Nightmare Decks for The Lord of the Rings: Heirs of Numenor Are Now Available

“He brought tidings of Ithilien and of movements of the Enemy and his allies; and he told of the fight on the road when the men of Harad and their great beast were overthrown: a captain reporting to his master such matters as had often been heard before, small things of border-war that now seemed useless and petty, shorn of their renown.”
    –J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King

The realm of Gondor presses hard against the Enemy’s western border. From the tallest walls of Minas Tirith, the Men of Gondor who cast their gaze eastward can very nearly see the Dark Lord gathering his strength in the land of Mordor. Gondor and its stalwart Men are the first defense against the Shadow. They are the shield wall that protects all the Free Peoples of Middle-earth, yet as the Enemy’s armies swell with Orcs and Southrons, treason threatens the very heart of Gondor…

Now available via FFG’s in-house manufacturing, Heirs of Númenor Nightmare Decks is a single set of three twenty-card Nightmare Decks that allow you to revisit each of the three scenarios from the Heirs of Númenor deluxe expansion for The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game, except in Nightmare Mode, the stakes are greater, the evils stronger, and the treachery runs even deeper.

Lead Developer Matt Newman on Heirs of Númenor Nightmare Decks

Grab your swords and shields, and head to the realm of Gondor… It’s time for the Heirs of Númenor Nightmare Decks!

We’ve been hard at work on these new Nightmare Decks, and I am very excited to preview some of the new cards and challenges players will face in these updated Heirs of Númenor scenarios. As always, each of these Nightmare Decks brings its scenario greater challenges, a slightly tweaked strategy, and a renewed focus on the scenario’s atmosphere and themes.

Peril in Pelargir

Peril in Pelargir assaults players right off the bat with a swarm of Brigand enemies, tasked with stealing Alcaron’s Scroll (Heirs of Númenor, 19), the scenario’s centerpiece. Our heroes start with the scroll and must protect it throughout the scenario from the thieves and brigands who seek to steal it for their own nefarious purposes. However, in the original version of this quest, we only need to hold onto the scroll at critical moments, such as to defeat stages two and three. In fact, holding onto the scroll for longer than one round often proved fatal!

The Nightmare version of Peril in Pelargir further explores this theme, reinforcing the importance of the scroll and heightening the tension as the heroes seek to prevent its theft, by adding a new loss condition, which is introduced on the new setup card (Peril in Pelargir Nightmare Deck, 1). First of all, it has two Forced effects:

“Forced: At the end of the combat phase, if Alcaron’s Scroll is in the staging area, attach it to the enemy in play with the highest [Defense Strength].

“Forced: At the beginning of the refresh phase, if Alcaron’s Scroll is attached to an enemy, place 1 progress on that enemy.”

These effects allow the many Brigands that are attacking our heroes to actually accomplish their goal: They can grab the scroll if it is not attached to a hero. This forces the players to defeat that enemy in order to progress. Meanwhile, for each turn that an enemy holds onto the scroll, it gets a progress token. This represents the enemy fleeing from the heroes and escaping their grasp. Finally, the setup card introduces a loss condition should any enemy slip off with the scroll:

“If at any point there are 3 or more progress tokens on an enemy, that enemy has escaped with the scroll, and the players lose the game.”

In Nightmare Mode, once an enemy takes the scroll, the situation becomes truly desperate, and players must race to defeat that enemy and reclaim the scroll. Should they wait, they risk defeat.

Many of the new encounter cards in the nightmare deck add to this tension and explore the concept of a tug-of-war between the players and the encounter deck. Alcaron’s Scroll will be at the center of attention, as our heroes must struggle to reclaim the scroll every time it is stolen from their grasp. When a Harbor Brute (Peril in Pelargir Nightmare Deck, 3) is revealed from the encounter deck, other Brigands will hand him the scroll to defend, as he is much tougher to defeat than his comrades. You must also be quick to recover the scroll once it has been stolen, because cards like They’re Getting Away! (Peril in Pelargir Nightmare Deck, 9) can cause defeat much quicker than you’d expect.

Into Ithilien

The Nightmare version of Into Ithilien explores the battle and siege keywords first introduced in Heirs of Númenor and alters the dynamic between the quest’s fork in the road at stages two and three.

Into Ithilien introduces us to Celador (Heirs of Númenor, 25), one of Faramir’s Rangers ambushing the vicious men of Harad. It is difficult to keep this Ranger alive as wargs and Haradrim constantly assault your party, but if Celador survives stage one, the players are rewarded with the opportunity to proceed directly to stage three. Otherwise, if Celador falls, the players must go to the punishing second stage. However, since stage three does not have the battle or siege keywords, whereas all the other quest stages have one or the other, many players found it easier to craft a deck specifically to defeat battle or siege quests, and they would allow poor Celador to perish so that they would never have to worry about Willpower.

Accordingly, the Into Ithilien Nightmare Deck does more than reinforces the quest’s themes; it includes punishing cards that are even worse when the current quest has the battle or siege keyword, such as the Haradrim Marksman (Into Ithilien Nightmare Deck, 3), who changes drastically from one stage to another. Savage Fray (Into Ithilien Nightmare Deck, 9) makes your questing even more unpredictable by shifting the tides of the conflict from battle to siege, or siege to battle.

If you are unfortunate enough to lose Celador and be forced to advance to stage two, you’ll also face the wrath of one of Harad’s dreaded Mûmak Elite (Into Ithilien Nightmare Deck, 2). For these reasons and more, you will find yourself wanting to safeguard Celador as much as possible, so the Ranger can guide you through Ithilien’s hidden paths and help you avoid the most brutal enemies in the Southron army.

The Siege of Cair Andros

This difficult quest introduced players to three Battlegrounds, locations under attack by Orcs and Haradrim which must be protected at all costs. If you could explore these Battleground locations before they took damage equal to their quest points, you would be rewarded with the removal of one of the quests’s five quest stages. As the enemy’s armies surrounded your heroes and assaulted them on all sides, you were forced with difficult decisions, including the need to make sacrifices to keep these Battlegrounds – or your heroes – alive.

The Nightmare version of The Siege of Cair Andros adds more Battleground locations to the encounter deck, all of which have effects that punish the players if they are destroyed by the enemy. This helps keep the quest tense and difficult even after the scenario’s original three Battleground locations are explored or destroyed, and it keeps each of the encounter deck’s enemies relevant throughout the entire quest. When locations like the Besieged Courtyard (The Siege of Cair Andros Nightmare Deck, 5) and Anduin Wharf (The Siege of Cair Andros Nightmare Deck, 7) are in play, each decision you make can mean the difference between victory and defeat. You may wish to take the archery damage from a Southron Mounted Archer (The Siege of Cair Andros Nightmare Deck, 2) on one of these locations instead of your battered and weary heroes… But how much damage will you risk taking on the locations you are sworn to defend?

As always, we strive to make each Nightmare encounter more thematic and engaging, in addition to increasing its difficulty. I hope you enjoy the new challenges and twists that the Heirs of Númenor Nightmare Decks offer. Good luck. Gondor is counting on your aid!

Alámenë!

Stand Against the Nameless Enemy

“The Nameless Enemy has arisen again. Smoke rises once more from Orodruin that we call Mount Doom. The power of the Black Land grows and we are hard beset.”
    –Boromir, The Fellowship of the Ring

In 2012, the Heirs of Númenor deluxe expansion first allowed fans of The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game to explore the lands of Gondor and stand fast against the Shadow of Mordor. Since then, the Shadow has grown in strength, and Gondor is once again in need of heroes. Will you be able to withstand the nightmarish forces the Dark Lord has now assembled?

Heirs of Númenor Nightmare Decks are now available!

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