Treading Boldly into the Mines of Khazad-dûm

From the original article here: http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_news.asp?eidn=2860

Gimli aided Gandalf very little, except by his stout courage. At least he was not, as were most of the others, troubled by the mere darkness in itself.
    –The Fellowship of the Ring

The Khazad-dûm Expansion for The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game takes the game to a whole new level–the subterranean and labyrinthine tunnels of Moria! Within those vast, dark, Dwarven ruins lurk dangers terrible enough to cause even the stoutest adventurers to tremble. Your torch lights radiate a flickering light that spills onto grey stone walls, fading ever into impenetrable shadows. What is worse in that darkness–the endless, echoing silence beyond your footfalls, or a sudden drip or the clatter of falling rocks?

A journey in the dark

Khazad-dûm introduces a number of new Underground and Dark locations. While these new locations immerse you in your heroes’ subterranean journeys through the mines of Moria, they introduce a number of subtle mechanics. InThe Lord of the Rings: The Card Game, each location has a Threat value that represents the potential dangers awaiting your fellowship. Only by thoroughly exploring a location can you be assured it no longer shelters hidden enemies plotting their ambush or that it doesn’t hold some dark secret you may fail to uncover. In the dark of Moria, locations like Branching Paths (Khazad-dûm, 36) are more ominous than ever, and the darker your journeys, the more your fellowship will feel the darkness surrounding them on all sides, laden with hidden threats.

As the game continues to mature and evolve, the design team has found new ways to work with locations, and Khazad-dûm introduces new ways in which locations interact with each other and with other encounter cards. Since the game’s inception, fellowships have had to work to make sure hidden threats in unexplored locations couldn’t mount against them unchecked. The travel phase remains as important as ever; the locations in Khazad-dûm generally pose higher threats to your fellowship and require greater effort to explore than the locations from the Core Set and Shadows of Mirkwood cycle of Adventure Packs. Still, as one might expect travel through the ancient Dwarven realm’s network of dark tunnels to prove difficult and be laden with tremendous threats, one might also expect the Dwarves to be prepared to deal with these threats…

Untroubled by darkness

The Dwarves are miners, metal-smiths, and no strangers to the dark. The darkness troubles them little, and Khazad-dûm provides Dwarf characters with a number of means of progressing more swiftly through the shadows, Underground, and Dark recesses of Moria. While many players have noted how masterfully the Rohirrim excel at traveling and questing aboveground in the Shadows of Mirkwood, the Dwarves will soon take the lead undeground with cards like Untroubled by Darkness (Khazad-dûm, 10) and Ancestral Knowledge (Khazad-dûm, 12).

The Shadows of Mirkwood cycle saw the development of a number of strong deck-building themes, including Rohanand Eagles decks. In the mines of Moria, the remnants of ancient Dwarf culture surrounds your heroes at every step, and Khazad-dûm provides fans many exciting new opportunities to bring these stalwart warriors to life, including two new Dwarf heroes that let you play Dwarves of any sphere of influence.

Look for the Khazad-dûm Expansion to add new adventure and peril to your adventures in Middle-earth. This deluxe expansion for The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game is coming soon!