Codenames 10

[rho21]

Wormtongue is a Lord of the Rings character. The Potter thing is speaking to snakes, which feels a bit far removed.
Could be Key, as they feature prominently in the series.

I think the helicopter you were thinking of is the Blackhawk.

[T-hawk]

I was thinking of WormTAIL for Potter, not WormTONGUE.

We could have survived a guess in the previous round on Helicopter anyway (if it was neutral) and would have picked up Face afterwards on the unlimited clue.

[Old Harry]

All are Red
Red wins!

Does anyone want to take a guess at the other two I was trying to clue in before the board is revealed?

I want to know what your last word would have been...

As I said by a process of elimination I'd go for GAS, but no idea for the second word.

[ReallyEvilMuffin]

Peter pettigrew aka Wormtail is what t hawk is thinking of I think

[pjabrony]

Last clue would be Malware 2

[Old Harry]

WORM, DISEASE, GAS?

[pjabrony]

Here are the answers, spoiled.

GAS is Blue, and it was the fourth clue I was going for with Fastball. I knew I had two Brits, but I was hoping that one of the two Yanks would know that when a pitcher has a good fastball, commenters will say he's throwing gas.

Hermione was, in retrospect, a bad clue. I was too focused on defining WITCH, and not associating with WITCH. Hogwarts would have been a better clue because you wouldn't have gotten caught in DRESS (the assassin), though WALL/TRUNK would still have been a problem.

But no one even considered the fact that if I was linking WITCH and KID, that I could have gone with Sabrina or Tabitha or Mildred, but that Hermione was specifically a KID WITCH from EUROPE.

I was also hoping that with Material 0 I would steer you away from all material objects toward conceptual ones, which would lead you to CRASH and possibly back to EUROPE.

If all had gone well with those two, then Malware 2 should have led you to CRASH and WORM.

[T-hawk]

Hermione 2 would've been a fine clue, it was only stretching to 3 that got you into trouble with three wrong answers that were stronger than the right one. That can even work if the wrong ones are gray, but not if they're enemy/assassin. At that point you have to abandon that triple and look for other groupings.

Fastball 4 was a great clue (and I'd even have guessed Kid next on Fastball 5), but yeah the rest of it was hard to group together. You might have had a fourth turn though; we didn't have a good board to finish in three either without the gifts from blue.

[Old Harry]

Once WALL showed up red then I started thinking all material objects, but even then didn't see the wood for the trees.

Living in the UK I don't think I'd ever link Hermione with living in EUROPE - partly lack of context (dunno most of your teenage witches) and partly because we kinda think of Europe as being somewhere else anyway.

GG everyone - I enjoyed hugely in spite of the awful pasting...

[pjabrony]

CRASH	STRIKE	DRESS	WALL	TRUNK
CLUB	EUROPE	POLE	LEMON	MOUSE
JUPITER	STADIUM	WORM	HONEY	TOKYO
WITCH	FACE	KEY	DIAMOND	BERLIN
HELICOPTER	GAS	WASHER	DISEASE	KID