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Gwaihir/Eagle-Mounts
Gwaihir
Resource: Ally
Mind: 4
Marshalling Points: 2
Prowess/Body: 4/8
Unique. Playable at Eagles' Eyrie. If his company's size is two or less, you
may discard Gwaihir during the movement phase to allow his company to move
to any site that is not in a Shadow-land [s] or Dark-domain [d]; only hazard
creatures keyed to the site may be played on a company that moves in this
fashion.
Eagle-Mounts
Resource: Short-Event
Playable only at the end of the organization phase on a company with a
diplomat that begins the turn at Eagles' Eyrie. Company may move to any site
that is not a Shadow-hold [S] or a Dark-hold [D]. Opponent may only play
hazard creatures that are keyed to the company's site.
Two cards that are quite different yet share a common main effect. Before we go over the effect both of them have, let's look at the other stats for Gwaihir. He's unique, a slightly unfortunate fact because you can only use him once until you recycle your deck. He's an ally, a 4/8 one, making him one of the weakest allies in the game (though there are a few even weaker ones like Bill the Pony). He's got 4 mind, pretty low for an ally, and 2 marshalling points. Of course, there's also another 3 marshalling points from The Great Eagles Faction if you happen to be up there with Muster (since Gwaihir can't influence because he's not a character). The site is a bit out of the way, though that problem's true with Eagle-mounts as well. And the only other slight difference is that Eagle-mounts needs a diplomat while Gwaihir doesn't. Now the main feature, for both of these cards. They can fly you to anywhere in Middle-Earth that's not shadow or dark. This has a bit less use with Eagle-mounts than with Gwaihir. With Eagle-mounts, you need to start in Anduin Vales at Eagles' Eyrie. You can reach lots of places from there in a turn anyway, except the extreme west and east and some of the southern sites behind the White Mountains. Gwaihir is a bit more useful for this. You can bring him anywhere you like, and then just discard him to fly out of there. This is especially useful for getting out of dangerous places, like Mount Doom after a failed The One Ring attempt, or for that matter anywhere in Mordor. This zooms you away from the danger and prevents you from even facing it where you are as you leave. Also, both of these effects can be extremely good for avoiding dangerous areas. Like Mirkwood, for example, home of Khamul the Easterling (one of his homes, anyway), Adunaphel, and the dark-domain Southern Mirkwood. Tough to get through, extremely tough in fact, unless you have Eagle-mounts or Gwaihir to get you past them (though you need to go all the way back to Eagles' Eyrie for Eagle-mounts). And neatly avoid any dangers there. One final difference between these two cards is the restrictions. Gwaihir works on any site but only wilderness or better for regions, and Eagle-mounts works on any region but only things better than Shadow-holds for sites. Which one to choose is generally not that important, since most sites and regions do match up, but some of them (like Rhosgobel, for example, a free-hold in a dark-domain) do make one of these two better. Then there is finally Gwaihir's extremely annoying restriction of size of two or less. Still good for maybe Radagast and Glorfindel II, but makes any weak companies difficult. There are also of course lots of combos for these cards, though I won't try to list all of them. One good one is a few of the region-helper cards and Gwaihir (since you can't fix sites which Eagle-mounts needs). Make Gorgoroth a wilderness for a turn and then zoom over to Mount Doom with no Nazgul or any specific Gorgoroth region creatures (like Shelob). Safe enough so you can even risk it with two characters like Gwaihir requires. Another possible one is Secret Entrance, for an attack-free turn (nothing but sites from the movement and no site keyed creatures from Secret Entrance). Overall, Gwaihir and Eagle-Mounts both have a very useful skill, but the differences between them make deciding which one to use a matter of personal opinion more then anything else.
Ratings for: GWAIHIR/EAGLE-MOUNTS
| Rater | Rating | Rater | Rating |
|---|
| Gandalf | 7.5/7.5 | Morgoth | 7.5/7.0 |
| Isildur | 6.5/4.0 | Sauron | 7.5/8.5 |
| Radagast | 6.0/8.0 | Eru | 6.5/8.0 |
| Beren | 5.0/NR | Gollum | 8.7/8.0 |
| Average | 6.9/7.3 | | |
|---|
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