After the review of Lobelia Sackville-Baggins I did a couple days ago, I noticed someone made off with some of my spoons.
An Article Missing # Hazard # Short-event
Tap a scout agent at target company's new site. Agent may attack (not counting
against hazard limit) with a +4 modification to his prowess during the
movement/hazard phase. Attacker chooses defending characters. A successful
strike doesn't wound the defending character; instead the company must discard
one item (defender's choice).
This card can really hurt a company if you manage to play it at the right time. At other times, you may just make them get rid of a small minor item.
This card is relatively easy to play. There are 17 scout agents with a wide array of home sites. You can't move an agent and then play this card unless you take an additional action (against the hazard limit) to untap her. So if you have three free hazards, you can potentially steal from anywhere within a region of your agent, and if you've got several agents out, that's a pretty wide range. However, if you can play this card at an agent's home site (and if the agent is unrevealed), go for it as the agent will get a total of +9 in attack modifiers. Plus, even if she isn't face down at her home site, she gets to chose defending characters, and there's frequently a weakling in most parties.
As for the effect, it's not all that useful. If your strike succeeds, you get to force the discard of an item. This card would really rock if you got to chose, but you don't, your opponent does. Thus, he can chose a item he's not using very much. Maybe an Elven Cloak after he found you weren't playing with many wilderness creatures. Or maybe another minor item that he can get back with all the minor item helpers in Dark Minions. Or hey, maybe he's got a Leaf Brooch for just such an occasion. However, I find that a company plans to use almost all of its items almost all of the time.
A constant barrage of item discarders can, however, wreak a lot of havoc. After a company is forced to discard a couple of items, each one starts to hurt. After a couple minor items, the only item they have might be something like Orcrist or The Arkenstone. And any card that discards a 4+ MP card is definitely worth it.
There are two drawbacks to this card. First, if the attack isn't successful, the item doesn't get discarded. Thus, if your opponent has lots of prowess increasing items, you can't get at them very well. The second disadvantage is that the defender chooses, which has been discussed.
Thus, An Article Missing can hurt a company, but it usually doesn't do too much damage.
| Ratings for An Article Missing: | |
|---|---|
| Isildur: | 5.5 |
| Frodo: | 7.0 |
| Bandobras Took: | 6.0 |
| Cirdan: | 6.0 |
| Alatar: | 7.0 |
| Legolas: | 9.0 |
| Samwise: | 7.9 |
| Gandalf: | 4.0 |
| Farmer Maggot: | 7.0 |
| Strider: | 6.0 |
| Beorn: | 6.6 |
| Wormtongue: | 6.2 |
| Fingolfin: | 7.0 |
| Average: | 6.0 |
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.