Gandalf is unique among the Free People in that he likes lots of twilight during the manuver and skirmish phases. Deep In Thought; Under the Living Earth; Gandalf, the White Wizard… they all need twilight to work properly. The trick is generating it.

You could just play tons of stuff during the Fellowship phase and hope to have enought left over. Of course, that's a good way to get yourself swarmed, and a Nazgul swarm is a key sign of too much twilight.

So, we need to look towaard ways of creating it during the manuver phase. Shoulder to Shoulder was once perhaps the best way, requiring only a Dwarf and an Elf, and it's not like there aren't any other cards that benefit from Gandalf, and Elf, and a Dwarf (Durin's Secret, Well Met Indeed). The Battle of Helm's Deep put a serious damper on that tactic with Grimia, Chief Counselor, however - Gandalf stuff won't work if Gandalf is biding his time in your hand.

So you need expensive events. Well, at first glance His First Serious Check only costs 1. However, it lets you pick a random card from their hand and pay that much twilight to discard it. That could range from 0 to 14 twilight. It also denies your opponent a possible key card in their strategy.

It's unlikely you'll add a lot of twilight this way, as, being the Manuver phase, they will have already played most of their minions. That means most of the cards in their hand will be Free Peoples or events, neither of which usually have high twilight costs.

If you really want to annoy your opponent, add in White Arrows of Lorien and Dwarven Axes, and your opponent will be wondering where their cards went!

by Trek Barnes

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