The Hobbit is Now Available

This is a story of how a Baggins had an adventure, found himself doing and saying things altogether unexpected. He may have lost the neighbours’ respect, but he gained well, you will see whether he gained anything in the end.
–The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien

A Long-extended Party is pleased to present The Hobbit, our fourth community-created scenario for The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game.

A Late Adventure

In perfect The Hobbit spirit, our release for its latest version is coming in a bit late, having overslept and missed its appointed time. But now it’s time to go, ere break of day, we will worry about any forgotten handkerchiefs while we adventure along the way.

After the great success at the Con of the Rings 2024, it’s time for every fan of our beloved game to enjoy this new community scenario, to re-discover familiar places and face terrible plights, to live their greatest adventure. 

As some of you might already know, The Hobbit community scenario is an endeavor by A Long-extended Party to bring to all players the whole of The Hobbit storyline as a single scenario, albeit one quite longer than usual. You can read more details about this scenario and how it works in our previous article.

This scenario will also allow players who have discovered the game with the Revised Content and have never had the chance to get their hand on the original The Hobbit Saga Boxes to experience this classic storyline.

Along the way the player will strive to collect as many boons as they can, so that Bilbo Baggins will be able to show to everyone that he is the Master Burglar he never knew he was.

The print files for The Hobbit community scenario are now available to everyone through our usual channels, but note that to play this scenario on Dragncards you will still have to wait for a few weeks, since something interesting is brewing.

Something Tookish

Belladonna Took watched the wizard as he climbed the steep road to her favourite spot in the hills of Tookland. “Good morning, Gandalf.” she said to the wizard.

“Good morning to you, Belladonna. It has been some time since we last met. I am glad I have managed to track you down.”

Belladonna smiled. “The day after the elves’ New Year? It is hardly surprising that you find me here. Besides, you probably just asked Bungo.”

Gandalf raised his eyebrows as he sat beside his friend and took out his pipe. “And how would you know I had visited your husband, if you have spent the night dancing and singing with Gildor and his company?”

“That drawing of Bilbo’s poking out of your pocket. Another dragon? No doubt he also added some of what he likes to call his elvish poetry.”

Gandalf laughed. “He appeared as I was leaving and insisted I take the drawing. And yes, it does have some of his verses. He has been listening to your brother Isembold’s tales about me and he mostly stayed hidden while I was at Bag End, no endless questions this time. He is getting more cautious as he gets older. He was probably worried that I would spirit him away to meet a real dragon.”

Belladonna laughed too. “He still asks me about anything and everything, especially the old histories. But when it comes to wizards, I think he’s right to be wary. We Tooks know your reputation is not just based on idle talk in the pub.” She caught a mischievous gleam from under the wizard’s bushy brows. “Now, Gandalf, at least wait until the lad is of age. And make sure you look after him if you do take him off on any of your adventures.”

The wizard leant back and blew a few smoke rings out of his pipe. “Don’t worry. For one thing I have no ‘adventures’ planned at the moment. And for another, I always look after those I choose for my companions, as well as I can, which is very well, though the wide world is never an entirely safe place.”

Beyond the Original Bargain

With the general release of The Hobbit, we are also adding some more items to our ALeP FAQ page, in particular some clarifications for how The Hobbit peculiar mechanics work, as well as a new wording for the Messenger of the King contract in our Free to Choose List. 

When we were developing the Beyond the Original Bargain contract [THo 69], we realized that the official wording of Messenger of the King [TVoM 134] would allow for some very unthematic and abusable combinations, like a MotK hero accompanying a Grey Wanderer [TVoM 74]. We tried to find a satisfactory solution by fiddling with the wording of Beyond the Original Bargain, but to no avail. So we propose an alternate wording for Messenger of the King, that also strives to make the MotK hero work even more as a hero than before, making it hopefully more intuitive. 

If you follow our new wording, you can now use Beyond the Original Bargain to combine Messenger of the King and Grey Wanderer, but you still end up with a single starting hero, that is to say the MotK one. You can also combine At The End of All Things or Bond of Friendship [TVoM 147] with Messenger of the King, with the MotK hero taking the place of one of your two or four starting heroes.

As usual, remember that any FTCL items are completely optional, they are merely suggestions we make to the community so that everyone’s games might flow and work better.

The Hobbit is available now as a free print-and-play expansion, available to download below. Prefer to play digitally? This expansion, and all future ALeP content, is available to play on DragnCards. Looking for a more professional, third-party print job? Check out our accompanying printing guides below for detailed, easy-to-follow instructions.

Printing Guides and Downloads

Player Card Spoilers on RingsDB

We are hard at work preparing French, German, Italian, Polish, and Spanish translations of The Hobbit: