Lord of the Rings Board Games: cooperative living card game
The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game: How a Round Works
Released in 2011 by Fantasy Flight Games, the Lord of the Rings card game is a cooperative living card game for 1 to 4 players. Lead a party of heroes through quests against a scenario deck that runs itself. You win or lose together.
- 2011
- 1-4 players
- 30-90 minutes
- Ages 14+
- cooperative living card game
- Fantasy Flight Games
Designers: Nate French
Three heroes, one deck and one deadly forest. Let’s run through a round.
Each round follows the same seven phases. Once you know the sequence, the rest is easier to track: resource and planning build your party, quest and travel move things along, and encounter and combat bring trouble. The bullets below go phase by phase. For more Middle-earth tabletop games, visit the Lord of the Rings board games page.
Your threat dial goes up by 1 during every refresh phase.
A quick look at one round of The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game
The game repeats the same seven phases until you win or everyone is eliminated. Here’s what happens in each phase.
Exhausted characters can't defend, so be careful about committing too many to the quest.
- Step 1:
Phase 1, resource: Add 1 resource token to each hero’s pool, then each player draws 1 card.
- Step 2:
Phase 2, planning: Starting with the first player, each player spends resources from matching heroes to play allies and attachments from their hand.
- Step 3:
Phase 3, quest: Players exhaust characters to commit them to the quest. Then each player reveals 1 encounter card into the staging area.
- Step 4:
Compare total willpower with the total threat in the staging area. If willpower is higher, place progress tokens on the quest. If it’s lower, each player’s threat dial rises by the difference.
- Step 5:
Phase 4, travel: Players may choose one location in the staging area as the active location, paying any travel cost.
- Step 6:
Phase 5, encounter: Each player may engage an enemy in the staging area. Engagement checks then bring in enemies with an engagement cost at or below a player’s threat.
- 7Step 7:
Phase 6, combat: Deal a shadow card to each engaged enemy. Enemies attack, then your characters strike back.
- 8Step 8:
Phase 7, refresh: Ready every exhausted card, raise each player’s threat by 1 and pass the first player token to the left.
- 9Step 9:
You win when a player completes the final quest card. You lose when every player is eliminated.
This round summary leaves out setup, deck rules and how you lose, all common snags in a first game. Next, we cover setup, each phase and the threat dial that can eliminate players. For a story-driven alternative with a board and miniatures, see Journeys in Middle-earth.
How to play The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game, step by step
Setup
For your first game, pick one of the four starter decks (Leadership, Tactics, Lore or Spirit) and play the Passage Through Mirkwood scenario.
Shuffle the encounter deck and each player’s deck separately. Leave the heroes and quest cards unshuffled.
Arrange the scenario’s quest cards in order, with stage 1A on top, then follow that card’s setup instructions.
Each player places their three heroes in front of them and sets the threat dial to the total of their heroes’ threat costs. That’s the starting threat.
Each player draws six cards for their starting hand and may reshuffle once to draw a new six. Keep the second hand.
The first player takes the first player token. That’s it, you’re ready for the first round.
Turn by turn
Resource and planning phases
Each hero gets a resource token, and each player draws a card. Heroes pay from their own resource pools, and a card can be paid for only with resources from a hero whose sphere matches it. Ally cards enter play, and attachments go on the cards they describe.
Quest phase
Characters committed to the quest exhaust and add their willpower. Each player reveals an encounter card, then enemies and locations enter the staging area. If the group's willpower beats the staging area's threat, place progress tokens on the quest card equal to the difference.
Failed quests
If the total threat is higher, each player raises their threat dial by the difference. Any player whose dial reaches 50 is eliminated immediately.
Travel and encounter phases
During travel, the group can make a location active, sending progress tokens there first. In the encounter phase, a player may choose to engage one enemy. Then enemies with an engagement cost that matches a player's threat engage that player in turn.
Combat phase
Give each engaged enemy a facedown shadow card. For each enemy, the defending player can exhaust a ready character to defend or leave the attack undefended, putting all damage on one hero. Then your ready characters can attack enemies engaged with you.
Refresh phase
Ready all exhausted cards, raise each player's threat by 1, and pass the first player token clockwise. Threat rises every round, so long games get riskier.
End of the game and scoring
There is no score to tally. If at least one player completes the scenario's final quest card, everyone wins. If all players are eliminated first, everyone loses. A player is eliminated when their threat dial reaches 50 or all their heroes are destroyed.
Key rules
Ready and exhausted cards
Cards enter play ready. Using one to quest, attack, or defend exhausts it. It can't do so again until the refresh phase readies it.
Progress and quest stages
Once a quest card has progress tokens equal to its quest points, that stage is complete. Extra tokens don't carry over, and the next stage's instructions take effect.
Deckbuilding limits
Your deck needs at least 50 cards, with no more than three copies of any card title. Each player starts with three heroes, and players can't share a hero.
Campaign mode
The Revised Core Set connects its three scenarios in a campaign. Beat each scenario to move on. Losing carries no penalty, and a Campaign Log tracks results from one scenario to the next.
Eliminated players
When a player is eliminated, discard their hand and cards, and return their enemies to the staging area. The remaining players keep going, but reveal one fewer encounter card in later quest phases.
Tips for your first game
- Start with one of the four starter decks. Each uses a single sphere, so you can skip the resource-matching puzzles.
- Your threat dial rises by 1 every refresh phase, so don't waste rounds.
- Choose carefully which characters you commit to the quest. Exhausted characters can't defend later in the round.
- An undefended attack puts all its damage on one hero. A cheap defender can keep your best hero safe.
Build a 50-card deck with no more than 3 copies of any title.
The rules cover how to play, but there’s more to the game’s Tolkien setting. Here, we look at who designed it, what changed in the Revised Core Set and which part of Middle-earth’s history the quests cover. The core scenarios tell new stories instead of retelling the books.
A little background on the game and Middle-earth
Begin with a starter deck and Passage Through Mirkwood.
The game
Design and release
Nate French designed The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game for Fantasy Flight Games, which released it in 2011. It's a Living Card Game, so expansions add fixed sets of cards rather than random packs.
Editions and reprints
The Revised Core Set arrived in 2022 with player cards for up to four players, plus new boon, burden and campaign cards. Saga expansions retelling The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings came next, alongside Campaign and hero expansions.
The film or series it covers
The game takes place in Middle-earth during the 17 years between Bilbo's 111th birthday and Frodo's departure from the Shire. Its core scenarios tell original adventures, not stories from a book or film.
Rather than retell familiar stories, the game gives players heroes, enemies, locations, events and items from Tolkien's world to build their own adventures. The Saga expansions later retell the books directly.
Scenes and story beats in the game
- 1
In Passage Through Mirkwood, the heroes must carry a message from King Thranduil to Lady Galadriel.
- 2
The core set includes three scenarios: Passage Through Mirkwood, Journey Along the Anduin and Escape from Dol Guldur.
- 3
Aragorn and Éowyn are among the playable heroes.
- 4
You'll face Mirkwood spiders and orcs from Dol Guldur.
What’s in the Revised Core Set
- 12 hero cards and 188 player cards
- 84 encounter cards and 10 quest cards
- 16 boon and burden cards and 3 campaign cards
- 4 threat dials and a first player token
- 57 resource tokens, 66 progress tokens and 66 damage tokens
- A Learn to Play booklet
Lord of the Rings card game editions and expansions
Revised Core Set 2022
The current core box. It holds enough player cards for four players, at least one full playset of each player card, and new boon, burden and campaign cards that link its three scenarios.
Saga expansions 2022
The Fellowship of the Ring Saga came in 2022, The Two Towers Saga in 2023 and The Return of the King Saga in 2024. They retell the books as playable scenarios.
Campaign and hero expansions 2022
Angmar Awakened is a campaign expansion released in 2022. The Dream-chaser and Ered Mithrin are other campaign and hero expansions released between 2022 and 2024.
Questions about The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game
How do you play The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game?
Each round has seven phases: resource, planning, quest, travel, encounter, combat and refresh. Play allies, send characters on the quest, fight enemies and finish each quest stage before your threat hits 50.
How do you win The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game?
Finish the scenario's final quest stage. Since this is a cooperative game, one player's win counts for everyone. If every player is eliminated first, the whole team loses.
What is threat in the Lord of the Rings card game?
Threat is the number on your dial, showing the danger your heroes face. It starts at the total threat cost of your heroes, rises by 1 each round and by the quest's failure margin, and eliminates you at 50.
Can you play The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game solo?
Yes. The core set supports solo play or up to four players. The encounter deck handles the opposition for you.
Which scenario should beginners play first?
The rulebook recommends Passage Through Mirkwood with one of the four starter decks. It introduces the game and has difficulty level 1.
How many cards does a deck need?
Your deck needs at least 50 cards, with no more than three copies of any card with the same title. Each player also brings three heroes.
Does the Lord of the Rings card game retell the books?
The core scenarios don't. They're new adventures set in the years before Frodo leaves the Shire. The Saga expansions retell the stories.
Your threat dial goes up by 1 during every refresh phase.
Exhausted characters can't defend, so be careful about committing too many to the quest.
Sources
- Fantasy Flight Games: The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game fantasyflightgames.com
- Fantasy Flight Games: Revised Core Set learn to play booklet (PDF) cdn.svc.asmodee.net
- Wikipedia: The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game en.wikipedia.org
- Fantasy Flight Games: official FAQ and errata (PDF) cdn.svc.asmodee.net