What’s your favourite DS gunboat combo?
… and why…
Clint (GM)
Ice King/Long Rider
Agents, with stealth, conjure mounts, good starting characters. That I have never played the duo, nor do I think I have ever played the long rider might make my vote and opinion a little suspect. But that would be a fun duo to play.
tim
More random musings
Dragon/Cors - what a combination! Yum. Love playing it.
WK/Dk - nasty combination hard to do well with - seems always to be struggling.
Dog/BS - cute - must be a curse squad or two to be had there.
CL/Rhu - see WK/DK.
IK/LR - one that I’d love to play - seems very powerful if it can survive. QA/FK - um seems a tad boring to me.
Clint (player)
I agree with your take on the pairs. WK/Dk would be fun, but tough. Dragon Lord/Corsairs would probably be my second favorite pairing. Lots of potential in that combo.
Rhuduar/Cloud lord is just boring, plus Dave thinks Cloud Lord needs to be tied back to a Mordor nation, but that is for another thread.
tim
Rhuduar/Cloud lord is just boring, plus Dave thinks Cloud Lord needs to be tied back to a Mordor nation, but that is for another thread.
I like that one of the strongest and defensible with one of the army and non-defensible nations. (Similarly Wk/DkL).
All nation duos can be improved so that they are stronger. But I don’t think that would make a better game.
Clint
DrgL/Cor is awesome - and because people know that by now, it is impossible to keep alive 
WK/DKL gets my vote because of character versatility and ability to create a curse squad right from the word go
WK/darkLt got my vote, because of the immense amount of things you can do with those two.
You can join the artifact hunt right away, you can form a curse party, you have high ranking commanders and a lot of popcenters to recruit from.
Both positions are unlikely to get eliminated early on (unless you screw up big time…).
Able to have an agent who can assasinate pretty fast…
Also two good maps, that lets you see most of the important scenes of action.
In terms of challenge, then my vote goes to both Dragon/Corsair for trying to keep Dragon in the game, FK/QA for trying to block Ithil pass pretty much on your own, and CL/Rhudaur for surviving as Rhudaur early on and for maintaining an agent nation very likely to never recieve any agent arts from your allies!