Have you read and re-read the novels, seen and re-read the movies, and can’t wait for the series? Be patient while playing Lord of the Rings, the card gameour board game of the week.
The Lord of the Rings, the card game, is a “JCE”, an “Evolving Card Game”. Like with Magic, we regularly buy extensions to renew the game, but unlike the latter, in which the content of the packages is random, we know exactly what we receive. And no need to buy the same one several times, each one contains exactly what you need.
It is a cooperative game, in which players try to overcome together the challenges offered by the different scenarios. These can be played independently, or linked together in a campaign, where the outcome of one game affects the next. And rather than simply repeating the known stories of Tolkien’s work, the game offers to live original ones, drawing from all the folklore of Middle-earth.
Each player starts the game with one to three heroes (Aragorn, Legolas, Éowin, for example), and has their own deck of cards, including allies, equipment, etc. They fight against the chosen scenario, also represented by a deck of cards, containing enemies, places and other dangers preventing you from completing your quest.
The basic box offers three scenarios, with increasing difficulty. The first asks you to travel through Mirkwood to deliver a message to Galadriel. In the second, a direct continuation of the previous one, you travel along the banks of the Anduin river, towards Lórien. In the last finally, you must save one of your companions, taken prisoner while you explore the surroundings of Dol Guldur. Each scenario offers different content, specific rules, and a specific way of approaching the game.
The rounds are broken down into several phases. Each hero begins by receiving a resource, which players can then spend to play cards from their hand. Then we decide which of our characters go on a quest. This allows you to fight against the threats sent by Sauron, and to advance in the different stages of the scenario.
But a character engaged in a quest will no longer be able to defend against enemy attacks or retaliate to attack them in turn. Indeed, each action requires the character to be tilted, and a tilted character can no longer undertake anything before being straightened, at the end of the turn.
Enemies aren’t the only dangers players face. The places to cross are also. And you usually have to travel there to get rid of them, but it takes time and delays the resolution of quests.
Either way, the threat of Sauron grows inexorably. Each player has an individual counter, the starting value of which depends on the chosen heroes (usually between 20 and 30). It can increase depending on the cards you play and those you draw from the scenario deck, and, whatever happens, it increases at the end of each round. If a player’s threat reaches 50, they are eliminated. Same sentence if all his heroes die. And when the last player is eliminated, it’s a loss. The only way to win is to complete the last quest step of the scenario.
The game being very rich, we do not prefer to go into a boring detail of the rules. But many tutorials are available on YouTube to get an idea.
Why play Lord of the Rings, the card game ?
The Lord of the Rings, the card game is not a recent game, as it was first released in 2011, followed by dozens of expansions over the years. We take advantage of its reissue at the beginning of the year to present it to you. The latter has two major advantages.
The biggest criticism made of the old version of the basic box concerned its content: there were not enough cards to play with more than two players (even with two we found ourselves a little restricted), and there were needed several to have a complete collection. This error has now been corrected, and the new version has a sufficient number of copies of each card.
Also, the impressive number of extensions published, and the break in store of many of them, made access to the game difficult for newcomers.
We therefore start from scratch with this revised edition, and it is clear that the game has not aged a bit. It is therefore particularly suitable for people who do not yet know the game. If you already have the old box and its extensions, you can go your way.
Even if we really liked the game of figurines, it was clear that it was not sufficiently anchored in the universe of the license. Quite the opposite of the card game. Here, we really live the adventures, in the skin of the heroes. Each scenario manages to offer new ways to play, to renew itself compared to the previous ones, by presenting different and original situations and threats.
Obviously, to achieve this, there are many rules. But the reading of the booklet is fluid, even if it is consequent (about thirty pages). A reference guide is also included, to answer any questions you may have. The first part will require some back and forth in the rules, but you should be almost autonomous for the next one.
A word of warning, however: if you are as hooked on gambling as we are, you will be regularly tempted to put your hand in the wallet. The previous edition had dozens of extensions. The revised edition already offers one, a scenario directly following those of the base box. Four others are already announced, with new heroes and maps (elves, dwarves, Rohan, Gondor). It is obviously possible to replay each scenario several times, changing its heroes and its cards, but it is obviously very tempting to discover new ones.
The Lord of the Rings, the card game, is undoubtedly one of the board games that best exploits Tolkien’s work. Superbly illustrated, it offers rich and deep adventures, once its rules have been digested. It is played perfectly alone or in pairs, moreover the parts remain pleasant, but stretch a little in length. And if the revised edition follows the same path as the previous one, its renewal is guaranteed, if you are ready to invest yourself in it.
- The Lord of the Rings, the card game is a game by Nate French
- Published by Fantasy Flight Games
- For 1 to 4 players from 14 years old
- For games of about 30 minutes per player
- Priced at €54.95 at Philibert
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