For me, one of the most enjoyable parts of Unfinished Tales was the story told by the Woses of the stone guardian. In the game too, you can sort of use the Woses as stone guardians.
Woses of Old Pukel-land # Resource # Wose Faction # 3 MPs
Unique. Playable at Wose Passage-hold if the influence check is greater than
8. Standard Modifications: none.
Among factions, this is a pretty powerful one. It's worth 3 MPs which is more than most, but isn't playable in places as dangerous as the four and five MP factions. It is still hard to play, though.
3 MP are nothing to shake a stick at. It's as much as someone like Aragorn or Elrond, Emerald of the Mariner, Wizard's Staff, etc. And with a couple factions like this plus a character and ally or two, you'll have a balance for your items. You can put it in almost any deck, as it's in a nice, convenient location. You can get to Old Pukel-land by a safe site path from any haven. It may be best placed in a Gondor, Rivendell, or Coastal deck, though, as they run closer to it. There are also relatively few creatures that can be keyed to Old Pukel-land.
The main drawback to this card is its difficulty to bring in. You need to roll better than an 8, which is upper midrange for a faction. The bad part about it is, there are no racial modifiers. Even Aragorn with Return of the King heading around Gondor has a chance to fail to bring in the Woses of Old Pukel-land. One character gets a bonus to influence them in, Ghan-buri Ghan. He isn't included in too many decks though, as his 5 mind cost seems too high for a 2/9 character. Nevertheless, he can influence the Woses of Old Pukel-land with a 5 or better and can help a company move stealthily and safely through the land. Another thing to watch out for, though not too many people include them, are the Wose agents. Om-buri Om and Pon-ora Pon both have 9 DI against a 0 when influencing away your Woses, an easy loss of 3 MP for you.
So the Woses of Old Pukel-land can be a valuable army at yoru side if you are going to be anywhere near the middle west part of the map and have a character with a fair amount of DI (or a Lordly Presence...).
| Ratings for Woses of Old Pukel-land: | |
| Isildur: | 7.3 |
| Samwise: | 8.1 |
| Farmer Maggot: | 8.0 |
| Legolas: | 6.0 |
| Bandobras Took: | 8.0 |
| Fingolfin: | 7.0 |
| Beorn: | 7.4 |
| Frodo: | 7.0 |
| Strider: | 7.5 |
| Alatar: | 7.0 |
| 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.