All Help is prevented.

[Alazzar]

Pretty sure I've never actually seen it used.  =P

[Alazzar]

Well, if you're just looking for twilight tokens to spot for Gandalf, TWW (or any of his other cards, like Deep in Thought), there are better ways to get it than Mithrandir, Mithrandir.  Like, for example, Roll of Thunder!

Though I suppose if your deck is weak to swarm, you could put a copy or two of Mithrandir, Mithrandir in.  Especially if you're playing sets 1-10 and can use Barliman Butterbur, Prancing Pony Proprietor -- that way, you can diversify which events you use and then pull back whichever ones are more useful in any given situation.

[Elrohir]

Maneuver Phase is skipped by Balrog: so no Traveled Leader, no Mithrandir, Mithrandir and so on.

[Alazzar]

Whoops, I'd totally forgotten that he skips the maneuver phase.  Maybe 4x Shadowplay + 1x Unheeded to kill him off as he's played, then we get our maneuver phase back?  =P  Alternatively, Great Day, Great Hour + Unheeded.

[Pepin The Breve]

Pretty easy. You have Isildur with Narsil, Hunters ring, a lot of gondor artifacts and coat of mail or footman's armor. Other than that a lot of defender + companions could help...

[Alazzar]

I still think the best solution is to kill the Balrog as he's played (as detailed in my earlier post), then just use Traveled Leader to swap in Caras Galadhon (or use Mithrandir, Mithrandir to kill most of the swarm).

Yes, this involves having a certain combination of cards in hand and in play, but there was no restriction placed on the fellowship player's resources in this scenario, and if the imaginary shadow player is allowed to have a Balrog and 15 minions, I think we can be allowed to have a few key events in hand.  =P

[Pepin The Breve]

Pretty easy. You have Isildur with Narsil, Hunters ring, a lot of gondor artifacts and coat of mail or footman's armor. Other than that a lot of defender + companions could help...

First off, that's not "pretty easy." It is plausible, but not "easy."

If the maneuver phase is skipped, you are likely going to lose out on the ability to become defender +1 unless the character's game text allows him or her to be defender +1 (i.e., Aragorn, Heir to Elendil or Eomer with Firefoot). You can't use the Hunters ring if Cavern Entrance is played, or at least to my understanding.
-wtk

Right about cavern entrance, no hunters ring, so Isildur would have to use SaWtC (what is not that likely). Anyway i expect a big swarm only later on the game so it's pretty reliable you got narsil and an armor on him until there.

[Pepin The Breve]

You can have Frodo, WotJ with a sword + SaWtC + Orc Armor + Sam, GEW with sword and Orc Armor with Bilbo, AR (also with sword) and Rosie in play. A few more companions would be nice also. To kill Frodo the shadow player would have to assign about 5 minions to him, he dies and pass the ring to Sam that could endure against 5-6 more orcs (assuming you have more hobbits in your fellowship and rosie). If you got some copies of A Promise thing get even better!

Gimli + SaWTC + Dwarven armor + Gimli's Battle Axe + Bracers + hand axe + Ring that makes him st + 1 for each ring at discard could do the trick also.

[sharkey]

FP (32)

Gimli, BoG
The One Ring, Ring of Rings or Binding Ring

Linnar, DL
Durin III, Dwarven Lord

Thrarin, Smith of Erebor

Possessions:
Gimli's Battle Axe
Hand Axe x4
Dwarven Bracers x4
Gimli's Helm
Gimli's Armor or Dwarven Armor
Dwarven Axe x3
Dwarven Armor
Belt of Erebor x2
Ring of Guile
Ring of Fury
Ring of Accretion
Ring of Retribution
Book of Mazarbul

Conditions:
Endurance of Dwarves x2
Still Twitching
Proud and Able x2


Events:
Argument Ready to Hand x1
Storm of Argument x1
Storm of Argument OR More Yet to Come

Use ARtH... solved. If already used, use it again with Ring of Guile.

Do not move again

Forgot, this isn't austrian format. But you get the idea. ARtH is priceless...

[sharkey]

Oh, and get camera to record expression on opponent's face

[Smeagollum]

I think you should cover your cards.....

..before they become wet from crying...

Otherwise I hope you did what Pepin the brave sugested or you decided to play a hobbitdeck, which would become a mono hobbitdeck

[Smeagollum]

@ Sharkey: You can't use ARtH...

There is no manuever
There is no archery
There is The Balrog, Demon of Might.....
With a Saruman Snows and a cavern entrace
There is no help... If comps are not already defender +1 before the maneuverphase at least one of them probably become defender +many and probably it will be your rb and if that's Frodo, the other one who becomes defender +many will be Sam.. And if just one of them survive, well there's another round......, because he will stack his moria minions.
WB Moria

[Lisum]

   Hello gentlemen.  First thing I should say is that even though this is my first post, I have been playing since Return of the King came out.  I only stopped because my playgroup spontaneously died out.  I just recently found you guys, and I love it.
   I apologize in advance about the length of this post, but I have been puzzling over this all day, and I wanted to share my solutions.  For this scenario, I assume a standard 15 minion Moria swarm consisting of:

4x goblin runner
4x goblin backstabber, all bearing a goblin scimitar
4x goblin scavengers
3x goblin wallcrawler
for a total of 104 strength, 121 including the Balrog.

My first thought was footman's armor.  However, this turned out to be way too easy (he can survive all of the minions by himself with 4 copies of every fortification in play).  I decided to make this harder.  A lot harder.

1)   Maximum of 5 companions.
2)   No defender +1 companions.
3)   No footman's armor.
4)   No companions are killed.
5)   Try to avoid overly cheesy things like 4x Stern Words on the ring bearer.

I assume the shadow player has perfect knowledge and that they do not simply try to kill some other companion.  My strategy then became to force the shadow player to make unassigned minions not fight the ring-bearer, creating pseudo defender +1 companions.

Fellowship:
Isildur, BoH – The One Ring, RoR
-Coat of Mail, Narsil, BotF (+6 from artifacts), Bow of Minas Tirith, Flaming Brand.

Arwen, Lady Undomiel
-Hadafang, Arwen's Bow, Arwen's Dagger, Asfaloth, Elven Steed, 3x elven allies with home site 3, Glimpse of Fate.

Duinhir, TMoBV
-Gondorian Blade, Bow of Minas Tirith.

Merry, FOtB with hobbit sword.

Smeagol, Always Helps
-2x Poor Wretch, 4x There is Another Way.

In hand: 2x PAtHS, Don't Follow the Lights, Unheeded.

   Assign the Balrog to Smeagol, add two threats to exhaust, kill him with unheeded, lose initiative, and make a str 8 minion -4 with GoF.  Now assign the strength 4 minion to Arwen, and strength 8 minions to everyone else.
   Here's the biggie: the shadow player cannot let Arwen win, because then Hadafang would discard the Snows, and we could play PAtHS to easily survive.  However, she is now skirmishing a str 1 minion, and the minion needs +11 to win.  This cannot come from 2 minions, so three more must be assigned to Arwen: one more str 8, a backstabber, and a runner.  Likewise, Smeagol and Duinhir cannot win, as their abilities would discard minions killing the ring-bearer.  So a runner must be assigned to each skirmish.  This leaves 42 strength on Isildur, which is not enough to overwhelm him!  The killing wounds can be prevented with Sapling of the White Tree, Hosts of the Last Alliance, or even left over salves.  Note that if one of those backstabbers did not have a scimitar, the flaming brand would not be necessary, as the minions have exactly enough to kill Isildur without the brand.  
   You can also replace Isildur with Sam, BoGN and the Merry with Rosie Cotton, BM.  However, you would then need a couple of confronting the eyes to draw more minions from Sam (as well as SaWtC, O Elbereth, Little Golden Flower, and some more equipment for Duinhir).

Also, sorry that this deck is not actually Austrian.  I just had to post it.

TL;DR:  I love puzzles.