Lord of the Rings: The Card Game

  One of My All Time Favorites

Joseph F of Oregon, 9/25/2013

I adore this game. It is so good. But probably not for everyone. :)
This is a cooperative living card game. This core set supports 1-4 players. Players play as heroes from the Tolkien universe trying to accomplish quests or tasks while the "encounter deck" throws difficulties at them in the form of enemies to defeat, locations to explore, and treacheries to endure. There are three quests in the core box here, ranging from the easy introductory quest, to quite difficult scenarios.
Each player usually controls three "heroes," then plays from a deck of cards which you can either use the ready built decks in the box, or modify them and build decks with all your favorite characters in them. Deck-building can be a very enjoyable part of the game (if you like that sort of thing). From you deck you will draw more characters to you join you as allies, items like swords, axes, armor etc to buff up your heroes, and actions cards to help you navigate the unpleasantness the encounter deck pushes your way.
On the down side, since this is a living card game and they release expansion packs of cards every month or so, they saved a lot of the good stuff for the expansions. So you can't play as some of your favorite characters. Included in the base set are Aragorn, Gimli, Theodred, Eowyn, Gloin, Legolas, Dunere, Denethor, Glorfindel, and a couple other heroes that are made up. Allies include Beorn, Faramir, Gandalf, among other specific and generic characters. but you can't put together the whole Fellowship of nine unless you invest in a bunch of the expansions. :P But its still fun!
While this base set it a little limited, there is still tons of room for customizing your deck and approaching the quests in different ways, plus there's opportunity to expand the game through expansions if you really like it! One of my all-time favorites.