If you could include minions along with your normal characters, one I would like to use would be
Taladhan # Minion # Scout/Ranger/Sage Man # 2 MP # 4/9 # 6 mind # 1 DI # Home
Site: Sarn Goriwing, Dol Guldur
Unique. Agent. Can use shadow-magic. Agent only: chooses defending characters;
for each successful strike, the company must discard one item (of defender's
choice), but the defending character is not harmed.
Taladhan has several nice features, all for 6 mind which means you can have 5 other similar characters. He's god nice stats, decent prowess/body, a nice ability, and his home sites are pretty close to a lot of action.
First, his ability is pretty good. He's one of the few agents who naturally choose defenders, and against a small company with just a couple items, he can do some serious harm. If you add a Sudden Fury and consider that he's probably face down, you can have two strikes at 6/9 taking away the hard-won items the company just got from The Lonely Mountain. What would be really cool is if he could attack without the item loss, as he could do some pretty cool bashing. His other ability, use of shadow-magic, has one use currently, but it sounds like it should have some really cool stuff coming out in Lidless Eye. Shadow Out of the Dark is a really cool card, worth it in any undead deck. You can slap an Inner Cunning down on Taladhan when he comes in, then pop up at somewhere like < ahref="84.html">Moria or Carn dum, providing a nasty surprise of about six undead or so (not even counting against the hazard limit). And if that's what shadow-magic is going to be like, I can't wait for Lidless Eye (not that I can wait anyway...).
He's also got some nice skills. Ranger lets him use cards like Seek Without Success. Scout lets him use Sudden Fury (and An Article Missing if he wants +4 prowess). As yet, there aren't any cards that want a sage agent, but with Lidless Eye coming, sage, scout, and ranger are pretty good skills to have.
He's not a good influence agent, with just one DI, but he is a nice attack agent. Against a small company, Taladhan following you around can be really annoying.
| Ratings for Taladhan: | |
|---|---|
| Isildur: | 7.0 |
| Bandobras Took: | 7.5 |
| Samwise: | 8.5 |
| Cirdan: | 9.0 |
| Frodo: | 7.5 |
| Alatar: | 8.0 |
| Legolas: | 5.0 |
| Beorn: | 7.2 |
| Fingolfin: | 8.0 |
| Farmer Maggott: | 8.5 |
| Wormtongue: | 6.5 |
| Merry: | 6.8 |
| Strider: | 6.0 |
| Average: | 7.3 |
Card names and text copyright 1996 by Iron Crown Enterprises, all rights reserved. This document copyright 1997 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.