About a month ago local retailers finaly got Heirs of Numeron and first Hobit saga part (still no Dwarrowdelf packs, but we I still have hope). That finaly gave me tools to play Gondor decks (my favorite lore wise). After that I put on my thinking cap and tried to create interesting Gondor deck (what works at least 20% of time ). I play two handed solo (or 2 players if my wife is not busy). Main problem I faced was having to chose what version of Boromir to use, being able to use both could make one heck of deck . Leadership boromir won (by little margin), so here it comes, the armies and lords of Gondor.

Armies of Gondor

This mono tactics deck focuses on weapons and damaging oponents out of combat. Its low on almost everything else (card draw, resource generation, etc. but thats why we have lords of Gondor, the other deck). Also Gondor theme a bit light in deck, but not much Gondor themed tactics cards (really hope new Faramir will be tactics)

Heroes

Beregond (the tank) optimum load: spear and citadel plate for defence and enabling goblin -cleaver

Legolas(the cannon) optimum load: blade of gondolin + anything that rises attack for headhunt questing and enabling foe-hammer

Thalin (the machinegun) optimum load - none he will quest and soften enemies for Beregonds spear and legolas blade

Allies

Bofur (tactics) x 3 (for finding weapons, also gets quite scary with dwarrodelf ace and can quest then hard pressed)

gondorian spearman x 3

Defender of Rammas x 3

Vassal of Windlord x 3

winged guardian x 3

veteran axehand x3

Gandalf (core) x 2

Gandalf (hobbit) x 2 (still not sure about those, will see in more testing)

Attachment

Spear of the citadel x 3

blade of gondolin x 2

horn of Gondor x 1 (only got single Core, and don't plan getting more .Ever.)

Citadel plate x2

dwarven Axe x 2

dwarrowdelf axe x 2 (can give those to Bofur and axehand, or even thalin to rise his questing power in battle quests)

Events

Goblin-cleaver x 3 (the MVP)

Foe-hammer x 3(his little brother)

behind strong walls (makes Beregong reusable strong wall)

thicket of spears x 2 (if you play mono tactics you must play this)

quick strike x 2

swift strike x 1 (more out of combat damage)

feint x 2

Some comments. I know this deck screams for Hamma, I don't have him, and I only play what I have. Also I could loose some alies or weapons for more events, but that needs more testing. Deck should do wonders vs Battle quests or high enemy count quest, just don't try doing hills of emyn mull with it, you will get lost betveen hills . But like any other army it needs support, so see my next post about the other deck that goes together with this - the Lords of Gondor

No army can survive without resources and win without someone comanding it so to make army of Gondor strong we need support structure. So here it is:

Lords of Gondor

This ? decks is about 3 things: 60% flawor, 30% synergy and 10% winning (no one takes Prince Imrahil to winning deck ) but hiding behind the back of Army for Gondor to do combat it can be quite efficient.

Heroes

Boromir (HoN) The general and paymaster, makes all those Gondor recruits earn their resource cost

Prince Imrahil (the banner bearer) mostly here for flavor reasons and great art , can be usefull with proper timing (questing and defence, or defence and attack, if army spares him some leftover weapon becomes more interesting)

Denethor (the spymaster) looks what lies ahead, uses all those interesting dirty tricks, and does good impresion of citadell wall if pressed hard

Allies

Errand-rider x 3 (I can see him in my minds eye, carying sacks of gold to army)

Guard of the citadel x 3

Faramir x 2 (sometimes you need that one huge questing turn, or two turns, or five)

Envoy of Pelargir x 3 (can put resources on all heroes in both decks exept Thalin)

erebor hammersmith x 2 (nice for returning discarded weapon or reusing cram)

Ithilien tracker x 3 (well its gondor and has 3 hit points for 2 resources, so can eat damage from treacheries or archery)

gleowine x 2 (card advantage for whoever needs most)

henamarth riversong x 1 (Denethor refused to come into deck if i didn't take his favorite secret agent along)

hunter of lamedon x 3 (its gondor…)

Dunedain watcher x 3 (some shadow effects just have to be stopped)

Attachements

Steward of Gondor x 2 (putting this on denethor at least makes it correct from Tolkien lore side)

Dunedain mark x 3 (this is for Legolas in army, you might give third one to Imrahil if you draw all three but still not)

cram x 3 (again, for Legolas, Imrahil can eat allies (scary comparison))

Events

Wealth of gondor x 3 (to give Boromir that one lucky coin that inspires his troops so much)

For Gondor! x 2 (count the number of Gondor heroes and allies in both decks, add together, now send number by email to nearest orc army to troll them)

Lorien's wealth x 2 (card draw for army)

Lore of imladris x 2 (sometimes even Beregonds armor can't stop it all)

valiant sacrifice x 2 (again for army after you need to replace gendalf or eagle flies away)

dawn take you all x 3 (kinda useless solo play, get better at two decks, making few attacks totaly predictable can be gold)

infighting x 3 (Denethors favorite dirty trick, with thalin, spears and goblin cleaver spreading lots of damage around you can get really fun combinations)

Some thoughts. Ally lineup needs lot of tweaking, will add warden of healing the second I get my hands on him. its more tuned to support army deck, so doesn't shine solo (well you could do some early quests with it of course).

Both decks are waiting for sugestions of improvement, target quests to beat curently are all three from Heirs box, I can handle first one already, but other two are still hard.

Redblock said:

Hey, can't have four Gandalfs in a deck, hope one of those is x1 instead.

Redblock said:

I take Imrahill to winning severall quests…

Why there are no Gandalfs on supporting deck? I know lore wise Denethor didn't like him, but it is usefull for supporting (expecially to lower threat if it gets too high);

Read the rules again, so its "no more than 3 copies of card by title.One Gandalf goes out, thanks for clarifying.

Back from the battlefield, and can say army is ready, for battle at least. After some more tweaking, and some pretty unlucky starts (+ 8 attack from shadow cards kinda kills anything, now matter how tough Beregond looks) Army and Lords survived the Siege of Cair Andros (Beregond died in the end at victorious playthough too, just his luck ). Heartened by such victory tried this deck against random choice of other scenarios for worse results. Dead Marshes was awfull, locations crowding staging area and every escape test failing, Khazad-Dum quest went better a bit, more enemies, less locations, but still, this Gondor deck is for massed battles against hordes of enemies, other tipes of quests makes it hard for poor soldiers.

Also playtesting made me do some changes, as some cards was just dead paper in my hands most of the time.

Changes to army of Gondor

Out - 2 x Gandalf (Hobbit), it wasn't even legal, and this deck has huge problem in threat managment, so anything that rises threat must go. - 2 x Dwarowdelf axe - looked good in planing, but in plaing it just never did anything good, because small list of targets that could carry it.

In - 2 x rain of arrows - this deck is about non-combat damage, and all eagles have ranged to use it saving legolas for better things. 2x Eagles of Misty mountains - tactics doesn't have very good choice of allies, and this is one of better ones, balanced stats, lots of hitpoints to eat archery, and works well with other eagles already in deck

Lords of Gondor got hit by changes much more, and I'm still not sure if I got to optimal list.

Out - 3 x Dunedain watcher - it just didn't live up to expectations, siege was throwing too much shadow cards at me to stop it this way. 3x dawn take you all - same problem as watcher 3x infighting - even with lots of indirect damage going around it just wasn't good enough 3x Hunter of lamedon - it has its own deck now, no point of milling my deck for it.

In 2 x daughter of the Nimrodel - both decks needs much more healing, 2 x Gandalf (core) threat reduction, Lords start at 30 threat and has no other way to reduce it. 2x protector of Lorien - great deal of utility, gives deck more flexibility 2 x Thrors map any kind of location manipulation is better than none 3x Dunedain warning - testing showed what even Beregonds 4 armor is not enough, so he needs more. 1 x campfire tales - hmmmm, card draw

Cards I don't have but would put into this deck

heroes - Hama would make army deck way better, still don't know who should he replace - Thalin or Legolas. For Lords side I'm waiting to see new Faramir hero (If he is tactics I'm waiting even more)

Other cards I see myself using are warden of healing (in place of daughter), hail of stones for more indirect damage, Rivendale Blade if I continue using Legolass, Hands upon bow and great yew bow might also fit. And of course new shields from stewards fear to make Beregond into 7-8 defence monster