Lord of the Rings: The Card Game – Expansions Add So Much

Asmodee Canada and Fantasy Flight Games sent over a copy of The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game prior to the holiday break, and my father-in-law and I quickly played through all the scenarios in the box using the pre-established decks suggested in the Learn to Play guide.

My father-in-law enjoyed it so much, he went out and spent big on expansions for this game, and after over a dozen hours of play, I cannot recommend this game enough.

There are two types of Lord of the Rings fans – those that love the trilogy of movies (and maybe the Hobbit as well), and those that love the books, the lore, and all the extras that Tolkien created. We are in the latter group, where we enjoy stories outside of Bilbo, Frodo, and the ring. Still, the first expansion we dove into it was The Fellowship of the Ring expansion, where you play through the books/movies on your quest to bring the one ring to Mordor.

We are doing it as a campaign, and for a few moments I was a bit worried about how this would work, or how I would feel playing it. I wanted to pick characters that fit each part of the story – for example, in the Leaving the Shire scenario, I wanted to have a bunch of hobbits to play as.

Thing is, the game dissuades you from doing this by giving you extra threat if you choose to change characters from scenario to scenario. So while the game forces you to have an extra hero (Frodo, the Ring Bearer), we were free to choose any heroes we wanted.

We dove deep into the deck building aspect of the game, which is a must if you want to be successful in competing these scenarios. My team of Aragorn, Boromir, and Faramir was great for attacking and defending, while my father-in-law used a more balanced approach with Legolas, Eowyn, and Dunhere.

The game has been fantastic so far, and we’ve had some really tense moments. I always say that I never want a campaign game to be so hard that I fail a quest (which I then need to replay, as i don’t want to spend hours doing something a second time) but I do want it to feel tense, with key decisions the difference between winning and losing.

Sure, I’d like to falter on a few of those decisions and still win, but I still want at least a few of them to be really meaningful. So far in our The Fellowship of the Ring campaign, that has been the case.

Honestly, I’ve had the opportunity to now play all three living card games from Fantasy Flight Games – Arkham Horror, Marvel Champions, and The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game – and the Lord of the Rings is by far my favorite. And if you are a true Tolkien fan such as myself, you’ll find a ton of other scenarios and campaigns outside of the traditional “Lord of the Rings” to explore and enjoy!