85 replies to this topic

[slothgodfather]

Assuming we are attempting to maintain secrecy, leaf brooch is a repeatable reduction and can be put on hobbits of each sphere to grant the reduction to both.

[Kennon2nd]

Ok, went to reread Leaf Broach, and I think I had misread it. I had thought at first that it just reduced the first event each round, provided that event matched the sphere of the character with the Broach. But upon re-read, it looks like it would only check for the the first event of that sphere, meaning if we had three Frodo, Merry, and Pippin each bearing a Leaf Broach, we could reduce the first Spirit event, the first Lore Event, and the first Tactics event. That does make it considerably better than I was thinking.

[Kennon]

Ok, I'm good with starting out at 3 Broaches. What to people think about the previously listed events? Am I reaching too much with a small Silvan ally subtheme?

[mnBroncos]

I mean silvans are good on their own so if find room for them some I play in lot of decks. The lore one especially sees a lot of play in my decks. So I was trying to put together a hobbit secrecy deck and it just seems like their isn't enough cards to really go heavy on the secrecy theme....I know I said this in another post but after going through the cards again those that think their are I just don't see it. It is fine having a small amount of secrecy cards (and the like two quests that help you get to lower threat can play more) but it isn't worth trying to stay at the secrecy level for long. Can try to get a few early cards out but like the Broaches you need to stay below the threat level and I don't think the cards are worth that attempt. 

[Letux]

There were only a few quests I had any issues with in 4 player with all the doomed. In single player, Sam and Glorf can stay in secrecy all day probably.

[slothgodfather]

Well the good thing about leaf broach is that it reduces the cost of any event - from that matching sphere - by 1.   So it can be used to consistently reduce the cost of any events. 

[Kennon2nd]

Part of the experiment is building the deck as secrecy, mnBroncos, even if it's maybe not the strongest option overall, but I hear you about maybe not worrying overmuch about staying at secrecy the whole game. I'm probably getting a little greedy that way with the Galadriel's Handmaiden and Island Amid Perils Stuff.Galadhrim Minstrel on the other hand is awesome.

 

So how about an update to the list along these lines?

Heroes:

Pippin (Lore)

Frodo (Spirit)
 

Allies:

Gandalf x3

Barliman Butterbur x2

Celduin Traveler x3

Ithilien Lookout x3

Galadhrim Minstrel x3

 

Events:

Take No Notice x3

Needful to Know x3

Out of the Wild x2

Courage Awakened x2

Noiseless Movement x2

Galadhrim's Greeting x3

 

Attachments:

Leaf Brooch x3

Resourceful x3

Fast Hitch x3

[OKTarg]

That's 37 cards and basically no willpower. I recommend that our last slots be dedicated to questing like crazy...it's no good not engaging enemies if we can't quest past them.

 

I also think that Take No Notice isn't very good and I'd like to see something else there, maybe some of the Lore scrying effects like Risk Some Light.

 

We also don't have any draw yet other than Pippin, but do we really want to engage things with our combat being the way that it is? What's our enemy management strategy?

[Kennon2nd]

Well, one thing that we had been discussing was the inclusion of Merry as our third hero. That would take some of the combat pressure off, and open up some other interesting options.

[mnBroncos]

Yea I think this could be an okay support deck but this has a lot of holes for a solo deck. We don't have good questing or combat.... hmm Your right Kennon isn't best build but that isn't the point of this either so will try to help out but think we may need to go back to the drawing board. Or except will need another player to help fill this decks holes. 

[Kennon2nd]

We may have just been trying too hard on going all secrecy from the get go like you'd said.

 

I'd vote dropping Noiseless Movement. It's probably worse than Take No Notice, really. I really dig Take No Notice if we're all hobbit heroes. between it an Pippin's boost, we'd probably be ok. That would free up a couple slots. Maybe -1 Leaf Broach as well?

 

If we add in Merry, We could maybe look at Defender of Ramas to help out on the defensive side of combat and then Merry + Blade for offense?

 

Or, we could potentially look at the Outlands trio that we could run without dipping into Leadership. That would probably a solid across the board help. Landing 2 Ethir Swordsmen is such a huge question presence. Adding in a little more Lore draw could help us get ot that. Daeron's Runes perhaps?

[slothgodfather]

The reason secrecy was such a hot topic in the other thread is that it has marginal benefits other than not engaging enemies.  I still like the idea of pushing for constant secrecy though, because then it gives the deck something different other than just hopping to get your resourceful attachments, etc, quick enough.  Also, if we aren't aiming for constant secrecy, then leaf broach is trash.

 

There are a few things to consider: Timely Aid and Out of the Wild are reason enough to try to maintain secrecy.   The challenge is to include enough big dudes that Timely Aid is useful.  I don't think we should risk getting too creative and including any out-of-sphere guys though.

 

To get both of these events, we need to run lore and leadership.   That gives us Pippin, who we already liked for all of his abilities, and that brings us to including Sam.   Sam is a beast by himself and leadership gives us access to Hobbit Cloak, Swift and Silent, and the potentially amazing Timely Aid - among other staple events (Sneak Attack, A Very Good Tale, etc.).   This brings me to our spirit hero, that is arguably only there because spirit is what brings us our reliable threat reduction events and questing power.    Frodo is one of those heroes I really just don't like.   Especially in a secrecy deck, his ability is just counter productive to our goals.  I'd like to suggest we go for the obvious choice and grab Glorfindel.    I realize the initial point of this exercise was to exclude him, but running 3 hobbits only matters if we are including Merry and the early thoughts so far is that we are too light in our questing capacities.  

 

IF we are going to use this in a multi-player game, then I suggest we include Wandering Tooks as they are fantastic at threat management.  If not, then the Hand maidens are the way to go.

 

 

Threat reduction cards:

Elrond's Counsel

Wandering Took (and/or the Hand maidens)

Gandalf

 

Secrecy Cards:

Events:

Out of the Wild

Courage Awakenend

Swift and Silent

Timely Aid

 

Attachments:

Leaf Brooch

Resourceful

 

Characters:

Ithilien Lookout

Celduin Traveler

 

 

Card Draw:

Pippin

Peace, and Thought (perfect with Fast Hitch and/or Swift and Silent)

Gandalf

 

Suggested Power characters: (mainly for Timely Aid/Sneak Attack)

Gandalf

Erestor

Faramir

Gildor Inglorion

Northern Tracker

 

 

Naturally, Light is required in this suggestion, and Hobbit Cloak would be a good include to help Sam be the defender he was always born to be.

[Letux]

If you are in leadership and spirit there is no reason not to include some out of faction guys, especially Boromir (he has better stats than most heroes). Between A Very Good Tale, Timely Aid, Stand and Fight, and if need be Sneak Attack, you have 12 cards that can bring them in to play.

[slothgodfather]

Do you mean A Very Good tale instead of Love of Tales?

 

The reason I don't like OOSphere things is if you manage to draw them, they are only every going to be useful if you also draw a Sneak Attack.  And with card draw still a rather limited resource, I don't like running the risk, personally.   But if majority wants to include them, by all means.  There are some fun ones to include for certain.

[Letux]

Sorry. Yes.

[Kennon2nd]

Ha. This is why we house ruled Secrecy to 25 here. It seems too crazy that Sam/Merry/Pippin only has secrecy for a single turn.

 

If we go the leadership direction for some of the cheating into play stuff like Timely Aid, Lore does have a few allies with stats solid enough to go that direction- Anborn and Gildor for instance.  Plus, of course, we have Gandalf as well.

 

If we look at that, maybe some Elfstone shenanigans?

 

*sigh* I wanted to try to avoid it, but maybe I'll cave on using Glorfindel as our Spirit hero. That of course leads into Anfalas since we have lore, which in turn gives us an easy push into using Elfstone.

 

 

 

On a side note, maybe this just proves that Secrecy needs another Glorfindel style hero to make different combinations viable? I don't want to derail my own thread too much, but there's probably some interesting ground to cover there.

[slothgodfather]

I know you were trying to avoid him - and honestly we still can.  He is just such an amazing character, and allowing the use of Elrond's Counsel, Asfalas and Light just make him too good of a choice not to pick.   However, this is a world of strong themes, and I'm not opposed to making a pure hobbit deck, just because that's our goal.  

[mnBroncos]

the deck is already not strong (: no need to ruin the fun with Glorfindel 

[Kennon2nd]

Ok, lets go ahead and make the swap to Glorfindel. It just seems too practical. I'd like to still go with a third hero who is a hobbit, though, so the question becomes Sam or Merry almost certainly? We lose some interesting stuff in Tactics for solo, but gain some extra Secrecy effects and flexibility with Sam, so that's probably what I'd go with in the end.

[Asmoridin]

Ok, lets go ahead and make the swap to Glorfindel. It just seems too practical. I'd like to still go with a third hero who is a hobbit, though, so the question becomes Sam or Merry almost certainly? We lose some interesting stuff in Tactics for solo, but gain some extra Secrecy effects and flexibility with Sam, so that's probably what I'd go with in the end.

 

I agree with this decision and reasoning.  Like I said, Glorfindel is just too good in Secrecy decks to not take, plus, you get all sorts of nice effects like Light of Valinor and Elrond's Counsel.