Very clearly designed with the victory display archetype in mind. Works extremely well with Fatty Bolger. In most scenarios, the majority of enemies all share the same trait. Simply get rid of an enemy with Fatty's ability within the first round or two. Now, every time an enemy is added to the staging area (with the same trait as one on the victory display), the opportunity is there to play the shirriff from your hand at a discount. There will be many opportunities to play this card during the course of a game (most commonly during the questing phase). We can also get an enemy into the victory display with cards like None Return and Out of the Wild.

If you can get this card in for the 1 resource, then the stats are simply incredible! 2 on a cheap ally is always great (and the 1 is also nice to quest if needed). The cherry on top is the ranged keyword. One thing about the victory display archetype is that your threat is generally relatively low (in order to play cards such as Out of the Wild, Fear! Fire! Foes!, Needful to Know, Risk Some Light, and Resourceful under secrecy) and don't engage many enemies. This can be fine is solo play, but in multiplayer this can prove to be a problem. The Buckland Shirriff allows the victory display deck to contribute more the combat and be more useful. In my experience, these decks can struggle with combat. Buckland Shirriff and the Horn-call of Buckland help with that.

The devoted keyword is unimportant to victory display decks (which generally use Rossiel as one of the heroes and would therefore be unable to use the devoted keyword on Buckland Shirriff) but expands the use of this card to that of traditional hobbit decks. Even ignoring the ability, 3 resources for a ranged 2 hobbit ally is still a reasonable price. The devoted keyword only makes it easier to play (especially for BOF hobbit decks which can only have 1 hero).

One final thing that I would like to point out is that the hobbit keyword gives Buckland Shirriff interaction with Elevenses, Tom Cotton, Lily Cotton, Raise the Shire, and Odo Proudfoot. Much needed card for the victory display archetype and a welcome addition to the hobbit one as well.

Much like he daughter Rosie, Lily adds her stats to that of another hobbit. One key difference is that Rosie targets hobbit heroes while Lily targets hobbit allies. Rosie Cotton is designed to beef up the stats of the hobbit heroes. Lily Cotton, on the other hand, is designed to get a hobbit ally back into your hand.

She is designed to work well with her husband and son. She gets a hobbit ally a ready and increased stats for a phase, and then sends the ally back to your hand. Of course, you have to repay for that ally if you want to use it again. On the plus side though, this removes any damage (and condition attachments) on that ally, gives the (hobbit) ally a +2 (if Tom Cotton is in play), and activates any "when played" effects on that ally. Any hobbit ally is a great target due to him, but standouts include Bilbo Baggins (for a pipe), Bob (for a mount or Bill the Pony), Cautious Halfling (for a card/scry), Farmer Maggot (for direct damage), Halfast Gamgee (for a resource/resource smoothing), Keen-eyed Took (for some deck tech), Merry (for some easy ), Odo Proudfoot (for another hobbit ally), and Young Tom (for the +5 engagement cost per enemy). We can increase Lily's stats as well for beefed up allies with cards such as Wild Stallion.

This can be used for many situations. In need of some extra attack or lack a character for defending? Lily readies one and gives it more oomph. Surprise encounter card requiring a character to be available (assuming you don't want to use Lily for that task)? She has your back.

Additional note: Can be used with There and Back Again to put a copy of that ally into play from your and or discard pile for cheap. One example could be to use #Lily to ready #farmer maggot for an attack. He then is sent back to your hand which allows you to play There and Back Again to return Farmer Maggot into play for 1 resource, dealing a damage (or two) to an engaged enemy. Savings of 2 resources! All because Lily Cotton allowed the ally to be returned to your hand.

I don't understand why this is a "Response: At the beginning of the quest phase" instead of "Quest Action". Unlike Travel phase where an effect like Mariner's Compass must be a response due to lack of an action window before the travel step (I wish they'd instead have just added an action window, but I digress), the quest phase does not have that problem because there are multiple action windows before and after each step.

The Hidden Way is interesting but seems too weak for the cost and the inability to play it during normal action windows. Gildor's Counsel, though costing one more, is likely better because you don't have to take a card into play, which is easily worth the extra buck. The Hidden Way should have cost $1 to make it worthwhile and on par with Strider's Path. Really though, none of these three cards is that great because they're too expensive. For 2 I'd much rather have Quickbeam or Ghân-buri-Ghân or Warden of Healing or Asfaloth or Gléowine or...

This is another card that I underestimated the effectiveness of. Obviously, 1 for 1 cost is always great. Many other allies share this trait such as Erebor Record Keeper, Galadhrim Weaver, Henamarth Riversong, Messenger Raven, Scheming Staddler, and Westfold Horse-breeder. All of these also have great abilities. Dwarven Sellsword, Misty Mountain Journeyman, and Silvan Refugee all go farther with 2 for 1 cost. (Although, they all have added restrictions to compensate.) So the stats are great and lie within established allies.

The ability though is what surprised me as for how good it is. Enemies get +5 engagement cost during the round that Young Tom enters play. Yeah, whatever. Not so exciting, right? WRONG! Anybody who has used Pippin in a hobbit deck can tell you how clutch the +3 (or +4 in Bond of Friendship decks) engagement cost per enemy can be! The entire hobbit archetype revolves around having an threat lower than enemy engagement costs. Especially useful in hobbit decks which start at a much higher threat.

The ability is great not only in hobbit decks though. +5 engagement cost for every enemy? Maybe that enemy you weren't prepared for can stay in the staging area this round. Maybe you are using a card that only works when you optionally engage an enemy (such as Captain of Gondor)? Young Tom helps with that. Want to get +2 on ally Boromir? Young Tom is your friend. Also good for Hobbit Cloak, Staff of Lebethron, Sam Gamgee, ally Pippin, and many others.

I will say that the +5 engagement cost is only active for the round that he enters play (which is perfectly fine considering his cost), but this can be rectified using a card in the same pack: Lily Cotton! She can let you get another action out of him, and then send him back to your hand to play again next round for another +5 engagement cost. Also, Tom Cotton gives him +2 when he enters play. Very thematic, I must say. I think that Lily is Young Tom's mom, Tom Cotton is his dad, Rosie Cotton is his sister, and Sam Gamgee is his brother-in-law. Props if you can get the entire family into play (and Sam's family for bonus points).

Short Cut is unique in its ability, but not particularly good. The biggest problem with this card is that it shuffles the location back in before revealing the new encounter. The possibility of getting back the exact same card is soul-crushing. The next problem is that (unlike what the other reviewer said) it doesn't actually cancel the first card. Any "when revealed" or "forced" effects will still happen before you can use this Response, so you may end up with one and a half or two encounters instead of one!

It should have said:

Response: If a location would enter play, exhaust a Hobbit character to instead set that card aside without resolving any of its effects. Then, reveal the next card from the encounter deck and add it to the staging area. Then, shuffle the set aside location into the encounter deck.