I love this card, not just because Dwarf decks are my favourite, or for the memory of Thorin's last, valiant charge. For 1 resource (and only 1 Dwarf hero, so it's not limited to Dwarf-only decks!), you can put any discarded Dwarf ally first into play and then back into your deck. This can be useful for many situations: pop in a Longbeard Elder if you need a bit more , or a Veteran of Nanduhirion or Veteran Axehand if you need some extra . If you need temporary then there's Longbeard Sentry or Erebor Guard. Alternatively, if you didn't want to pay the extra upkeep cost for Dwarven Sellsword, then you could bring him back for a phase with this, as well. Or maybe a dwarf ally you like just happened to die too soon. Dwarves can fill nearly any role needed, so being able to call one on command is rarely a bad thing.

I am sure that there are several combos that one could devise to get more benefit out of the ally being returned (for example, delving Soldier of Erebor or poor Brok Ironfist, then using To Me! O My Kinsfolk! to pair with a use of A Very Good Tale). It is also good, for allies you'll want to actually play again, to use in a deck with the in-trait Bofur, who can shuffle your deck for you to bring your summoned ally closer to the top of your deck.

But what I really wish to suggest--in combination with the Bofur shuffle above--is to use To Me! with those Dwarf allies with enter play effects. Most Dwarf allies with their effects have the "When you play from your hand" qualifier, but a few don't: Miner of the Iron Hills, Longbeard Orc Slayer, and Ered Nimrais Prospector all trigger effects upon entering play with no other qualifiers. That means that To Me! becomes a 1-cost recursion for Condition removal, damage to all Orcs in play (especially useful in scenarios like Into the Pit and The Seventh Level), or recurring other cards back into your deck. The added benefit is that these allies are, as mentioned, put back into your deck, allowing you to make use of their abilities at least one more time. This event is very versatile, and by extension makes your whole deck just a bit more versatile as well.

I agree with Warden of Arnor's review. One small change that I think would make the Guard more useful if he had the Warrior trait, especially with the expanded card pool we have now. Without any changes, he can take Ancestral Armor, but that's too expensive to waste on the Guard unless you're desperate. But with the Warrior trait, he could take the far cheaper (and still in-sphere) Hauberk of Mail, which would put him at 3 & 2 with the potential to ready him to take multiple attacks. That seems much more reasonable to me.

Without that change, you can also now give him the (also in-sphere) Squire's Helm. 2 and 4 isn't the most awful, especially with Doomed cards that often want to be played during combat, like The Wizards's Voice and Defiant Challenge (which you could use to ready Orthanc Guard to defend and attack and another character to attack the enemy in turn). In my Doomed deck, I personally like to use him to quest then ready him for defending like I just described, to get just a little bit more out of his stats. Is he the greatest ally ever? Not by a long shot. But with the newer cards and additional support for Doomed to make it a more viable deck, I also don't think he's the worst ally ever. Just probably not really one you'd want to run outside of a dedicated Doom deck.

I like the Soldier of Isengard. With 1 point of Doomed being roughly equivalent to 1 resource, he's a 4-cost for 8 total stats. In the early game, getting a well-rounded ally like this is often going to be worth the 2 Doomed, whether you need more or a combat ally. Later on, when threat is a scarcer resource, you can turn the Soldier into a 2-cost for 8 stat points with Saruman's Staff, which also comes with this pack. That, too, is very valuable. I also like his ability. If your Doomed deck has accidentally put your friend in peril, perhaps by raising their threat above the engagement cost of an enemy they wished to avoid, you can send the Soldier of Isengard to help them out and plug the breach you've created. It might help your friend feel better about your choice of deck!

My only complaint is that--like all the Isengard allies (not couting Saruman--the Soldier only has the Isengard trait. With a name like 'Soldier of Isengard', I would wish for him to have the Warrior trait, which would open him up for things like Warrior Sword or Raiment of War which, while out of sphere, would improve his versatility even further.

If this isn't my favorite location control card, it's pretty close. Sure, it doesn't put progress on locations like a Northern Tracker, Asfaloth, or other similar cards. However, has a lot of other things going for it:

First, it is in Leadership, whereas most location control is in Lore or Spirit. This makes it available to decks that otherwise wouldn't be able to include location control at all.

Second, it is inexpensive. It is easy to get out early even in multisphere decks (unlike Northern Tracker or its ilk). It does cost you a character action, but there are plenty of characters that don't do that much after coming into play. Great targets include Snowbourn Scout, Herald of Anórien or an extra Errand-rider.

Third, encounter decks don't tech against it very much. There are plenty of quest cards and locations that prevent direct progress on staging area locations. Other than cards that are straight up immune to player card effects, cards don't tend to hinder this effect.

Fourth, it is useful in almost every quest. There are always locations that you would rather not see, whether it is because of high threat, bad travel effects, bad while in play effects or otherwise. This allows you to get them out of staging and replaced with something easier.

Fifth, it is absolutely great tech against certain quests. This at least makes this worth of a side board spot in decks. This card really shines in any quest that puts tokens on locations -- whether that's damage in Celebrimbor's Secret or Raid on the Grey Havens, time counters in The Antlered Crown or mire tokens in The Passage of the Marshes. In all these quests, the tokens are time bombs waiting to go off and cause bad effects, and Mariner's Compass can reset the timer on a location. Also, it can free up guarded cards from locations in any quest that has them (or for any player deck that runs them).

This isn't a review but a question: If I play this card with a nearly empty encounter deck so no treachery is revealed, I assume I will not get the readying. However, the questing boost seems to be a separate effect. Will it still trigger?