The B Side Hunters 1.0

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• 1.0

Playing with the Forth, The Three Hunters! contract, and stumbled across this line up that I've been enjoying so thought I would share.

It's built around Erkenbrand because shadow cancellation can be clutch, and he really appreciates the contract healing. Or he's my crutch as I hate shadow effects. Either way, it's a good combination. Círdan is a really nice partner for anyone that really wants specific cards early because you can hunt twice as fast for them without needing anything else in play, and you get his impressive 4 as well. Thorin is in as a 3 Tactics Dwarf - Dwarf being the most important there as being able to be the King Under the Mountain as my only other source of card draw.

I really did want a Lore hero in there, and I tried a few different combinations, but they just don't give enough restricted attachments that do anything by themselves. Then if you get those before the card draw events etc, it just felt like it couldn't flip the contract fast enough. This lineup has plenty of restricted attachments that can go on multiple heroes, most of them are useful in and of themselves (Round Shield the obvious exception), and Cirdan gets through your deck quickly enough that you can usually get sufficient to flip it turn 3 at the latest, and then still keep churning through it.

The biggest weakness is early willpower - you really want to see Strider, Celebrían's Stone, Silver Circlet, or Windfola in your opening hand, more than anything else. Location lock is a possibility early, and that's usually the biggest hurdle I ran up against. I found I didn't need threat reduction as once the contract gets flipped you can have decent willpower, and you should be able to defend two enemies and kill one every turn so they're not sitting in staging. Against quests that push your threat it would probably do well to add some, recommend swapping out the Belt's and/or some War Axe.

Dúnedain Remedy is actually really good as well for quests that throw a lot of Archery at you - I found I had resources to spare to bounce it round given the discounts. It saved me a couple of times prior to the contract flipping, and enables taking undefended attacks and use of Erkenbrand's ability in those Archery quests even when the contract is flipped.