I haven't played with them at all and I'm thinking of them in the more broad Fellowship context, so feel free to discount this for at least twice as many reasons as usual. These cards were designed for FotR, will they be legal in the Movie sets? Gondorian Broadsword, for example, is a decent Sealed card but too expensive for Aragorn or Boromir if there's another option available. It would be strong in Two Towers though, throwing your spare
Gondorian Ranger at two Uruk-hai (and then perhaps canceling the skirmish with
Curse Them).
For Stirruk, wouldn't the optional response be after wounds (and a mandatory response be the FP choice)? I don't see the damage bonus ever coming into play.
Some nice cards in this set. Tower Shaman, The Deeds of the Steward's House, and Strength of Servitude are all really neat. Dagger of Westernesse is particularly clever to counter Cantea, and I like how Rivendell Sentry fulfills the role of Glorfindel/Arwen. Thither We Are Going Against My Wish and Barred the Gates are both quite interesting because they're not particularly valuable at the start or end of a game, but can have a big impact on the middle.
Unlike Steino I'm not as keen on recycling events, especially with such low costs. They Have a Cave Troll is fun because you pull the cards you need right before you need them, but then why would I ever exclude this card? No Time for Wonder and Relics of the Second Age being permanent is bothersome. Relics is hard to use more than twice in one turn (and really shouldn't be, unless you're 3 sites ahead), yet pulling
any card just begs to be abused in later sets. Even in Fellowship, how many times do you want to see
Gondor Bowmen?
I'm not a fan of allowing the FP to trivially return companions to hand either. One of the reasons
WoBaS and
Swordthain are such incredible splashes is for 1 twilight and 1 fewer card in hand, you can heal up to 3 wounds per turn. Shadow archery took a huge hit with they were released. I'd be particularly worried about the skirmish phase ones allowing
Sam, Proper Poet to ignore 2 minions every turn (or
Son of Hamfast to remove all burdens, all the time). Deft Aid preventing overwhelms makes
Aragorn, Ranger of the North a lot less suicidal, and really cripples Nazgul by discarding
Blade Tip and
Black Breath (and keeping
Flaming Brand or
Aragorn's Bow). Circumvents the rule of 9 in some ways, I think.
All in all I like the way you're approaching this, supplementing the starter decks. I'll send you some more thoughts on the other cards later.