To start with, much the same as with the first Hobbit Saga Expansion, we are playing Dwarves. We knew we would want to try out a lot of new Dwarves with each Hobbit box so we purposefully try to avoid them other than during the Hobbit boxes. Therefore, not only do we use Dwarves, we go all in on Dwarves (even when mixing other heroes would be objectively stronger than pure Dwarves). Further, we like to try out new heroes so we stuck Oin and Bombur in these decks and left out the heroes Bifur, Dwalin and Gloin in favor of trying out their ally counterparts. Disclaimer, we intend to take this same band of Dwarves to each of the 3 scenarios and tailor the cards of the deck to each scenario. We did not read the subsequent 2 scenarios when selecting the group so hopefully we didn't choose too poorly. We are not bringing the treasures from the first Hobbit box because we wanted to try new Dwarves. We did bring the Bilbo's Magic Ring treasure from the 1st scenario and we designed this deck with the goal of retrieving all 5 Erebor treasures (and we did !).
The decks are designed with the intention to draw a lot of cards to help with burgle tests, minimize attachments and especially events cards to help with burgle type-matching and help avoid extra threat from the one treachery card that cares about events (that part isn't a big deal), maximize the amount of cards from spirit and lore in their respective decks to help with burgle sphere-matching.
Some strategies:
- The lore deck should have plenty of cards from Ori so trigger Gleowine mostly on the spirit deck. Legacy of Durin could be played on either side, spirit side could benefit from more draw but lore side has more Dwarves to play to trigger it.
- Miner of The Iron Hills is great to hold in hand in case of Dragon-Spell treachery, it is a condition attachment. Bats shouldn't damage you so you shouldn't ever get them attached.
- Whenever possible try to stop extra progress from going onto Smaug if you want to burgle all 5 treasures. Dwarves have so much willpower that The Lonely Mountain increasing in threat shouldn't be a huge concern but having to switch to Quest Phase 4 is annoying and slows you down.
- While you want to stop progress on Smaug, as above, it is also prudent to save A Test of Will for Dragon-Spell if you have no Miner; that treachery can be crippling.
- Dwarves have tons of willpower but always be mindful of the treacheries that -1 willpower or only let a particular sphere quest. If you know those are in the discard you can relax a bit but otherwise make sure you account for that and have enough willpower to quest successfully.
- Never quest unsuccessfully, no need to do this and have Smaug the Golden attack.
- Use Snowbourn Scout on the 3 threat, 1 progess must spend bilbo resources location.
- Use Bilbo to find his ring at the start and always trigger its ability to have maximum Baggins' resources for re-burgles. This also serves as card draw if needed even if you were going to be able to pass the first burgle.
- Use Dawn Take You All and Rider of the Mark to discard shadow cards dealt to Smaug the Magnificent (These target the shadow card and not Smaug and therefore do work even though Smaug himself is immune to player card effects). If you let his shadow card resolve, he will chain multiple attacks because there are a lot of cards with burgle. He can easily mow down an entire side of the board !
- Once you have a good number of allies on the board (at your discretion) try to just keep cards in your hand to help with burgling. At the same time, however, if you don't have A Test of Will or Miner of the Iron Hills to deal with Dragon-Spell you will want to spend all your resources.
I've heard that some don't like this quest and that Smaug just destroyed their boards but I found that I quite enjoyed this one. It is so satisfying to burgle every last treasure (even if I don't think a couple are amazing) and I did not get frustrated by losing my whole board because Rider of the Mark and Dawn Take You All are clutch against Smaug the Magnificent !