The Lord of the Rings LCG: The Hobbit – On the Doorstep

The Lord of the Rings LCG: The Hobbit – On the Doorstep

The Hobbit: On the Doorstep is the second Saga Expansion for The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game, continuing the story begun in The Hobbit: Over Hill and Under Hill.

With the release of The Hobbit: On the Doorstep, players gain the opportunity to directly relive the events of the beloved classic by J.R.R. Tolkien. Survive an encounter with giant spiders, burgle treasures, encounter the mighty Smaug, and fight the Battle of Five Armies. The Hobbit: On the Doorstep introduces three new scenarios, five new heroes, and player cards for The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game all pulled from the pages of the second half of The Hobbit.

Live the Fantasy

The three new scenarios in The Hobbit: On the Doorstep capture the excitement and drama of the second half of beloved fantasy classic, The Hobbit. Bilbo, Thorin, and Company must escape a swarm of spiders, outwit the mighty dragon Smaug, and navigate their way through the ferocious Battle of Five Armies.

Each of the three scenarios in The Hobbit: On the Doorstep immerses players in a challenging and distinctive adventure. These scenarios are to be experienced as much as played, as each carries you along a narrative journey with a beginning, middle, and end. Moreover, the scenarios can combine with those from The Hobbit: Over Hill and Under Hill to form a sweeping campaign that allow you to retrace Bilbo’s epic journey from beginning to end!

Throughout it all, players gain the benefits of Bilbo’s unique talents. Appearing in The Hobbit: On the Doorstep as a hero with the new Baggins sphere of influence, Bilbo Baggins joins your adventures under the control of the first player. This means the first player may control as many as four heroes, but the expansion’s main protagonist isn’t just any other hero. Nor is he quite the same Hobbit as appears in the scenarios from The Hobbit: Over Hill and Under Hill. As in the novel, Bilbo changes over the course of his adventures, growing bolder and more daring, and his wits may save you from the direst of circumstances!

Each scenario features unique mechanics that balance the players’ combined efforts with Bilbo’s central role. Bilbo Baggins can’t gain resources from player card effects, but each scenario features ways that he can use the ones that he’s accumulated. Whether Bilbo spends his resources to save unconscious Dwarves from spider webs, mollify Smaug with clever riddling talk, or bring new allies to the fight against a surging horde of Orcs, the expenditure can have far-reaching repercussions, so players will have to consider each use judiciously.

Treasure!

The Hobbit: Over Hill and Under Hill broke new ground for The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game in more than two ways. In addition to Bilbo Baggins and scenarios that faithfully follow the first half of the classic novel by J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit: Over Hill and Under Hill gave us our first treasures. Now, The Hobbit: On the Doorstep allows players to get their hands upon an even larger horde of these powerful player cards.

Treasures represent some of the rarest and most valuable items your characters can find while adventuring in Middle-earth. But players can’t include these valuable items in their decks right away. Instead, in order to use treasure cards, players must first locate them during a scenario. Only then do they “unlock” the ability to use these famous and powerful cards in later scenarios.

Treasures increase the replay value of The Hobbit’s scenarios, rewarding players with incentives beyond the successful completion of each quest. Furthermore, they serve to establish continuity in a story-driven campaign that unites all the expansion’s scenarios. Once a group of heroes has successfully discovered a treasure during a scenario, a player using the same heroes for a later scenario may add the treasure to his deck and make use of it, further enhancing the game’s narrative and sense of discovery.

What is a Saga Expansion?

While standard expansions for The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game imagine new and untold adventures in Middle-earth, this Saga Expansion gives us the chance to follow the thrilling narrative set forth by J.R.R. Tolkien. The characters, enemies, and scenarios in The Hobbit: On the Doorstep are drawn directly from the second half of The Hobbit, and follow those from The Hobbit: Over Hill and Under Hill. The scenarios from these two expansions can be played one at a time, or they can be linked to form a campaign that allows players to relive a greater and more dramatic plot arc.

“Roads go ever ever on, Over rock and under tree.”   –Bilbo Baggins, The Hobbit

This is not a standalone product. A copy of The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game Core Set is required to play.