Those Who Rode to Glory 1.0

• Versions
• 1.0

In the books, the three hunters assembled to rescue a pair of hobbits from a troupe of orcs. It's somewhat ironic, then, that Hobbit heroes make perhaps the best choice for the Forth, The Three Hunters! contract.

Think about it: what's the single most important element for a three hunters deck? Readying, of course; no matter how strong your characters are, three actions per round will hardly be sufficient. And from the very beginning what's been the defining card of the Hobbit faction? Fast Hitch, which remains today the cheapest and easiest unlimited readying effect in the entire card pool (and stacks with Unexpected Courage to provide potentially as many as 6 extra actions per round). Additionally, Sam and Merry have readying effects built-in and Frodo's ability to convert damage to threat lets you safely take an undefended attack every round, resulting in additional action advantage.

What's the biggest challenge facing Three Hunter decks? Surviving until you get the contract flipped. To that end, it's notable that Hobbits have a faction-specific 0-cost restricted attachment (that's actually pretty good!) and gain a bonus from the one card in the card pool that gives you access to the most different cards in your opening planning phase.

Hobbits also have low threat, which lets you stall for longer than other factions, and Pippin makes that threat functionally even lower still. (Provided you don't fail the first quest phase, you won't be forced to engage any enemy with an engagement cost higher than 16.) Plus the faction has the single most powerful threat-reducing effect in the pool to buy additional time, and Pippin provides built-in card draw to the archetype, too.

That humble Hobbit Pony also serves as a form of action advantage; by committing willpower after staging you ensure that you never over-commit and "waste" an action. (It's also phenomenal quest control for those stages you don't want to fail but also don't want to burn through too quickly.)

Also, one of the best pieces of tech for a Three Hunters deck is The One Ring, which starts you one restricted attachment closer to your goal. Not only can Hobbits do the best job of avoiding its downside thanks to their low-threat profile and tendency to use threat as a resource already, but they also have by far the most thematic justification for carrying it, too.

So Hobbits make great hunters. They can flip the contract quickly, keep a low profile until they do, and get extra use out of all those attachments thanks to their unprecedented action advantage.

In terms of which hobbits to use, Pippin is an easy inclusion for access to those Fast Hitches, as well as Drinking Song and draw events, while Merry is a virtual necessity to get that trove of restricted Tactics attachments. For the third slot, there's a good argument for Sam, who brings action advantage, extra willpower, and some cool hobbit tools (Staff of Lebethron, Hobbit Cloak, etc). Leadership Frodo gives the same sphere access, easier readying, and threat reduction, plus the resource cost isn't so great because Three Hunter decks tend to pile them up later on.

But personally I prefer Spirit Frodo. He negates the biggest downside of Hobbits (they're super-fragile), his ability provides pseudo action advantage slash catastrophe insurance and makes good use of the "threat as a resource" paradigm, and he gets Inner Strength (my favorite One Ring selection), Unexpected Courage (useful to effectively double your fast hitch count), and the aforementioned Hobbit Ponies, a glue card if ever there was one. (Should I not be referring to horses as a glue card?)

I also like this lineup for thematic reasons, since these tend to be the Hobbits who get the glory in the story. Frodo carried the Ring to Mount Doom, Merry and Pippin roused the Ents and sacked Isengard, Merry helped kill the Witch-King, Pippin saved Faramir from the mad Steward. Obviously readers of the book know that Sam was probably the most important Hobbit of all, but I feel like in an oral history of the War of the Ring, he's the guy who'd most likely get sidelined, glossed over, relegated to "sidekick" or "supporting actor".

Once our lineup is set, deckbuilding mostly consists of slotting in the staples (Fast Hitch, Unexpected Courage, Daeron's Runes, Drinking Song, The Shirefolk, and Deep Knowledges to take advantage of that "threat-as-resource" paradigm), then filling the rest with a bunch of good, cheap restricted attachments.

I playtested that deck for a while and it never quite sang for me. Given how much resources tended to pile up on my heroes after the first round, I started looking at useful (expensive) places to dump them. The Galadhrim's Greeting doubled down even more on the "threat as a resource" paradigm, ensuring my Daggers of Westernesse stayed buffed, Pippin kept drawing me cards, and giving Frodo a couple of extra activations of his ability if necessary.

But the card that really brought everything together wound up being Keen as Lances, which really surprised me because without any means of reducing its cost it's really overpriced. But given how many extra resource tokens this deck generates, overpriced didn't wind up being an issue. With that in mind, Keen as Lances was a phenomenally useful addition; it provides even more aggressive threat reduction if necessary, it's another large piece of card draw if I'm hunting for something specific, and I've even on occasion used it to turn four or five tactics and lore resources into two spirit resources to get an Unexpected Courage out a round or two early.

In terms of play, you're looking to get a first-round flip on your Three Hunters contract, which you should be able to do the vast majority of the time if you're aggressive and willing to put opening-hand restricted cards on the "wrong" hero and sort them out later. Mulligan for lots of cheap restricted cards OR for a Drinking Song. (Never mulligan a hand with a Drinking Song, because it essentially gives you an upgraded version of Galdor's controlled mulligan, keeping the cards you need to see right away and replacing the cards you don't.)

As mentioned, your primary goal is just getting two restricted attachments on everyone. (Frodo has the ring and therefore starts with one.) Dagger of Westernesse, Gondorian Shield, Hobbit Pony, and Round Shield can and should go on anyone (even the "wrong" hero; e.g. the Shield on Merry) to help you hit this goal. Just make sure the Round Shield and Hobbit Pony aren't the first restricted attachments you play on a hero because you'll lose the Three Hunter's discount for the round if they are. (Sometimes this can't be helped.) Once flipped, you can start refining your hobbits' roles.

Frodo is obviously the team's defender and loads up on Gondorian Shields, Ring Mails, Raiments of War, Round Shields, and typically gets the first readying card or two so he can both quest and defend (or defend twice, and eventually quest and defend twice).

An "ideal" end-game setup for him might be 3x Ring Mail + Inner Strength, which gives him 6 defense and 5 hit points with shadow cancellation and damage prevention, a defender that would even make Beregond blush. Good luck taking him down. Not-strictly-ideal-but-still-great setups involve dropping a Ring Mail for a Gondorian Shield (-1 HP) or dropping two Ring Mails for a Raiment of War (-1 defense but +1 attack).

Merry is just as obviously the team's primary attacker. A War Axe, two Daggers of Westernesse, and a Rohan Warhorse gives him 9 attack against enemies with engagement lower than your threat (+3 for Pippin) or 11 attack against enemies with engagement higher, and he can attack together with another hobbit and ready both afterward. Replacing the War Horse with another Dagger gives him another 1-2 attack, but this is often overkill especially with his preference to attack with a partner anyway. However, when quest control is a big deal, swapping the War Horse for a Hobbit Pony gives you an additional tranche of post-staging willpower, which is quite good. Notably: the War Axe and Rohan Warhorse require a Tactics hero and therefore can only be played on Merry.

Pippin is the most interesting of the three because he tends to switch back and forth between roles as needed. He's typically the first hobbit you'll be committing to the quest and therefore usually gets the first Hobbit Pony. Usually, he'll want to be a supplementary attacker with Merry against bigger boss-type enemies. Sometimes it'll be useful to set him up as a secondary defender early in the game, too. Daggers help with the former role, shields with the latter. I really like the Raiment of War on him early on to help with both and to also give you a few extra hit points to help absorb direct damage effects.

Pippin carries two hero-specific attachments in this deck; the Keen Longbow in the deck and the Burning Brand in the sideboard. Both are great for letting you use his resource in the first round to get you closer to your 5-restricted goal. Brand is obviously better in quests where you need extra shadow cancellation or a backup defender. Most of the time, the Longbow shines; it's one of the very few ways to grant a hero ranged, which can turn Pippin from a secondary attacker to a primary or co-primary attacker when paired with a partner deck. Its ability is also fantastic for dealing with enemies that are tough to damage (either because of card effects or just high defense), and you can fuel it with all those extra restricted attachments clogging up your hand once you're set up.

Sideboard: I already mentioned Brand for when you want Pippin to be more of a secondary defender than a secondary attacker. Legacy Blade gives you another 0-cost restricted if you're struggling to flip the contract, but I never was so I cut it; it's worth adding if paired with a deck that Sidequests.

Mithril Shirt and Sting are tremendously thematic inclusions, but they're total win-more cards. A Test of Will obviously makes the deck better, but I hate the whole "anyone with spirit access must automatically include cancellation" paradigm, so I leave it out and take my lumps unless the quest is especially punishing in the treachery department, because it's more interesting and fun that way.

Take No Notice is good against quests with low-engagement cost enemies, Out of the Wild lets you use your secrecy start to reduce the cost of your Keen as Lances (though resources aren't really an issue, but it's also good for quests with an "automatic loss" type card). And The White Council is a fun card in multiplayer games that let you convert your extra resources into fun and useful decisions for the table.

Obviously there are a lot of other good hero lineups for the contract. Rohan has a ton of faction-specific restricteds and can make double use out of the willpower boost thanks to cards like Golden Shield and Herugrim. Plus heroes like Fastred and Dúnhere and Éomer and Elfhelm (and many others) gain unique benefits from the contract's push for characters to act alone more often.

The canonical Three Hunters have all sorts of innate readying effects, Elves and Dwarves get access to a bunch of faction-specific restricted attachments, and Dale is pretty much the "attachment faction" (though those mostly apply to allies). Overall, I don't know if Hobbits are really the best faction here.

But given the source material, I love the fact that they show up as one of the top choices for the contract.