Fatty is great in the Black Riders scenarios. (SPOILERS ahead).

I built two mostly thematic decks, one with Sam, Pippin and Merry, the other with Strider, Spirfindel and Fatty and Fatty was indispensable in handling the scenarios. In Shadow of the Past, Fatty neutralized the threat of the Black Rider for the first few turns so that I could quest successfully and keep the threat away from the Hobbit deck. Fatty packed in some Good Meals, making it cheap to greet the Galadhrim, and then he served as the target if Have You Seen Baggins? He bravely stood up to the interrogation until a wandering Miner of the Iron hills distracted the nazgul. But, knowing he was an easy target, they came after him again and got another Have You Seen Baggins on him. When the Hobbit deck deliberately failed a Hide test, (since that was my best strategic move at the time) Fatty took one for the team and left the company.

Since I wasn't playing campaign mode, he was coaxed from his home to join me again in Bree. Fatty was such a nuisance around town, neutralizing the threat of Bill Ferny and rocketing up the threat of my deck, that Bill abandoned his spying to come after him. Unfortunately for Bill, Strider, Spirfindel and Haldir were waiting to take him down. Then, Strider quietly tucked everyone away in Bree and lowered my threat back down. Unfortunately for Fatty, as we traveled to the Midgewater, he fell victim to Black Breath, and his stats were zeros for the rest of the game.

So, to recap, Fatty= great early game when there's a high threat enemy in the staging area and you're struggling to quest (first two Black Rider scenarios for sure, haven't played the third yet), great with Strider, great at drawing out Bill Ferny, great with threat lowering, great with Good Meals (as he should be), and great punching bag for the nasty condition treacheries in Black Riders (most of them have Peril, so I was lucky they hit the second deck). Would I include him in a solo deck, probably not. But in multiplayer, he was great and thematically fun.

Looks like Fredegar really helped you out! I particularly like the method you used to dispatch that filthy Bill Ferny. Quickly escalating your threat past 38 to engage him, followed by cutting him down, and finally lowering your threat way back down with Strider's ability is brilliant!

I must admit, when I first read Fatty's ability, I didn't think it was all that great, but once you place him in a low starting threat deck and several high-threat enemies come out (many of the Nazgul are 4 or 5) then Fatty definitely becomes useful. I hadn't thought to pair him up with Strider for the use you described, but that really is a great idea.

On another note, I thought about creating my two decks very similar to the ones you made but have never split up one sphere between two decks before. (Lore Pippin in your first deck and Lore Strider in your other.) I'm curious as to how you decided which Lore cards to put in which deck? Also, did you sprinkle in a lot of song cards with your tri-sphere hobbit deck?

Thanks Karlson!

My decks need some tweaking, but here's how I've split up the Lore/Resource Cards for now (off the top of my head without the decks in front of me).

Hobbit Deck:
Lore Cards: 2 Songs of Wisdom, 2 Rivendel Minstrels, 2 Barlimen, 3 Daeron's runes (I'm going to move these to the other deck because it struggles with card draw and the Hobbits don't), Take no Notice (always free), 2 Masters of the Forge, 3 Fast Hitch, 3 Burning Brands (add a song and a brand to Sam, another is for Strider) and I think that's it.

Reource Acceleration/Smoothing: Steward for Sam, Celebrain's Stone (meant to go across the table and give Strider a Spirit icon and willpower), 2 Errand Riders (can send them to the other deck or even give some to Frodo). Steward and a Song gives me everything I need to play the Lore cards, plus Steward allows you to put a Gondorian shield on Sam for maximum effectiveness. I don't worry about Tactics resources because my only Tactics cards are the Daggers, Farmer Maggot, Unseen Strike, Godorian Shield, and Halfling Determination, which are cheap or free (except for Maggot).

Strider Deck:
Lore Cards: 3 Elf Stone, 2 Haldir, 2 Gildor (I'd probably sub him out for campaign mode), 3 Asfaloth, 2 Secret Paths, 2 Miners of the Iron Hills, and that's all I can think of for now. I'm going to transfer the Daeron's Runes to this deck and maybe add Gleowine because Ancient Mathom and the Hobbit Pipes (one on Fatty one on Frodo) just weren't enough card draw.

Resources: The Hobbits draw cards (especially attachments) rapidly, so I can usually count on a Celebrain's Stone to smooth out the resources in the deck. Good Meal helps pay for Smoke Rings and Galadrihm's Greeting, and a well-timed Elf Stone lets me drop in Gildor, Haldir, or Noethern Tracker for basically nothing.

Gandalf OHaUH would be great in the Strider deck, but I left Gandalf out of both decks for a more thematic feel. A big reason that the early part of the quest was such a struggle was that Gandalf wasn't around.

Interesting use of the Gondorian-themed cards. I decided to leave all those out of my decks to keep it more thematic (although I just couldn't accept not including Gandalf, so he stayed!)

Unseen Strike is an excellent card for all three of these scenarios. I had never even put that in a deck before, but it became extremely valuable to the play style of the hobbits.

In my first hero deck of Sam, Pippin, and Strider, I had Sword that was Broken as an attachment. Once attached to Strider, this gave him a Leadership icon and it boosted everyone's willpower by 1 which was very nice on the turns that Frodo was with that deck and when they had some ally support.

I really liked the idea of the Hobbit Pipe and Smoke Rings combination, but unfortunately it takes a while to get it going since you need the pipe in play and then the smoke rings. Still, you have to include those to consider these decks even remotely thematic, right?

Elf-stone really is a great card, but I did notice that it takes some pretty precise timing to line it up with both a location that leaves play as well as consideration for who is currently the first player. I actually never got the chance to use it yet for those reasons, but I will give it another chance on my second play through of each quest.

I will post back later with some more of the cards I used in my two decks, but a lot of them have already been mentioned.

Sword that was Broken is a great card and I have two of it in my hobbit deck to play on Strider.

I justified the non-thematic Gondor cards to myself by leaving out Gandalf Another non-thematic must for these scenarios is Miner of the Iron Hills. They really need another card that can discard conditions.

The Hobbit Pipe and Smoke Rings need a lot more card draw to get going, but they had to be in the deck because I absolutely love the idea and they're great thematically. Fatty can take a break with a Good Meal, get some pipes out with Frodo and blow smoke rings to boost their willpower by two, draw two cards, and lower the threat by two. That's a good break from adventuring! They also work with Elrond's Council and Galadhrim's Greeting, so the pipes had to be in there.

I'll be interested to see how your decks go!

My first deck consisted of Samwise, Pippin, and Strider. In addition to some of the cards already mentioned above, I found that Second Breakfast and Cram went really well together in this deck; not only do they both coincide with eating for the fun hobbit theme, but Second Breakfast let me bring Cram right back out after I used it. Bill the Pony, Fast Hitch, and Hobbit Cloak were also obvious auto-includes to this deck. Three copies of Radagast's Cunning really helped to tone down some of the enemy threat. Finally, I really like the card Campfire Tales, and this was the quintessential deck to place it in!

In my other deck, the heroes were Merry, Fatty, and Glorfindel (Sp). Nearly all the allies I used in this deck were Elves, such as the Watcher of the Bruinen and Trollshaw Scout. I also had all three copies of the first and only Fellowship-sphere card in this deck, Frodo's Intuition - an absolutely great card to play! Overall, this deck revolved mainly around threat reduction and shadow cancellation from the spirit sphere and weapon attachment/attack boosts from the tactics sphere.

I may attempt to create my first ever tri-sphere deck with Merry, Pippin, and Sam. A lot of people have been doing that and speak very highly of it. I've just never tried one before with the fear that it would be too hard to get resources for player cards, but I suppose I need to give it a go before I ultimately decide against it.

Still not having my copy of BR , but reading for tri-sphere deck, it is something i do often. Having some resource acceleration cards and cards that can give a second sphere on a hero will make life very easy. If you have this, then it is great fun playing it.

Last weekend i was playing an Elrond,Glorfindel (sp), beregond deck, and at some point (less than ten turns) had five allies and five attachments in play. So it is just that you have to build your deck having in mind that you have to play cards trying to find a way either to play them for free or to generate resources

A helpful thing about building a tri-sphere Hobbit deck is that a lot of the deck is there for you already in the box. The cards are pretty inexpensive, and even if you want to avoid non-thematic resource acceleration (since most resource acceleration/smoothing is Gondor themed), you have a few options. Bill will always be free, A Good Harvest can let you play all your resources for one sphere for one phase (and it stays with the theme of Hobbits and eating!), A Very Good Tale (if you want to pump out allies), and the previously discussed Elf-Stone are some of the best options.

Another good thing about playing Hobbits tri-sphere is they start at a low threat, which gives you a few turns to build up strength. You can focus on questing and avoiding enemies until you have a big turn 2 or 3, drop down allies and attachments, and take them on.

But it sounds like your dual-sphere decks are solid, and that's my preferred style of deck building unless I've got a really strong trait that will bridge the gap between three spheres (Dwarves, Hobbits, Outlands) or Elrond. Hope some of the tips help!