A New Middle-earth Card Game
 

http://store.fantasyflightgames.com/...geLg/MEC01.jpg

Next month (supposedly) Fantasy Flight Games is releasing The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game, the latest in their series of "Living Card Games".
See:
http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/ed...idm=129&esem=1

I was a player/collector of the Middle-earth CCG that Iron Crown Enterprises made in the late '90s, and I was saddened that their license was revoked and given to Decipher who then produced a LotR CCG with photos from the films. [Gag! I much prefer original artwork based on the books!] They in turn lost the license and Tolkien Enterprises (now Middle-earth Enterprises) granted it to Sophisticated Games, the UK counterpart to Fantasy Flight.

Previously they had made the LOTR board game nicely illustrated by John Howe. I'm pleased to see an opportunity for artists to render Middle-earth again and looking forward to these new cards!

Interesting thing indeed. At least good that it does not seem to be a collectible card game, since I don't have to fear being drawn into something again. (I have also been a part of the I.C.E. METW followers and I agree that the fact that they did not get to continue it is one of the greatest losses of the previous century! That was one of the most wonderful games ever seen, and the only card game this far worthy of the title of being a follower of Tolkien's legacy.)

This one looks interesting as much as anything new is interesting - not sure if anything much beyond that. Its cooperative factor reminds me rather a lot about the cooperative LotR board game from several years ago. Well, let's see if mine and its paths cross... I guess that's it.

Well, not exactly. They are planning monthly, 60-card expansions - supplemental adventure/quest packs at $15.95 each. [You can add that to your monthly utility bills.] The first one is about Mirkwood and the Hunt for Gollum. At least there is no need to buy lots of booster packs of random cards in order to get what you need -all sets are fixed.


I loved the game too -especially when Ted Nasmith and John Howe started illustrating for it, but I think the creators were a little too interested in their "Kuduk Lore" and MERP world than with Tolkien's works. While there were Palantiri of Annuminas and Osgiliath items, they didn't offer those sites, and instead we got "The Wind Throne" and "Sarn Goriwing". Also a grave disservice was done to certain characters; Halbarad and Mablung are Dunedain Rangers, but these ICE characters were weaker than hobbits, Bergil or Ioreth and lacked Ranger skill! And they left off big chunks of the map -no Umbar, Rhun, Harad, Forodwaith nor Tol Fuin. Accordance with Tolkien's writing should be priority #1 and I hope Fantasy Flight will give us that.

But that's in fact even worse! I liked collecting the stuff, yes, it got dangerous with the expenses, but that was the whole point: opening the booster and checking what cool unexpected things you got, or on the other hand, saying "Not again! I need to get another one ASAP!" The fact that all the sets are fixed just makes it a, well, normal game expansion.

Of course. But I liked that bit of uncanonicity of putting in a few other things, or had no problem with it. After all, they needed to cover some blank spots on the maps, or come up with some new characters who originate from Khand... er... right. And I believe that if they had continued, they would have eventually published e.g. Annúminas in some future expansion set (and several things unseen elsewhere have already appeared in some "regional expansion promo-packs" or whatever it was, I recall some Durthang or such places). But I concur with the Mablung-and-company-are-losers-stuff, the same actually goes for even more important characters like Éomer (who is less than half as powerful as, say, Boromir). But in the end, I have spent so much time with it that I have forgiven them.

It was fun opening packs (and I opened even more Magic:TG back in the day) but ICE seemed to be going the way of fixed sets at the end with their Balrog expansion. I blew waaay too much money on card games, but this new game gives me a sense of control that I appreciate. I think it will still be fun to open a brand-new set in an evolving game, but I don't have to buy the Hunt for Gollum or any pack if it doesn't appeal to me. I like that.

Oh I didn't mind their expanding of the world at all, I just felt that Tolkien's stuff should have been adapted first in the basic set, and done correctly too. Lorien should be a region, Caras Galadhon a haven site. The White Towers should not be a ruins and lair of wolves (where orcs and undead are keyable), it should be a freehold since it never fell into ruin and was protected and maintained by my Elves at Mithlond!

All these things are fixable if I make alternate versions of characters, of sites and add the missing sites with photoshop and print proxies. And I can extend the the map too, since I just acquired Jo Hartwig's lovely original source map. I'm just wondering whether it's worth the time, when most of my card-playing friends have moved on....:confused: I just recently pulled my cards out of storage after ten+ years and sold off my complete sets. Now I'm not sure what to do with the left-overs....

Once ICE folded, apparently some fans just kept it going anyway and created their own expansions with 1,800 new cards. These are playable online at GCCG.net. Cards like Annuminas are available there, and on a huge map adapted from MERP.

If you go here:
http://www.chrisvos.com/meuk/lackey/...ets/setimages/

and click "Great Worms" or "First Born" you can see some of these new fan-made cards.

That's why I prefer it as Wizardhaven... erm, never mind ;) But the point about e.g. Caras Galadhon, yes, sure. Likewise I didn't like limiting Shire technically to Bag End (even though they have made some of these promo-cards, it still didn't correct the fact that Pippin as much as Merry had Bag End as their home site, and not Great Smials or Bucklebury).

But a note to defend a bit the original map: at least the point of Umbar not being there was simply because it is actually quite far south, and it would force you to resize the map a lot, so that you will have a large part of it covered by sea and desert, and the northern regions very small on the contrary. Also, Umbar or the area around it as a region would probably be accessible only from Harondor or some "Southern Sea" (certainly not just "Mouths of Anduin"), which is not very traveler-friendly. But yes, of course I agree that many other things could have been done better.

I have seen that one, and actually, about a year ago I have tried it. But it is not just the same, it does not feel the same for me: I need to have the actual cards in my hand, it needs to be so that I can touch them and tap them and all :) So in fact, yes (to get back to the original topic of the thread :) ), that would be the one likely reason for me to try the new game.

Umbar isn't really that much further south -see Pauline Bayne's decorated map. She coordinated with Tolkien while he lived so this must be close to correct:

http://tolkiengateway.net/w/images/7...th_(color).jpg

You can see pretty much the same thing in Karen Fontad's ME Atlas.

Just one additional region on the bottom of the map would do it as these folks did on the "Dream Card" map:

http://www.councilofelrond.org/forum...ile.php?id=356

I wouldn't add so many other little regions like they did though. Next to the Umbar region (in the right-corner of the map) could simply be a "Haradwaith" region.

ICE folks realized right away that they had painted themselves into a corner with a limited scope map and so resource cards like "Rhun" and "Forod" were made to compensate, and then they did extend the map slightly eastwards in Lidless Eye so that regions behind Mordor could connect. If they hadn't gone under, I'm willing to bet that they would have eventually released a larger extended map.

The new game doesn't appear to be map-based at all (if that picture of game materials reflects everything in the box), so I wonder how ME is to be navigated... or if that's even necessary.

Well, but I think it actually is far south. Compare the size - if you remove all the small regions, you will end up with a huge chunk of map containing nothing, or, if you implemented your "Haradwaith" idea, then just a couple of huge empty regions. And who will ever go there? I think the ICE had already enough problem with trying to "populate" at least a bit the places like Khand etc. (not sure how many -iag camps could still appear before it would start to become annoying), adding one more remote and empty region is perhaps not worth it. I think they could just as well save "Umbar" with some card akin to the "Forod" you mentioned, e.g. an event that makes you travel from a place in Harondor/Mouths of Anduin/something else following a site path of three wildernesses and a dark-domain or something as nice as that, then you face some automatic-attack and if you get it, you can get four marshalling points or something like that.

Hmm, well that would be a pity. That's another thing I don't like: the fact that there is hardly any game working with map movement: which is ridiculous. How can you travel in M-E without traveling, without actually picking the path you take? (I want to pick my own way to Mount Doom, across Andrast - or Dorwinion, if I want to!) I don't like the games where you just "hover in the void". If this game has a good, interesting and flexible way of moving, I am all for it. If not, then I'm probably going to decide that it's not really worth my attention.

This is roughly my plan:

http://www.freeimagehosting.net/uplo...fe202ead92.jpg

1) Elven Shores should connect to Forochel area. Cirdan sent mariners to rescue Arvedui that way. I wasn't planning to put a site at Tol Fuin, it's just visually-correct.

2) Forodwaith connects Forochel to Withered Heath

3)Rhun connects Iron Hills, Dorwinion, and Horse Plains.
Dorwinion's boundaries connect to the Sea of Rhun coastal sea region as it's supposed to. ICE introduced The Corsairs of Rhun faction so really this sea should not be blacked out.

4) Umbar is a region, with Umbar the City of Corsairs, a site. Near Harad will have a city site from the ICE MERP map.

Why would anyone go down there you ask? For a Hero deck to play high MP factions! In Against the Shadow, ICE started doubling up factions per site, but that means you can only play one or the other there. This way you can play both! For example you can go to the Southron Oasis and play Southrons, then cruise to Harad and play the Haradrim! You can play Black Numenoreans at Gobel Mirlond and then go to Umbar and play Corsairs of Umbar.

Resource space in a deck is at a premium, so cards that attempt to extend the limits of the map are wasteful in my opinion when the map itself can be amended. That's exactly what ICE did. First they made a card named "Harad", then they altered the southeast corner of the map connecting regions behind Mordor and made their Harad resource redundant. No one ever plays with such cards anyway, because there are always better resources to select. I'm just continuing their trend.

Yeah if the new game is mapless or sucks, I won't play it, but if it's artistically appealing, I'll probably collect it because I enjoy looking at Middle-earth.