If the object of playing hazards is to tap characters, the object of characters is to stay untapped. One card that does that exactly is
Hundreds of Butterflies # Resource # Short-event
Playable on a moving character during his movement/hazard phase. Untap the
character and increase the hazard limit against his company by one.
This is the least restrictive of any of the untapping cards, but it also carries the highest price. You do get to untap your character, but your opponent gets another shot to retap him.
The reasons to untap a character are many. You might, for instance, have tapped him in the organization phase and you want him in the site phase. Or maybe it's a warrior like Aragorn who protected your weaklings in the M/H phase and now needs to influence a faction. Or your opponent Gnawed you with Words and you needed that sage for Anduril. It can save you a turn of waiting during and speed things up. However, Hundreds of Butterflies lets your opponent take another shot at tapping your character again.
So Hundreds of Butterflies is a card you should use strategically. Don't include it to go along with a two character company unless you have a way to deal with anything else that comes up. It can be very useful if you have a large company, as it's unlikely that you will get hit with more than four or five hazards in a turn. To this end, An Unexpected Party is a good card to use, as you can tap the characters you want, then untap them and not care if your opponent can play 15 hazards instead of 14. This card can also be very useful in certain situations. For instance, you come to a river and you just have one ranger. Sam taps to get past the river, and then as the group is heading through the forest, they come to another one. Your opponent laughs evilly, but you tell Sam to climb a tree and take a look around for a way across. He finds one and you walk off in that direction which has one more spider than the first way, but you can actually get to where you want to go before it's too late. Another nice combo is Here is a Snake! You check out what hazards you'll be facing and untap when your opponent is done.
So Hundreds of Butterflies can't untap a character whenever needed like And Forth He Hastened or Cram, et al., but it is more restricted in that you don't have to meet any other preconditions like having a wizard in play or getting an item. All you have to do is move...
| Ratings for Hundreds of Butterfies: | |
|---|---|
| Isildur: | 7.5 |
| Samwise: | 7.5 |
| Bandobras Took: | 9.0 |
| Farmer Maggot: | 9.0 |
| Frodo: | 7.5 |
| Fingolfin: | 7.0 |
| Beorn: | 7.0 |
| Strider: | 6.5 |
| Legolas: | 4.0 |
| Cirdan: | 7.5 |
| Wormtongue: | 6.2 |
| Average: | 7.2 |
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.