The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game

Fantasy Flight Games just announced their new upcoming Lord of the Rings living card game due later this year. We already play their Warhammer LCG and have fallen woefully behind in buying the monthly expansions. I'm still sorting through the over 16,000 vintage Legend of the Five Rings and Legends of the Burning Sands CCG cards a fellow gave me earlier this year, and I keep buying more. I own a few thousand of the Decipher LotR CCG cards but never really played it much for various reasons. The rumors stating that I don't play that LotR CCG because I always lose are patently false! And then there is my Star Trek 2nd Edition CCG collection and binders full of original Star Wars CCG cards and and and.... Well, you get the picture. Do I really need another card game? Are you mad? Of course I do!

Anyway, the brief blurb from the FFG website: "The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game is a cooperative card game that puts 1-2 players (or up to four with two Core Sets!) in control of the most powerful characters and artifacts of Middle-earth. Players will select heroes, gather allies, acquire artifacts, and coordinate their efforts to face Middle-earth’s most dangerous fiends. By cooperating to overcome the obstacles drawn from the encounter deck, you will complete the quest before you and claim victory!
The Core Set includes 216 cards that can be used to assemble a wide variety of decks right out of the box. Included are four perilous scenarios that, along with countless combinations of settings and enemies, offer near-limitless replayability. Additionally, players can build a party from a set of 16 hero cards, and focus their decks on any combination of four distinct spheres of influence: Leadership, Lore, Spirit, and Tactics. Each sphere offer unique benefits to the party, so choose wisely!"
The game is set between The Hobbit and The Fellowship, which is an interesting choice. Nice not to have the iconic LotR characters in the game but still have some favorite faces. Racing to Mount Doom can get old. You can also read more at the ICv2 website here.

And then there is DungeonQuest, the Blood Bowl card game, and so many other great games coming in the next few months! A great time for card and board gaming.