This deck started out as me trying to find a way to use one of the most panned heroes in the card pool, Bombur. It turned out pretty good and is a lot of fun to play. Just ignore Bombur’s card text entirely. Bombur is still weak, but he does provide some utility in this setting. Certainly not a power deck but one that is virtually indestructible once set up and can handle the other aspects of the game adequately. Also you can bring Bombur out of storage, so yay? So eat some damage, and wash it down with some pints.
Bombur: Bombur has no willpower, weak attack, and we are not going to use his defense stat unless necessary. So, what exactly is he going to do? He is a great target for Dark Knowledge, since he is too busy eating pub food and drinking Pints and Half Pints to go questing. He doesn’t really care about the willpower debuff, does he? Dark Knowledge really makes all the undefended attacks this deck wants to take a lot safer. Once you can see all the shadows that you will be facing you can plan out the combat phase very easily. So Bombur just sits there through most of the round building his constitution. If Peace and Thought is in hand, Bombur has no issues with exhausting to provided that card draw and spending the next round taking a well-earned rest. He also takes undefended attacks that Barliman can’t handle or uses his defense stat to take an attack, if necessary, to prevent any deaths or prevent any shadow effects that hate on undefended attacks. Bombur is also a fantastic healer with Healing Herbs and can easily spend his exhaust to provide targeted full heals, table wide. Boots and Ent Draught get his hit points up to 6-8 allowing him to take some pretty beefy attacks, especially when you know the shadow card effect and this deck has plenty of healing to get him back in “fighting” shape soon. Ravens of the Mountain and Ancestral Knowledge are a couple of lore events in the sideboard that can also be subbed in to take advantage of his exhaust in certain quests.
Barliman: Barliman gets the one ring and starts the game with Well Preserved for the extra hit point and reset button as required. The low starting threat of this deck means Barliman can face tank attacks to his hearts content and draw a card every time he does so. Once he gets his Bree Pony and Ent Draught, he’s up to 9 hit points and a built-in damage cancel which is… hardy. The deck also runs three copies of Loyal Hound which can be discarded in a pinch to save Barliman or Bombur from nasty surprises. Barliman doesn’t die easily!
Nob: Nob is obviously here to serve. Pony’s, Herbs, Beers, Boots, whatever you need. With the Fast Hitches his built-in card draw can be used every round without preventing him from questing or contributing to peace and thought. He also provides a bit of economy acceleration with his discount on some items. Once you have Bombur and Barliman set up you can start passing out the extra attachments to Nob and increase his hit points. He can get up to 4+ from attachments with a built-in damage cancel and this deck draws so many cards that it’s not that hard to get him boosted up too.
Other Notes: This deck draws lots of cards, so it can consistently do what you want it to. It works fantastically in multiplayer where it can get some early game help with questing, it’s less fantastic in solo. The low starting threat allows you to spend threat like a resource. The main ways to use the threat are Gandalf who you can keep around for quite a while once you play him, The One Ring and Well Preserved to reset Barliman’s health whenever necessary, and Waters of Nimrodel to reset hit points for the entire table if everyone can stomach the doom. Seasoned Forager is also a great card here as it provides some cost reduction for no real drawback as this deck doesn’t generate resources with card effects. Add that to the mono sphere nature and this deck doesn’t struggle too much for resources. The attack for the deck primarily comes from Quickbeam, the hounds, the Eryn Galen Settlers and sometimes Gandalf. The deck doesn’t quest too well, but there are a number of 2 willpower Ally options, as well as Barliman and Nob who both quest every round.