Lord of the Rings LCG: Revised Core Set

This game was released in its original form way back in 2011 and has built an immense fan-base and spawned some incredible on-line resources and superb fan-made material. Somehow, it slipped under the radar in my relentless search for co-operative games for my wife and I to enjoy so we are very late to the party. The original two player game had a bewildering array of expansions, although, obviously there is plenty of superb content out there explaining them and their chronology etc. but most of them are now out of print and many now highly sought-after. Fantasy Flight Games released this revised four player core set in 2022 and have combined & repackaged some of the original expansions into new expansions. The game has the reputation for being one of the most thematic, highly co-operative and replay-able games ever produced so we absolutely had to give it a try – I obsessively read all of Tolkien’s work as a teen back in the 70’s and while my splendid wife struggled to get in the LoTR books (the first hundred pages of The Fellowship are very heavy going), she thoroughly enjoys the films. On opening the box there was the usual pile of tokens to punch-out and four big packs of cards. Sorting these into the various component piles was not easy – it would have been better if each set of cards had been individually packaged – but I suppose it’s part of the new-game bewilderment experience. The only minor gripe is that there are no grip-lock bags provided for the tokens or dividers for the card components – the former is easily solved and there are plenty of excellent fan-made dividers available for download on BoardGameGeek. There is plenty of room in the box for the storage of cards added from expansions. The card artwork is beautiful and highly evocative of the LoTR theme but some of the type and fonts are quite hard to read although they are manageable with my usual +1.5 reading glasses. We worked our way through the initial setup then, as usual, had a look on You-Tube in the hope that the great Rodney Smith had done one of his splendid how-to-play sessions. Sadly not; just a very old one for the original game. However, the first part of ‘The Gamelocker’ set was pretty informative (we got lost on the second one). Duly prepared, we set to playing the initial training scenario, working through the ‘Learn To Play’ guide with hope in our hearts and the usual big-new-game rule overload in our heads. I’m not going to detail the mechanics or turn sequence as there are seven phases, each with several sub-phases but fortunately the rulebooks are good and the turn sequence is very clearly defined and, thankfully, there is none of that awful variable goodie/baddie turn order shenanigans. I will attempt to do a very high-level summary just to give a hint of flavour: . Each player controls a number of mostly familiar heroes and has a shuffled deck of cards containing allies and weapons etc. from which a hand is drawn. There is a scenario comprised of a number of quests to be completed in order. An encounter deck contains all of the enemy nasties to be defeated and locations to be traversed. . Each round, players draw from their deck and may play & pay for cards from their hand. Nasty encounter cards are drawn. Each player then decides which characters (heroes & allies) will attempt to further the quest, which ones will defend against enemy attacks and which ones will attack the enemies. Each hero can usually only be assigned to a single task. Questing and combat are simple to resolve based upon the properties printed on hero, ally and encounter cards. The above is a gross oversimplification of the gameplay; at the moment there is much reading through the aforementioned guide and there is a lot of co-operative tactical and strategic discussion which, for us, makes the game a pleasure to play. The more familiar we become with the mechanics the less time will be spent reading through the detailed phase narratives so we’ll be able to use the excellent condensed flow-charts in the Rules Reference. This core set also includes the option to play the three scenarios as a continuous campaign which looks interesting and there is also a means of reducing the game difficulty (very handy at the moment). Despite some silly noob mistakes, we completed the first scenario reasonable easily and decided to play the next scenario with the recommended two sphere player decks (there are four spheres of influence (leadership, tactics, lore & spirit) into which hero and player cards are organised). This was a lot more difficult than the first scenario using the single sphere decks and we were very unlucky with the first two encounter cards drawn but we muddled through. I usually like to play a game a fair number of times before finalising a review, but this game is something special so this review is definitely a ‘first impressions’ rather than a full ‘in depth’ effort. We are beginning to see, from a vast distance, that the real depth and beauty of the game lies in the nuance of player deckbuilding, perhaps even more so in non-solo play, building synergies between the respective player decks to form a truly cohesive and co-operative Fellowship. The three scenarios included with the core set are just an introduction to the larger game; the replay-ability lies for the most part in the opportunity to experiment with deckbuilding in a fairly simple gaming environment (although the third scenario is reportedly quite difficult). The game will really come to life when (not ‘if’) we gradually add the expansions for more characters and scenarios that can only make an already great base game even better. Rulebook: 9/10 Complexity: 9/10 Component quality: 10/10 Replay-ability: 7/10 Gameplay pace: 8/10

Excellent game, lots to learn and can be played many times

Takes a little time to learn and figure out the best way to play, but once you do, it's great. Lots of replayability and expansions that can be bought separately to further enhance game play

Good reprint of the core Great game that gets better as it progresses

The mechanics are simpler than most games I’ve played especially with the updated version As long as you source the cards to the The different faction of the hero into your deck you can play multiple factions, but only on that hero. It’s a fantastic game. Worth the money