I've been working on the following deck ever since Dagger of Westernesse came out, but it really started to come together with the Spear of the Mark. After getting worked over on the Morgul Vale scenario I thought I would give this deck a try, and to my surprise it worked great, and can muster a win 6 out of 10 tries. It also works real well on willpower based quests. But it is a no go for Battle and Siege. It's a real fun deck and nice to see Dunhere wreak havoc in the staging area. The two Hobbits really make the deck work too. Strategy notes below.

Hero starting Threat 21

Dunhere (Core) x1

Frodo Baggins (CatC) x1

Merry (TBR) x1

Ally (13)

Arwen Undomiel (TWitW) x3

Ethir Swordsman (TSF) x3

Northern Tracker (Core) x2

Silvan Refugee (TDF) x3

West Road Traveller (RtM) x2

Attachment (18)

Ancient Mathom (AJtR) x2

Dagger of Westernesse (TBR) x3

Spear of the Mark (TMV) x3

Good Meal (TRG) x2

Hobbit Pipe (TBR) x3

Song of Travel (THoEM) x2

Unexpected Courage (Core) x3

Event (19)

A Light in the Dark (Core) x3

A Test of Will (Core) x2

Dwarven Tomb (Core) x2

Elrond's Counsel (TWitW) x3

Feint (Core) x3

Foe-hammer (OHaUH) x3

The Galadhrim's Greeting (Core) x3

Strategy:

Look for any of the 6 weapon attachments in your opening hand. and get one and then a 2nd on Dunhere as ASAP. Try to also get another 2 willpower quester in play for the first round. Arwen is great early on since you will need her to use Elrond's Counsel that's why there are 3 of her in the deck. Merry and Frodo will quest most of the time with whatever other spirit allies are in play. Questing with Willpower is not an issue for this deck. Nice thing is that you will get many rounds out of Silvan Refugee, since very few allies leave play with Frodo around.

The Keeping threat low is the other trick of making this deck work. Good meal and Galadhrims Greeting, Arwen and Elrond's Counsel will help, but i put 2 Dwarven Tombs in to recycle some of these cards if it is really needed. It's great to use these cards in conjunction with the Hobbit Pipes which do a pretty good job of card draw in this deck as long as they are attached and I have threat reducing cards. Ancient Mathom and Foe Hammer will help draw too.

Since there are so few tactics cards for Merry to buy, he ends up with a mountain of resources, so hopefully 1 of the Song of Travel make it to him. SInce Dunhere and Frodo can be stressed for resources at times.

A Light in the Dark combos perfect with Dunhere in this deck, and with Feint they are a big part of the strategy in dealing with the last two captains in the Morgul Vale.

Get at least one Unexpected Courage on Dunhere and watch him do his thing.

Suggestions/comments are always welcome.

Nice! I was actually just thinking today about the exact same deck (plus or minus a few cards). I'm glad to see you building on the Hobbit Pipes.

I'm a little surprised that you need song of travel when you already have two spirit heroes, but I guess there aren't that many tactics cards in the deck. I'd probably try to balance it more instead of adding songs. One key card you are missing is quick strike. In this deck, that is equivalent to hands upon the bow. You could also think about adding in some goblin cleavers, swift strikes, hail of stones, or gondorian spearmen to finish off anyone that gets past Dunhere. Unseen strike could also be good, depending on the scenario and how low you can keep your threat. Maybe even a Gondorian shield for Frodo.

Thanks for the suggestions. I completely forgot about quick strike it would work great with Dunhere. For some reason i was only thinking it would work if the enemy is engaged.

I had hail of stones but with Dunhere it became unnecessary. I tired unseen strike for a bit too, might be good for certain scenarios as you say.

Song of travel really helps, since many of the spirit cards cost 2 it is hard to save up for higher cost cards, or sometimes i will not have a resource when i need to use test of will. I pretty much could only out one spirit card into play per round, so when i needed a few allies at once Merry's resources helped out big time.

Post your build if you like, and let me know how it goes.

Glad to see someone making use of Spear of the Mark with Dunhere. I haven't tried it out yet but immediately saw its potential.

I went with Theoden, Glorfy, and Dunhere, which made a pretty powerful team-up. Horse on Theoden, Light on Glorfy, and you got a real wrecking crew there. That horse does a great job of making use of those excess tactics resources one would otherwise accumulate. This spread does require dropping a threat-reducer asap though. I think the latest quest was built entirely with Dunhere in mind, because it is WAY easier using him effectively.

I will try it now and let you know….sounds very promising!

Ok I done it! Your deck can make MV solo.... cool. Very good deck!

Ok I done it! Your deck can make MV solo.... cool. Very good deck!

Cool. Happy it worked for you. It's amazing that a deck like this can do it, but Dunhere becomes a superhero. Masters Malice is still a killer though.

The only other deck i used to beat MV is the Caladra one i posted, but that deck is nowhere near as consistent.

saw this deck used in one of the mad russian's videos... and I was wondering.. why are you using Merry? Is it just for the low threat cost and the ability to play pipes? I am not sure of the reasoning here.

saw this deck used in one of the mad russian's videos... and I was wondering.. why are you using Merry? Is it just for the low threat cost and the ability to play pipes? I am not sure of the reasoning here.

I would assume Merry is used for low threat (helps keeps baddies in the staging area for Dunhere) and to get access to tactics for Spear of the Mark.

saw this deck used in one of the mad russian's videos... and I was wondering.. why are you using Merry? Is it just for the low threat cost and the ability to play pipes? I am not sure of the reasoning here.

I would assume Merry is used for low threat (helps keeps baddies in the staging area for Dunhere) and to get access to tactics for Spear of the Mark.

Hmm, yeah.. still seams a inefficient use of the slot . I'm going to try with Hama.. only +3 threat more -1 will + recursion of Foe-Hammer to replace the card draw lost to pipes.... . this will free up what.. 3.. the only big loss is "a good meal" getting lost, still the events do not seam that expensive so maybe even 6 card slots, some of that can be used for resource gen, and little is lost.

Hmm, yeah.. still seams a inefficient use of the slot . I'm going to try with Hama.. only +3 threat more -1 will + recursion of Foe-Hammer to replace the card draw lost to pipes.... . this will free up what.. 3.. the only big loss is "a good meal" getting lost, still the events do not seam that expensive so maybe even 6 card slots, some of that can be used for resource gen, and little is lost.

Hama might be a good choice, and please post some of your results I Would be curious to know how it goes.

For me Hama sort of goes against what the Deck is trying to accomplish, which is to attack all enemies in the staging area. I do not want to have to engage them and attack with Hama to get a tactics event back. But sure there are sometimes enemies will engage regardless of how low my threat is, so having extra attack could be useful. Personally I do not like playing with Hama and find his ability to recycle a card like Feint almost every turn kind of boring. Although I do use him in a Mono tactics Solo deck.

I set up the deck with Merry, because I wanted to also get some use out of Hobbit Pipe, which was just collecting dust, and by playing this deck i find out it is actually pretty cool card that can provide decent card draw in the right deck.

I like the deck and how if functions and it mostly does what I intended it to do. I have played other scenarios, where I never had an enemy engage me, because dunhere destroyed every enemy in the staging area. What Is Hama doing then? Might be more useful to use someone like Thalin for 9 threat since he is designed to quest, and will make it easier for Dunhere to destroy enemies in the staging area.

In the end i think the extra 3 threat minus 1 wp will change how the deck works, but we won't know until we try it.

I see where your coming from... but yeah but there is alternative methods for allowing Hama to attack into the staging area, there is all that extra room with the hobbit trait target cards removed. I also agree about feint but I think tactic card draw with foe-hammer is a cool use of his ability that feels fun as drawing cards is always fun, and unlike feint it isn't removing gameplay.

On a side note.... If you wana use a card that is gathering dust.,.. try keeping count. It is surprisingly awesome with a Dunhere deck, as he is attacking alone into the staging area so often, you end up with a 2nd hero with a zillion attack power to crush anything that makes it to the engagement zone. hehe

I see where your coming from... but yeah but there is alternative methods for allowing Hama to attack into the staging area, there is all that extra room with the hobbit trait target cards removed. I also agree about feint but I think tactic card draw with foe-hammer is a cool use of his ability that feels fun as drawing cards is always fun, and unlike feint it isn't removing gameplay.

On a side note.... If you wana use a card that is gathering dust.,.. try keeping count. It is surprisingly awesome with a Dunhere deck, as he is attacking alone into the staging area so often, you end up with a 2nd hero with a zillion attack power to crush anything that makes it to the engagement zone. hehe

Yew Bow can't go on Hama since it calls for a hero with Printed Ranged. i suppose you could use the new Tactics event that allows Rohan characters to attack the staging area. But for the cost of two it might not be worth it if you have got Dunhere for free.

Hama with Foe hammer is great and that's how I primarily use him in my tactics deck, it offsets the cost of having to lose a card from hand when using his ability, which makes it worthwhile in a mono tactics deck.

Keeping what? Ha, Keeping Count is a card that maybe saw the 1 or 2 games when it first came out, it has never seen the light of day again. I alsways thought it might work well in battle quests. I just might be crazy enough to take up your challenge. If I ever come up with anything worthwhile I'll post it.

hehe, yeah.. it is a silly card 4 sure.. but I like trying to get silly cards to work. Still it is one of the "ultimate" gathering dust cards

Yeah YewBow needs ranged, but there is +ranged keyword cards.. and as you say Dunhere is doing the real work anyway, so there is no rush to get him equipped. While merry is not using his ability much if at all, is Hama is not for a while shouldn't make a difference. It just seams.. I dunno.. wasteful. I think Heroes are probably the most important slot in the decks and I always try to find Heroes that have a printed utility through the entire game.. .I rarly choose based on icons. It feels bad to me to have a hero that has a ability that I simply never use.

hehe, yeah.. it is a silly card 4 sure.. but I like trying to get silly cards to work. Still it is one of the "ultimate" gathering dust cards

Yeah YewBow needs ranged, but there is +ranged keyword cards.. and as you say Dunhere is doing the real work anyway, so there is no rush to get him equipped. While merry is not using his ability much if at all, is Hama is not for a while shouldn't make a difference. It just seams.. I dunno.. wasteful. I think Heroes are probably the most important slot in the decks and I always try to find Heroes that have a printed utility through the entire game.. .I rarly choose based on icons. It feels bad to me to have a hero that has a ability that I simply never use.

Yew Bow needs the PRINTED Ranged keyword, so it doesn't work unless the Hero already has it.

hehe, yeah.. it is a silly card 4 sure.. but I like trying to get silly cards to work. Still it is one of the "ultimate" gathering dust cards

Yeah YewBow needs ranged, but there is +ranged keyword cards.. and as you say Dunhere is doing the real work anyway, so there is no rush to get him equipped. While merry is not using his ability much if at all, is Hama is not for a while shouldn't make a difference. It just seams.. I dunno.. wasteful. I think Heroes are probably the most important slot in the decks and I always try to find Heroes that have a printed utility through the entire game.. .I rarly choose based on icons. It feels bad to me to have a hero that has a ability that I simply never use.

Yeah, it is pretty rare to use Merry's ability. He is mostly in the deck for tactics icon, low threat, decent willpower, and Hobbit pipe card draw. His 2 hp make him a pretty fragile quester on a number of scenarios.

Tracker 1 said:

not sure why it lumped the quote together.

If your looking to swap him out I think you would probably get the most use out of Thalin as I mentioned before. Staring threat for the deck would be 24, so if you want to keep to the Dunhere attacking the staging area theme then the threat reduction cards are still going to be crucial.

Yew Bow needs the PRINTED Ranged keyword, so it doesn't work unless the Hero already has it

Holy ****!! It is.. omg...

been using it wrong for a while, havent you?

i only got the card a few days ago.,. I haven't use iot at all yet.