Unboxing of the Lords of the Rings LCG from Fantasy Flight Games

Yesterday I was finally able to pick up my copy of the Lord of the Rings Living Card Game (LCG) from Fantasy Flight Games. We first heard about the next LCG days before Gencon 2010, and the announcement completely threw me off my game. While I was getting excited for RPG's like DC Adventures and Dread House, FFG just threw this announcement right out there and distracted me from everything else. I knew one of my first interviews that week would have to be with anyone I could find that could tell me anything else about this mysterious new rings game.

Without too much difficulty I was able to wrangle the game's producer, Jason Walden for an interview, and I was completely sold. Set between the Hobbit and the trilogy, based on the books not the movies (AWESOME), and cooperative/solo play? This was pretty much my dream product. As more news surfaced we found out that the game's expansion packs were going to offer new quests every month to try to overcome, and it just kept getting better and better. Fast forward to the last week as rumors of an April 18th release date loomed ahead of us, and I began checking Noble Knight every day to see when it was up for me to scoop up and enjoy. While I was disappointed that they didn't have it yesterday, I was able to stop by on my way home from work today and immediately grab a copy.

As you'll see below, this isn't a proper review by any means. I'm going to give myself some time to enjoy and digest it before I write up a review (which will probably go up Friday), but I'm too excited about the game not to post something about it, so to hold you off, I've decided to snap a couple of photos as I opened the box and got my first glimpse at the final product. I hope you enjoy them!

Popping the box open, you're greeted by the familiar FFG catalog right on top. Being an LCG fan, I'll be up front and say that I wasn't too surprised by anything in the box. Of course I wasn't so excited for the game because of the packaging but rather because of the co-op and solo play.

The rulebook has already been available online. It's a classic FFG book in that it's full color, high production value, and lots of space to let the rules breath. At 32 pages, there are several nice resources for playing the game as well as flowcharts through out. The punch boards are nice and contain the all-important threat tracker that's basically your life tracker through out the game.

The box holds all that you see above. Two bags of cards and an insert. I'm torn on the insert. It's as simple as can be. On one hand I'm wondering why the box needs to be so gigantic for so little actual physical product. It feels like a lot of wasted space for less than 250 cards, a rulebook, and a couple of punch boards that could easily be made smaller. On the other hand, this does leave room for expansions, of which there will be many to be sure. On the third hand (I am no longer human I guess), storing a bunch of heavy cards in a board game box like this one seems like not such a good idea...

Here's another look at the insert all on its own. It shadows the art from the cover of the box nicely. The room underneath the two side bumps is completely open for storage of things like your threat tracker and tokens, although everything included in the base set will likely fit in the middle row without needing to pull up the side flaps.

Here are the two sets of cards. One thing I didn't mention above with the punch boards so I could save it for down here - both the boards and the cards come in very nice ziplock style baggies. This is the first I've encountered this in an FFG game, and it's greatly appreciated. I didn't have to put any undo pressure on any of the product to break open a sealed or taped plastic bag, and of course the best part - they're reusable!

That's all I got for now, and I hope this helps those of you sitting on the edge wondering if this is the product for you. If you're still not sure, I'll have a review written up for next week (hopefully) with more detailed information about the actual game play.