Halfling power

[Haszor]

Frodo, RA - ATAR
1x Sam, GEW
1x Pippin, SF
1x Merry, FTS
1x Bilbo, ARB

4x Everyone Knows
3x Scouring of the Shire
2x The Tale of the Great Ring
2x There and Back Again
1x O Elbereth! Gilthoniel!
4x A Promise
2x Escape
2x Little Golden Flower
4x Fates Entwined

1x Frodo Gamgee

4x Hobbit Sword
1x Sting, Weapon of Heritage.
Basically play everything you can as soon as you can.  If the deck is working properly you should have a 26 strength Pippin and a 15 strength Sam to take out minions.  I can also use Merry to increase everyone else and then heal him back with Fates Entwined.  Currently I'm looking for a good shadow side to pair with this thing.

[SomeRandomDude]

No Sudden Fury? Er. Swarm. Moria swarm is nice. Something that cycles well, you'll need to be able to set up fast to survive.

[Haszor]

No Sudden Fury? Er. Swarm. Moria is nice. Something that cycles well, you'll need to be able to set up fast to survive.

Sadly no.  Not really necessary, and I can get away with out it pretty easily as almost none of my companions ever lose a skirmish once I'm set up.  And the odds of drawing it before I'm set up are pretty low.  Though I suppose the only real danger I'm in is getting swarmed while at cavern entrance.  Good idea on swarm, but I really don't like Moria and have never been able to pull one off effectively.  Another idea on a shadow to cycle would be good.

[FM]

Abandoning Reason for Madness.

[TheJord]

Make sure you include

4x Hides
Some Ithil Stone
Moving this Way (if going Nazgul)

Other than that, dirt cheap minions. if you want Grishnakh, Orc Captain, Orc Pursuer*, Orc Insurgent and Morannon. Maybe Spies of Mordor.

Just watch out, because with such builds a savvy opponent will quickly realise you have no stopping power, and in Expanded, most people will have a way to run.

Which reminds me, add Radagast, The Brown for help with that.

[leokula]

TheJord summed it up pretty nicely. Moria is the first shadow option to cycle. If you don't wanna go that route, read TheJord's post.

[Haszor]

I think the people I play with for the most part would catch on around site 3 and just run for it, meaning even if I did just rush, I'd be in between a rock and a hard place, being unable to catch-up.  And if I do get to site 9 all they need to hit me with is a few minions and cavern entrance.  I really would prefer something that has a lot of cycling power.  Currently I'm using a Ferny-Stragglers deck which hasn't lost yet, but I am really weak early on and do have trouble making it.

[SomeRandomDude]

The problem is that this fellowship can't really run. So you need a shadow that can kill.

[Haszor]

Why can't it run?  Is it because I don't have any movement buffs IE Radaghast?

[SomeRandomDude]

Not exactly what I was thinking, more like...

1- You won't always win skirmishes- that's why hobbits have high vitality. And you take a while to set up, consequently, the 1-3 double is practically out.
2- You have no way to discard minions/directed wound minions to get rid of them.
3- If you win, you can't inflict more than one wound.

So you'll practically always have minions sitting around in the regroup phase. Which is fine, as long as you have a shadow that can consistently stop the double, or, preferably, pull off its own kill.

You could splash Wingfoot with a regroup mop up package. That's the only way I would run this on the pure cycle engine.

If you want some advice on running , I can give you a few pointers. It was my first deck, and throughout my entire LotR career, I have kept the shadow intact, been refining it, etc.

[Yrael]

For a cycling minion side; I would probably go with the threat, archery, or wounding . Use rallying call to get threats out, and either ambush, flanking attack, or raider bows to get some pool out for minions like desert spearman.

With this build, you can keep your opponent worried about a whirling strike or red wrath killing someone and forcing them to take a bunch of threat wounds. The raiders are fairly inexpensive, and their conditions usually only cost 1 or 0 so you can get thme out right away.

The biggest disadvantage with this minion side is that you cannot really discard cards with it, so you have to try to empty your hand as much as possible.

If you are going archery, a few copies of arrow from the south and desert lord would help too.

[Haszor]

Not exactly what I was thinking, more like...

1- You won't always win skirmishes- that's why hobbits have high vitality. And you take a while to set up, consequently, the 1-3 double is practically out.
2- You have no way to discard minions/directed wound minions to get rid of them.
3- If you win, you can't inflict more than one wound.

So you'll practically always have minions sitting around in the regroup phase.

During the first half of the game that's true, but after that I can usually overwhelm anything that comes my way (except Sauron)

If you want some advice on running , I can give you a few pointers. It was my first deck, and throughout my entire LotR career, I have kept the shadow intact, been refining it, etc.

That would be appreciated thanks

[SomeRandomDude]

Okay, the point of Moria is to be able to pull Goblins from as many places as possible. Bottom of draw deck, discard pile, stacked on conditions, drawing cards. The objective is to throw out tons of minions.

Run 4x Goblin Armory and 4x Goblin Runner to ensure you've got enough twilight. 4x Goblin Scimitar- Its a free draw, and makes for a sick combo with Goblin Scavengers. And 1 copy of Relics of Moria. The Underdeeps of Moria and Goblin Sneak are a fun combo. Also, Goblin Swarms allow you to bring back minions, and run a couple copies of Shotgun Enquea. Its helpful against 9 comp fellowships, which is the bane of swarms.

So something like...

4x Goblin Armory
1x Relics of Moria
2x The Underdeeps of Moria
4x Goblin Scimitar
2x Goblin Swarms

4x Host of Thousands
4x Goblin Runner
4x Goblin Backstabber
4x Goblin Sneak
4x Goblin Scavengers
2x Shotgun Enquea

Will get you swarming pretty well. If you're dropping everything on the freeps side, it should be cycling fast, meaning that you can set up your hand for the swarm, get a few Scimitars in the discard pile when you draw your Scavengers, drop an Enquea or 2 and your support conditions- then bam- Scavengers hit phase one, draw into cards, you can easily hit 8-10 minions out on the table. Survivors hit the swarm, next site- drop the Sneak combo to get the Scavengers back- draw into more cards, spam everything on Goblin Swarms and just keep hitting. The Goblin Backstabbers allow you to drop some comps without needing to go for the overwhelm. You can also chain the Sneaks out of the discard pile- and if you got a couple Armories and Relics down, for fairly cheap too.

[Shelobplayer]

When I want crazy cycling in expanded I play corsairs, because they also have some stopping power. They are not so OP in expanded, and you have Corsair Plunderer, Ships of Great Draught and most importantly Under Foot (with Corsair War Galley to provide initiative), to have exceptional cycling. Note that corsairs are working different in expanded than they do in movie block, a site 2 Castamir with a Raider Halberd is something that most decent expanded decks can handle easily. I found that the way to go in most cases is either setting up a bomb with all your Black Sails out and possibly chaining Under Foots on the same turn, or Fierce in Despair to take out main characters like Gandalf.

They are also good against most IB - Defender of Osgiliath decks (have you realized how common are they on GCCG  ), since you can always just remove the threats in your shadow phase, you probably won't be able to kill the 8-9 ranger starting freeps, but at least you can prevent them from running.

[SomeRandomDude]

And Corsair Marauder = buh-bye IB.