Looking for a good/excellent Dauntless Hunter deck list (TS)

[ununtrium]

Hi!
I never built a Dauntless Hunter deck and since it has been a VERY long time since I played beyond FotR block I would really appreciate a Dauntless Hunter deck that works well (or even excellent). Please post your suggestions. It should be legal for Towers Standard. Many thanks.

[hsiale]

I'm not sure if Dauntless Hunter is so strong in TS. It has lots of very strong cards in King block (Sam GeW, Pippin WoBaS, Narrow Escape, Star-glass, The Tale of the Great Ring). I think without Sam the deck would lack a fighter and would have to rely heavily on archery, but then it would be very weak against Dunland using Hides.

[Zurcamos]

I'm not sure if Dauntless Hunter is so strong in TS. It has lots of very strong cards in King block (Sam GeW, Pippin WoBaS, Narrow Escape, Star-glass, The Tale of the Great Ring). I think without Sam the deck would lack a fighter and would have to rely heavily on archery, but then it would be very weak against Dunland using Hides.

GeW is vastly better than Wingfoot?  Plus, a single archery is so lousy in Movie with all the Enduring minions running around.  I'll admit I've never been satisfied with any DH build I've ever put together, but that includes both blocks.

[Invincible]

GeW gives you the possibility of 2 great fighters if you add 4x A Promise. WoBaS helps A LOT early on, or you could go fighters all around with both Sam and Everyone Knows + Escape.

[zen89*]

I actually think DH is much, much stronger in TS than Movie. It's not really viable in Movie because of weak matchups against Enduring Nazgul, Corsairs, and sometimes Besiegers (the version that adds LR can fix some of these problems, but . . . you'd have to play LR). It also has a razor-thin margin of error against Ninja Gollum because They Stole It can ruin your whole day in a hurry.

But in TS, DH and Rohan are the two dominant fellowships, with Elfman a possible third. DH is very difficult to disrupt, and its only really negative matchup is Isengard Orcs (or Easterlings, but Easterlings don't get much play in TS). I went 27-3 in Gemp league play with the build below (96-16 in casual).

TS DH FP
Ring-bearer: Frodo, Reluctant Adventurer
Ring: The One Ring, Answer To All Riddles

Adventure deck:
The Riddermark
Derndingle
Barrows of Edoras
White Rocks
Deep of Helm
Hornburg Armory
Hornburg Wall
Valley of Saruman
Orthanc Balcony

Free Peoples Draw Deck:
1x Legolas, Dauntless Hunter
1x Aragorn, Wingfoot
1x Merry, Friend to Sam
1x Pippin, Hobbit of Some Intelligence
1x Sam, Son of Hamfast
3x Elrond, Herald to Gil-galad
2x Aragorn's Bow
1x Ranger's Sword
1x Bill the Pony
2x Frying Pan
1x Thror's Map
2x Vilya
4x Double Shot
2x Hard Choice
2x Power According to His Stature
1x The Splendor of Their Banners
4x Gondor Bowmen
1x A Talent for Not Being Seen
1x Cliffs of Emyn Muil
1x Escape
1x Fearing the Worst
1x There and Back Again

Shadow Draw Deck:
1x Grima, Wormtongue
3x Lurtz, Servant of Isengard
3x Mauhur, Patrol Leader
3x Saruman, Servant of the Eye
3x Ugluk, Servant of Saruman
4x Uruk Chaser
2x Uruk Hunter
4x Uruk Runner
1x Úlairë Enquëa, Lieutenant of Morgul
2x Broad-bladed Sword
2x Uruk Spear
1x The Palantir of Orthanc
1x Brought Back Alive
2x Saruman's Power
2x Vengeance
1x What Did You Discover?

It pairs a traditional DH fellowship with a trackers/Uruk beatdown fellowship designed to be strong against both Rohan and DH. A couple notes on strategy:

1. You really, really need to go first, and you should bid up to five in order to do so. I generally bid three or four--remember that Pippin removes a burden. Other than Twilight Nazgul, there are no decks in TS that care much about burdens as long as you stay below five.
2. Double aggressively with the fellowship--your shadow is better at stopping than killing, and the deck usually wins via FP.
3. Resist the temptation to play Elrond just because he's in your hand. He's in the deck because he can single-handedly win games against Moria, Isengard Archery, and Sauron Grind. Plus he can bounce Over the Isen vs. Dunland. But if you're halfway through the game, dropping four twilight might be more trouble than it's worth.

CoS plays a lot of DH as well, although I seem to remember his build playing more Fearing the Worst than mine. Maybe drop him a line if you want to learn more about the deck--DH, contrary to popular opinion, is a difficult deck to play. Otherwise, good luck!

[ramolnar]

zen89* makes good points about Rohan and Dauntless Hunter. DH is the defining deck of TS because not being able to play cards is annoying, while Rohan plays fair. Plus, Rohan has trouble against Dunland and Dunland is a TS deck. (In Movie, losing The Riddermark hurts DH a lot.)

My two TS decks are Isengard Orcs and Sauron because they're the best two options I know, but I think I'm the only person that plays Sauron swarm. Easterlings lose too many burdens to archery and really need Small Hope from set 7. Trackers with 4 Broad-bladed Sword can also be a problem, but Eomer gets to have fun with most of those builds. My playtest team got so annoyed that we had a deck called Desert Hate, which used Desert Lord and Southron Bowman to exert Legolas and Aragorn, then some Sauron orcs with Hate to kill them. It does pretty well against DH, but it can't kill more than 4-5 companions and loses badly to Rohan.

zen89*'s deck is a nice archery build, but there are other options. Fearing the Worst is more important than The Splendor of Their Banners because of the weakness to trackers. Sometimes I see people run Severed His Bonds instead of Double Shot and PATHS - both have benefits.

[Eukalyptus]

DH is very complicated and not really easy to play. There are many deck types, but DH is at its best in TS. It's strong in Movie, too (Star-glass, GEW, Narrow Escape). It can even survive Corsairs, but it's very hard.

Usually, DH is played with direct damage. Some tend to use Double Shots, PATHS, Gondor Bowmen, Splendor and Aragorn's Bow. Too much exerting for my taste. Sure those decks have King in Exile, HTGG and Galadriel LOTGW, but it's still not enough healing for those kind of exertions. Besides, Aragorn's Bow and Gondor Bowmen cancel each other out IMO. Also, it tends to lose very badly against Sauron Grind or any other kind of direct wounding. Also to Relentless Charge. And with every archery based freeps, if anything comes through to skirmish, you're most likely toast. Not to mention the major drawbacks of facing Isengard Warrior, Broad-bladed Sword, high vitality wargs, Easterling Polearm etc.

I like a well balanced approach of direct wounding paired with Wingfoot. You choke enough to face only a few minions that can be either fought or if necessary bown away by archery.

A Promise deck is strong, too, especially against Dunland with Stealth events hindering Dunland to score their needed win for site control. Or hindering Wargs to simply overwhelm you. Doubling is hard with this freeps.

Your shadow is very important, too. It needs to cycle enough for you to got your freeps cards in hand. Quickly. You want to play Elrond in turn one, for instance. From site 5 on, you should probably just discard him if you don't need him badly.

If you'd like to know anything else, shoot.

[zen89]

DH is very complicated and not really easy to play. There are many deck types, but DH is at its best in TS. It's strong in Movie, too (Star-glass, GEW, Narrow Escape). It can even survive Corsairs, but it's very hard.

Usually, DH is played with direct damage. Some tend to use Double Shots, PATHS, Gondor Bowmen, Splendor and Aragorn's Bow. Too much exerting for my taste. Sure those decks have King in Exile, HTGG and Galadriel LOTGW, but it's still not enough healing for those kind of exertions. Besides, Aragorn's Bow and Gondor Bowmen cancel each other out IMO. Also, it tends to lose very badly against Sauron Grind or any other kind of direct wounding. Also to Relentless Charge. And with every archery based freeps, if anything comes through to skirmish, you're most likely toast. Not to mention the major drawbacks of facing Isengard Warrior, Broad-bladed Sword, high vitality wargs, Easterling Polearm etc.

I like a well balanced approach of direct wounding paired with Wingfoot. You choke enough to face only a few minions that can be either fought or if necessary bown away by archery.

A Promise deck is strong, too, especially against Dunland with Stealth events hindering Dunland to score their needed win for site control. Or hindering Wargs to simply overwhelm you. Doubling is hard with this freeps.

Your shadow is very important, too. It needs to cycle enough for you to got your freeps cards in hand. Quickly. You want to play Elrond in turn one, for instance. From site 5 on, you should probably just discard him if you don't need him badly.

If you'd like to know anything else, shoot.

I agree with this, as well as ramolnar's post. Sauron grind generally struggles against DH because a good DH player will move quickly and take advantage of 5 twilight cost Orc Bowmen. But multiple well-placed Hate early in the game killing Legolas can be devastating.

I'm not a huge fan of non-wounding DH variants--they can be somewhat viable in TS due to the skirmish-canceling events and the overall low power level of shadow sides, but if you're playing a GEW/A Promise DH build in MB, you're just asking to be annihilated by Ninja Gollum, Besiegers, or Corsairs. Or really any top-tier shadow.

[Eukalyptus]

After the first reset, I've played Promise DH in Movie for quite a while. It lost to Corsairs more than anything (Castamir with Halberd), but closely so. I even managed to win against them. Never had a real problem with Ninja Gollum, too, but that is very, very tricky. I even had one player exclude Sam via Shelob on 8, making the double a no brainer  for me Besieger weren't played at that time.