hendersondayton said:

I keep updating the original post with my current version of the deck, the one that has the games reported and commented. The "gatharion" deck is on his post, not on the original one…

Javier

I'm in the process of acquiring all the adventure packs so I can build this deck. In the meantime, I've been playing with most of the cards and a few stand ins for others. I've had OK success. In any case, I wonder why Burning Brand is not included in the deck for Denithor? That seems an ideal card for a dedicated blocker, and has saved me innumerable times.

Also, more of a noob question here, who gets the Song of Kings?  I've been giving it to Denithor since I don't always have Lore cards to play or I can get them out from the discard pile with Stand and Fight.  Just curious if there's an "optimal hero" for it.

Thanks so much for posting this deck. Even with my partial copy of the deck I can see the power of it. I'm looking forward to getting all the APs and building this.

First of all thanks for the interest in the deck, I'll answer each of your questions below…

Irongut said:

Burning Brand isn't included for 2 reasons: first of all you only have one character that produces Lore resources and there are cards that need 3 (Rivendell Misntrel) and 4 (Haldir) that are too important so you can't spend those resources on this card. Also you you ways to cancel shadow effects with the Spirit cards so this isn't really needed and will slow your deck down quite a lot…

Irongut said:

I usually avoid getting this card to Denethor unless you have Steward of Gondor on him. His Lore resources are way too needed to spend them on Leadership cards. So I actually attach this card to Glorfindel. So basic case is like this: attach it to Glorfindel unless Denethor has Steward of Gondor attached. That's basically my idea…

Thanks for the quick reply. I'll have all the cards I need by the weekend and will give this a try.

Irongut said:

Hope you can share your experience! My idea is making this deck as good as possible :)

Maggical - Thanks for keeping this deck up to date. I have enjoyed using it.

Would it be possible to get you to add a section to your OP that indicates how you use the attachments? I have noted a few times you mentioned who you used attachments on but for the purpose of someone just finding this thread it may be a good idea to add this so that "newcomers" to your deck will be able to find this direction up front.

Thanks!

hendersondayton said:

I can do that, will try to update it in the upcoming days, any attachments in particular you find difficult to decide who to attach them to?

Oh, by the way, I see that many play two man games. Would anyone be interested in me adding the 2nd deck I run on this kind of games that complements this one really great? Maybe it helps someone that wants to have a "spare" deck to play whenever a friend comes by…

Maggical said:

ABSOLUTELY!!

With Regards to the attachments question:

Pretty much any attachment that does not specifically give a bonus to a certain character ("If Aragorn…")…i struggle to know who best to put it on…Attachments for dwarves are easy, put it on a dwarf….unless there are two dwarves…then i am not sure which.

My typical rule of thumb is, if the card doesn't give a bonus, put it on the hero that will be around the longest….

I would love to see a thread or write up explaining the best attachments for each  hero…..For example, Denethor and some attachment that allows him to ready….that is a powerful combo…stuff like this i would like to see…

hendersondayton said:

I'll try to add the attachments notes in a couple of hours. I wanted to make a tweak to the 2nd deck so I will post it during the week after I test it a little bit…

I still need to play against The Hobbit quests and I'm still waiting for my Battle at Lake-town…

Attachments section added to main post! Hope you like it!

Maggical said:

Much Appreciated! I have "borrowed" several decks from people. But I feel in order to really learn from the decks I borrow, I like to see how the deck was intended. This only helps me learn to build better decks myself.

As of right now, Denethor and Unexpected Courage is a mainstay for me. The ability to see what is coming is a must in most quests.

Thanks!

hendersondayton said:

No problem! Once I tweak my secondary deck I will share it too…

OK. First test of the solo deck Maggical created on PtM. Smashed it. Scored 81 (out in 6 turns)…didn't face a single enemy from the staging area cause I kept reducing me threat with Elrond's Counsel…was able to manage the encounter deck with Denethor + Unexpected Courage….Glorfindel + Light of Valinor was awesome too….I optionally engaged the forest spider in Turn 4 so that I could get it out of the staging area. I had Gandalf and Glorfindel to take care of that. 

The interesting thing was that I never got Steward of Gondor on Denethor as I couldn't get a song or the Rivendell Minstrel to come up. I got Gelowine in and was able to get another card draw and also used Ancient Mathom on the Old Forest Road to draw 3…still couldn't get them…

anyway, great deck! Will keep moving forward with other quests to see how those go as well.

I've been trying out this deck, and decided to go through all the quests in order. So I plan to do all of the core set encounters, Mirkwood, Khazad-dum, etc, in order.  Unfortunately I got stuck on Journey Down the Anduin. I've lost three times, twice to threat death and once because I quit when all I had left was Denethor and an army of angry attackers.

The Hill Troll is really not that bad. Gandalf and Glorfindel can handle him if Denethor blocks and Arwen quests. It's all the OTHER things in the encounter deck that make this quest a nightmare. Between those wargs that run away before you can attack (if they don't get a shadow card) and goblin snipers you can't keep allies in play. Then the staging area builds up with so much threat so fast you can't make any progress and your own threat shoots up.

So I'm not sure if this is just a case of three really bad games or tough encounter decks. But I'm stuck here and can't win the scenario. Is there something I'm missing?

My basic plan has been to get the heroes "set up" with their attachments ASAP, and then quest like nuts and try to deal with as many locations and enemies as I can handle.  But by the second stage, I have so much threat built up that I can't pull off the willpower to quest.  So any suggestions are appreciated.

It is a good deck. It's just probably I'm not playing it correctly. 

Also, a clarification: Eowyn's ability lets me discard ONE card to raise her ONE spirit, ONCE per phase. So I can't bump her over 5 spirit as a solo player, right?