Month in Review: July 2022

This has been a rather productive month for the blog and a good month for the community as well since there was quite a bit of news to enjoy during the month. The announcement of the repackaged LOTR Sagas did not come as a surprise, but it is nice that we at least have a date on when to expect our next products. Let’s have a look at the past month and at the months ahead as we inch closer to the completion of the swag and a few milestones that I set at the beginning of the year.

July

Players have been able to enjoy the player cards from the Angmar Awakened cycle this month already, but towards the end of July, the scenarios and new campaign format were also released in Europe (though not the English versions). These add new double-sided Boons and Burdens, all in an effort to make the quests a little easier to beat with a limited cardpool and to increase the narrative through-lines of the cycle. And with the announcement of the Fellowship of the Ring repackaged saga releasing later this year, it has been a decent month overall. I am personally happy that they decided not to change anything about the contents of the Saga expansions so that I don’t have to buy the box or have someone print out the additional cards.

Scenario analysis

I revised the Conflict at the Carrock article this month, which was actually the first time I have covered the quest myself. The original article had been made by bgamerjoe, and Beorn took care of the Nightmare version of the quest. So I would like to thank them for their efforts, which have been linked to in the original article. For August, I hope to complete the revised article on A Journey to Rhosgobel. I should have plenty of time to complete it, which will be nice. That leaves just 3 articles for me to cover until the cycle is complete.

Nightmare analysis

Plenty of progress has also been made on the Nightmare scenarios this month. We released both NM The Thing in the Depths and NM Encounter at Amon Din. Some very fun but challenging quests there, which I hope you give a shot someday. I have already heard of people who are going to bring the Nightmare cards to Con of the Rings this year, so I hope to at least have the complete Against the Shadow cycle completed by then. Work has already begun on NM Assault on Osgiliath, and I will also start NM Blood of Gondor soon. That will leave three cycles completely covered in terms of NM quests. But there is still a lot to do so that we will continue our efforts into the next cycles.

Encounter set analysis

After having had a bit of a hiatus, the encounter set analyses and player card analyses will be making a return to the blog a little more frequent. It began this month with the review for the encounter set of A Journey to Rhosgobel. More articles by Silblade will follow soon, hopefully, a little more frequent again.

Storage hub

It was a little unexpected, but I received another storage solution from community member TheChap. He shared how he stores his encounter cards by doubling up his Saga and Deluxe boxes. It’s a very cool solution, allowing for modular storage while also reusing the original packaging. I have no new storage articles planned, but if someone wants to share their way of storing the game, reach out to me!

Additional articles

One additional article was written this month, pushing people towards the LOTR LCG Completion Weekend that we held on the final weekend of the month. I wanted to do an official post on the site about this just because some people might not be connected to the Discord or Facebook groups. It will help us to get more people to these events, and I hope we can hold some more similar events in the future.

The Future

The past month has been a little bit more relaxed for me on a personal level, allowing me to invest a little more time in the blog and the loot. I have no idea if this additional time will be available to me in the future, but if it is, I will try to make use of it. August will see a lot less content from my side since the majority of my attention will be given to the loot. The rest of this segment will mostly be dedicated to giving an update about conventions and the actual loot. I hope to give you all a better personal update at the end of August.

I wrote the majority of the article a bit earlier in the month, but sadly some things have changed in the previous 48 hours that made me a bit less positive about the month. Some people in the community already know some of the details, and I hope to explain everything else to other people in the future too, but for now, know that I am safe and have left the hospital after quite an emergency. I will be bed-bound for a few weeks in August, so I will have nothing better to do than write articles and work on the blog. Silver linings, I suppose.

Conventions

Some big things happened this month concerning conventions. The first was that at the very beginning of the month, registration opened for Con of the Rings 2022. At the moment of writing, there are still tickets available, and you can also still claim your custom T-shirt. Check this link: https://conoftheringsmn.com/tickets/ for a chance to spend all weekend at the old FFG Center with many of the community’s most prominent members. I myself have bought my ticket, along with plane tickets and a hotel booking, so I am looking forward to seeing everyone there. I will make sure to bring enough goodies from Europe so that I can fill my suitcase with US-only items!

The other big convention news was that I organized, together with a few others, an LOTR LCG Completion weekend. When publishing this article, the convention is still going, and players are putting in the final effort to complete every quest released for this game. I have not been able to join in because of medical complications, but I applaud everyone who has been helping us to complete quests during the weekend. I hope that more people will join in next time and that this has been useful to newer players as well!

Loot

It has been a busy month for the loot. Not only did I continue with getting the unique cover for the book figured out with the artist, but I also worked on the contents of the book some more. The many different achievements got locked into place, and I was able to start writing a brief summary for each and every quest. August will see the completion of the first prototype, and after that, I can start doing logistics again by reaching out to everyone who has earned the loot. Since I will be going to Con of the Rings this year, I will be able to hand some of the books over to people in person, which saves me on shipping. I’m really excited to show you all the final product, and I’ll be really happy once the loot is complete. Keep an eye on your inbox for a message from me to fill in what to do with your loot.

~Aa’menealla nauva calen ar-malta~