War of the Ring: The Card Game, released late in 2022, and was an immediate hit among Tolkien fans. This card game, designed by Ian Brody, distilled the essence of the epic war for Middle-Earth into a quicker playing card game. While I love games of War of the Ring, I don’t always have the 3-4 hours you need for this gaming experience. However, the new card game definitely helps scratch that itch in a shorter time frame. We here at BGQ HQ really enjoyed this title and even gave it our award for 2022’s Best Card Game.
Ever since the game was announced fans have been requesting a way to play the game solo. Unfortunately, it just wasn’t possible… until now. Today publisher Ares Games announced the first expansion for War of the Ring: The Card Game.
Dubbed Against the Shadow, this expansion brings not only solo play, but also cooperative play to the game. From the news release:
“Its first expansion… enables players to experience the adventure alone or cooperatively. The player(s) will control the Free Peoples, using the normal rules and cards included in the War of the Ring – The Card Game.
Automated players control the Shadow decks, which entirely replace the cards included in the core set and which are tailored for solo/cooperative play. In conjunction with a simple flowchart, the new Shadow decks provide a sophisticated challenge for one or two players.”
Against the Shadow will be presented to the public for the first time at the UK Games Expo 2023 (June 2nd-4th, Birmingham). It’s due to release in September 2023. Hopefully, we’ll see a Gen Con 2023 release of this one. I’m excited to try it out.
