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Lord of the Rings board game - War of the Ring: The Card Game can now support six players thanks to new expansion

Join the war in the North.

War of the Ring: The Card Game - Fire and Swords
Image credit: Ares Games

A new expansion for the Lord of the Rings board game, War of the Ring: The Card Game, enables up to six players. .

War of the Ring: The Card Game is a streamlined, smaller version of War of the Ring: Second Edition - a miniatures board game set within the world of The Lord of the Rings novels by JRR Tolkien. Released in 2022, War of the Ring: The Card Game sees players competing against each other as either the forces of the Dark Lord, Sauron, or as the Free Peoples of Middle-earth across a series of battles directly taken from the iconic series of fantasy books.

Up to four players can take part in a playthrough of War of the Ring: The Card Game, with each side of the conflict featuring two different factions: the Witchking forces of Sauron and Saruman’s Orc armies, versus the Elves and the Gondorian warriors. In a two-player game, either player will control both factions from their chosen side.

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The game takes place over a series of battles, with the battleground changing between rounds. Each side has its own unique win condition: with Sauron and Saruman aiming to crush the forces of the Free Peoples or stop Frodo on his journey to destroy the One Ring, whilst the Elves and Gondorians must keep the hordes of orcs and Witchkings back long enough for the hobbits to complete their quest.

Players take turns playing cards from their hand onto the battleground, comparing their abilities, strength and defence to determine the winner of each skirmish. Whichever player/s comes out on top, will successfully take the win for that particular battle. The player/s who achieve their win condition first is named the winner of the game.

Fire and Swords is an upcoming expansion for the War of the Ring: The Card Game and introduces a selection of new factions for players to choose from, as well as new battlegrounds for them to fight over. With Fire and Swords - which requires a copy of War of the Ring: The Card Game to be played - players can now control the Northern folks, who fight on behalf of the Free Peoples, the Easterlings or the Ruffians, both of whom are allied with Sauron and Saruman.

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Thanks to these new factions, up to six players can now compete in a game of War of the Ring: The Card Game - with three players on each side of the conflict. They’ll be able to fight on a selection of new battlegrounds too: such as Erebor, the Lonely Mountain, or the Grey Havens - in which the oldest elf, Círdan the Shipwright, lives - or invade the Shire as the dark forces.

Fire and Swords was created by Ian Brody, the designer behind War of the Ring: The Card Game, as well as its other expansion - Against the Shadow. Ares Games is the publisher responsible for releasing Fire and Swords, with the company previously publishing War of the Ring: The Card Game and its inspiration: War of the Ring: Second Edition.

War of the Ring: The Card Game - Fire and Swords is set to be released sometime this Summer at a retail price of $61.70 (£48.57).

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Alex Meehan avatar
Alex Meehan: After writing for Kotaku UK, Waypoint and Official Xbox Magazine, Alex became a member of the Dicebreaker editorial family. Having been producing news, features, previews and opinion pieces for Dicebreaker for the past three years, Alex has had plenty of opportunity to indulge in her love of meaty strategy board games and gothic RPGS. Besides writing, Alex appears in Dicebreaker’s D&D actual play series Storybreakers and haunts the occasional stream on the Dicebreaker YouTube channel.
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