The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game

2011
Nate French
BGG Geek Rating
7.4
based on 24,878 ratings
BGG Average Rating
7.7
community average
BGG Ranking
#182
all board games
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Players
1-2
Weight
3.22/5.00
Playtime
60 min
Age
13+
🎮

Play Online

Available on multiple platforms

Steam

⚙️ Game Mechanics

How this game works - core systems and player actions

Variable Set-up Events Cooperative Game Hand Management Scenario / Mission / Campaign Game Solo / Solitaire Game Deck Construction Player Elimination

📂 Categories

Novel-based Adventure Card Game Fantasy Novel-based Collectible Components

🎨 Artists

Alexandr Shaldin Alexandru Sabo Amanda Sartor Andrew Olson Angela Sung Anna Christenson Ben Zweifel Christopher Hosch Daarken Daryl Mandryk David Auden Nash David Horne David Lecossu Dominik Kasprzycki Drew Whitmore Erfian Asafat Even Mehl Amundsen Florian Stitz Frank Walls Fredrik Tyskerud Gabrielle Portal Henning Ludvigsen Igor Kieryluk Ijur Jason Ward Jeff Himmelman Jen Zee John Stanko John Wigley Katherine Dinger Kaya Kevin Childress Kristina Gehrmann Leonardo Borazio Lius Lasahido Loren Fetterman Lucas Graciano Magali Villeneuve Marc Scheff Marco Caradonna Margaret Hardy Mark Winters Mathias Kollros Matthew Starbuck Mike Nash Nicholas Cloister Nikolay Stoyanov Noah Bradley Rio Sabda Ryan Barger Sandara Tang Santiago Villa Sara Biddle Soul Core Tiziano Baracchi Tom Garden Tony Foti West Clendinning WiL Springer Winona Nelson Yoann Boissonnet

🏢 Publishers

ADC Blackfire Entertainment Edge Entertainment Fantasy Flight Games Galakta Galápagos Jogos Game Harbor Giochi Uniti Heidelberger Spieleverlag Stratelibri

📖 About This Game

The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game is a cooperative adventure game in which the players attempt to complete a scenario, each with up to three heroes of their choice and a deck of allies, events and attachments to support them. Each round, players send their heroes and allies to quest or to fight with enemies that engage them. However, as the heroes and allies exhaust after questing, defending, or attacking, the players' options are typically insufficient to deal with everything at once. Therefore, players need to determine whether it is more urgent to quest and make progress in the scenario while the enemy forces gain power, or to take down enemies while making no progress, not knowing what will come next. The core set contains three scenarios, twelve famous heroes from the works of J.R.R. Tolkien (including Aragorn, Legolas, Gimli, Denethor, and Éowyn), and four pre-constructed player decks. Players can either use one of these decks or construct their own deck to increase their chances of success and to explore new strategies. Additionally, The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game is a Living Card Game with over ten years of content, and much of its content has been re-released in the form of Campaign and Hero Expansions. Campaign Expansions contain new scenarios for players to embark upon, and Hero Expansions contain new heroes and new cards for players to use in their decks. (Older products include Deluxe Expansions, each containing two heroes, three quests and a medium-sized number of new player cards, and Adventure Packs, each containing one hero, one quest that continues the story started in a Deluxe Expansion and a small number of new player cards.) Although this game is set in Tolkien's Middle-earth, most scenarios in the game do not represent scenes from The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings; rather, they are set in the seventeen years from Bilbo's 111th birthday until Frodo's departure from the Shire, allowing players to create their own stories and adventures in Middle-earth. Scenarios from the game's Saga Expansions do follow the events of the books, and can be played not only individually but also together in sequence as a campaign, with lasting consequences from game to game arising from the players' actions and decisions.