Uncle Dáin has truly lost it now.
Aragorn WTG with FARAMIR?!
For a long time, I've been trying to concoct a
Faramir BoQ/Aragorn
WTG fellowship, with mixed (but mostly encouraging) results. My earlier attempts centered around Faramir's ability to turn any minion into a roaming one...then using one of my all-time favorite
conditions,
Invigorated, as a way to heal him right back up and heal Aragorn at the same time. It also used those roamers, of course, with events like
War and Valor for a nice boost. And it didn't shy away from Faramir skirmishing, using several copies of
Hearts Raised to try and peel threats off Faramir wherever possible and using some
artifacts with
Scroll of Isildur to make Faramir harder to corrupt should the burdens start piling up.
I toyed with the idea of also tossing in
Pippin WoBaS for mucho wounding and mass burden removal via
Home and Hearth, but it has never worked as well as I hoped, nerfing Aragorn's two best traits (
defender bonus and
archer) and often leading to Pippin being assigned when I don't want him to be anyway.
But there ARE ways to have other characters in there without them being companions, right?
FREE PEOPLES (39 cards):Faramir, Bearer of Quality w/
The One Ring, The Ring of RingsAragorn, Well-Traveled Guide (starting)
Tom Bombadil, The Master x4
Thrarin, Dwarven SmithAnduril, Sword That Was BrokenScroll of IsildurFaramir's SwordFaramir's BowCoat of Mail x2
Ranger's Cloak x2
The Saga of ElendilBoromir, My BrotherInvigorated x4
Gondor Bowmen x3
The Faithful Stone x2
Citadel of Minas TirithOne Whom Men Would Follow x4
Swordarm of the White Tower x3
War and Valor x3
Nine-fingered Frodo and the Ring of Doom x3
The basic elements of the
BoQ/WTG partnership I described above are still there. Faramir still makes minions roaming when necessary, then uses that to heal with
Invigorated and pump with
War and Valor. He's still not all that afraid of skirmishing when the time calls for it with decent threat and burden removal (not with
Hearts Raised here, though...read on to see how it's accomplished
now) and a respectable 11 resistance with everything out. But if all goes well, he'll never have to skirmish at all, and if all goes REALLY well, Aragorn will get a few breaks, too.
First is archery. Moving into Expanded, we get to use Faramir's original bow, giving us 2 archery every site. Not bad at all. Toss in our
Gondor Bowmen, and you can throw out 6 additional archery at once if you need it...and of course, the option of healing the required exertions for the Bowmen with our ever-useful
Invigorated. Nifty.
But that's not the real beauty of this deck, or else I'd have as many Bowmen as I could stuff in. No, the real trick is to use and abuse an unlikely combo:
Tom Bombadil and
One Whom Men Would Follow.
You see, when powerful allies like Mr. Bombadil and Treebeard entered the game, Decipher began to fear allies a bit. They had this certain
Horn of Boromir sitting around, a free possession that let Boromir turn a simple exertion into a strength +3 fighting friend. That wasn't so much a problem with the weak allies featured in the Fellowship and most of the Towers block, but with the 12-strength Treebeard and 14-strength Bombadil--both with high vitality to boot--Big D got scared and banned the Horn.
However, they didn't quite finish the job. There are still Expanded-legal events that let allies skirmish. The majority are limited to Elves, including
Support of the Last Homely House. But the one that really slipped under their nose was the only event that gets four copies here:
One Whom Men Would Follow.
This card essentially does for Aragorn what the Horn did for Boromir: though not QUITE as effectively. The ally is only +2, the event ain't free, and...well, it's an EVENT, not an already-in-play possession. That means more hand clog.
However, when paired with the beastly
Tom Bombadil, I think it's worth it. Playing
OWMWF means that for
twilight (not much), one exertion (which, as I've repeated over and over, is easy to peel off in this deck), and a little patience, you get a 16/9 monster to fight for you. With those ridiculous stats, even Sauron has to pump up a lot to overwhelm him, meaning he'll more than likely just take wounds...of which he can absorb a LOT. That also makes him a fantastic archery pin cushion, as
OWMWF lets Tom participate in archery, too.
But Tom's usefulness isn't limited to fighting. You get to remove 2 burdens or 2 threats when you play him...which is, coincidentally, exactly what you have to add when you fight with Faramir. So basically, you get a "free" Faramir skirmish in there. And after that, Tom STILL chips in by using
NfFatRoD to remove MORE burdens or threats...ALSO for free. Yes, he has to exert, but with 9 vitality, that's hardly a problem, now is it?
The downside, however, is obvious: Tom is pretty expensive.
is not the kind of twilight you want to be throwing out in what should primarily be a choking deck. That's why I have four copies in here, to help ensure you get him early when the twilight won't hurt you too badly. Better to add
in Region 1 then Region 3, right?
There's one more ally here: Thrarin. He doesn't require any events at all, though his low strength means he's little more than a speed bump. Still, he's cheap and doesn't require any help to skirmish, so that can go a LONG way here.
But that's not all that can keep Faramir and Aragorn out of battle.
The Faithful Stone is also rather pricey, but can further help ensure your Gondorians don't take too much heat. As minions are played (and hopefully assigned to allies), they add tokens to your Stone, and for every three you get to take a minion out of the fight completely. Not a bad trade-off for
, and between that and the allies, hopefully enough to more than be worth it.
Unless things line up perfectly, though, eventually Aragorn (and perhaps Faramir) are going to have to skirmish. There's help for that, too.
The
events NOT named
OWMWF --
Swordarm of the White Tower and
War and Valor -- will clog your hand a bit, but they pay off in droves with +3 or even +4 pumps. Oh, and they're both free, which is ALWAYS good in a
WTG deck, right?
Aragorn and Faramir also get possessions and conditions to help them out: each gets their own sword for a +2 boost, the Coats of Mail help ensure overwhelming isn't a big problem, the Cloaks give them more vitality to absorb wounds, and the two vitality +1 conditions -- Saga of Elendil for Aragorn and
Boromir, My Brother for Faramir -- not only provide yet MORE vitality, but give them strength pumps if you're desperate for them, too.
One of the keys with all this will be the sitepath. With the extra twilight you're investing in
Tom Bombadil and
The Faithful Stone, you don't want a lot of expensive sites. You also want, if at all possible, a good number of forests to work with
Faramir's Sword and the Ranger Cloaks. And most importantly, you don't want anti-ally sites like
Anduin Confluence and
Westemnet Village popping up and wrecking an important part of your strategy. You need some pretty good sitepath manipulation.
actually
has pretty good sitepath control. There are two companions that can do it, but they're no good to us here. That leaves the events
Pathfinder and, aptly,
Well-Traveled, either of which WOULD work here.
Anduril, Flame of the West wouldn't be bad either (and believe me, I've considered it, but deemed that
Sword That Was Broken could be more of a potential lifesaver with the condition discarding). However, notice that I haven't included ANY of these on the FP side. So that means two things:
1.) You want to make sure the other player goes first. Bid 2 or even 3 to ensure it, and don't worry too much about the burdens...Tom can remove 2 when you play him, remember?
2.) You want to play a Shadow side that's good at controlling the path...AND features cheap forest sites. Oh, and with such a large deck, some cycling would be nice, too...
Boromir, My Brother cannot alone compensate for such a massive deck.
Fortunately, my favorite Shadow side does all of that and more. Enter
Expanded Forestguls.
SHADOW (39 cards):The Witch-king, Captain of the Nine Riders x3
The Witch-king, Lord of AngmarUlaire Attea, Keeper of Dol GuldurUlaire Cantea, Fourth of the Nine RidersUlaire Enquea, Duplicitous Lieutenant x2
Ulaire Enquea, Sixth of the Nine RidersUlaire Enquea, Lieutenant of MorgulUlaire Nelya, Third of the Nine Riders x4
Ulaire Nertea, Dark HorsemanUlaire Nertea, Ninth of the Nine RidersUlaire Lemenya, Lieutenant of Morgul x2
Ulaire Lemenya, Assailing MinionUlaire Otsea, Duplicitous Specter x2
Ulaire Toldea, Black Shadow x3
Ulaire Toldea, Eighth of the Nine RidersIthil StoneLost In The Woods x4
In Twilight x2
Moving This WayShapes Slowly Advancing x2
Dark Approach x4
Much of my Standard Forestgul stuff is in here, which certain players like AP and NK have grown to loathe. My Forestguls use
Duplicitous Specter,
In Twilight,
Moving This Way, and the
Ithil Stone to help make this deck cycle surprisingly well. It also doesn't hurt that I should routinely be able to be play 3+ Nazgul once we've gotten about halfway down the sitepath (especially with
Black Shadow pulling
Dark Approach back over and over), and those cycling cards help me pull more into hand on my Shadow turns. Other than
Shapes Slowly Advancing -- which gives the FP player something else to worry about -- the rest is pretty much just tossing in some of my rotated Nazzie favorites (Wikkie
LoA,
Attea KoDG, and the famous
Ulaire Enquea LoM) with my regular Forestgul stuff and going to town. A particular note on
Ulaire Lemenya, Lieutenant of Morgul: he is particularly mean here since several companions will hopefully be bearing
Lost In The Woods.
Oh, and as for those sites that
TotNR (and
EotNR, to a lesser degree) will help play for you:
The Angle Buckland Homestead Woody-End Hill of Sight Cavern Entrance
Caras Galadhon Trollshaw Forest Crossroads of the Fallen Kings ImladrisSix of these are forests, so your Forestguls should be running very smoothly from early on in the game. The three NON-forests either greatly benefit your Nazzies (
Buckland Homestead), your FP side (
Imladris, which can remove burdens if they begin to pile on), or potentially both (Cavern Entance). With judicious use of
TotNR, you can hammer your opponent with the expensive ones and then scoop them up before your fellowship hits 'em, and/or replay certain particularly useful ones (like
Imladris).
Caras Galadhon is slightly risky, since it's expensive and eliminates Aragorn's
defender benefit, but it's a good one to use early on (like as Site 2) and get an early forest. The rest are here mainly because they're forests and they're cheap, but
The Angle,
Woody-End, and the non-forest
Buckland Homestead are Forestgul staples.
Sadly, this deck has only had one real "field test", though I thought it demonstrated that it can at least work, and perhaps that it could even work REALLY well. I faced a tentacle swarm, which is probably the worst thing a 2-companion fellowship could go up against, and made it into Region 3 pretty much unscathed, and without having to use Thrarin OR Tom yet! I had 2
OWMWF in my hand, so it would have been interesting to see if I made it to the end...but my Nazgul won it for me first, picking off four companions along the way and finally overwhelming the Ring-bearer.
I was very happy to see that, as I think EITHER side of this deck could win the game for you.
But what do YOU think? Any suggestions to make it better? The worthy opponent I played this deck against said I should post it, and I'm sure it could use some expert opinions. Or if not, maybe someone else would want to try it out for themselves? Imitation (or blatant copying
) is the greatest form of flattery, after all.
