I checked with Fantasy Flight at GenCon about their expansion to the Lord of the Rings boardgame (formerly a WotC game). There was a single, unopened copy of the expansion, Friends and Foes,at a booth dedicated to nothing but the boardgame. From looking at the back, the game will have added feature cards and a single, double-sided board (Bree and Isengard are the two locations on the board). Also, enemy cards will be introduced, which I couldn’t determine much about. In fact, according to the guys at the booth, there’s a chance the expansion will be out a bit early, arriving in stores late September rather than October. The next expansion is targeted for a Fall 2002 release, with the ominous title of Sauron.
I spent Friday night at GenCon teaching the guys from Realm of Imagination to play LotR. Todd’s efforts as Frodo made this cooperative game more cutthroat and competitive than I thought possible. And they still came close to destroying the One Ring. “Frodo, get away from the tiki statue. Dammit, Frodo, stop trying to get Pippin killed!”
Warhamster Rally On The Way
Jim Dietz of Jolly Roger Games found himself telling a lot of GenCon goers that Orcs at the Gates, last year’s Origins Award winning Sci-Fi or Fantasy Boardgame, was out of print. “But don’t worry,” he said, “We’ll be putting out Warhamster Rally soon, and in my opinion, it’s twice the game Orcs was.” Big talk, but if it’s based on the work of John Kovalic (and it is), I’ll be checking it out for sure.