Watcher in the Water

Hazard: Creature
Region Keys: Wilderness and Coastal Seas
Site Keys: May be played at Moria
Marshalling Points: 1
Prowess/Body: 8/-

Each character in the company faces one strike. May also beplayed keyed to Moria. Two Wildernesses in site path are required.

Okay, this is useful in two ways. The first of these is for attackingCoastal Seas. There are almost no creatures, other than Corsairs of Umbar,that can attack these. And there aren't any cards to change them, either.So a company at one of these is almost completely safe. But not with thiscard. Now if they go over to Elven Shores or somewhere like that, or evenGrey Havens or Edhellond (relatively safe havens with these, particularlyGrey Havens) they have at least one creature to worry about.

One goodstrategy for a hazard deck, in fact, is to try to evenly distributecreature playable areas, to give yourself a good chance of havingsomething to play wherever your opponent goes. And this card'sparticularly good because it's also playable at Moria and Wildernesses, soyou don't lose out if your opponent doesn't go near seas.

Also, there'sanother feature of this card. It attacks all characters in a company. Thisis particularly useful in those annoying Hobbit-filled companies, whichyou can never hope to get all of because they're so many and they onlycount for half the hazard limit. But now this can cause them all trouble.You're likely (I'm not calculating the statistics, but I think I finallygot one right) to wound at least one of them, with a roll below 7. And thestrikes have a chance of hurting almost anyone. Great for those massive,break-through-any-hazard companies, to give them at least something toworry about. Especially with enhancers.

Only one small problem: the 1marshalling pt. which many companies are likely to get, but it's only 1point and there's lots to gain by it. Overall, a better hazard than itappears, not perfect in every deck but useful in many.

Ratings for: Watcher in the Water

Rater	Rating	Rater	Rating
Gandalf	7.5	Lobelia	2.0
Morgoth	7.5	Faramir	6.5
Shadowfax	6.7	Beren	6.0
Isildur	5.0	Gollum	5.3
Radagast	7.0	Cirdan	4.5
Eru	7.5	Average	5.95

[Back to the METW COTD homepage]

Card names and spoilers are copyrighted by Iron Crown Enterprises, Inc., which reserves all rights in its intellectual properties.