The Nazgul Are Abroad

Hazard: Permanent-event

Nazgul may attack the company containing the bearer of The One Ring at any site that is not a Free-hold [F] or Haven [H]. Nazgul may attack any company possessing any ring in a Shadow-land [s] or Shadow-hold [S]. If Doors of Night is in play, at the end of each turn, each player may return one Nazgul permanent-event from his discard pile to his hand. Cannot be duplicated.


Wow. This makes The One Ring even more dangerous to have then it already is. And that's just one of its abilities. But let's do that one first. It basically makes it almost impossible to move around with The One Ring. Sure, you can keep it in free-holds and havens, but not anywhere else. So if you want to destroy it you'll have to face the wrath of this card, which lets Nazgul attack the company with it wherever it goes that's not a free-hold or haven. Think of all the potential of this. You can play Nazgul on a company with it whenever you want. Of course, the bearer of The One Ring can just defend one of the strikes, but with strike enhancers like tomorrow's card (Hoarmurath of Dir) you can make one other character be affected by it.

An excellent combo, in fact, would be: All the Nazgul permanent-events you have in play as them (doesn't add to the hazard limit of the turn you play this combo) plus this card, with Hoarmurath being tapped (1 toward the limit), Witch-King of Angmar, The Pale Sword (so potentially I believe you can have it at 25 prowess), and Fell Beast, for a total of four hazards and therefore a creature with 25 prowess, 3 strikes, and all of their targets chosen by you, playable on The One Ring's company almost anywhere. And even if a character wins on the body check, they'll still lose on all the corruption you can inflict on them from The Pale Sword et.al. (especially the ring bearer, who can have 12 points of it if he doesn't cancel the attack).

The next feature, attacking any ring company at a shadow-hold or land, is also quite useful. It lets you attack many more companies, especially if (as I think this card means) "any ring" includes Gold Ring Items (Scott?). Since most regions and sites that Gold Ring items can be played at are (or include) Shadow, it makes it extremely dangerous to even try to get a ring.

Plus, there's the final effect, which lets you recycle Nazgul permanent-events. Especially if you recycle Uvatha the Horesman, who lets you recycle a creature, therefore allowing you to effectively keep recycling Nazgul again and again and using them with this again and again. Though there is one problem with this card. It effects both you and your opponent. But here's a clever way to avoid it: play all the "good" Nazgul, or at least all of them that you want, as permanent-events before playing this, in otherwords ASAP, and then tap and recycle them, allowing you to have (I think) broken the uniqueness barrier and play them again and again. Though I suppose your opponent could just play them in the interim, he'd have to be very lucky...

Anyway, overall this card is an excellent one, one of the best in the game, almost necessary in any Nazgul deck.


Ratings for: THE NAZGUL ARE ABROAD
RaterRatingRaterRating
Gandalf10.0Lobelia9.5
Morgoth9.5Faramir9.5
Shadowfax6.0Beren10.0
Isildur9.0Gollum8.7
Turin9.4Sauron10.0
RadagastN/RCirdan10.0
Eru8.0Average9.13

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