this time beefing up my dwarves with Hardy Leadership! The Baggins-resource-clearing card actually didn't come up, so whew. End result: treasure for realsies, using the nerfed Protector of Lorien.

Completed rounds: 15
Threat: 8 (a personal all-time low!)
Victory: 4 (the cave)
No dead heroes, no wounds on heroes. (Plenty of wounded allies, but no one died due to Hardy Leadership.)
TREASURE

Took out one of Fili, one of Kili, stuck in two Hardy Leaderships, went on from there. Deck worked beautifully. Scenario is still quite quite hard.

ETA: Replaced also Ever Onward with The End Comes, which are quite diametrically opposed conceptually….