I may be missing something but hat is the point of the Veteran of Nanduhrion (namely, why take a character with one point of damage already on him when there are plenty of allies who don't come 1/3rd dead). I'm guessing I'm missing something (I got Khazad-Dum yesterday and I'm still unravelling the new cards). Any help would be appreciated.

Well, the point is that he is a 2 HP ally when you play him, but you can turn him into a 3 HP ally when you heal him. Storywise I see him as a veteran fighter who just returned from a bloody battle in which he got injured when he joins your company.

Thanks, I'd blanked the fact that most of the healing cards I've used specify "character", not "hero" as the target.

When im making my tactics deck up i usually have a look at him but for 4 cost i often reject him as i find him too expensive for what you actually get. I think there are other characters around who do a sound job for 2 cost.

He's pretty terrible for the cost. IF I'm playing a Tactics heavy dwarf deck, then I'll include one copy just for a bit of flavor to the deck, but otherwise I'm much happier with Veteran Axehands and Erebor Battlemasters.

Cards like Timely Aid or A Very Good Tale can bring him into play for free, but even then you're basically building around that and there will still generally be better options to include in your deck.

Actually, I think he is a pretty solid ally if you can get around the cost via the ways you mentioned (A Very Good Tale, Timely Aid, also Vilya).

The only time I really use him, though, is when I'm purposefully doing something with Dwarves. Or Weapons. I love Foe-hammer because it provides Tactics with some much needed card draw. But you need Weapon cards -- there aren't too many options for Weapons, and Dwarven Axe and Dwarrowdelf Axes are best for (or restricted to) Dwarves. So he does find his way into some of my Tactics decks if I am looking to inflate myy chances to draw targets for those two axes. I mean, Gimli's only got two hands.