Designer: Nate French

Final Score:  (4.25 out 5 Stars)

Of all the games to make my collection Lord of the Rings the card game might quite possibly be the least likely candidate I could imagine. For one it’s a cooperative game, my least favorite of all table top game genres typically. Secondly it’s a pure card game which is usually not my thing, again generally not always and it’s a collectable card game which is definitely not my thing pretty much always. So how does a game like Lord of the Rings even get a chance from me let alone meet the stringent requirements of my personal collection given it has everything working against it? It’s a long story, but that is what this review and coincidently what the Lord of the Rings the card game is all about.

Overview

Lord of the Rings the card game by famed card game designer Nate French can be described as a thematic, progressive collectable card game with a focus on challenging puzzles in the form of quests, challenges that are met through optimized deck building and clever problem solving during game play. Now that is one boring way to describe it, alternatively one can say it’s a card game that lets you play out the entirety of the Lord of the Rings fairy tale by J.R.R Tolkien, and then some, quite possibly one of the most epic fantasy stories ever told through an ever mounting series of mini adventures and expansions.

In Lord of the Rings you build decks around a small group of hero cards that will be the key resources for your group as they take on the adventures right out of the middle earth storylines. You will do everything you might expect from searching for Gollum, escaping Nazguls, fighting at Helm’s deep or facing Sauron in the two towers. Each game of Lord of the Rings consists of taking on a quest, typically as part of a series of quests that achieves one of the core story elements from the book, expanded universe or just the creative minds at FFG. For example in the first adventure series “Shadows of Mirkwood” players are tasked with finding Gollum over the course of six separate adventure packs. Each adventure pack is a separate purchase (of course), hence the collecting, but in addition to providing you with a new quest and quest encounters, you gain new cards for deck building that are thematically linked to the adventure.

The main difference with Lord of the Rings the Card game and other Living card games from fantasy flight is that it’s purely cooperative but more importantly it can be played solo without losing any of the quality of a multiplayer game.

The game was originally released in 2011 and I actually had an opportunity to try it way back then. I recall noting it was interesting with potential but really needed to be expanded. Well, expanded it has been, in fact it may be one of the most expanded products in the FFG lineup at this point, there is tons of content for this game and its popularity has steadily grown since its humble beginnings. The only question now is whether it’s a game for you.

Components

Verdict:
Tilt: 

Pros: The art work is absolutely stunning and consistent, card and component quality is everything you expect from FFG, top notch.

Cons: The core set is a bit light on content, you get just enough to capture your interest but not enough to maintain it, expansion is necessary and fairly expensive.

Take a visual franchise like Lord of the Rings and put it to a company with a near perfect reputation for producing amazing components for games, especially card games and it should come to the surprise of no one that Lord of the Rings the card game components are the highest of quality. Visually the games novelized artwork could have a museum of its own, it’s nothing short of stunning, as is the case with all of the living card games FFG produces. Each card has the appearance of an oil painting, meticulously created to bring it to life. It’s an amazing achievement that FFG is able to maintain such high quality of art work over the course of such an expansive game with so many cards. In fact, I find it mind boggling that anyone can do it with any game, I don’t think people realize how difficult and time consuming this is to do until you actually try to design a game of your own. It’s clearly a big investment on FFG’s part to produce this game and it may explain their dedication and support of it long term.

If there is anything to complain about it’s the fact that the game is spread out across dozens of expansions that nickel and dime you to death to gain access, but such is the nature of collectable games. Fortunately with the Living Card Game concept you go into knowing you will never have to buy more than one of anything. You’re not getting abused by the randomness of booster packs, instead with each adventure pack you get everything you ever need from the pack. While each expansion is very reasonably priced for today’s standard, if you’re a completionist be ready to spend hundreds of dollars and continue to spend money regularly to keep up. At some point the game will probably see it’s end of life but even at this point to buy everything you are talking some serious dough.

Theme

Verdict:
Tilt: 

Pros: From evolving campaign arcs to mini stories, from the amazing art to the clever mechanics the Lord of the Rings theme is vibrant.

Cons:  To really get the full sense of the thematic nature and continuity of the games ongoing story you must expand your set.

Lord of the Rings is one of those franchises that would be hard to screw up thematically but in my humble opinion most card games, despite having unique artwork on hundreds of cards usually fail to capture themes. Art work is a fantastic start to present a theme, but for a game to feel thematic it needs to have gameplay that is reflective and immersive, especially for a card game which can feel so benign. You really need something that draws you into the theme and urges you to read and explore the game capturing your imagination.

Thankfully Lord of the Rings the card game does exactly that. Theme really shines in two separate but connected forms here. First, it’s the episodic nature of adventures that take on the form of quests with unique challenges suited to the story it’s portraying, something consistently done throughout the expansions, adventure packs and saga adventures. Each quest is a story and to resolve it, to overcome the challenge, there is some unique mechanic or element that drives it you must leverage or overcome through clever deck building and play. Whether it’s defeating an iconic enemy like a Hill Troll, or tracking down the famed Gollum, every quest in the various adventure packs is unique in some way. Which drives the second part of the games theme, continuity and progression.

There is a sense as you play through different adventure cycles and expansion packs that urges you to play on to see if you can take the next step, and the next. One is a connection to the latter, you move forward through the story and progress through the game as you develop an addiction for it. If you like the game you’ll find that common pull towards buying more of it as you would with CCG’s but it’s not because you are collecting but rather you want to progress your game to the next stage of the games timeline thanks to the wonderful theme and chaining of adventure stories.

The introduction of Saga expansions and campaign mode have in particular done wonders for this games theme driving the bigger more epic moments of the books more directly. You can play out the hobbit saga or the classic Lord of the Rings Saga and as of this writing they are still continually producing side quests, adventure cycles and deluxe expansions in addition to the continued support to complete the main Saga.

Simply put the theming here is fantastic and well supported. Whether or not that theme really comes through in the card play is always a question of how you see things. For me personally when I play a card game, in particular a deck builder, my focus really narrows down to abilities on the cards and strategy of play rather than theme. It’s there, the connection of characters and abilities, quests and mechanics all drive the game. The relevance of the theme however in the case of Lord of the Rings is more about the progressions of the quests and the story’s behind the various packs and expansions. If you follow along, play them sequentially there is a lot of fun story to work through. During play though you are likely to be bunkering down on the mechanics and focusing on winning rather than drawing some element of story out of the game.

There are of course periodic movie moments, in particular if you theme your deck to the quest your running and that is something players do for fun. Typically though you build decks and make decisions to win rather than for theme.

Gameplay

Verdict:
Tilt: 

Pros: Easy to learn, impossible to master, LotR LCG offers creative challenges and addictive gameplay.

Cons:  The core set challenges are bi-polar ranging from introductory adventure to near impossible to defeat quests.  Makes for a poor introduction.

Lord of the Rings the card game is a unique card game because of its cooperative play, but for me personally this would have normally been a major strike against it. Simply put, I don’t like most cooperative games, in fact, after 20 years of playing and collecting board games I have a grand total of one cooperative game on my shelf beside this one (Fury of Dracula). Typically what I don’t like about cooperative games is that they are usually fairly scripted, a script written by the player who has the greatest knowledge of the game. Often referred to as Alpha gaming, most cooperative games are basically single player games that people play together, making decisions together, and effectively acting as one. I HATE that.

Thankfully this simply does not exist in Lord of the Rings the card game, in fact, most of the cooperation of the game takes place before you actually start playing during deck building. What takes place during the game is cooperation with minimal information, so you make decisions together about what’s on the board but you don’t really know for certain what people are holding in their hand and since you’re not allowed to talk about it by the rules, Alpha gaming is severely hindered.

The core cooperation really happens when players must construct decks in preparation for the adventure and here you build the synergies, make tactical decisions and strategy of your combined effort. Once the game starts however, everyone is kind of on their own. There is little help you can get in making decisions during the game because no one knows what cards you have and no one is allowed to know. So while you have built synergies into your decks and can assist each other through card play, when and how they are executed is something that happens dynamically by individual choice.

For me personally though I love Lord of the Rings for the fact that it can be played solo and in a big way it’s why it got a second chance with me. Good solo games are hard… one might say nearly impossible to find. In particular thematic games that offer a real challenge in the long term and don’t lose anything because you don’t play it with other people. Lord of the Rings however is as fun to play with a friend or two as it is to play alone. It’s very portable as well which is great for a working/traveling stiff like me who spends a lot of time on trains/planes and hotel rooms.

Now how is the gameplay? Well to summarize, this game is hard as fuck. Not hard to learn, not hard to play, but hard to win. This is a game made for veteran card players looking for a true challenge and while that doesn’t speak to me directly, what I do like about card games is a semblance of balance. Not necessarily as a game but a type of balance where there are no “useless” cards and there is no counter building, rather every card has a purpose and when leveraged in the right synergy can be game changing and Lord of the Rings has that in spades. Every card is meticulously thought out and combinable in a variety of ways and discovering how to use cards is a big part of the fun. Really, it’s a requirement because each new quest brings new challenges that will require you to go back to your card pool and look for cards that can help you. Coming up with clever ways to defeat quests that often seem simply impossible is part of the challenge of this game.

 

It’s just a perfect fit despite my general genre and game style objections because I love to find a game I can’t beat and have to think and fiddle with it to try and figure it out. I love it when a game occupies my brain space, I find a great deal of satisfaction in solving a good puzzle and I love it when a victory is well deserved. The fact that a game that does that turned out to be a cooperative, collectible card game is weird, but I can’t deny the strength of the game. It’s icing on the cake with Lord of the Rings that when you finally figure out that quest and beat it, there is a hundred more quest puzzles to solve waiting to challenge you.

Lord of the Rings the card game gameplay is a relatively simple fair even though it has some complexity in how the phases break down. In short during play you will be committing characters and allies you have put into play to either quests or to fighting. While each quest goal is a unique puzzle to solve, the games challenges are always dynamic as the encounter decks, a blending of different challenges, is constructed for each specific quest but resolved in a random sequence each time you play. For example one quest might be to simply produce progress tokens and defeat a specific enemy at the end. However the encounter deck will be constructed from certain location and monster decks, so what you actually face will vary from game to game as well as the order, creating unique obstructions to the default quest. It’s really all about manipulation, judgement calls and timing during play, but the resources you bring with you are the key. As such, it’s as big part of the game to prepare, aka, deck building as it is to actually play the game.

The game sequence is important as each decision is a commitment of resources without knowing what unique elements might arise in the next sequence. So you might commit two of your heroes to questing, only to discover that the encounter deck produced two monsters that will attack that round, now your short a hero and will suffer for it. Alternatively if you don’t commit the heroes you might end up increasing your threat levels, the sort of game timer that will cause you to lose after you reach a certain point. The end result is trying to prepare for the unexpected, choosing which cards to play now, which to save, which heroes and allies to commit to which task and of course to a degree gambling a little on the limited knowledge you have about each different encounter deck a particular quest might have. The wonderful thing is that there is a card for every problem and as such again, building a deck to compensate for each hurdle is the key. Naturally you can’t prepare for everything but through clever deck building you can successfully complete even the most impossible quests.

In essence your deck is your main resource for overcoming quests and challenges, you only have what you bring with you. Hence playing a quest for the first time is especially tough, but once you have lost to it two or three times, you’re going to go back to deck building to try to create a combination of heroes, allies, weapons and event cards that will allow you to succeed. Typically most quests you will be able to unravel after a half a dozen or so plays, for the real tough ones it might take you more or less and in some cases quests remain challenging no matter how many times you play them regardless of deck building because of the many dynamic elements in the often tough encounter decks. It’s also worth noting that if you play the game progressively, meaning you play each adventure pack in order and with the cards available to you up to that point, the game is considerably more fun and challenging as you have to work with resources limited to what is available to you in your card pool. It typically gets easier to beat old quests if you use cards from further down the release chain. So for example beating the first adventure cycle using the second adventure cycles cards is going to be much easier than using only cards from the adventure cycle you’re playing in or even tougher if you only use cards from the core set and up to the adventure cycle of the specific adventure.

At the core of gameplay in Lord of the Rings the card game is discovery, learning about what challenges are in a quest then trying to create a deck that can beat it.

The end result is a game of making decision before and during play, tough ones. It’s a game that will continually surprise you and cause you to re-think and adapt both during play and during deck building.

Game-play in Lord of the Rings the card game is challenging, progressive and very thinky as such It’s not something everyone will appreciate, I really do think it caters more to the hardcore gamer crowd that really likes a deep challenge, which fits me just fine, but casual gamers will probably feel overwhelmed and frustrated with the difficulty level.

There are some pretty sizeable gameplay concerns which I think might turn off a lot of people. For starters, the core set while absolutely necessary, is probably the weakest thing in the game, at least that will be a typical observation. Many reviews reflect this, often referring to the 3 core quests and player cards you get as unbalanced and impossible to beat. The thing is that, this is simply not true. When you approach in particular the 2nd and 3rd quests, they are really going to challenge you and they are in fact very tough to beat but with experience and clever deck building these challenge can be overcome pretty consistently using nothing but the core set cards. It’s something however you will discover long after it frustrates the shit out of you and if you judge the game purely on those early experiences the result is the common consensus about balance issues in the core set most reviewers will mention.

That said I do agree that perhaps the core set should have been made more approachable, in particular when you consider that the first cycle of quest revert considerably. The first expansion in the Mirkwood cycle “The Hung For Gollum” for example is easier then all three of the quests in the core set. It almost feels like a step back in difficulty of the game globally. Then things get more difficult as you progress. Suffice to say I’m not going to invalid the complaints about the core set other than to say as you become more experienced with the game you will learn to appreciate having quests that are in fact very challenging rather than a bunch of freebies that you can beat with your eyes closed.

As for deck building with the core set, there is some to be had, but deck building doesn’t really emerge fully until you get a few adventure packs so the game feels a bit narrow and closed with just the core set In terms of what you can do with it. Expanding the game in the end is vital to get the full effect of the gameplay, without it, as a core set deck building in Lord of the Rings the card game runs out of steam pretty quickly.

That said, it’s a foregone conclusion that if you are going to pick up the core set you will buy expanded content and really I would say unless you’re ready to at least purchase the first adventure cycle you can probably skip the game all together. The core set alone does not carry gameplay or give you enough value if that is all you plan to buy. It’s at best an awkward introduction to the game and it will hit and miss with people for that, but the truth is that for a first time introduction I much rather use the first quest of the first adventure cycle than anything that comes in the core set. The Hunt for Gollum is a really great quest to learn with and its difficulty is very manageable.

All and all though I find Lord of the Rings gameplay to be fantastic and I highly recommend it if you are a gamer looking for a good solo game in particular, this really is the best I have played in years. I would also recommend it for Lord of the Rings fans, or fans of cooperative games but be advised that this is a very gamy game, so it’s not something that falls anywhere near the casual arena of games. It would be tough to bring it to a gaming group and say “let’s play” because without deck building the game’s difficulty ramps up considerably, in particular in the core set and teaching someone to play and then promptly asking them to build a deck is asking a bit much of your gaming group. As such the game is a bit less approachable and that’s definitely a strike against it. The core set really should have focused more on making itself casual player friendly to make it easier on fans to introduce it to their gaming group. That said I think most gaming groups that get together regularly won’t find this to be much of an issue.

Replay ability and Longevity

Verdict:
Tilt: 

Pros: The game has incredible support from FFG with tons of expandable content for you to choose from.

Cons: Replay ability hinges on you expanding your set which can get expensive.

When it comes to replayability Lord of the Rings really hinges on expanding the game. There is definitely some fun to be had with the core set, but given it’s price tag and limited deck building options, I think most gamers will find it runs out of steam pretty fast. Thankfully there is plenty to expand your game with and the content really gets better and better as you progress through the different expansion packs. More importantly though is as you expand the game it opens up new doorways to old quests that you might have trouble with. So as you expand, going back to old content becomes as interesting as starting with the new stuff. There are also a lot of really fun quests in there and everyone will eventually find their favorites that they love to re-play. For example for me The Murder at the Prancing pony is one of the best quests, a stand-alone expansion that I’m happy to replay over and over again. In fact, if you buy no expansions ever, get The Murder at the Prancing Pony because this quest alone is almost a self-contained game worthy of owning Lord of the Rings the Card Game. I personally think it should have been included in the core set, as it is newbie friendly, has some clever mechanics and manages to be fairly challenging but not impossible. It’s really fantastic

There are also many different ways to play the game and as such I think there is a lot of replay ability there. For example trying to beat an entire adventure cycle with the same three heroes, or with the same deck can be a lot of fun. For a real challenge you can link all the quests together into one long game and of course there is the campaign mode introduced in the Saga expansions and nightmare mode.

As far as replay ability goes I think Lord of the Rings has plenty, but you won’ get it out of the core set in the long run alone and for this reason this score hinges on the assumption that you are going to expand your game. If you don’t mind spending on a collectable game though which is of course the intention of Lord of the Rings the card game, there is a tremendous amount of content to keep you going indefinitely.

Conclusion

Lord of the Rings The Card game as far as I’m concerned is a hit and a big surprise to me because I would not have expected to like it as much as I do. It’s relatively simple to teach but difficult to master, it offers a wide variety of challenges both as a deck builder and as a game and it has a great adventure theme that any proper gaming nerd can get behind. I would highly recommend it if you love challenging deck builders and cooperative games and if you are looking for a solid solo game. As a Lord of the Rings fan I think you need to be careful because while your favorite theme is here, it’s really important that you like the genre and game play style here, the theme while fantastic and present in the game is not the core of the game. It’s not a story game despite all the questing and adventure, it’s a pretty tough deck building game.

I don’t think I would recommend this game to casual players. I think the games difficulty is too high for casual players and they will likely find themselves playing a frustratingly difficult game they always lose. It really requires out of game thought, some personal commitment to understand and study the game to have a chance to win a few games.  In addition, if you stop collecting at the Core Set, I think you will be disappointed, the core set is a beat shallow on content and oddly bi-polar in it’s difficulty range.  For casuals I think this will be a much bigger problem then for card game veterans.

I think it’s a fantastic cooperative game but I think most cooperative gaming is by design created to be a lot more cooperative than this one. What I mean is that, for most games of Lord of the Rings while you can help each other out a bit, it really is a game about making your own decisions. Alpha gamers will be very frustrated with this game as helping someone make a decision is extremely difficult if you don’t know what cards they are holding and often what appears to be a big mistake is actually a good play because of the cards they are holding. So someone will often take an action and it’s like “oh shit you just lost the game for us”, then suddenly they whip out a card and you realize. “ah.. great move”. After a while you just realize with this game that you have to let people make their plays and sort of build up a cooperative trust.

This is a fantastic element of the game, but debunks a bit of that cooperative part.

Needless to say I have developed quite an affection for Lord of the Rings, I find myself playing it quite often and if this continues this will probably end up being one of my most played games of the year. I got into it kind of late, but I actually kind of love the idea that there is tons of content already available and I can pick and choose as my leisure. All of the expansions released today are still in print and available and FFG continues to release new ones.