When Middle-earth Enterprises made enormous French board game conglomerate Asmodee its "exclusive category manager" for tabletop games last October, we knew a big wave of new Tolkien board and card games must be inbound. Well, it seems the dam has burst and the rageful river Isen is finally flowing.
Stone Blade Entertainment has announced a new The Lord of the Rings board game in partnership with Asmodee, a standalone licensed title connected to its 15-year-old deckbuilder Ascension.
In The Lord of the Rings: Ascension, players will compete to build the best fellowship, fighting foes, gaining honor, and collecting iconic characters and weapons from JRR Tolkien's famous fantasy trilogy.
The game apparently builds on the "fast-paced deckbuilding" gameplay of Ascension, but features unique mechanics designed for this tie-in. One of these is Corruption, a risk-reward mechanic that encourages players to use the power of the One Ring, at the risk of losing the game. You can also play through each book as a standalone experience, or mix all the cards together in one big Middle Earth mashup.
A press release promises not just strategic mechanics but also 'storytelling' - an interesting and unusual prospect for this type of game. "Rather than simply retelling familiar tales, the game offers a branching experience where each decision carries weight, and no two journeys unfold the same way," it declares.
Stone Blade CEO Justin Gary amplifies this aspect of the game, saying that The Lord of the Rings Ascension offers its players choices. "Will you give in to The One Ring and its corrupting influence? Or will you find allies to resist the will of Sauron?" he asks.
We'll have to wait for more details to find out exactly what that means. We shouldn't be in the dark long, as Stone Blade plans to launch a Gamefound crowdfunding campaign later this year.
Designed by former Magic: The Gathering pros like Gary, Ascension was a major innovator in the deckbuilder genre when it first arrived in 2010. Where previous titles like Dominion relied on a fixed supply, Ascension was one of the first deckbuilders to provide a randomized ever-changing marketplace which kept gameplay varied.
Are you excited for this new twist in Ascension's story or does it leave you cold as a barrow-wight? Let us know on the Wargamer Discord.