I've tried a bunch of Hero combinations for he outland trait some have worked very well, but I could not find a good balance bettween resources and card draw. I've finally came up with something that really works well. I'd like to see what you all think. This deck works really fast in both card draw and resource generation. It's common to more than 10 allies on the table by round three!

Heroes:

Hurluin the Fair, Theodred, and Beravor Threat: 26

Allies: (30)

Warden of Healling x2

Anfalas Herdsman x3

Hunter of Lamedon x3

Knoghts of the Swan x3

Ether Swordsmen x3

Warrior of Lossarnach x3

Errand-rider x3

Snowbourn Scout x3

Faramir x1

Envoy of Pelargir x3

Gandalf (core) x3

Attachments: (5)

Steward of Gondor x3

Cram x2

Events: (15)

A Very Good Tale x3

Sneak Attack x3

Gaining Strength x3

Dareon's Ruins x3

Peace and Tought x3

Total :50

Strategy:

Beravor's card draw and Theodred's resource production work really nicely with Hirluin. I'll exhaust Beravor during the first planing phase. If Steward of Gondor is in hand it goes on Hurluin. The goal is to get one or two other allies in play first round. Hurluin and Theodred will go questing, Hopefully with another Ether Swordmen. I always leave one ally (preferably non-outlander) ready as a chump blocker. Hurluin gets a resource from Theodred which means he will have at least two next round, which can pay for at least one or two outland allies. and If he has Steward of Gondor He'll have 5, and If you have Gaining Strength he will get an additional resource. Beravor will keep plenty of alies in your hand to pay for. If I have Peace and thought, I'll tap Theodred and Hurluin during the refresh phase to draw 5 cards. I'll also tap Beravor for two cards during planning, and also get the normal one card per round. That's 8 cards. I usually wait to do this when I have a good amount of resources. The Heros can afford to do this since, once the allies are set up, all the heroes need to do bea able to draw card and pay for them. It's not to important mid-game if they are ready or not. A Very Good Tale will also bring in allies regularly.

This deck has done beat many of the difficult quests: Laketown, Shadow and Flame, Into Ithillien etc. with scores lower than 70.

It's a very Powerful deck in my opinion. Any tips for imporment would be great.

Tracker1 said:

I miss typed 5 resources above, Hurluin will have 4 resources at the start of the round from this combination.

How do you edit post on this site?

Looks very strong deck. And at last someone start to use this lore draw 5 exhaust 2 heroes in refresh. Cannot say much since i still didn get the SOF in my hand. When i get a pack i will definitely try this deck!

Yeh will give this deck a go too. Ive been using a themed deck this week since i got the set; Beregond, Boromir and Denethor but with not much luck yet. Havent won once!!!

Ted Sandyman said:

I think now youy should to use easy mode with themed decks……then you able to win. for me i don care about it. I wont to have a real peril dangerous adventures in the Middle earth! The enemie should be very scary otherwise is not real Tolkien. I love special 2 players game when me and y partners must to make deck which is really must to play together other wise no chance to win! Nightmare is good about it! But themed decks didn work then……easy mode should to help with that.

Hi all,

I posted some videos of this deck in action at the BGG site. The links are below for each scenario. Some minor (at least i think) errors, but I dont think any would change the final outcome of the game. At least you will be able to see how this deck functions.

Into Ithilien

Part 1

http://boardgamegeek.com/video/29413/the-lord-of-the-rings-the-card-game/outlanders-go-into-ithilien-part-1

Part 2

http://boardgamegeek.com/video/29414/the-lord-of-the-rings-the-card-game/outlanders-go-into-ithilien-part-2

Part 3

http://boardgamegeek.com/video/29415/the-lord-of-the-rings-the-card-game/outlanders-go-into-ithilien-part-3

Siege of Cair Andros (see Glaurung's comments about my error and my reply)

Part 1

http://boardgamegeek.com/video/29421/the-lord-of-the-rings-the-card-game/outlanders-sieged-in-cair-andros-part-1

Part 2

http://boardgamegeek.com/video/29422/the-lord-of-the-rings-the-card-game/outlanders-sieged-in-cair-andros-part-2

The Battle of Laketown

Part 1

http://boardgamegeek.com/video/29424/the-lord-of-the-rings-the-card-game/outlanders-battle-smaug-in-lake-town-part-1

Part 2

http://boardgamegeek.com/video/29425/the-lord-of-the-rings-the-card-game/outlanders-battle-smaug-in-lake-town-part-2

Part 3

http://boardgamegeek.com/video/29428/the-lord-of-the-rings-the-card-game/outlanders-battle-smaug-in-lake-town-part-3

Theres a lot of video footage there. Enjoy, If you have the time to watch someone else playing rather than playing yourself. I know which one I would choose.

have you found that the inclusion of spirit cards/heroes is not necessary for their defense vs treacheries and shadow cards? that would be my only concern but then again i havent tried any other combination other than Hirluin, Bilbo, and Glorfindel

Looks good! I would be curious to see how it fares against The Steward's Fear, as I have had some trouble with it. Lots of mass damage to allies does not a healthy outlands engine make!

Has this deck worked out for you in that capacity?

Pharmboys2013 said:

The three heros your using work really well. They were my best combination with Hurlin until I started using the deck in this post. The reason I stopped using spirit in the deck, is that it made the deck slower in resource generation. I found it difficult to wait that 1 round to get Steward of Gondor on hurluin. With Theodred I can get Steward of gondor on as soon as it shows up, and if SoG is not in hand yet hurluin will get a resource while questing with Theodred, so at least he will have two next round, which can play any outlands ally.

The big loss as you mention is the treachery cancelation. The only ones I'm really concerned about are the ones that do damage to allies. So, my only defense for this is the Anafalas Herdsmen. What il do if I'm concerned about this type of treachery that has already hit some of my allies, I'll only quest with allies that have no damage. I also like to have warden of Healing in, so he can work on keeping these my allies alive.

i usually don't play with spirit cards to cancel shadow cards anyway. I suppose I could include burning brand and put it on a hunter of lamadon when his defense is buffed, but that would take many rounds to set up. The major shadows I'm concerned about are the ones that would discard or destroy an ally, thus making an attack undefended. If I'm aware thats a possibility I will use hurluin to defend, or make sure the ally defending has 2 or more hp if possible.

the main strategy is to win as quickly as possible and hopefully not see some of these cards, but if you watch the Into Ithilien videos you'll see that I deal with almost all of these issues. And when I finished there were only there've cards left in the encounter deck.

Yes, I have beaten stewards fear with this deck, and I plan on posting a video. The zealous Traitor is the one to watch out for. I m hoping to have a gandalf sneak attack in hand when he shows up. I'll wait with that combo all game if I have to. I've had two zealous traitors show up at the same time before, and I had to use one sneak attack before the quest phase was over and the other during the travel phase. Kind of a big waste of a couple of sneak attacks but it's either that or loose all my allies during the encounter phase.

In Steward's Fear the really nasty treachery is the one that makes an ally back-stab you and then discard. With a good Outlands posse on the table, the lowest possible damage is 3 to a hero! I lost Glorfindel to a back-stab from one of the 4 attack Outlanders (I had all three Knights of the Swan on the table), and it's just brutal! Zealous Traitor's are nasty too, but it's the back-stab's ability to knock out heroes that makes it so bad. Otherwise, Outlands are pretty good!

monkeyrama said:

Yeah i just started to notice the power of that treachery card in an outland deck. I've been only playing one knight of swan and keeping the others in my hand until the boss fight at the end or until i really need them.

Here are the links to the outland deck taking on Steward's Fear.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Any outlands deck will have problems with encounters what limits the number of allies (like Dol Guldur) or massed damage to allies (like that treatchery from HoN that does 3 damage to all characters from all spheres exept your chosen). I believe it will be great in some scenarios, but not The One deck to beat it all.

Tracker1 said:

Hah! I only played the once, and already had the three down. Poor Glorfindel! I like that the encounter deck has a response to mega-allies though, and a very thematically done one as well. Outlands are very good, but I can see that little features of scenarios will give them some hell at times!

Tried out your deck (albiet with a few small adjustments since I only have 1 core set)

loved it and thought it worked far better and even quicker than bilbo-glorfindel-Hirluin…granted i was playing 3 player rather than solo which tends to make matches easier. Didnt stop me from commiting 85 willpower on the last turn just by myself however

What do you think you would subtract for the new outlands ally coming in the next AP? I'm thinking of ditching a copy of Gaining Strength, A Very good Tale, or Peace and Thought. The nice but expendable, the second is only good mid game, and the last is sometimes too hard or not worth using. Only planning on putting in 2 of the new ally since he's unqiue all though

I was thinking of taking out the 2 Cram. It's nice first round for beravor, or some other random time. But I dont think it's essential. I mean i will be getting an ally that will have the same stats as Hurluin, but readies every phase, so he has a built in Cram mechanism as long as i meet his requirments.

On the cards you mentioned gaining strength is on the bottom of the list, so that would be the first to go in the future. Peace and thought is critical so i want to make sure i see it at least once a game, so i would not drop a copy. maybe could remove one copy in the future, but Forlong and another 2 cost ally will work really nice with this card. Possible to pull Gandalf in, so having a three copies might be very useful.

I did play this deck 4 player and it worked out nicely. Little slow in begining and the other players had to pick up the slack, but by round three the deck was up and running, and by the end of the game outlands were the go to problem solvers. This was Battle of Five Armies quest. i did find Hurluin's ranged attack quite useful, and I was pleased he had it.

Just want to make sure I buy the correct stuff.

To build this deck you need:

TSF = The Steward's Fear
TLD = The Long Dark
HoN = Heirs Of Numenor

I know I have to proxy some of the cards from core (only have one), but other than that I want all cards

Warden of Healing x2 the long dark

Cram x2 this is in the first hobbit saga box OHaUH i replaced with Forlong from Druadan Foresr

A Very Good Tale x3 also from OHaUH

Dareon's Ruins x3 Foundations of Stone everyone should have this one for Glorfindel

Peace and Tought x3 Shadow and Flame another good AP. this card is great for the outlands deck

Everything else you will get with the the core set, Steward's Fear, and HoN

Warden of Healing x2 the long dark

Cram x2 this is in the first hobbit saga box OHaUH i replaced with Forlong from Druadan Foresr

A Very Good Tale x3 also from OHaUH

Dareon's Ruins x3 Foundations of Stone everyone should have this one for Glorfindel

Peace and Tought x3 Shadow and Flame another good AP. this card is great for the outlands deck

Everything else you will get with the the core set, Steward's Fear, and HoN

Sorry, missed to say I already own OHaUH.

Thanks for the others, don't know how I could have missed that.

So I was thinking of building this Outland deck and also this Dwarf deck to be able to play two-handed and with one other person when opportunity arrives.

Hero (3)

Dain Ironfoot (RtM) x1

Ori (OHaUH) x1

Thorin Oakenshield (OHaUH) x1

Ally (21)

Dori (OHaUH) x2

Erebor Record Keeper (KD) x3

Erebor Hammersmith (Core) x3

Fili (OHaUH) x2

Gandalf (Core) x3

Longbeard Elder (FoS) x3

Longbeard Orc Slayer (Core) x2

Miner of the Iron Hills (Core) x3

Attachment (12)

Celebrian's Stone (Core) x1

Cram (OHaUH) x3

Hardy Leadership (SaF) x2

Legacy of Durin (TWitW) x2

Steward of Gondor (Core) x3

Thror's Map (OHaUH) x1

Event (17)

Daeron's Runes (FoS) x3

Lure of Moria (RtR) x2

Parting Gifts (AJtR) x3

Sneak Attack (Core) x3

We Are Not Idle (SaF) x3

A Very Good Tale (OHaUH) x3

This deck is not my creation (I'm very bad at deck building, prefer netdecking and playing more).

That dwarf deck is solid, and I believe it's Glaurung's Thorin & company deck.

The only problem with using the outlands and Dwarf deck together is both rely on Steward of Gondor which is unique.

If you are going to play them together. I would keep SoG with outlands, and give the gaining strength to the dwarves. Maybe try out Resourceful. Also, you could send Theodred's resource to a questing dwarf. Errand ridders should not be used as cannon fodder. Try to keep them around to spread the wealth.

I haven't looked at the vidoes yet (blocked at work), but I do have a simple question regarding the outlanders. I know that they get a +1 attribute for each one in play. The question is do multiple of each type stack. So if I have two of +1 to strengths guys out with Hirlun as a hero. Each of the strength allies gets +6 or +3 strength? I can see why the deck gets silly real fast. I played like the +6, I had a couple of each ally flavor on the table so they were pretty much untouchable. attack for 12+, questing for 12+ ,etc.

Let say you had all the outland allies in play. Hurluin, or any ally that has 1 for willpower, attack, defense, will at most have 4 for each of those stats, so each stat boosting ally only provides 1 to the associated stat.

It looks like Tracker1 removed all his videos...

He hasn't been around in a while. I miss his creativity.