The problem of losing
Glamdring is that
Glamdring means 2 very important things: 1) tanks Gandalf to the towering base attributes of str 9 vit 4, making him your 2nd best fighter; and 2) that tank removes doubts with relative ease, turning weak minions into doubt remotion (uncomplete Swarms, fierce mid-strength minions and weak minions played just to unclog hand trigger it very often).
After losing it, you only got He Gives Me Courage (and the Acorn, in the 1st format) to remove doubts.
That's why they don't want to have a Gandalf that will either lose his Gondolin blade, or will need to play it not sooner than Site 5. Format 2 will have
Narya to prevent Gandalf's discard, and Site 6 Town Hall to replay any weapon, so Gandalf will have extrinsic ways of dealing with
Glamdring's loss. But only there.
Recovering artifacts was always a weak spot in the development. Thorin can "place a
artifact from your discard pile beneath your draw deck" (and needs Balin to increase chances of drawing it soon). But there's nothing for
or
artifacts (except The Grey), so perhaps removing that
culture enforcement on Thorin's definitely-not-strong artifact recycling will help (but that requires printing again 8 copies of Thorin, instead of only 2 copies of Gandalf).
Another way is to give Gandalf
LoD a base str of 8. All other Gandalfs can replay the sword (The Grey) or prevent its loss (FoT and
LotC), so this one comes in clear skirmish disadvantage. A slightly higher strength would mean 2 good things: 1) he'll depend less on
Glamdring, making its loss much more bearable; and 2) making him str 10 while wielding
Glamdring will actually create a great need of triggering Site 5!
We know,
Old Forest Road and Dol Guldur* give the Shadow player the option of NOT discarding him (and Forest River doesn't participate in that), and the threat of a fully-healed Gandalf reappearing (and also discarding a minion or so) makes that option not so disgusting actually.
So let's give Shadow players a good reason to discard him! Also, as Dictionary points out rightly, this Gandalf's vitality will be taxed by the Dwarf companion fetching (and is the only self-exerting Gandalf), which makes him less secure to expose in skirmishes... that skirmish hindrance can be compensated by a slightly higher base strength.
* EDIT: Dol Guldur's text can be used by the FP player too!Compare it with Radagast; why discard 2 followers when you can pay nothing and boost the move limit?
Because
Radagast must replay him at Site 6+'s Fellowship phase (and the twilight can be used at Shadow phase), while
LoD can reappear at Site 5+'s Maneuver, ready to face a minion (or some arrows). That's often the difference between a successful and a failing Swarm.
Maneuver: Play Gandalf from your discard pile to discard a minion (except Smaug).
I like Dictionary's idea, both in flavor and gameplay. But reappearing and also removing a minion from the struggle means 2 points more in the balance (vs Swarm). So if he discards a minion, I'd make it a Skirmish ability instead to make Gandalf can join the fight only in fierce skirmishes. Perhaps also "wound a minion twice" instead of discarding, to prevent him from eraing a mounted Azog/Bolg so easily as Phallen says. Since Gandalf's potential is mostly in Skirmish events, skipping the Maneuver phase would only stop He Gives Me Courage.
Since there's only one opportunity to replay Gandalf in this format, discarding a minion at the already less threatening site 6 sounds pretty appropriate.
That's not true. Gandalf's replaying can work since Site 5 (it's at Maneuver, you don't have to wait until the next turn). And Site 5 is often as perilous as Site 8. So while wounding a minion twice is good, erasing it seems too strong to me.
I don't know how the other sets work, but if I remember Jails correctly this could make Gandalf very undesirable to jail, if next turn he can be played after the shadow phase and discard a companion.
Jail retains Gandalf, so you need condition discard to release him to discard pile. And 3
minions can punish condition discard: Lemenya (like Bert, "discard an ally"), Enquea ("exert a companion") and Nertea ("play a
minion from discard, at twilight cost -8").
If you decide it's too strong, though, what about giving a Dwarf a strength boost when he's replayed? Or give every dwarf +1 strength?
There's hardly room for such addition. But if the pump is for 1 Dwarf only, and lasts only during a skirmish, turning Gandalf's replay into a Skirmish ability will shorten that addition. Something like this (2 lines): "
Skirmish: Play Gandalf from your discard pile to make a
companion strength +3."
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With all that in mind, this would be my version of
LoD:
•
Gandalf, Leader of Dwarves Companion • Wizard
Strength 8 Vitality 4
Wise.At the start
of each of your turns, you may exert Gandalf to play
a Dwarf from your draw deck.
Maneuver: Play Gandalf from your discard pile to
wound a minion twice."You do know my name... I am Gandalf."Str 8, no artifact playing/replaying, can play both Dwarf companions and Dwarf followers, and reappears costlessly at Skirmish to deal 2 wounds (and thus save Dwalin or Bilbo from a Swarm). But cannot cycle (unlike FoT), cannot wound easily (unlike The Grey) and counters doubts much hardly (by losing
Glamdring). And exerts a lot (unlike all other versions of Gandalf).
EDIT: Dol Guldur's current wording allows it to be used by any player (FP player too!), since it says "at the start of the Shadow phase" (only Shadow players can do Shadow phase actions, but this is NO phase action! Phase actions always have their phase worded in bold) and also "you may discard Gandalf" (doesn't specify which player).
That may be too much power in the FP player's hands for Leader of Dwarves, as this site's text creates a choice for the Shadow player on which both roads have pros and cons in the very important Site 5, AND different Gandalfs respond differently (The Grey is much better discarded; but an instantly-reappearing LoD + also each Wise ally is of no advantage for the Shadow, except perhaps for Glamdring's loss). The FP player's hands should be out of that decision.