We must press our Enemy, and no longer wait upon him for the move. See my friends, when I had mastered the Stone, I learned many things. A grave peril I saw coming unlooked-for upon Gondor from the South that will draw off strength from the defence of Minas Tirith.
   –Aragorn, Return of the King

We do not look lightly into the palantíri , for we know there is nothing that Sauron cannot turn to evil uses. However, there are other means to see deeply and communicate thoughts across great distances. The newly-updated FAQ for The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game (PDF, 1.1MB) presents our design team’s responses to some of your most pressing questions.

Thoughts from the design team

Hello The Lord of the Rings players!

We’re very excited to bring you this update to the FAQ document for The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game . FAQ 1.2 clarifies issues concerning several cards such as Eleanor and Stand and Fight, answers questions about what it means to quest successfully, and introduces new entries in the Q & A section. Additionally, it revises and invigorates the game’s scoring system.

Let’s start with the biggest change: the scoring system. The scoring system was an important aspect of the game’s original vision, but it simply did not work as intended. In short, the scoring system in the core rulebook encouraged a “turtling” style of play, in which taking your time to build up resources, defenses, and cards in hand was the optimal approach. This frequently created situations where stalling a turn to heal your heroes or lower your threat would produce a better score than trying to make immediate progress toward defeating the quest. While turtling is a legitimate approach in many games, we feel that a scoring system that encourages players to stall runs directly counter to the sense of the engaging, urgent quest that the game works to create–so much so that many players ignored the scoring system altogether.

In order to address this situation, we have introduced an additional element to the scoring system, one that adds 10 points to players’ “final group score” at the end of every round. (All other scoring elements remain unchanged.) This element instills a sense of urgency in the need to complete the scenario, and rewards players who are able to defeat the scenario in a timely manner with a better score. This scoring system also lays the foundation for the launch of the game’s organized play program, which is currently being tested by R&D.

In addition to the revised scoring system, this update also provides official documentation on a number of cards that have caused confusion. The most dramatic of these was the reversal of the ruling made in FAQ 1.1 that Ranged and Quick Strike (Core Set, 35) could work in combination. The original ruling made the interaction far more complicated and confusing than it needed to be (and led to a number of counter-intuitive follow-up questions), and we have corrected that situation with this update by requiring that the Quick Strike character attacks alone. Additionally, we have documented rulings on Eleanor (Core Set, 8), Stand and Fight (Core Set, 51), The Necromancer’s Tower (Core Set, 123), and Out of the Dungeons (Core Set, 125), clarifying the function of these cards.

In the Rules Clarification section, you can find new entries on treating attached cards as attachments, the definition of “questing successfully,” and the act of “collecting resources.” Finally, the Q&A section presents answers to the questions that are most frequently e-mailed to the design team through our website.

We hope that this FAQ update enhances your understanding and enjoyment of the game. Happy Halloween!

–The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game Design Team

Thanks, guys!

The FAQ for The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game and the updated scoresheet (PDF, 297 kB) are available for download here and on the game’s support page .

The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game is a cooperative card game that puts 1-2 players (or up to four with an additional Core Set) in control of the most powerful characters and artifacts of Middle-earth. Players will select heroes, gather allies, acquire artifacts, and coordinate their efforts to face Middle-earth’s most dangerous fiends. The Living Card Game format allows players to customize their gaming experience with monthly Adventure Pack expansions to the core game.