New Print on Demand Scenario for Lord of the Rings LCG Now Available

Oct 15, 2012

First run as a special event at GenCon 2012, the Battle of Lake-Town Print on Demand scenario for the Lord of the Rings Living Card Game is now available from Fantasy Flight Games for $14.95.

From FFG:

Every vessel in the town was filled with water, every warrior was armed, every arrow and dart was ready, and the bridge to the land was thrown down and destroyed, before the roar of Smaug’s terrible approach grew loud, and the lake rippled red as fire beneath the awful beating of his wings.
–J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit

The Battle of Lake-town is a challenging scenario sure to test even the doughtiest warriors. To save Lake-town and its citizens, Middle-earth’s heroes must defeat the legendary dragon Smaug, but the odds are stacked heavily against them. The town is burning, Smaug’s fires leap from building to building, and as the dragon soars overheard ready to make his next attack, his hide of impenetrable scales protects him from nearly all attempts at retaliation!

Designed by Jonathan Benton and developed by the LCG team, The Battle of Lake-town gives players the chance to be heroes. The citizens of Lake-town depend upon your aid to survive an incendiary assault by one of Middle-earth’s greatest villains. The Battle of Lake-town offers a living portrait of a truly terrifying Smaug, and you’ll have plenty of interesting choices to make each turn as you try to douse the flames, defeat the dragon, and save the town.

Lead Developer Caleb Grace offers additional insight into the The Battle of Lake-town.

Developing The Battle of Lake-town

Developing The Battle of Lake-town was easily one of my favorite experiences from the last year. It’s not every day that I get to design cards for Smaug or recreate his devastating attack on Esgaroth. That passage of the book has captivated my imagination since I was nine years old, and as I developed this challenging scenario, I felt privileged to be able to share the drama of Smaug’s attack with some enthusiastic The Lord of the Rings players at Gen Con Indy.

When I was asked to finish the scenario, its card list was complete, and featured a brilliant “burn” mechanic that put players on a timer in their race to defeat Smaug before he roasted Lake-town. But there was still some work that needed to be done. Smaug was the scenario’s only enemy, and though he was truly magnificent and terrifying, we needed to increase the interaction he had with the players.

To do that, I introduced a choice into the beginning of each quest phase: before drawing the top card of the “Smaug deck,” the first player would have to decide to place Smaug into the staging area or have Smaug enter play engaged with him. We also added shadow effects that could grant Smaug additional attacks and move him from player to player. This helped ensure that each player would interact with Smaug as much as possible. Because Smaug could leap from the first player to engage the next player and make an immediate attack, I had to keep my guard up even if Smaug wasn’t immediately engaged with me. In the end, I believe we managed to create a truly terrible and magnificent foe that presented players with lots of interesting decisions and deadly surprises!

The final thing that made this my favorite work experience of last year, was the rare and wonderful opportunity to be present when our fans played the scenario for the first time. That was a real treat. The people I met were the nicest people imaginable, and the gleefully sinister side of me enjoyed hearing their groans as their heroes were burnt to a crisp by Smaug’s repeated attacks. I loved seeing the encounter deck come together and watching Lake-town burn as group after group of players were crushed by the power of Smaug.

But I’m not really all that evil. What made the Gen Con experience so special was that even as players were losing their games, they were having a great time. People were laughing about how many separate attacks Smaug made in a single turn and how they lost all but one of their characters after only one turn. That’s what made it truly magical when the first group won the scenario. Other players looked on in disbelief. Then, another group won, and another. Nobody got it on the first try, but once players knew what was coming, they were able to adjust their strategy and save Lake-town. The looks of triumph on those players when they defeated Smaug was exactly what I had in mind when I developed the quest.