Still arguably the best questing hero in the game, Éowyn has been a mainstay of my Amazons deck. She was one reason I liked the Spirit starter deck so much; Dúnhere was the other.
Unfortunately, an attack of 3 wasn't great when he could only really attack on his own. Now, though, I could get The Morgul Vale, the last adventure pack in the Against the Shadow cycle, to get him Spear of the Mark, which boosts a Rohan character's Attack by 1, or 2 when attacking into the staging area. A tailor-made attachment for Dúnhere if ever there was one. The other obvious choice is Dagger of Westernesse, but Spear of the Mark is more thematically appropriate. For his other Restricted attachment, I'll be hoping to get him a Rohan Warhorse.
So to make the deck work, we need a Tactics hero to pay for Dúnhere's spear and horse, not to mention Unseen Strike. Since Dúnhere's going to be busy attacking and Éowyn is in charge of questing, ideally we'd need a hero defender, especially since there aren't going to be too many powerful defenders in the deck. I did briefly consider Beregond, since a Gondor hero would hardly be out of place in a Rohan deck, but I chose to stay true to the theme of the deck, and went for Éomer.
With a defense of 2, relying on Éomer to defend would be risky, so it looks like we're going with a questing hero and two attacking heroes. The Dunland Trap adventure pack gets us his trusty steed Firefoot, who boosts his attack to 5. Westfold Horse-breeder will be on hand to fetch mounts for our heroes, and chump block or Ride to Ruin to activate Éomer's attack boost.
**
My overall theme for this deck is obviously Rohan, so I'll want to include a whole bunch of Rohan allies, starting with the ones I was using in my first Amazon deck: Elfhelm, Escort from Edoras and West Road Traveller. With so many Rohan characters in play, Éomund also seems to be an obvious choice, and Voice of Isengard gives us the afore-mentioned Westfold Horse-breeder and Westfold Outrider.
The glaring weakness of this deck is defense. A thematically appropriate solution would be Erkenbrand and some Wardens of Helm's Deep, but given that I need Tactics for Dúnhere's attachments, that would mean tri-sphere, and I'd rather have some of the slightly more expensive Spirit cards. So I stretched theme a bit and included three copies of Defender of Rammas. If we imagine that this deck represents part of the army of Rohan heading into the battle of the Pelennor, it's hardly unlikely that they might have been joined by some of the Gondorian troops guarding the Rammas.
Having assembled some allies, a couple of attachments and events immediately suggest themselves. With a Rohan theme, how can I not include Astonishing Speed? With Éomer and Éomund present, Ride to Ruin also needs to make an appearance.
In a pinch, this deck could, for instance, quest with absolutely everybody and then play Ride to Ruin to discard Éomund, thus readying everyone for combat and also giving Éomer a +2 attack bonus.
Apart from the now-obligatory side quests, the focus of this deck is on maximizing Dúnhere's ability. To this end, I'll include Spear of the Mark, Rohan Warhorse, Quick Strike and Unseen Strike, all basically for his use. In general, I'm going to be hoping to kill enemies in the staging area, which should offset our lack of defense. The Galadhrim's Greeting should help keep my threat low so as few enemies as possible will engage us. Finally, three Ancient Mathoms will provide some much-needed card draw.
**
Here's the first version:
50 cards; 25 Spirit, 23 Tactics, 5 neutral; 22 allies, 13 attachments, 12 events, 3 side quests. Starting threat 27.
Éowyn
Dúnhere
Éomer (VoI)
Allies: 22 (13/6/3)
Elfhelm (TDM) x2
Éomund (CatC) x2
Escort from Edoras (AJtR) x3
West Road Traveller (RtM) x3
Westfold Horse-breeder (VoI) x3
Defender of Rammas (HoN) x3
Westfold Outrider (VoI) x3
Gandalf (Core) x2
Gandalf (OHaUH)
Attachments: 13 (3/9/1)
Ancient Mathom (AJtR) x3
Firefoot (TDT) x2
Spear of the Mark (TMV) x3
Rohan Warhorse (VoI)
Secret Vigil (TLR) x3
Song of Battle
Events: 12 (6/6)
Astonishing Speed (RtM) x2
The Galadhrim's Greeting x2
Ride to Ruin (THoEM) x2
Quick Strike x3
Unseen Strike (TRG) x3
Side quests: 3
Double Back (TWoE)
Delay the Enemy (AtE)
Gather Information (TLR)
**
With the deck built, it's time to test it. We took a couple of runs at Passage through Mirkwood together with the Tactics deck, and both times, the best argument in favor of Dúnhere in the core set showed up: Hummerhorns.
Even though I included Éowyn and a bunch of Spirit allies, Passage through Mirkwood was already enough to highlight that questing isn't exactly a strength of this deck combo. The combination of Dúnhere and Quick Strike was handy in knocking out enemies in the quest phase, and when Ungoliant's Spawn showed up, Éomer and Legolas dealt with it in one go.
After Mirkwood, the next obvious test was A Journey Down/Along the Anduin. We dealt with the Hill Troll (actually both Hill Trolls) snappily enough, and Dúnhere was worth his weight in gold in the second quest stage. Sadly, our questing deficiencies and a couple of Necromancer's Reaches ended our journey there. Still, though, I was liking the combat output of the deck, so to speak, so our next stop was The Seventh Level to really try it out.
With over half the encounter deck made up of enemies, from Goblin Scouts to Cave-trolls, you can hardly ask for a better quest to test your deck in combat. Why this is the only quest in the whole damn game to have a difficulty level of 3 is one of the enduring mysteries of the world.
If one foundational weakness of this deck was questing, the more serious one is defence. Until I got a Defender of Rammas into play, I was stuck either chump blocking or using Éomer to defend, which is kind of a waste of his abilities. Once I got him Firefoot, I did get to feel quite good for myself when I chump blocked an enemy with a Westfold Horse-breeder to activate Éomer's ability, and then play Quick Strike to wipe out everyone engaged with me before they even get to attack. The son of Éomund is a force of nature. A kingdom for Dúnedain Cache on him in multiplayer! Meanwhile, Éowyn kept the questing going, and Dúnhere came in surprisingly handy with the plethora of shadow cards adding enemies to the staging area in the combat phase.
We were doing great until the shadow effect on the generally awful Undisturbed Bones forced me to discard my Defender of Rammas, turning the Goblin Swordsman's attack into a strength five undefended attack. Frankly, it went pretty rapidly downhill from there, and we eventually succumbed to the endless goblin hordes.
**
I also tried the deck solo. Passage Through Mirkwood was a breeze, and I'm delighted to report that I actually beat A Journey Down the Anduin! I will admit it took several attempts. On most of them, it wasn't actually the Hill Troll that sunk me. I basically had two strategies for him: either Gandalf would defend him, or if I could get Dúnhere properly equipped, maybe I could get some shots in while he was still in the staging area. I thought I might get a shot at the latter when I drew a Spear of the Mark and two Galadhrim's Greetings, but as luck would have it, the encounter card I revealed in setup was Pursued by Shadow, meaning my threat was high enough that the Hill Troll engaged us on the first turn.
My first attempt ended in pretty terrible location lock, but other than that, what I mostly struggled with was either questing when my questing allies didn't show up, or defending a bigger bunch of enemies, especially if my combat allies didn't show up. Generally we managed to handle the troll all right, but several times my progress embarassingly stalled in the first stage. On something like my fifth shot, everything finally kind of came together. I got Gandalf in to quest and defend the Hill Troll, whom Éomer and Dúnhere then finished off. I even got to use West Road Traveller's ability to swap out an East Bight for a Necromancer's Pass, and we went into the second stage with an empty staging area.
Dúnhere again shone in the second stage. I mostly didn't even have to bother defending anything, and the normally infuriating Wargs were free to stay in the staging area as far as I was concerned. On what looked like a likely last round, we were all set for the final showdown. I dropped in Gandalf to lower my threat just in case. He, Éowyn and Éomund quested, and Elfhelm and my Defenders of Rammas were ready to handle the defending. So obviously the first card is Evil Storm, which kills Éomund and wipes out the Defenders. Next we draw Eastern Crows, which surges into Dol Guldur Orcs. I'm lucky Gandalf is there to take the damage, and his and Éowyn's combined questing is enough to pass the second stage. The third stage then adds Banks of the Anduin and a Goblin Sniper to the staging area, so we have our work cut out for us. Everyone except the sniper engages us.
Luckily Éomund's death readied Éowyn, who defends the Crows, and Elfhelm stops the Dol Guldur Orcs. Éomer and Firefoot wipe out both of the engaged enemies, and in a fitting finale for the deck, Dúnhere charges into the staging area and destroys the Goblin Sniper. Victory!
**
So, what have I learned? First, that Dúnhere can definitely make a useful contribution. Second, that Éomer is pretty darn awesome. Card draw and defense are the most obvious drawbacks, which Ancient Mathom and Defender of Rammas respectively go some distance toward redressing. Still, though, beating A Journey Down/Along the Anduin made me feel really good about this deck! It's got potential.
As a random thought, something that could combine really well with Dúnhere would be traps; now that we have the Land of Shadow expansion, I have to try putting together an "Auxiliaries of Gondor" deck with Dúnhere, Beregond and Damrod. The same expansion included Gamling the Old, who I clearly have to fit into this deck somehow. I could actually just drop a couple of side quests; the amount of trouble I've had with questing suggests that I'm hardly going to be able to make use of them on my own.
In the meantime, though, I stole Éowyn and the West Road Travelers for a new attempt at an Amazon deck, and the Gondor deck has an admittedly strong claim to those Defenders of Rammas. With what's left, I built an alternate version with Santa Théoden, which won over at least one new player with Dúnhere. Háma was worth his weight in gold as a defender here, which strongly suggested that as soon as we got our hands on Temple of the Deceived, I should add Déorwine to the mix.
51 cards; 28 allies, 10 attachments, 12 events, 1 side quest.
Théoden (TToS)
Dúnhere
Éomer (VoI)
Allies: 26 (17/7/2)
Elfhelm (TDM) x2
Éomund (CatC) x2
Gamling (TLoS) x2
Háma (TToS) x2
Rider of the Mark (RtR) x3
Escort from Edoras (AJtR) x3
Westfold Horse-breeder (VoI) x3
Déorwine (TotD) x2
Grimbold (TFotW) x2
Guthlaf (TBoG) x2
Westfold Outrider (VoI) x3
Gandalf (Core) x2
Attachments: 10 (9/1)
Firefoot (TDT) x2
Rohan Warhorse (VoI)
Secret Vigil (TLR) x3
Spear of the Mark (TMV) x3
Song of Battle (TDM)
Events: 12 (6/6)
Astonishing Speed (RtM) x2
The Galadhrim's Greeting x2
Ride to Ruin (THoEM) x2
Quick Strike x3
Unseen Strike (TRG) x3
Side quests: 1
Double Back (EfMG)
**
Using only the cards left over from our other decks, it was possible to create a deck that did decently solo and more or less pulled its weight in multiplayer. If we really bent our card pool to the task, I'm pretty sure we could do even better. Having said that, these Dúnhere decks have been great fun to play, and the whole Rohan archetype just keeps on delivering.
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