Well, after a completely stupid mistake on yesterday's card (it's not a non- unique creature), I'll see if I can get this one right. Oh, I'll post a remedy review of The Hunt when I get some spare time (finals...). Look for it by Tuesday night.
Hobbit-lore - Resource - Short-event Playable on Gandalf during the organization phase while at a Haven. If untapped, tap Gandalf afterwards. He receives +2 direct influence against Hobbits and Hobbit factions.
Well, this card like several of the wizard-only cards, works well in conjunction with various Gandalf-based strategies, but not for a general deck with Gandalf in it.
To be specific, this card is ONLY useful in decks where you plan on having Gandalf controlling hobbits. Also, one of these alone isn't all that great. +2 DI isn't huge, but it can be an advantage. It can mean the difference between an extra hobbit or not. For instance, if you have one of these on Gandalf, you can control Merry, Pippen, and Sam. Or Frodo, Sam, and Fatty. Or if your deck isn't too hobbit heavy, you can have 9 mind of other characters and Robin. Further, this card CAN be duplicated. So, Gandalf with three of these on him (he REALLY knows hobbits), he can control Frodo, Bilbo, Robin, and Folco or Sam/Pippen/Merry/Fatty or Bilbo, Sam, Fatty, and Boromir for protection. Hobbit-lore can also help you influence the one hobbit faction, but it's not all that good of a faction, and if you have it it's probably because you have hobbits in your deck and they can influnece the faction pretty easily.
There are a couple of disadvantages to this card. First, it's only playable at a haven during organization phase, but that's usually pretty easily arranged. Second, Gandalf is tapped, but you can do something like snag a card from your sideboard before you play this card to make use of tapping Gandalf. Lastly, Red Book of Westmarch gives the same bonus, and even gives an MP when stored and can be used by everybody. However, it also gives a corruption point, is unique, and taps Bag End (and this card has a little bit higher coolness value). So Hobbit-lore is a cool card that greatly helps Hobbit-based decks both for role-playing and true competitiveness (they ARE now truly viable :-)
Ratings for Hobbit-lore: Isildur: 6.5 (not generally useful, but GREAT in the right deck) Frodo: 6.5 Samwise: 7.6 Wormtongue: 6.0 Legolas: 3.0 Strider: 4.0 Gandalf: 4.5 Farmer Maggot: 5.0 Morgoth: 3.0 Average: 5.1 (Ratings may be low because the spoiler in the ratings file I said it was a short-event. duh)
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.