The Good: Interesting new characters to play, Some intriguing new mechanics
The Bad: New game mechanics are impossible to play without a rulebook (not included), Serious collectibility issue(foils)!
The Basics: In a very narrow "recommend," I suggest there is just enough for collectors and investors to enjoy from a box of "The Return Of The King" gaming cards.
"The Return Of The King" gaming cards continued The Lord Of The Rings TCG game with the Return Of The King Block. This expansion reinvigorated the game by re-establishing all of the main characters as they appeared in The Return Of The King. As well, this set marks the appearance of Denethor and the reinvigoration of the Ringwraith affiliation. The Starter Decks come with rulebooks and they are pretty much essential to getting started, as well as completing one's set. The booster boxes, though, do not have the Starter Deck exclusive cards, nor the rulebooks. However, Starter Decks for "The Return Of The King" are fairly easy to come by. Because of the changes to the game, players are likely to be lost without a rulebook.
Basics/Set Composition
"The Return Of The King" was the seventh set of The Lord Of The Rings Trading Card Game cards created by Decipher to expand the gaming platform to fans ofThe Lord Of The Rings. Envisioned as a game played by two to four people, players created decks of cards utilizing their own version of the Fellowship and prepared to seed the adventure path with obstacles to thwart other players' Fellowship. For those unfamiliar with the concept, CCGs (or TCGs) are basically a late-teen oriented product designed to capitalize on the youthful desire to play with the acknowledged maturity of the target audience. Players might prefer that I describe the game instead as a strategy game that is like a Role-playing game with cards.
"The Return Of The King" is a 365-card set focusing on characters, location, artifacts, villains and scenarios presented in the third The Lord Of The Rings film. This card set utilizes material from the film, encompassing the entirety of the movie. This allows for a very rich sense of the Middle Earth world to be presented. The set consists of 121 common cards, 121 uncommon cards, 121 rare cards and 2 starter deck exclusive cards, with all of the surviving Fellowship members being granted two cards each - usually a rare and a common or uncommon. For those who might not have been playing The Lord Of The Rings TCG before now, this is a decent set to start with as it more or less reboots the game franchise.
The 365 card set features 2 One Ring, 12 Dwarven, 16 Elven, 22 Gandalf, 26 Gollum, 51 Gondor, 45 Raider, 48 Ringwraith, 41 Rohan, 55 Sauron, and 12 Shire Affiliation cards, and 35 Site cards. These are generally broken down evenly between Fellowship (your cards you play with) and Minion (cards you set upon your opponent) cards. Within the various affiliations, there are: 2 The One Ring (technically belonging to neither affiliation, it is a unique, powerful and necessary card with its own rules), 4 Ally (cards depicting supporting characters, like Deor and a Rohirim Herdsman), 3 Artifact (cards of rare/unique objects, like Gandalf's Staff or Anduril), 45 Companion (cards depicting primary characters and those who may join your customized Fellowship, like Grimbold or Denethor), 74 Condition (cards illustrating long-term changes to Middle Earth that remain in play more than one turn, like Loyalty Unshaken or the Elves Leaving Forever), 72 Event (cards depicting temporary effects on players, like being caught in a Ringwraith's Foul Clutches or being Thrice Outnumbered), 95 Minion (cards depicting villains used to obstruct your opponent, like a Gorgoroth Axeman or the Witch-king), 28 Possession (cards depicting objects used to enhance the natural strength or endurance of a character, like a Hobbit's Sword or a Swift Steed), and 35 Site (cards depicting locations in Middle Earth, they form the "board" for the game).
This set plays out the various events of The Return Of The King, so there are no Dunland wildmen or minions of Saruman to menace the Fellowship, though there are legions of everything else. The booster pack boxes are comprised of thirty-six packs per box with eleven cards per pack. The eleven cards are portioned out with seven common (six in packs that have a foil card), three uncommon, and one rare cards. A foil card replaces a single common in approximately six packs. The foils are simply reprints of the standard cards; there are no cards that are uniquely foils in this set.
Playability
At its most basic level, this is a board game where one constructs the board and pieces out of a selection of cards. The purpose of the game is to survive to the end of the ninth site in the Adventure Path, which (theoretically) indicates the end of the Ring Bearer's quest. The basic idea is to assemble a sixty card deck, lay out the board (Adventure Path) and play against an opponent. The deck is evenly split between Fellowship and Shadow cards, so players ought to have a hand that allows them to play and attempt to thwart their opponent at any given time.
This game uses a "payment" system where cards have a cost. The rulebook recommends something like poker chips or glass beads to establish the twilight pool and wound indicators and I've found small poker chips (not included) work very well for this.
It takes a great deal of time and energy to learn the game, but once one has played a few hands of it, it is a pretty easy concept for an adult to master and the challenge becomes assembling a strong fellowship and accompanying minion deck and being creative (and lucky) about how the cards from one's hand are used.
In "The Return Of The King" it becomes possible as well to reach Mount Doom and destroy the One Ring!
Rules/Rule Changes
The rulebook for this game is forty pages long and the rules are essentially the same as they were when the set was first released. However, with "The Return Of The King," there are new game mechanics involving massive warfare as seen in the film. In the game, this translates into the concept of "Initiative," "Threats" and "Besiegers."
The fundamental problem here is that now the game is so complex that the cards no longer are able to explain themselves. As my title suggests: they've lost me here. Half the cards in this set are unplayable because they include new game text that is only explained (presumably) by the rulebook, which is only in the starter decks. I gather, though, from some of the text (involving "threats") that a whole new set of counters is needed to play this properly. The playability takes a serious dive with the new text (and no explanations).
Highlights
Players, collectors and fans of The Lord Of The Rings franchise will appreciate the image quality of the characters and scenarios from The Return Of The King. The "The Return Of The King" set features massive numbers of troops to menace one's Fellowship and make it almost impossible to complete the game's objectives (which makes it fun to play).
As for the best card of the set, I find myself partial to 7R227 Eomer, Skilled Tactician. The horselord enters the game for only two twilight tokens if you have even one other Rohan companion in play. That means that Eomer may accompany Eowyn into the game for a total cost of only 4 tokens! In addition to being strong himself, whenever another Rohan companion is added, a lost possession or event card can be taken from the discard pile and put in your hand. Because the Rohan steeds are possession cards, this is a great way to resurrect one's dead horse! Moreover, if Theodin gets into trouble and loses his sword, Eomer's presence can bring it back the next round! He's terribly useful as a member of the Fellowship!
Collectibility
Rares are evenly distributed in the booster packs, making only two starter decks necessary for those collecting a master set, as the Aragorn and Eomer decks each have a single card that cannot be found in the booster packs. Those starter decks remain fairly easy to find, so completing a master set is not hampered by trying to find those!
These cards, beyond the initial release, popped up only in "The Return Of The King" Anthology boxed set. As a result, these cards have maintained their value well.
As well, die-hard, obsessive collectors who want to spend a lifetime going from dealer to dealer on a vain search to complete something will thrill over the foil cards. All 365 cards are reprinted as foil cards and the foil sets are near impossible to complete and seem to be disproportionately less valuable than the master sets of non-foil cards. In other words, while the foil sets might take hundreds to thousands of dollars to complete, dealers seem to only be able to get a couple hundred dollars for them, probably because many collectors didn't go for this gimmick from Decipher.
Overview
"The Return Of The King" is a mixed bag; it has a number of very powerful cards, but it also has an equally significant lack of playability without outside aid. The cards which previously were self explanatory now rely on game mechanics that require more than just what one can pull from the packs. Ultimately, it is more of a worthwhile set for collectors and investors than it is for players.
This set culls material from The Return Of The King, which is reviewed here!
This set was preceded by "Ents Of Fangorn" (reviewed here!) and followed by "Siege Of Gondor" (reviewed here!).
This set is available in my online store! Please check out my current inventory by clicking here!
6/10
For other trading card game reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!
© 2011, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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