purpose & reason- faithful companion vs. son of gloin

[jdizzy001]

Traditionally son of gloin sees way more game time than faithful companion.  I ask why?  As long as you have 4 cards in your hand, you have a str 8 gimli with faithful companion.  son of gloin does have the gandy sig and can be made str 10, BUT he is exhausted after 2 exertions.  For staright up skirmishing, cause I know Gimli, FA is arguably used more than either of these comps, Faithful companion seems to be the better choice.  As already mentioned, you only need 4 cards in hand to have a healthy str 8 gimli, you won't have to worry about extra healing, and you can equip him with all the same stuff used by son of gloin .  What do you think?  Which Gimli do you prefer?

[SomeRandomDude]

As far as Gimli goes, I haven't really used any, because I play expanded and as a skirmisher companion, Eager Hunter and Lord of the Glittering Caves are better (at least LotGC is good for standard format companion spam). Then special abilities have to come into effect, like Skilled Defender for wounding decks (I love the rainbow combo- do something with Hardy Garrison into Skilled Defender = drop two minions) or even Sprinter.

There are so many toolbox options with Gimli, and better straight up skirmisher options, so I have never used either of those two companions.

[jdizzy001]

That is a very good point.  And I've noticed, the most effective decks, almost NEVER skirmish.  Have you noticed that too?

[SomeRandomDude]

Or at least never let skirmishes come down to str vs str.

Like, I've seen skirmish phase wounding decks.