Most of the ideas behind agents were drawn from two characters in the books: Wormtongue and
Bill Ferney # Minion # Warrior/Scout Man # 1 MP # 2/8 # 3 Mind # 1 DI # Home
Site: Bree, Cameth Brin
Unique. Agent.
Bill is a pretty average low mind minion. While his abilities are somewhat limited, he usually finds his way into many agent decks just so people can say "Bill Ferney meets you at Bree. Where do you want to put your horses?"
Bill Ferney has two main purposes, aside from drawing everybody's anger at him. The first is he can influence away the Rangers of the North, a pretty good 3 MP faction. The best way to do this is with Good Sense Revolts, as it gives Bill +12 as well as an additional +4 in normal modifications for being at his home site. Plus, the faction influence number becomes 0, so unless your opponent has quite a bit of spare influence and gets lucky with the dice, you can say good bye to the Rangers. He can also easily influence away Bill (the Pony), Mistress Lobelia, Barliman Butterbur, Beretar, and even Aragorn. However, it's usually harder to influence characters as they move all over the board. Bill can also influence away the Hillmen, a 1 MP faction that rarely makes it into anybody's decks.
Bill's other main purpose is to allow Nazgul to attack at Bree. While it's hard to get Bill on the table and a Nazgul in hand just as a company arrives at Bree, with Nobody's Friend, Bill can come in at any Free- or Border-hold. "Aragorn, Arwen, and a few friends walk into Vale of Erech looking for the Men of Lamedon. All of a sudden, Bill Ferney's head pops up from behind a large rock and points at the company. Then out from behind the rock jumps the Witch-king of Angmar. Boromir bravely steps up and gets hacked and slashed to pieces. After the Witch-king flies off, Bill chuckles. 'Servers you right.' Sam glares at him. 'Didn't we leave you in Bree?' He then tosses an apple at the head of Bill and goes to help tend to Boromir."
Bill's skills of Warrior and Scout allow him to play a couple other cards, namely An Article Missing, Cunning Foes, and Sudden Fury. Those cards, however, cause an attack which Bill, at 2/8, isn't all that suited for.
He doesn't have any real disadvantages except those that come with his small mind (i.e. low prowess). So Bill Ferney can be a really annoying agent to your opponent, and you can bring him out of the sideboard after the Rangers are in play.
| Ratings for Bill Ferney: | |
|---|---|
| Isildur: | 7.0 |
| Frodo: | 7.0 |
| Bandobras Took: | 8.0 |
| Cirdan: | 4.0 |
| Alatar: | 4.5 |
| Legolas: | 5.0 |
| Samwise: | 8.0 |
| Gandalf: | 5.0 |
| Farmer Maggot: | 8.5 |
| Strider: | 5.0 |
| Beorn: | 7.5 |
| Wormtongue: | 6.8 |
| Fingolfin: | 4.5 |
| Average: | 5.8 |
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.