The Lord of the Rings: Adventure Card Game - Definitive Edition News

Hail and Well Met!

This afternoon US time (late evening European time) we will release Gundabad Awoken for you to play. This free Encounter gives you the chance to explore the ancient home of The First Forge, now overrun with Goblin hordes.

We hope you enjoy this new adventure!





Along with this new Encounter, there are a number of fixes and adjustments. You can learn more about these over at the latest Patch Notes.





Legend holds that in the distant mists of the First Age, Durin, father of Dwarves, built his first forge within Mount Gundabad. Alas, in time Orcs seized control of the mountain stronghold. Though the Dwarves drove them out repeatedly, the Orcs always returned. Even unto the current times of the Third Age, their foul presence remains a constant blight upon the Dwarves' sacred place.

The threat of Orcs—and worse—is on the rise once more. Reports claim that Gundabad swells with increasing numbers of Orcs, evil Men, and other miscreants. The corrupted fortress stirs with renewed purpose… though to just what purpose remains a mystery. Heroes are needed—brave souls who will venture to this desolate place and discover what draws forth the minions of darkness.

In this Encounter your Heroes are faced with a mystery: many Orc factions, as well as evil Men from Carn Dûm and Rhudaur, assemble within Gundabad. Someone—or something—calls to them, but to what purpose? To learn the truth, stealth and guile are called for. Your journey to Gundabad is a search, not an assault. You must use disguise and subterfuge to infiltrate the enemy stronghold and glean its secret, but that's only the beginning! To find the source of the dark siren song, you'll need to navigate the depths of the labyrinthine mountain fortress. Should you overcome the obstacles along the way, you'll face a foe unlike any you've encountered before.

Choose your deck carefully, for you'll need both wits and combat prowess to defeat the foul power that rouses Mount Gundabad and its denizens.



In a previous news update, we previewed a few new Goblins. In Gundabad Awoken, you will need to infiltrate the mountain in disguise, and might have to rely upon the assistance of Goblins to complete your quest. Depending on how you proceed, you might face these Goblins across the field of battle, or, relying on your disguise, make use of these Goblins to proceed. Let'd compare these Goblins, both as Allies, and as Enemies.

First up,

Goblin Sneak

or,

The Ally Goblin Sneak



Now, the Pit Goblin


or,

The Ally Pit Goblin



These are just two of the possible Goblins you'll confront. You won't be able to pick your allies, so you'll need to weigh your options carefully as you proceed in this unique challenge.



If you happen to experience any issues or need technical assistance for the game, please remember that if you don't see the answer within the forums or on discord, you can always file a Helpshift here:

https://asmodee.helpshift.com/a/lord-of-the-rings-acg/


There's a fan set up and run discord channel where you can reach out and talk to fellow players and look for multiplayer friends to play with.

You can check it out here.



Don't forget that you can check out our Twitch channel at https://www.twitch.tv/ffigames every two weeks at 1pm Central US time / 6:00pm UTC.

Our next stream will be tomorrow, Wednesday, July 31st.


That's all we have this week. Until we meet again, may the stars shine ever on your adventures!

Hail and Well Met!

Let's take a look at more of the new upcoming Sauron cards we will be making use of starting with Encounter 3...

Last week we showed you a few new Sauron cards, but we have more in the works. As per usual, these are works in progress until released, and we reserve the right to change these cards up until release.



First up is a pair of new Shadow (attachment) cards...


This Shadow card costs Sauron just a single resource in order for him to slowly whittle away the health of one of your allies. During the End phase, this will result in your ally losing 1 health until the attachment is removed, or the ally is defeated. This card also shows a minor change to card text with this new release. All End of Round effects will now simply be shown as End to save characters. Existing cards will be updated to this new standard.


This one point resource cost card gives any existing Sauron card Pursuit, which means they can follow you into future stages. Note that this card can be assigned to all enemy cards, not just Minions.



Next we have a pair of new Sauron events...


This 3 resource cost event causes each player (both of you in an MP game) to return half of the cards in your hand to your deck.


This 2 resource cost event will both cancel the next event card played (either by you in a single player game, or by you or your companion in an MP game) and then return it to your deck, which will then be shuffled.


We're still working out some of the more complex behavior of Encounter 3, but are prepared to announce a launch date. Encounter 3 will be released to servers at 2:30pm Central Daylight Time (19:30 UTC) on July 30th, a week from today.



If you need technical assistance for the game, please remember that if you don't see the answer within the forums or on discord, you can always file a Helpshift here:

https://asmodee.helpshift.com/a/lord-of-the-rings-acg/


There's a fan set up and run discord channel where you can reach out and talk to fellow players and look for multiplayer friends to play with.

You can check it out here.



Don't forget that you can check out our Twitch channel at https://www.twitch.tv/ffigames every two weeks at 1pm Central US time / 6:00pm UTC.

Our next stream will be tomorrow, Wednesday, July 31st.


That's all we have this week. Until we meet again, may the stars shine ever on your adventures!

Hail and Well Met!

Let's continue our sneak peek at Encounter 3 this week.

Up until now, Sauron's ability to deal with the player has been pretty fixed (outside of new enemies and hazards) while the players have enjoyed many new cards and tactics to use against him. Starting with Encounter 3, that's no longer the case and we will be adding even more cards for Sauron as we move forward. We've been working on new Shadow, Treachery and Event cards for Sauron to use against your fellowships.

Keep in mind that these are all works in progress, and we reserve the right to change these cards up until release.



Let's take a look at two of Sauron's new Shadow (attachment) cards...


This Shadow card costs Sauron just a single resource to give an existing card Guard. While Sauron can't turn on Defense like players, this card gives him a similar ability for the cost of a resource.


This Shadow card card costs Sauron nothing, but makes one of Sauron's cards fleeting. If that enemy is not defeated before the end of the round, they will disappear, but be replaced by three random enemy minions in its place.



Now let's look at a pair of new Event cards...


This 2 resource cost event will heal a random enemy 2 Health and then ready that enemy card. This give Sauron the ability to ready any enemy to act again if he's willing to trade resource points to do so.



This devious single resource cost card will reduce a random Hero or Ally with at least a 2 Attack value by 2.


Just as a reminder, we have some other updates coming along with Encounter 3...

Deck Builder Tutorial (Quest 4) Restructure
While we are very pleased with most of the new tutorial structure and how it better prepares you for the complexities and subtleties of our game, we felt that the Deck Builder Tutorial (Quest 4) just didn't hit the mark. We have a new version of this almost ready to test internally that we feel does a better job of walking you through the options of building a deck as well as reinforcing concepts like Sphere Levels and better explaining the ins and outs of deckbuilding in a more sandbox type of environment.



Save Game Changes
We're making some under the hood changes to the save game system that we feel will improve that system. Currently, when you have a save game, whatever deck you were using locks out the deck from editing. You cannot change the associated deck until you either finish the saved game or opt to delete it.

We've decided to remove that restriction. When you make a save game, it will save a version of that deck with the save so that when you run a saved game, it will contain the remainder of that deck in the save. This will allow you to manipulate the associated deck separately from that saved game. However, when you run that saved session, you will still have the deck you used from the original game.

Why don't we allow you to bring the altered deck to the saved session? Since a deck lasts across an entire quest, there's no way for us to know what cards would have been used in an altered deck up to the point of the save. You are saving the state of the session as it existed at the time, so we save the deck as it existed at that time.

This will clear up some issues with both single and multiplayer save games and make it less confusing when you go to make changes to your decks.



If you need technical assistance for the game, please remember that if you don't see the answer within the forums or on discord, you can always file a Helpshift here:

https://asmodee.helpshift.com/a/lord-of-the-rings-acg/


There's a fan set up and run discord channel where you can reach out and talk to fellow players and look for multiplayer friends to play with.

You can check it out here.



Don't forget that you can check out our Twitch channel at https://www.twitch.tv/ffigames every two weeks at 1pm Central US time / 6:00pm UTC.

Our next stream will be tomorrow, Wednesday, July 17th.


That's all we have this week. Until we meet again, may the stars shine ever on your adventures!

Steam Outage This Past Weekend
There were Steam outtages this past weekend, especially in Europe. We apologize for this issue, though if Steam is down, there is little we can do on our end. If you are still experiencing issues, you can post us a helpshift ticket as mentioned below and we will look to see if there are solutions we can bring to bear.

Our team is currently focused on Encounter 3: Gundabad Awoken and our upcoming Console release, so we're heads down at the moment. However, we do have sneak peeks for you.


Last week we shared a bit of info on the hordes of goblins in the upcoming Encounter. This week, we're going to give you a better look at the upcoming enemies you might face once you make your way to Gundabad.

Pit Goblin
Let's start with this creature of Gundabad. He doesn't have staying power, but he hits hard. If you manage to remove him from the board, however, he will give you a resource.





Gundabad Elite
This elite goblin has staying power, a decent punch, and both Ranged and Stalwart to trip up your Fellowship.





Goblin Tribe Chief
This tribal chief hits hard, sticks around and has Stalwart, but is at least is balanced by the fact that he is Fleeting, though if you don't defeat him before he departs, he will summon 3 Orc Minions to take his place.





Goblin Sneak
The sneak is particularly nasty, since if he hits you, he uses a new game element—Shed—which is causes you to lose the top card from your deck if he manages to hit you.





Goblin Runner
The runner is a minor minion of Sauron, though if you allow him to stick around he'll summon friends to join him.





Goblin Driver
Last but not least, we bring you the new Goblin Driver. He is a taskmaster, who readies a random exhausted Orc when he arrives, but does 1 damage to it with his nasty whip.





Keep in mind that these orcs aren't necessarily restricted to Gundabad, so you will likely see them again in future scenarios where Orcs appear.



If you need technical assistance for the game, please remember that if you don't see the answer within the forums or on discord, you can always file a Helpshift here:

https://asmodee.helpshift.com/a/lord-of-the-rings-acg/


There's a fan set up and run discord channel where you can reach out and talk to fellow players and look for multiplayer friends to play with.

You can check it out here.



Don't forget that you can check out our Twitch channel at https://www.twitch.tv/ffigames every two weeks at 1pm Central US time / 6:00pm UTC.

Our next stream will be tomorrow, Wednesday, July 17th.


That's all we have this week. Until we meet again, may the stars shine ever on your adventures!

A few weeks ago we discussed the upcoming Full Release on Steam coming August 8th, as well as some upcoming changes to the game such as new Save Game behavior and a new Tutorial Quest 4 (Deck Building). You can read more about that in the original news story here.

The changes are in testing currently and will be rolled out when we roll out the next Encounter—Gundabad Awoken—later in July so that we can resolve any issues with this rollout before we go to the Full Release.

Additionally, you may have noted that we've updated the Steam Store description for the game. We hope you like the changes.


Let's take a deeper look at Gundabad Awoken, the free new encounter coming in late July. This new encounter takes place in the hills and mountains near Gundabad, and we've crafted all new locations in which you will be adventuring.

Hold Back The Horde!
One of the new features in Gundabad Awoken is the “Horde” objective. Now, we can’t give away too much of how or why you might encounter it, but we can talk a little bit about what it does and why.

(Click on the image to see it full size...)

Locked and Timed with a Bolster frame in this case means that each round the value of this objective will increase by one to reflect the growing hordes of Sauron’s minions that bear down upon you.

The Upkeep ability is where we are trying something a little new. This card will pull from a random pool of effects, with each point of value on the objective being an extra roll of the dice. If you let this effect stick around for too long, you will be overwhelmed by its effects.

Here are a few examples of things that this Horde might to do you…

1. All Enemies gain +1 Attack for this round
2. Summon an Enemy from a random pool of choices
3. Sauron gains +1 Resource

We have more than these available to us, but this is just a taste of what you can expect in Gundabad Awoken. We wanted to create a new experience with our third encounter, since encounters allow us room to challenge both ourselves as designers and you as our players. We look forward to seeing what you make of it.



Locations
The first location we want to share with you is part of the Mine of Gundabad, which is currently controlled by hordes of Orcs.

(Click on the image to see it full size...)

This next location is deep within the mines of Gundabad where the Dwarves of old once forged mighty works.

(Click on the image to see it full size...)



If you need technical assistance for the game, please remember that if you don't see the answer within the forums or on discord, you can always file a Helpshift here:

https://asmodee.helpshift.com/a/lord-of-the-rings-acg/


There's a fan set up and run discord channel where you can reach out and talk to fellow players and look for multiplayer friends to play with.

You can check it out here.



Don't forget that you can check out our Twitch channel at https://www.twitch.tv/ffigames every two weeks at 1pm Central US time / 6:00pm UTC.

Our next stream will be tomorrow, Wednesday, July 3rd. Make sure you don't miss this broadcast, as we'll have a special guest with us to talk about the game's evolution.


That's all we have this week. Until we meet again, may the stars shine ever on your adventures!