The Last Homely House
Middle-Earth => Lothlórien => Expanded => Topic started by: DáinIronfoot on December 11, 2008, 08:54:04 AM
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I've long thought about building an Aragorn/Arwen deck, and a recent challenge in another thread has inspired me to throw one together. So here we go....
Frodo, Resolute Hobbit w/ The One Ring, The Great Ring
Arwen, Queen of Elves and Men (starting)
Legolas, Greenleaf (starting)
Aragorn, Elessar Telcontar x4
Bilbo, Retired Adventurer x2
Frodo's Pipe x3
Aragorn's Pipe x2
The Gaffer's Pipe
Anduril, Sword That Was Broken
Aragorn's Bow x2
Asfaloth, Elven Steed
Gwemegil (or possibly Hadafang if conditions are an issue)
Elven Bow
Old Toby x4
Longbottom Leaf x4
Gift of the Evenstar
The Choice of Luthien
The Last Alliance of Elves and Men
Arwen's Fate x4
Not the greatest deck, no, but it could hold its own rather well. Aragorn is strength 13 when tanked out, and both he and Legolas can dish out some serious directed archery, afterwhich Arwen (who is already 10 with Elven Steed and Gwemegil) can become beastly with the wounds. Arwen's Fate is a nice boost to Aragorn or Arwen, and Gift of the Evenstar and Elven Steed's ability can chip in a little as needed.
Since most of these things require exerting, though, we have some extensive healing to compensate. The bulk of this comes from smoking pipeweed; Frodo's Pipe can heal any of these companions up to 3 times, and Aragorn's Pipe spreads the healing around when necessary. Bilbo not only holds another pipe to help this work to peak efficiency, but he can also pull a couple pipeweeds back once you discard them. Additional healing comes in the form of The Choice of Luthien and Aragorn's text, the latter of which is especially nice since it lets you exert Frodo to heal another companion. Nifty!
So Aragorn and Legolas kill in archery, Arwen and Aragorn dust off anything left over in skirmish, and Frodo heals everyone up next turn. Rinse and repeat to victory. :up:
However, I don't consider this a true Aragorn/Arwen deck. Yes, they are a focus here, but this is really more an Aragorn/Legolas deck with Arwen tossed in, it seems. So, let's try something else....
Galadriel, Bearer of Wisdom w/ The One Ring, The Ring of Rings
Arwen, She-Elf
Elven Defender
Aragorn, Defender of Free Peoples x4
Gandalf, Returned
Anduril, Sword That Was Broken
Aragorn's Bow
Ring of Barahir
Nenya, Ring of Adamant x2
Galadriel's Silver Ewer x2
Gift of the Evenstar, Blessed Light
Elven Bow x3
Gwemegil
Glamdring, Foe-hammer
The Last Alliance of Elves and Men
Strength of Arms
Agility
Uncertain Future x2
Shake Off The Shadow
Secluded Homestead
Trust x3
Inside A Song x2
Feathered x4
Point Blank Range x2
Needs some tweaking, but you get the basic idea: get lots of [Elven] tokens and wreak havoc with them! :twisted: DoFP and She-Elf both have awesome remove-tokens-for-strength abilities, and even little Elven Defender gets to be 7/3/7, which ain't too shabby. Tons of token reinforcement from Gandalf, Inside A Song, and Galadriel's Silver Ewer. There's plenty of healing with Ring of Adamant, Ring of Barahir, and Trust. Archery isn't super-extensive but does get up to 4 (and more if needed thanks to Aragorn's Bow) and turn Point Blank Range into a great pump. Aragorn is a beast even without his ability: with Anduril and TLAoEaM, he's up to 13, so you shouldn't have to use his ability nearly as much as you will with Arwen...though even she is strength 9 and a rare damage +1. Gandalf can hold his own once he hits the table too, and reinforces tokens AND removes burdens when he wins skirmishes.
Like I said, a pretty rough draft (yes, I know it's too big, for one thing), but my point is that there's TONS of potential here. I haven't even mentioned the potential of tossing in High King of the Noldor. Drain all your tokens from one of your conditions (Secluded Homestead or Uncertain Future being perfect targets) to boost Aragorn or Arwen, discard it using its own text, and then replay it with Gil-galad HKotN, loading it up with tokens again in the process. :twisted:
So, can an Aragorn/Arwen deck really work? I think the answer is clearly yes, and in multiple ways. I'm sure there are other good decks I'm not even thinking of....
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Yeah you'll want High King of the Noldor for sure. Unfortunately, Fereveldir is really bad. Use Elven Defender who is much better - [2] for 7/3/7 seems pretty decent to me. Also, you've got tokens, so why not Asfaloth, Swift Blossom?
Unfortunately you're not getting the most out of DoFP, but that's the nature of the deck you're building - it obviously can't include [Rohan] or it ceases to be an Aragorn/Arwen deck.
Thranduil
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I don't know that it's really possible to take full advantage of DoFP's text without watering the whole deck down too much. Too hard to get three different cultures' tokens all going strong, especially with DoFP's text removing them. Heck, it'd be tough to even do TWO of them.
I had considered Elven Defender, but I liked the combo of Fereveldir and Feathered. I certainly see the merits of your suggestion, though, and I'll likely change it.
Swift Blossom was another one I considered, but the text of Elven Steed is SO hard to pass up. Decisions, decisions.... @-/
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What about Horse of Rohan? You give up the the strength bonus, but gets the exertion to help reduce strength with Feathered.
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Also not a bad thought. :-k Brego would be a little better, though.
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What about Horse of Rohan? You give up the the strength bonus, but gets the exertion to help reduce strength with Feathered.
But you need to spot a [Rohan] Man.
Thranduil
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But you need to spot a [Rohan] Man.
#-o :-[ Just a minor detail ...
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Brego's always nice, and he works well with Telecontar