Easter Troll Hunting with Brunnhilde and the Black Knight

Easter is right around the corner and what better way to celebrate, than with a little egg hunt... I mean Troll Hunt!

Brunnhilde invited her good friend Black Knight for the hunt, and suddenly everybody wanted to come!

♫ Deck the Halls with Bowels of Troll'y ♫

What's the Game?

Summon the Troll over and over again. See how many heads you can collect in the basket.

Take Black Knight for a stroll through Fantasy land and see how many Troll heads you can gather before the game ends.

Troll's have Toughness and 7 hitpoints, but let's you put 1 ally from their discard pile into play.

What You Need

You will need to include a specific modular set in the games that you play.

1. Add the Fantasy modular encounter set to your game. This is where you fill find Troll.
2. [Optional] For a smoother build-up, I'd recommend including Hydra Patrol modular encounter set. This includes 2 copies of Hydra Regular that can be killed using Valkyrie's starting ATK of 2.

Key Cards

1. Black Knight - He is the key to handling the Troll's effectively. His piercing attack brings their hitpoints to a manageable size before you can chop their head off yourself.
2. Inspired / Power Gloves / Reinforced Suit / Sidearm - Upgrades to make Black Knight the perfect truffle hog, boost his ATK for more Troll tendering and hitpoints for staying power.
3. United We Stand - Cheap healing to help Black Knight keep up his stamina for an all day hunt.
4. Chooser of the Slain - The card that makes you find Troll's over and over and over again.
5. Ghost-Spider - She is the scout responsible for early sighting of Troll's. Finds copies of Chooser of the Slain when you need them.
6. Nick Fury - He always comes prepared and has packed a full picnic lunch. He brings out snacks every time a Troll has been hunted.

Note: You cannot play Ghost-Spider from your hand. She can only be brought into play from the Troll's effect.

Hunting Strategy

Note: Depending on how many players are in the game (or if playing single player), you might need to stabilize and get some resource generators on the table (Quincarrier / Helicarrier) as well as Valkyrie's key upgrade/support (Dragonfang/Valhalla). I have had games where bringing Black Knight onto the table wasn't realistic until second deck pass.

The key to getting lots of Troll head's is to handle its Toughness and 7 hitpoints, with Valkyrie eventually being the defeator.

1. Get Dragonfang on the table. This will give Valkyrie a +4 damage on basic ATK.
2. Get Valhalla on the table. While not strictly necessary for a single kill, the extra card will help towards double kill turns.
3. Get Black Knight on the table. His main purpose is to soften up the Troll's by using his Piercing to whittle down its hitpoints within the range of 4 so Valkyrie can take it down using basic ATK.
4. Get Black Knight's ATK to at least 3 by playing any or all of Inspired, Power Gloves, Sidearm on him.
5. Summon a Troll with Chooser of the Slain, this let's you draw 2 cards.
6. Attack the Troll with Black Knight, piercing its tough and bringing it down to somewhere between 1 - 4 hitpoints.
7. Attach Death-Glow to the Troll.
8. Basic attack the Troll with Valkyrie, killing it.
9. Ready Valkyrie, as she defeated the Troll.
10. Use the When Defeated effect from the Troll, and put 1 ally into play from your discard pile.
11. Exhaust Valhalla and draw 1 card and heal 1 damage.

Alternate Attack Patterns

Keeping Black Knight Hydrated

Once you get Black Knight on the table and upgrade him, it's imperative that he stays there. You don't want to find and pay for all his upgrades once again.

1. Do not chump block with Black Knight.
2. If Black Knight only has 1 hitpoint, let him sit out a few rounds until you can heal him with United We Stand.

The Friends We Make Along the Way

Nick Fury and Ghost-Spider are very important in our search for more trolls.

By killing a Troll you get the following benefits.

1. Not only do you disregard the 4 cost of Nick Fury, but you also draw 3 cards from his ability when entering play. Great value for no money.
2. You bypass the play restrictions on Ghost-Spider, and can pick any identity specific event in your deck when she leaves play. Many times you probably want to fetch Chooser of the Slain, however Have at Thee! is a great way to progress the game or gather a head from any Dragon's crossing your path.

Keep Tracking the Troll's

After a few deck passes, you inevitably shrink the deck by playing various supports and upgrades. This, along with the extra card draw from Nick Fury and Maria Hill, ensures that you hit Chooser of the Slain fairly often.

On top of that, our tracker Ghost-Spider can be used find the Chooser of the Slain in the deck.

1. Get her into play by slaying a Troll.
2. Keep her on the table until you are sure a Chooser of the Slain is in your deck. This sometimes means leaving her out until the deck empties.

S.H.I.E.L.D Supported Double Round Kill

The deck includes a single copy of Command Team.

Generally it can be used to get the most out of Nick Fury when he gets on the board. Not only do you get his 3 cards, but with an extra activation he can remove 4 threat or deal 4 damage.

If you are so inclined, include more copies of Command Team. When Team Training is in play, you can get one more activation out of Nick Fury before he takes a mallet to the face.

In terms of Troll hunting, I often find myself with 2 copies of Chooser of the Slain on hand. If you don't want to keep one of those copies for next round (or leave the Troll strolling about), Command Team can be used to get 2 activations of Black Knight and 2 Troll heads in one round.

Have at Thee! K-k-k-killing Spree!

If you get all upgrades on Black Knight, you pierce the Troll's tough and deal it 6 damage. (Power Gloves deals double damage because it is a card).

This leaves the Troll on 1 hitpoint.

If you have a copy of Have at Thee! on hand (or can get it via Ghost-Spider), you can deal 6 damage via overkill to the villain by attaching Death-Glow to the Troll.

Should you be so (un)lucky as to have a Dragon on the table, you can have some real fun. Get the Dragon down to 1 hitpoint and hit it with a Have at Thee!. This attack should deal 13 damage to the villain in overkill damage.

Tally Ho!

You made it this far?... then lets see how many Troll heads you can gather :)