Bill Ferny.

That’s all I have to say. I wanted that to be the whole review, but I need 200 characters. I hate Bill Ferny in the “A Knife in the Dark” quest. He stays in the staging area the whole time and raises your threat until you can finally kill him. Son of Arnor lets you engage him and kill him in the first few turns. I don’t care what else he does. This guy lets me settle my personal vendetta against Bill, and thus, I am satisfied.

the response part of this card Seems very difficult to use. How many times are the whole team going to be in secrecy. If you opt in though can each player use is response and action seperately? so they can all benefit from the secrecy 1.

I have used this guy in a deck, crazy at that might seem, back when Zigil Miner gave more money depending on the cost of the dumped cards. In that case Brok being the most expensive card in the game (tied with Beorn) was actually a bonus since I never planned to actually put him into play anyway. Now that Zigil Miner gains no benefit from expensive cards, Brok Ironfist is just binder fodder.

The idea of using him with Helm of Secrecy as some others have noted on this page is an interesting idea. I'm not sure it's worth it, but interesting. I haven't worked with Helm of Secrecy at all, so I am not familiar with the design details involved and therefore I don't know how well Brok Ironfist would fit into that design.

I played in such a way that I also used the compass when there was no location in the staging area to find one of the top 5 cards of the encounter deck (The Hills of Emyn Muil). But it seems to me that you're not allowed to do that... Can someone please give me the rules excerpt with page reference why this is the case?

I decided to play this way because according to the reference manual it says you have to change the game state when playing a card (so it does) and also there is no word “then” between the two sentences so I thought it wasn't mandatory to have a place for the exchange. Thanks for your help :)

This card is very powerful, though few seem to have noticed. The Card Talk podcast people noticed, though they didn't rate it quite as highly as I would. (They rated it an average of 3.25 out of 10, where 1 is best.) Here on RingsDB, no one (until me just now) has posted a single comment on this Smoke and Think page. Someone did post about Smoke and Think over on the Spare Pipe page, but only grouped in with the other two pipe events and not really with any meaningful commentary. My internet search turned up those two as the only places on the whole internet that this card is discussed. Perhaps the lack of attention is because Smoke and Think wasn't printed until the second-to-last adventure pack of the entire LOTR LCG universe, so most people don't even own it.

I completely agree with this quote from the Spare Pipe page: "[Spare Pipe] and Smoke and Think really brought the whole Pipe deck archetype finally together." In fact, I'd say it's an understatement. The sheer resource advantage of Smoke and Think is likely too powerful, assuming you're all-in on the pipe motif. For comparison, look at Gaining Strength and similar cards, which trade card-for-money one-for-one. Even the much-loved Good Meal trades at "only" one-for-two and it comes with significant restrictions (Hobbit hero only, must match sphere). Smoke and Think has no sphere restrictions and trades at one-to-X where X is the cost of the next card you play!

How will we get enough cards to use with this abundance of riches? Good thing we have Old Toby, and while Gandalf needed no more help being awesome (see Sneak Attack, Reinforcements, Vilya, etc.), Smoke and Think gives us yet another way to abuse his power. As one simple example, play Smoke and Think then Gandalf to draw three cards (replace the two spent plus one more card, maybe Smoke Rings) for zero cost, and that's just the enters-play ability, ignoring Gandalf himself helping you out for the rest of that round!

The obvious downside of Smoke and Think (and all the pipe events) is the significant setup and investment required before it achieves greatness. To pull off a free Gandalf you first must have five pipes in play, which is no small thing. Make sure you have cards like Beravor (with a Dúnedain Pipe), Gléowine, Master of the Forge, Daeron's Runes, Deep Knowledge, Heed the Dream, and Old Toby to help bring the pieces together in a reasonable amount of time. Despite the pipe motif being clearly designed for just blue () and green (), if you can manage room for purple () in your lineup, the usual Steward of Gondor and maybe King Under the Mountain (if you're using Dwarf Pipe especially) will also help you accelerate to your payoff.

In summary, even though it seems to have gone unnoticed, Smoke and Think is a secret powerhouse available to those paying attention. Despite its drawbacks, Smoke and Think is my favorite kind of card: big investment for a huge payoff.

Rating: 10 out of 10 from me (with 10 being best)!