The Old Forest
A New Stand-alone Scenario Is Now Available for The Lord of the Rings
“But you won’t have any luck in the Old Forest,” objected Fredegar. “No one ever has luck in there. You’ll get lost.”
–J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring
Escape the agents of Mordor searching for you in the Shire by braving a trip through the strange woods on its border in The Old Forest, a forty-six card scenario originally designed for The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game special Fellowship event at Gen Con Indy 2014!
Now available via FFG’s in-house manufacturing, this scenario can be played as a stand-alone adventure or as part of your The Lord of the Rings campaign. Its new boon and Campaign Mode setup cards allow you to weave it seamlessly into your Campaign Mode adventures that begin with the scenarios from The Black Riders Saga Expansion.
Brave the Old Forest
“The Forest is queer. Everything in it is very much more alive, more aware of what is going on, so to speak, than things are in the Shire. And the trees do not like strangers.”
–Merry, The Fellowship of the Ring
What’s in The Old Forest? In The Lord of the Rings, Frodo and his Hobbit friends barely made it out of the Old Forest alive. Their path shifted, tall plants grabbed at them, spells made them drowsy, and cruel trees reached out to drag them underground. In truth, their journey through the Forest was as harrowing as any of their adventures in The Fellowship of the Ring, and The Old Forest scenario provides you an opportunity to encounter any of the Forest’s deadliest threats… as well as to meet one of its most well-known inhabitants.
For more about this special scenario, we turn to lead developer Caleb Grace:
“When The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game design team began working on The Black Riders Saga Expansion, it became clear that we would not find enough room in the box to do everything we wanted. The first half of The Fellowship of the Ring is truly bursting with grand adventures and memorable moments, and 165 cards are just not enough to properly represent all of them. In the end, we made a hard decision to cut the Hobbits’ journey through the Old Forest, and across the Barrow-downs, from The Black Riders.
“I’m a huge fan of The Lord of the Rings, so this was a difficult decision for me because I want the card game to stay as true to the source material as possible. However, I also believe it was the right decision. Had we tried to cram all of that material into The Black Riders, we would have only cheapened the existing scenarios and disappointed fans who wanted to immersive themselves in the richness of the Old Forest and Barrow-downs.
“However, we also knew that we could design our Gen Con 2014 special scenario in such a way that we could weave it into our The Lord of the Rings campaign, and now that The Old Forest is available through our in-house manufacturing, fans of The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game everywhere can experience the first of Frodo’s adventures outside the Shire!”
“In The Old Forest, players struggle to find their way through the shifting trees and changing landscape of the titular forest. Random, shifting versions of quest stage two represent the difficulty of navigating the ancient woods, and the players will have to explore a significant amount of the forest before they will be able to advance to the final stage and a confrontation with Old Man Willow (The Old Forest, 7).
“Exploration might be the main theme of The Old Forest, but that doesn’t mean the players will escape combat. The trees of the ancient wood dislike intruders and actively attack the heroes. Still, there is another ancient power that dwells in the woods and might just appear to help the heroes in their time of need: Tom Bombadil (The Old Forest, 22)!
“Jolly Tom Bombadil appears as an objective-ally in The Old Forest, and just like he did in the books, he pops up when least expected to rescue the travelers. If you’re lucky, he may just show up to save your heroes from destruction before he takes off on his own again.
“Finally, I’m happy to share one more piece of good news to wrap-up this announcement: If you meet the conditions on the scenario’s setup card, you’ll earn a new boon card that you can use in Campaign Mode as you play through the different The Lord of the Rings Saga Expansions!
“This integration was very important to the design team, and we couldn’t be happier to give players the opportunity to enrich their campaign experiences. We hope you will enjoy going back to the beginning of you The Lord of the Rings saga in order to include these adventures into your campaign!”
Enter The Old Forest Today
“After an hour or two they had lost all clear sense of direction, though they knew well enough that they had long ceased to go northward at all. They were being headed off, and were simply following a course chosen for them–eastwards and southwards, into the heart of the Forest.”
–J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring
Can you find your way through The Old Forest? Strange woods and deadly enemies lie in wait, but so does a tremendous boon for those who can earn it. Whether you play the adventure as a stand-alone scenario or you add it to those of The Black Riders in Campaign Mode, The Old Forest is a thrilling journey for those willing to undertake it.
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