Today is Thanksgiving, many of us are sitting around the table eating and giving thanks. One thing I am thankful for is that I am not facing a
Chill Douser - Hazard - Creature - 1 MP - 8/- - Playable: RL, Sh
Undead. Three strikes. Unless Chill Douser's attack is cancelled, all Undead
attacks against the company for the rest of the turn receive +1 strike and +1
prowess.
Well, this card can really be key (no pun intended) in an undead deck. While it's not as powerful by itself as, say, Ghosts or Ghouls, but it can really help those out.
Its main feature is that it does a temporary The Moon Is Dead, giving all undead one more strike and prowess and strike until the end of the turn. This has some advantages and disadvantages over The Moon Is Dead. First, it is only until the end of the turn, unlike TMID, but it also stays around if an undead attack is defeated. It can also be duplicated, which TMID can't. However, it requires Ruins and Lairs or a Shadow-hold to be played, while TMID can be played anywhere. But how good is this ability? It can be devastating. Consider the following situation which Samwise (the rater) elaborated for me. (I edited slightly.)
Say your opponent visits Moria, and you already have Will of Sauron, Plague of Wights, and The Moon is Dead in play. Naturally he doesn't want to, but he thinks he's doing pretty well. He has seven characters in his party, some of them pretty bad. Wham! Hit him right off with a Chill Douser, 10 strikes at 11 prowess (it gets its own modifiers I found out from Mike Reynolds). Your opponent is stunned, but some of his guys are tough, and most make it through without injury. So you follow it up with another Chill Douser. 12 strikes at 12 prowess. At this point, even the badasses are worried, because you now have 2 extra attack modifiers to spread around, only you don't spread them around, you pound that one bad ass with all five of them. At this point, you are adding 4 prowess, 3 strikes, and then doubling the number of strikes. So you follow up with Ghosts. 12 strikes at 13 prowess. I sure can't think of any dragons this devastating. And another Ghost. At this point everyone is at least tapped. Probably a couple of guys are dead, and you are assigning 7, 8, or 9 attack modifiers, so that 13 prowess can effectively be 20 or more, not to mention that in the last two attacks, those injured not only made body checks, but corruption checks as well. That Durin's Axe has become a serious liability. A good option on this attack would be a Pale Dream Maker if you happen to have it in your hand. You don't though this time. You do have a Ghoul though. 16 strikes at 11 prowess. You have two hazards left. You can almost guarantee that your last attack is going to be effective against the three characters that are left, and everyone is most likely injured, and suffering a -2 attack modifier. So you play that last ghoul, and with it Spells of the Barrow- Wights. You have 13 attack modifiers to spread around, and can almost be sure that those three applied strikes will be effective. All items are lost, including the ring, and the three are taken captive. They are now costing your opponent -5 MPs, and making body checks at -1 every untap phase until they are rescued. If they die, that is a permanant -5. Is there any other attack in the game right now that can almost eliminate an opponent like this? Even if his wizard was not a member of his party, that person is effectively out of the game. Sure, this takes some luck or planning (and discarding other useful cards), but with Revealed to All Watchers, it can work nicely. You might want to add Eyes of the Shadow so that even the small companies can get a barrage of undead.
Back to Chill Douser, he has some more features and drawbacks. One is that if it is cancelled, the bonuses don't happen. However, if your opponent taps a scout and uses a Concealment (or maybe Star-glass), she can't use it against one of your nastier undead. Also, it's only playable at Ruins and Lairs and Shadow-holds, though the average undead is playable at shadow and dark holds and domains. It's got 8 prowess and three strikes, which isn't too great compared to other undead, but it can also pick up bonuses of other Chill Dousers (and TMID and Plague of Wights), so it can get up to 12 strikes at 11 prowess, and it still gives its bonuses to the rest of the undead for the turn (including auto-attacks, if your opponent survives the move/hazard phase). It only affects one company though. Its other feature is the standard 1 MP for killing it, which is the same as all other undead as well as most other creatures.
So Chill Douser can be a VERY useful card in an undead deck, but not very good otherwise.
| Ratings for Chill Douser: | |
|---|---|
| Isildur: | 8.5 |
| Farmer Maggot: 8.5 | |
| Gandalf: 4.5 | |
| Frodo: 7.5 | |
| Strider: 7.0 | |
| Legolas: 8.5 | |
| Eonwe: 8.7 | |
| Samwise: 9.2 | |
| Wormtongue: 7.0 | |
| Average: 7.7 | |
Card names and text copyright 1996 by Iron Crown Enterprises, all rights reserved. This document copyright 1996 by Trevor Stone. Permission given to duplicate so long as no profit is made and the copyright notice is kept in tact, blah, blah, blah.