As I only saw a few decks here that deal with Into Ithilien, but many players who have problems against this scenario, I offer my Gondor/Eagle deck. It uses the two new HoN heroes and makes, surprisingly, use of the Gondor and Eagle synergies. Oh, and there is Sneak/Gandalf!
This deck has been built with only one core set. Keep that in mind, as those of you who own two or three copies might add additional copies of Faramir and Sneak Attack .
6x Neutral:
3x Gandalf (Core)
3x Envoy of Pelargir
27x Tactics:
3x Eagles of the Misty Mountains
2x Bofur
3x Gondorian Spearman
3x Defender of Rammas
3x Vasall of the Windlord
3x Support of the Eagles
3x Spear of the Citadel
3x Hail of Stones
2x Feint
2x Behind Strong Walls (could be replaced by Fresh Tracks)
17x Leadership:
3x Citadel Custodian
2x Faramir
3x Guard of the Citadel
2x Steward of Gondor
2x For Gondor!
2x Sneak Attack
3x A Very Good Tale
WINS: 8
LOSSES: 4
The deck is good, but it won't guarantee a win. However, in a normal game you should be able to defeat the scenario. This deck managed to beat:
- 3x Blocking Wargs in a single game
- Mumakil appearing in turn 2
- hordes of enemies in multiple games
The good thing is that this deck isn't a one-trick-pony, but offers multiple ways to overcome the encounter deck. I had games in which Gandalf saved my ass, games in which Hail of Stones made the way free for victory, some games in which a combo of Citadel Custodian and 2x A Very Good Tale flooded my player area with valuable allies.
This deck has three weaknesses that a player should keep in mind:
1) threat management
2) card draw
3) vulnerable 1 HP allies
The two first problems are linked with each other. To keep your threat low and avoid the risk of loosing because your threat reaches 50 you only have Gandalf 's ability to help you. However, the lack of card drawing means that you won't see the old wizard in many games. That is why A Very Good Tale is in this deck. If you use that event, you it either brings Gandalf into play or it reduces your deck by 5 cards, thus increasing the chance of drawing Gandalf in future turns. As there are three copies of Gandalf and AVGT you should be able to play Gandalf in almost every game.
How do you avoid that your allies get slaughtered by Blocking Wargs . The answer is simple: don't send them questing. AFter two or three rounds the staging area should be cleared and you should have some robust allies ( Guard of the Citadel , Bofur , Eagles of the Misty Mountains , Faramir , Citadel Custodian ) to help your heroes and Celador questing. Boromir , Thalin and Celador already give you 8 ATT. I ususally support them with Vasall of the Windlord in the first couple of rounds. 8 ATT is, later in the game, enough to make some progress. So use your 1 HP allies only when you must. Don't use them in every single turn, but take reasonable risks - like sending them all questing in on single turn instead of sending some of them each turn.
Instead of letting your allies get killed by Blocking Wargs you should use them for a more useful task: kill enemies! Three low cost Gondorian allies are able to kill a Southron Company in a single turn! You only need two if Beregond has Citadel Spear attached.
Stage 3B might be a problem if you have neither Gandalf or Faramir ( which is very unlikely). In that case you have to take the risk of sending all your characters to the quest. Hail of Stones helps to get rid of some enemies, so try to keep this card until that stage.
Support of the Eagles is a great card to either boost Beregond 's DEF to 6. I prefer to attach it to Thalin to get faster through the quest.
As I noted above, you might want to include Fresh Tracks . This event handles the when revealed effect of the Morgul Spider pretty well.
