The Long Dark of Moria

It was after nightfall when they had entered the Mines. They had been going for several hours with only brief halts, when Gandalf came to the first serious check. Before him stood a wide arch opening into three passages: all led in the same general direction, eastwards; but the left-hand passage plunged down, while the right-hand climbed up, and the middle way seemed to run on, smooth and level but very narrow.
    –The Fellowship of the Ring

Fantasy Flight Games is pleased to announce the upcoming release of The Long Dark, the fourth harrowing Adventure Pack in the Dwarrowdelf cycle for The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game!

After a brutal conflict with The Watcher in the Water, several heroes of Middle-earth pass through the gates of Moria and begin to scout its ancient tunnels for the root of the increased Orc activity in the Misty Mountains. But it has been many ages since the Dwarves last gave light to the mines. The way is dark and choked with foes and hazards. The ominous dark lingers ever before your party, closing in around you, making it difficult to tell one path from another, and you must be careful to keep your way…

Lost in the mines of Moria

The Orcs of Moria are multitude, but your heroes seek signs of the forces that draw the Orcs together and drive them out into the mountains. As your heroes begin their journey into The Long Dark, they find pockets of Goblin resistance, but with little organization save for that provided by Goblin warlords. To discover the deeper roots of the increased Orc activity, your heroes must delve deeper into the Mines.

The Long Dark introduces 60 new cards, including a new hero, three copies of each player card, and an all-new scenario that pits your heroes against bands of Goblins, the hazards of traveling in the dark, and the risk of getting lost. As your heroes travel through the Dark, Underground realm of Moria, they must navigate carefully or suffer the consequences of losing their way. Any wrong turn may tax your heroes’ energy and limit their options, discarding cards from your hand, or it may lead into a host of Orcs, spiders, and rock adders.

The wealth of Moria

“The wealth of Moria was not in gold and jewels, the toys of the Dwarves; nor in iron, their servant.”
    –Gandalf, The Fellowship of the Ring

The Long Dark poses unique challenges to your band of heroes, but it also provides them with new resources. Four new allies offer their assistance, and your heroes can make use of a number of new events and attachments, including sturdy Ring Mail (The Long Dark, 80).

Originally shown in the announcement of the Dwarrowdelf cycle, Ring Mail has already spurred conversations among fans on our community forums. With the release of The Long Dark, you will be able to better protect your Dwarf and Hobbitcharacters from the hordes of Orcs and Goblins that harry your fellowship through the mines. Perhaps, the extra defense your heroes gain from their Ring Mail may be the edge between success and failure in their quest.

Don your Ring Mail, stock up on provisions, and prepare yourselves for adventure as your party sets foot into the mines of Moria and confronts The Long Dark that awaits them. This challenging and suspenseful Adventure Pack is scheduled to release in the second quarter of 2012!

Open Wide the Gates of Moria

Fantasy Flight Games [News] - Open Wide the Gates of Moria:

“It is now many years ago,” said Glóin, “that a shadow of disquiet fell upon our people. Whence it came we did not at first perceive. Words began to be whispered in secret: it was said that we were hemmed in a narrow place, and that greater wealth and splendour would be found in a wider world. Some spoke of Moria: the mighty works of our fathers that are called in our own tongue Khazad-dûm; and they declared that now at last we had the power and numbers to return.”
–J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

The hour of the Dwarves has come. The Khazad-dûm Expansion for The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game is now on sale at your local retailer and online on our webstore. Pick up your copy today!

Great works begun there

Over time, the whispers of wealth and splendour touched Dwarven hearts and created stirrings within them that would not be quieted. Finally, Balin resolved to explore the mines of Moria and reclaim its treasures for the Dwarves. Ori, Oín, and many other Dwarves traveled with him, and the initial reports they sent back to the other Dwarves told of their entry and the great works they had begun. Then, however, the messages ceased. No word has arrived from Balin in many years.

In Khazad-dûm, a trio of thrilling scenarios take some of Middle-earth’s greatest heroes on daring adventures to Moria, where they search for Balin and his fledgling Dwarven colony.

Balin’s fate is of tremendous concern to the Dwarves, and they offer as much aid as they can in Khazad-dûm. You’ll find new attachments and events to bolster your Dwarves, along with newDwarf allies and two fantastic new Dwarf heroes. Each player card comes in triplicate, so a single copy of Khazad-dûm provides you with a complete play set of all its new cards.

Journeys in the dark

Your heroes’ search for Balin will lead them deep into the mines of Moria and its Dark corners and corridors. The subterranean world of Khazad-dûm is unlike anything your heroes faced in the Core Set or the Shadows of Mirkwoodcycle, and the expansion introduces nine new encounter sets to represent the mines’ new perils. From frightening new locations and treachery cards reflecting the physical dangers of travel through Moria to Orcs and Trolls, Khazad-dûm pushes the game forward with exciting new encounter themes and mechanics.

The wait for this highly anticipated expansion for The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game has finally come to an end, and the time has come to begin your journeys through Khazad-dûm.

The Treacherous Dark of Khazad-dûm

Original article here: http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_news.asp?eidn=2896

Without any light they would have soon come to grief. There were not only many roads to choose from, there were also in many places holes and pitfalls, and dark wells beside the path in which their passing feet echoed. There were fissures and chasms in the walls and floor, and every now and then a crack would open right before their feet.
    –The Fellowship of the Ring, “A Journey in the Dark”

In The Fellowship of the Ring, J.R.R. Tolkien leads the Fellowship into the mines of Moria in the chapter titled A Journey in the Dark, but that chapter doesn’t begin in the mines and their suffocating darkness. It begins while the Fellowship trudges through the Misty Mountains, under the dim grey of the waning evening.

Tolkien works hard to establish the darkness–the very palpable and consuming darkness–of the mines of Moria, by establishing the presence and importance of light prior to the Fellowship’s first steps into the mines. The chapter contrasts the presence of light outside the mines with the truer, more profound darkness inside the mines. Even in the wintery night, the Fellowship finds light from flame, the fading sunlight, and the coming dawn. As readers, we’re made to understand that the darkness outside Moria comes and goes in cycles with the light. However, once they enter the mines, Tolkien carefully measures his mentions of light. Darkness abounds, but for almost the entire journey through Moria, only Gandalf’s staff sheds light. Even that light is dim.

The dark of Khazad-dûm

Why does this matter? In the Khazad-dûm Expansion for The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game, the darkness becomes a significant theme. Players wouldn’t feel like they were undertaking a trip through the perilous underground if the game were full of bright illustrations. Nor would you likely think much about the darkness if it weren’t reinforced.

Much as Tolkien used the words “dark” and “darkness” liberally through the second half of A Journey in the Dark, theKhazad-dûm design team decided it was important to reinforce the theme with Dark locations, Hazards, and other cards that would get you looking for any means to cast light ahead of your travels through the subterranean labyrinth.

Lead developer Lukas Litzsinger offers some insights on the coming darkness.

Developing the darkness

I knew that Khazad-dûm needed to portray the mines of Moria as a physical danger to the party. While it has its fair shares of enemies, even an empty Moria is a dangerous place. Crumbling passages and abandoned shafts create a treacherous landscape. Still, the most pressing design challenge was the darkness. How would this affect a party traveling through the mines? 

We made several attempts to give the darkness an active role in the game, such as with darkness tokens, but they all felt strange. They complicated the game more than they enhanced the theme, and we moved eventually to a more elegant solution. Dark locations are difficult to explore. This is both a theme and a mechanic, and you will discover thatDark locations have some of the highest quest point values in the game. Additionally, Dark locations get to be much more threatening as two or more build up in the staging area. They tend to boost each other’s threat as the darkness surrounds your party on all sides.

But in addition to darkness, we needed to represent light. So to represent the importance of light, we introduced aCave Torch (Khazad-dûm, 41) objective that the players use to place progress on these Dark locations.

However, the mines are filled with countless dangers, and while any light is a boon, managing the light is not always as simple as it first appears. While your Cave Torch is Burning Low (Khazad-dûm, 40) you’ll find the mines more threatening, especially the darkest of its Dark corners. Also, your Cave Torch can attract unwanted attention, and as you saw in an earlier preview, any enemies encountered have an uncanny ability to proliferate into more.

–Lukas Litzsinger, Khazad-dûm Expansion Lead Developer

Thanks, Lukas!

The dark mines of Moria hold many dangers, but some heroes push, undaunted, to search for Balin and his missing Dwarven colony. In our next preview, we’ll take a look at one of the doughty Dwarven heroes willing to brave a journey into the heart of Khazad-dûm!

The Watcher in the Water

From the original article here:  http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_news.asp?eidn=2883

Frodo felt something seize him by the ankle, and he fell with a cry. Bill the pony gave a wild neigh of fear, and turned tail and dashed away along the lakeside into the darkness. Sam leaped after him, and then hearing Frodo’s cry he ran back again, weeping and cursing. The others swung round and saw the waters of the lake seething, as if a host of snakes were swimming up from the southern end.
    –The Fellowship of the Ring

Elrond, the Elf Lord of Rivendell, is troubled by the great numbers of Orcs that plagued the heroes who escorted his daughter, Arwen Undómiel, across the Misty Mountains. He asks them to explore the mines of Moria, hoping they can determine if they are the source of the increased Orc activity, but before the heroes can explore Moria’s vast network of tunnels, they must first gain entrance…

Fantasy Flight Games is proud to announce The Watcher in the Water, the third Adventure Pack in the Dwarrowdelfcycle for The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game!

Dangers outside the Doors of Durin

Many players have already remarked upon the clever text of the Doors of Durin (The Watcher in the Water, 65) when the card was first revealed in the Dwarrowdelf announcement. Its flavorful recreation of the riddle that nearly stumped Gandalf and the other members of the Fellowship provides one of the highlights awaiting players with The Watcher in the Water.

Of course, fans of The Lord of the Rings have also eagerly awaited the dangers that lurk deep in the lake outside the Doors of Durin, and when it arrives, The Watcher in the Water will reward their anticipation. Seething masses of Tentaclessnake out of the lake to attack and ensnare those heroes who can’t find their way through the Doors of Durin. The tentacles strike swiftly, and heroes who can’t fight them off may find themselves Wrapped! (The Watcher in the Water, 76) and dragged beneath the surface of the waters. There’s no time to relax whileTentacles lash through the air; heroes who aren’t rescued in time will drown.

Into the heart of the Dwarrowdelf

The Watcher in the Water represents a turning point in the Dwarrowdelf cycle of Adventure Packs. Once they pass the Doors of Durin, the heroes of Middle-earth must explore the mines of Moria to find the cause of the increased Orc activity in the Misty Mountains. Yet they must first survive the perils of the fetid Swamps and the ferocious combat with the Watcher’s many Tentacles.

Look for this clever and action-packed Adventure Pack to hit the shelves in the first quarter of 2012!

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!

Plundering the Riches of Khazad-dûm

From the original article here:

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_news.asp?eidn=2807

“We have done well,” he said. “But in metal-work we cannot rival our fathers, many of whose secrets are lost. We make good armour and keen swords, but we cannot again make mail or blade to match those that were made before the dragon came.”
   –Glóin, The Fellowship of the Ring

Dwarves speak of Moria with longing and with dread. Therein lie treasures undreamt and horrors both ancient and powerful. For generations, the Dwarves whispered tales of its wealth, but none dared pass through its doors… until Balin. Taking with him two other members from Thorin’s renowned companions, Balin traveled to Khazad-dûm, passed its doors, and began new works there. At first, their works fared well, and they reported to their kindred outside the Misty Mountains.

When the Dwarves of the northeast no longer receive word from Balin, they call upon some of Middle-earth’s greatest heroes to look for the Dwarf and his fledgling colony. As your heroes explore Khazad-dûm, the first deluxe expansion for The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game, they will discover both the realm’s abandoned riches and its hidden perils.

Riches worthy of song

Flush with 165 new cards (including 3 copies of each new player card), Khazad-dûm contains a wealth of new player cards, enemies, treachery cards, and locations. Its nine encounter sets create encounter decks for its three new scenarios and form the backbone of the upcoming Dwarrowdelf cycle of Adventure Packs. While most of the locations from these encounter sets work together to immerse you in the dark and dangerous passageways that traverse Moria, these new locations also expose new creative ground within the game. When your heroes explore a Plundered Armoury (Khazad-dûm, 34), you have the chance to play a Weapon or Armor attachment from your hand for free. These will be welcome additions to your fellowship as enemies press in upon you from all sides, and the ability to equip your hero with an expensive attachment like Citadel Plate (Core Set, 40) may prove the decisive edge between death and the successful completion of your quest.

Another treasure from Khazad-dûm appears as a player card. Narvi’s Belt (Khazad-dûm, 3) is a fantastic, unique two-cost attachment for the Leadership sphere that will soon prove indispensable in new deck builds, joining the ranks of Steward of Gondor (Core Set, 26) and Celebrían’s Stone (Core Set, 27) as the keystones of different strategies. While the Shadows of Mirkwood cycle introduces Songs that grant your heroes resource icons for each of the four spheres of influence, Narvi’s Belt provides a more efficient means of granting alternate resource icons in any deck with a Dwarfcharacter. Resource versatility results in flexible deck-building, and you may be able to better focus your heroes toward their strengths even as you draw upon the best supporting cards from all four spheres of influence to aid them on their quest.

Uncover the hidden perils of Khazad-dûm

The doors of Khazad-dûm will open soon. In the meantime, keep your eyes peeled for future previews in which we risk a little more light down the mines of Moria…

The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game - Khazad-dum Expansion more info

Fantasy Flight Games [The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game - Khazad-dum Expansion - About] - Leading publisher of board, card, and roleplaying games.: "The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game - Khazad-dum Expansion"

“For a while we had news and it seemed good: messages reported that Moria had been entered and a great work begun there. Then there was silence, and no word has ever come from Moria since.”
–Glóin, The Fellowship of the Ring

It has been many years since the Dwarves last heard from Balin. Now the heroes of Middle-earth must search for signs of him and his fledgling Dwarven colony.

Khazad-dûm is the first deluxe expansion for The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game, expanding your game with 165 new cards. Two new Dwarf heroes offer their services, and players gain the benefit of new player cards (three copies of each) while facing new scenarios filled with perilous locations and a menacing host of enemies.

The road goes ever on

The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game offers a unique, narrative play experience for cooperative or solo play. Middle-earth’s heroes undertake fantastic quests that lead them to distant and dangerous locations. Along their journeys, they must battle past enemies and steer away from the Dark Lord’s reach and the treachery he plots for them.

The story that began with the Core Set continues to expand further into the world of Middle-earth with each new release.

Where the Core Set and Shadows of Mirkwoodcycle of Adventure Packs explored the forests of Mirkwood and related the trials of chasing creatures through the wilds, Khazad-dûm evokes the ominous dread of your fellowship’s dark and perilous journey through Moria’s abandoned tunnels.

The mines of Moria

“The wealth of Moria was not in gold and jewels, the toys of the Dwarves; nor in iron, their servant… For here alone in the world was found Moria-silver, or true silver as some have called it: mithril is the Elvish name.”
–Gandalf, The Fellowship of the Ring

With no map nor guide to lead them, your heroes must light their torches and find their own way through the intersecting mines. Khazad-dûm introduces a number of dreadful new Underground and Dark locations, any of which may hold the clues to Balin’s silence that your heroes seek.

Fortunately, Dwarves are little bothered by the dark, and Khazad-dûm provides a wealth of new player cards that expand design options for any deck, but particularly for those with Dwarves! In addition to two new Dwarf heroes,Khazad-dûm strengthens the Dwarven contribution to any fellowship with new Dwarf allies, attachments, and events.

Drums in the deep

New treachery and a horde of new enemies await Middle-earth’s heroes amid the dark, Orc-infested mines of Moria.

The encounter sets in Khazad-dûm provide thrilling new challenges that will keep your heroes peering cautiously around each corner as they must face Orcs, goblins, and cave-trolls. Along their way, they must avoid the hazards of underground travel such as cave-ins, pitfalls, crumbling stairways, and impassable chasms. If your heroes take the wrong turns or delay too long, they’ll find that the Orcs of Khazad-dûm swarm against invaders in astonishing numbers. And while your heroes maneuver past the onrushing hordes, they risk delving too deep and waking the nameless fear.

Beyond the mines

From Orcs and Trolls to Ringwraiths and Dragons, Middle-earth is a rich and expansive world, filled with fantastic and iconic creatures. As you venture into the ancient Dwarven realm of Khazad-dûm, you’ll enter a place in Middle-earth far removed from the settings and creatures represented by the Core Set encounter cards. Dark tunnels teem with goblins, and any wrong turn could send you plummeting through pits to find yourself confronted by older and fouler things than Orcs.

Therefore, in addition to expanding your existing game experience, Khazad-dûm introduces nine all-new encounter sets! These unique sets, when combined into encounter decks (as instructed by the rules), make upKhazad-dûm’s three included scenarios.

It’s also important to note that you will need these new encounter sets to play the scenarios of the subsequent Dwarrowdelf cycle of Adventure Packs.

So while the Khazad-dûm expansion is an exciting addition in its own right, it’s also the first step in the game’s next engaging narrative. With it, you’ll have the option of bringing new regions to your gaming experience. Explore more of Middle-earth than ever before, from the forests of the Core Set and the Shadows of Mirkwood cycle, to the perilous caves and treacherous peaks of the Misty Mountains.

Will your passage through Moria be tragic or heroic? The Dwarven kingdoms await word of Balin and his fledgling colony, so strike up a torch and head into the depths of Khazad-dûm!

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Khazad-dûm - deluxe expansion for The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game

Fantasy Flight Games [News] - Khazad-dûm:

“Moria! Moria! Wonder of the Northern world! Too deep we delved there, and woke the nameless fear. Long have its vast mansions lain empty since the children of Durin fled. But now we spoke of it again with longing, and yet with dread; for no dwarf has dared to pass the doors of Khazad-dûm for many lives of kings, save Thrór only, and he perished. At last, however, Balin listened to the whispers, and resolved to go.”
–Gloin, The Fellowship of the Ring
Fantasy Flight Games is proud to announce the upcoming release of Khazad-dûm, the first deluxe expansion for The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game!
Khazad-dûm transports you to the ancient realm of the Dwarves with 165 new cards (with three copies each of its player cards), including new scenarios, encounter sets, heroes, allies, attachments, and events.
Unravel an old mystery
It has been many years since the Dwarves last heard from Balin and his fledgling colony. Reports have ceased to flow of the great works they began. Now the heroes of Middle-earth must search for signs of them among the mines of Moria.
Khazad-dûm presents you with three thrilling scenarios set in the dark, underground tunnels of the legendary, abandoned Dwarven city. Along the way, your heroes will be challenged by treachery and enemies from all-new encounter sets, including swarms of Orcs, goblins, and cave-trolls.

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