Now Thalin isn't a very good hero. His one willpower goes completely against his ability, though T Theoden and Dain help in that regard. I usually only play him against enemies with 1 HP, of which there are a paltry nine out of a total of 414! However, 1HP enemies usually have multiple copies and some sort of nasty ability that Thalin nueters. He isn't a star, but he is fairly solid, especially in multiplayer.

Thalin was my first chosen hero in my first deck, mainly due the artwork and the ability which looked cool at first sight. Yeah, I know, the ability which goes totally against the stats, which are not much of use in questing and should I waste Unexpected Courage to make him be useful?! We'll see. I'm not done with him yet. One reason why I consider to play Fellowship decks or multiplayer. For now....verdict remains: 3/5.

Thalin started strong, beating those pesky ravens in the Core set/Shadows of Mirkwood times and helping out against other low health enemies. His true moment of glory came when he joined party at the Seventh level in Khazad-dum expansion. I made a simple deck including him, Bifur and Dain and most importantly Gondorian Spearmen. This deck consistently won every attempt at Seventh level no matter how bad the encouter deck draw was. So many two hit point enemies, with Thalin this adventure turned into Orc slaughter. But... lack of willpower eventually caught up with him as other adventure packs of Dwarrowdelf were more demanding. His final attempt to become relevant has occured at Heirs of Númenor days in battle/siege quests. Special mention deserves his swift strike combo, which was able to annihilate Haradrim Elite (3 hit points). But alas, this marked an end to his short but fruitful era. Since then he never recoved and basically lost his spot in our decks. Yes, of course, it is possible to make a good deck including Thalin, but unfortunately there always are better options for Tactics hero spot. Unless you are going pure direct damage deck, of course.

Thalin has a cool ability and as we all know.. stats that don't support him. Except when it's suddenly time for sieges and battles, here he can suddenly quest for a lot more thanks to things like dwarven axes and armour that can be found in abundance in tactics. I also quite like chip damage against high defense enemies, it makes them a little easier to take down a turn or so faster when you might otherwise wound an enemy down to 1 hp. He's still not great, but I like him together with leadership Dain for some extra stat buffs.

Even after 9 cycles and 8 saga expansions, Thalin has successfully retained his place as THE direct damage hero. And during the release of all those products, the archetype has certainly increased in strength, getting another key piece as recently as the last cycle with Reckless Attack (and, to a smaller extent, Westfold Lancer).

True, Thalin and his archetype are by no means suited to all situations, being quite hard to make work in solo and suboptimal for quests that either have enemies with toughness or a lot of hit points (like Trolls). But the threshold here is much higher than many people give it credit for - even enemies with 5 or 6 hit points are nowadays quite easily killable through direct damage before they ever get the chance to attack between cards like Thalin, Argalad (who, when run alongside Thalin, opens up Unlikely Friendship), Anborn, Goblin-cleaver, Reckless Attack, Spear of the Citadel, Descendant of Thorondor, Gandalf or Gondorian Spearman.

Another fantastic thing about him is that he defeats 1 hit point enemies like Eastern Crows before their effects trigger, preventing surge or any nasty when revealed effects. His 1 willpower for 9 threat is certainly very unspectacular, even if boost-able by the likes of Dáin Ironfoot, however the fact that he often equals 2-3 free damage per round is quite awesome.

Rating: 7.5/10

Decks of mine using Thalin

All my card ratings