Axe Strike is a standard “pump,” a skirmish event used to temporarily boost a skirmish in a character's favor. While Axe Strike serves as a staple in Fellowship block decks, the event is mostly eclipsed by Flurry of Blows in the Mines of Moria expansion and skirmish events like Battle Tested, Best Company, and Honed in Towers Standard and Movie formats.

Axe Strike does carry a benefit over Flurry of Blows as it only needs a single hand weapon to get its maximum bonus and is a zero-twilight event.

• Good with choking decks due to the 0 Twilight cost

• Sub-par against possession removal, as this minimizes the strength bonus

From the Current Rulings Document - March 2004:

Skirmish: Make a Dwarf strength +2 (or +3 if bearing a hand weapon). Only copies of this card from The Fellowship of the Ring set need this clarification.

Later sets reprinted the card with corrected text. This clarification is mostly aesthetic in nature, as to date no hand weapon has been released that was not an axe.