Dwarvy Smashy! 1.0

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• 1.0

There's one thing that dwarves love, and that's drinking ale and smashing things. Uh, wait, that's two things. Drinking ale, smashing things, and treasure. Oh, uh, that's three things. Right. Three things. Drinking ale, smashing things, treasure, and a group of friends. Ah hell, you know what? I can't count.

Dwalin is the best. The reward system doesn't exactly agree with that right now, but now that you get palantir for 250 points you can afford to play this tank the way it was intended. Put some damage on him and you unleash the beast. And, exploit the game rules to get the full 275 without turning beast mode off until the absolute last second.

Before then though, you just need to keep him alive and kicking. Pretty simple strategy there: throw Raiment of War on Dwalin and Gimli. And then make sure someone else takes the first hit each round (say, that's a nice Erkenbrand you're holding there...) The beasts get unleashed. And then you can throw Warrior Swords or, ideally, Dwarven Axes on them for extra lulz.

Use everything else to tank up your allies. But don't tank up a Guard of the Citadel. That's just silly. Rohirrim Lancer and Ithilien Lookout are great targets for the other attachments. Ithilien is also great if you intend on abusing the fate system (which you should if you want full points). An Imladris Caregiver that you can dismiss should ideally be on the board before playing.

Keep your Zigil Miners alive. You'll be swimming in so much cash that cost is just not an issue. Spend Arwen's ability on them if you have to. Maybe keep the Self-Preservation for your other allies since they'll be tanking the damage.

Then, at the end of the day, with your foes vanquished, your account full of cash, and your group in tact, sit down and drink all the ale and have a merry old time.

Oh, one last thing.

Evil Storm is a poorly designed Sauron card. You can't lose your events when you only have four of them and probably don't have them in hand. Likewise, it's perhaps best to keep your Gaining Strength around when Dark Sorcery is in Sauron's deck so that you can make sure your Lembas will work when you're trying to win the quest at full points. Getting 275 is easy enough, especially if your other heroes have +2 attachments and are overhealed.

This is basically the key secret here. Your other heroes can offset the -5 Dwalin needs to be at by having +4 extra. Keep the Raiments for your beasts and throw the Gondorian Shield on Arwen and your favourite ally.

I might iterate on this with Mithrandir's Advice to get to those powerhouse cards quicker. But I wouldn't be quite sure what to drop. Perhaps one each of the Lancer and Outriders. The Guards are obvious candidates, but they're a 1-cost card that reads "Keep your heroes undamaged while you wait for Sauron to end his turn so you can equip everyone adequately since there's no preparation phase seriously who thought that was a great idea it's just another artificial control in the game to limit deck building creativity."