War of the Ring: The Card Game adds co-op and solo modes in its first expansion

Lord of the Rings gem War of the Ring: The Card Game will receive its first expansion later this year, introducing new cooperative and solo modes.

War of the Ring: The Card Game released last year as a spin-off from the beloved board game based on Tolkien’s epic fantasy trilogy. The game pits two to four players - split into teams representing the Free Peoples and the Shadow led by Sauron and Saruman - against each other in a battle to control locations across Middle-earth and corrupt the Ring-bearer.

War of the Ring: TCG’s first expansion Against the Shadow will allow all of the players to work together against a new AI opponent, operated by a dedicated deck of ‘bot’ cards. As in the original game, the human players will control the Free Peoples - including the likes of the elves, dwarves, Gondor/Rohan and Fellowship - against the efforts of the Shadow bot to overwhelm them.

The AI opponent will be controlled via the deck of cards and a flowchart that publisher Ares Games describes as a “simple” solution for the automated play, while also offering up a “sophisticated challenge”. (The flowchart appears on two reference cards in the box.) Play time is expected to be comparable to the original game, at around an hour or so.

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The automated opponent can be faced with two human players or a solo Free Peoples leader, allowing War of the Ring: TCG to be played as a solo game. Aside from the new bot cards, the expansion will include six new location cards for players to battle over and 27 additional path cards - representing moments from the books - that provide the narrative backbone of each match.

Like War of the Ring: The Card Game, Against the Shadow has been designed by Ian Brody, known for his work on the card-driven Quartermaster General series of wargames. It will be released this September, following a reveal at UK Games Expo at the start of June. A price is yet to be confirmed.