Today is Christmas Day, when many of us sit around and open gifts given by old ladies in our families. Thus, the perfect card for today is
Mistress Lobelia # Resource # Scout Hobbit # 0/9 # 1 MP # 3 mind
Unique. Manifestation of Lobelia Sackville-Baggins. May only be played at Bag
End or Bree. Discard this card if her company moves to any site other than
Bree, Old Forest, The White Towers, or a site in The Shire. Tap Mistress
Lobelia to search your discard pile or play deck for any one item, ally, or
faction playable at her current site. Place the resource in your hand and
reshuffle your play deck.
Mistress Lobelia, aside from being a cool character in the books, can be very useful in a deck based near Rivendel. In combat she's not all that great, but her ability when she taps can really rock.
First, the basics. She is an ally worth one MP. This can be useful for avoiding your opponent doubling Ally points, but there are much better ways to get and keep one or more MPs. She's got 3 mind, which is pretty high for an ally. That's a good thing, as allies don't use up influence, it's just to hinder your opponent influencing her away. She's 0/9, which is pretty wussy in combat, but it's actually higher than Bill the Pony and Roac the Raven. Plus, she's a Scout Hobbit, so can use some of the avoidance cards like Halfling Stealth or Concealment.
Due to movement restrictions, however, she doesn't get much of a chance to face combat. She can go to Bree, Old Forest, The White Towers, and any site in the Shire (which makes me hope there's another Shire site coming up). The regions are Cardolan, Arthedain, and The Shire, two wilderness and a free- domain. That's a pretty safe range, not to mention that it's within Tom Bombadil's range. They're also some key sites in a hobbit-based deck or a deck based more generally around Rivendell.
The fact that she can grab a resource playable at her site can really help your deck speed up. For instance, you can play her at Bree. Tap her to get Rangers of the North from your deck. Tap a sage to untap the site with Fireworks. Tap a character to play the Rangers, and then tap a character to play Bill the Pony. 5 MPs in one turn, at a border-hold. Or you can tap your wizard to bring Rangers of the North, Hobbits, Palantir of Elostirion, Tom Bombadil, and either Goldberry or Bill into your discard pile. Then each turn you can grab one with Mistress Lobelia and play it (note this will need at least one Fireworks).
Another good combo is to have Ioreth (and maybe another one mind character) hang out at Bag End waiting for Lobelia (Ioreth can play Marvels Told there). Then, when Lobelia pops up, you can move to The White Towers and have Lobelia get the Palantir of Elostirion. Then Ioreth can sit there and remove all the corruption cards from your wizard and elves (and the one mind character can tap in support of corruption checks). The only bad thing about Mistress Lobelia is her low combat ability (but high body, though she can't get to a haven to heal). The other slightly bad thing is that if Lobelia Sackville-Baggins is out, you can't play Mistress Lobelia. However, she's a pretty specialized agent, so isn't out too much.
| Ratings for Mistress Lobelia: | |
|---|---|
| Isildur: | 7.0 |
| Frodo: | 7.0 |
| Bandobras Took: | 8.0 |
| Cirdan: | 7.5 |
| Alatar: | 4.5 |
| Legolas: | 5.0 |
| Samwise: | 7.0 |
| Gandalf: | 8.5 |
| Farmer Maggot: | 9.0 |
| Strider: | 7.5 |
| Beorn: | 7.4 |
| Wormtongue: | 5.0 |
| Fingolfin: | 6.0 |
| Merry: | 5.5 |
| Average: | 6.8 |
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.