September 30, 2002
Due to the counsel of Grima, the fellowship needed to leave their armaments at the door of Theoden's Hall and enter unprotected. After the release of The Two Towers, Grima, Wormtongue, will get to inflict some of that gear-denial on fellowships everywhere.
First off, let's look at the current environment. Skirmish events are rarely seen because of the phenomenal utility of weapons. Additionally, fellowships can leverage the cumulative effect of permanent adders to create a lot of pressure on the opponent's minions. It's quite common to see tanked out Aragorns and Boromirs ease the fellowship through the last few sites because they're essentially untouchable due to armor, swords, flaming brands, last alliance of elves and men, etc. It makes Nazgul players cry.
Enter the Wormtongue. "Spot an unbound companion bearing 3 or more cards and return each card to the owner's hand." It's a maneuver action that Grima can perform twice. Huge I say, absolutely huge!
Grima is a phenomenal new addition to the list of 'utility minions' that cross cultural boundaries because they act as natural limiters on the metagame. He joins the ranks of luminaries like the Tower Assassin and Ulaire Enquea - people will fear the Grima-bomb. You can fit him into a lot of decks types. I think he really helps Nazgul, as that shadow culture drops few minions and needs to win skirmishes - its especially vulnerable to one character holding on to all the gear and laying the smack on the Rags.
Take another look - its clear Grima will change the way the game is played. Imagine this scenario - you drop the Grima-bomb on a few geared out companions sometime after site 5 or 6. You've just put 6 or so fellowship cards back into the opponent's hand. They were hoping to reconcile a large amount of Shadow to try and stop you, in the most minion-critical part of the game. It's an absolute disaster for your opponent to get clogged with fellowship cards, and a free double move for your next fellowship. On top of that, the opponent needs to re-deploy all that gear, flooding the pool again. You've hosed their fellowship for two turns, and wrecked their next shadow turn. Might as well just concede. In other words, its time to start diversifying how you equip your characters and re-examine using some of those skirmish events so you don't get Grima-bombed!
I could go on about vile, old Brad Dourif, but they're not paying me by the word, and you get the point. This guy is money. Fear the Grima-bomb.