Into Dark Tunnels

If you're going underground, you'd better bring a lantern, because you're going

Into Dark Tunnels # Resource # Long-event
Playable at the end of the movement/hazard phase on a company that has moved to an Under-deep site. That company may attempt to move to an additional site on the same turn. Another site card may be played and a movement/hazard phase immediately follows.


This is an interesting card, sort of a Bridge for the underground. It can let you get from one site on one side of the under-deeps to another on the other side or let you bypass a site with a particularly nasty auto-attack.

One use of this card is to get around an auto-attack you don't really like. For instance, you've got a fist full of major items and you head to Mount Gram to grab one. Next turn you drop down to The Under-vaults and get a couple more and a To the Uttermost Foundations. Next turn you don't think you can handle 3@8 or 5@7 (or more with Awaken Minions) which the neighboring sites offer, but you do think you could handle 4 strikes at 7 at The Under-grottos. So you travel to The Under-leas, your opponent grinning as she sets down an Incite Minions. You smile, sneak past the Incited Minions, and head Into Dark Tunnels to The Under-grottos, grab a couple more major items or get a ring and test it.

Another good use of Into Dark Tunnels is to avoid a nasty surface site. For instance, if you've got a major item to play and also have Aiglos in hand, yet your opponent is running a rather nasty orc deck and you'd rater not go to Moria for that item (maybe it's tapped, too). So why not head to Glittering Caves for the major item, then drop down to The Gem-deeps and dig your way to The Under-gates, saving yourself a turn?

One nice thing about this card and it's relation to the Under-deeps, it's not really a problem if you're tapped out during your first M/H phase, as chances are you'd get tapped the next turn too, since almost all the same cards are playable on a company which stays or moves.

Into Dark Tunnels, while interesting, probably isn't worth putting in your deck unless you need to get to two specific separated under-deeps sites (if, say, you mostly want to avoid the surface sites getting to The Under-galleries). Oh, and due to wording, you can't use it to get the MPs from To the Uttermost Foundations by only visiting one site.

Ratings for Into Dark Tunnels:
Isildur: 4.8
Farmer Maggot: 6.0
Samwise: 7.5
Strider: 2.0
Legolas: 3.9
Beorn: 6.9
Frodo: 6.5
Fingolfin: 6.0
Average: 5.5

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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.