Lord of the Rings Board Game Announced
A new Lord of the Rings board game is coming soon, which recreates one of the most iconic fights from Fellowship of the Ring. Games Workshop, best known as the publisher of Warhammer 40,000, recently announced Battle in Balin's Tomb, a skirmish board game for two or more players. The game is being released to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Fellowship of the Ring, the first in Peter Jackson's Academy Award-winning trilogy of movies. Battle in Balin's Tomb recreates the famed battle between the Fellowship, a group of goblins, and one infamous cave troll in the depths of the Mines of Moria. Battle in Balin's Tomb includes miniatures of all nine members of the Fellowship, a cave troll miniature, and 12 Moria goblins. It's unclear what the exact rules are for the game, but it appears to use specialized dice that determine hits and misses, along with each character having some sort of custom card (which likely means custom stats and abilities for named characters).
While Games Workshop is best known for their long-running Warhammer games, they also publish a miniatures skirmish game based on Lord of the Rings, which uses the likenesses of the actors from the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit movies. Middle-Earth Strategy Battle Game uses a variation of Warhammer rules, albeit much more streamlined and focused around individual heroes who can do substantially more damage than generic rank-and-file soldiers. The game has been in continuous production since 2001, with just about every good and evil faction in Middle-Earth receiving at least some representation in the game. While smaller than Warhammer 40,000, Middle-Earth Strategy Battle Game still has a decent-sized following at tournaments.
No price or release date has been announced for Battle in Balin's Tomb, but Games Workshop has announced that it will be available for the holiday season. The game will likely serve as both a standalone game and as a great gateway to jump into the bigger world of Middle-Earth Strategy Battle Game.