Dunhere’s Fear

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Derived from
None. Self-made deck here.
Inspiration for
Éomer the Grey Wanderer 6 2 4 1.0
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Some Sort 3481

I don't usually post the decks I build for a specific scenario, but this one was fun, so here's a quick deck put together for Steward's Fear. The bandit enemies do all sorts of annoying things when they engage you. Solution? Keep your threat low and let Dunhere kill them in staging.

Most of the enemies in the quest can be killed with 4 attack, which is exactly how much Dunhere has with Strength and Courage equipped (but not triggered) when attacking into staging. A few require 6 attack, which is exactly how much you get when triggering the effect on Strength and Courage, too. Any boss you draw will go down in two attacks.

Every enemy but one can be avoided as long as you stay under 17 threat. Between Double Back, The Galadhrim's Greeting, and (Sneak Attack) Gandalf, you have plenty of reduction. The one enemy with ultra-low engagement cost has a provision that automatically returns her to staging after she attacks, which is meant to be punishing but in this case is actually helpful.

Because Strength and Courage + Dunhere alone solves all your attack needs you can devote your entire deck to dealing with the various ways the quest tries to mess with you. Big heaps of Willpower, Side Quests to take advantage of the fact that you can't put progress directly on the main quest anyway, some threat reduction and Will of the West to make sure you don't run out of deck.

Normally Haldir of Lórien is a great alternative, but because of the mechanics of the quest, enemies are often getting revealed several at a time, so the fact that you can use Grey Wanderer's ready to let Dunhere attack into staging twice per round is more useful.

It's kind of a one-trick pony (the deck falls apart against quests where lots of enemies requires 7 points of attack to kill, say), but I think an interesting example of how knowing the encounter deck lets you build exactly what you need and nothing else.

7 comments

May 28, 2020 Alonewolf87 1907

Why not add some Spear of the Mark too, so you can use Strenght and Courage as little as possible?

May 28, 2020 doomguard 1908

yes or some daggers? recommand a golden belt in addition to that. until 5 charaters herugrim would also be a good option. mark of the dunedain will also help. for cardrawing perhaps deep knowledge is more usefull than the runes.

May 28, 2020 Alonewolf87 1907

Yeah, the Dagger of Westernesse are a good choice too.

One also has to take care of not adding too much off-sphere cards, since you are limited to only a single off-sphere play each turn. Due to the specific scenario and role this deck should perform inside it Deep Knowledge might be a worse idea due to the threat increase.

May 28, 2020 Some Sort 3481

The whole point of the deck is that you can solve 100% of combat using nothing but cards that start in play or in hand. You could add more weapons, but there’s no guarantee you’ll even see them, and they don’t increase killing efficiency any (unless you happen to flip two of the bigger enemies at once I guess), and then you have less deck space to devote to all the other ways this particular quest can stress your deck. In practice, you can defeat every single enemy in the deck including the boss with just five triggers of Strength and Courage.

Essentially Spear of the Mark reads “Pay one and burn up your one off-sphere card per round to slowly reduce your threat by three to five points over the next six to twelve rounds”. I’d rather devote the deck space to something like Galadhrim’s Greeting, which is much more prolific and proactive with its threat reduction.

May 28, 2020 Denison 618

I adore single-use decks like this. Brilliant!

May 30, 2020 Beorn 13314

Excellent. I especially appreciate the efficiency of having your combat solved at setup.

Jul 15, 2020 sheldomar 1

Loved playing this deck and watching the deck of enemies turn up in the staging area and be picked off. It's great fun to play a dedicated deck and give an encounter deck a kicking rather than the other way round. I scored 141, only Seastan's One Deck scored better with 140. Superb.