The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game – Race Across Harad
The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game – Race Across Harad Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Scenario Overview
Difficulty Level = 6
"Race Across Harad" is played with an encounter deck built with all the cards from the following encounter sets: Race Across Harad, Desert Sands, and Mordor Orcs. (Desert Sands and Mordor Orcs can be found in The Sands of Harad deluxe expansion to The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game.)
Player Cards with Doomed X
If a player card with the Doomed X keyword is played or put into play, each player must raise his threat level by the specified value.
Preparing the Orcs' Area
The setup for this scenario instructs the players to "Prepare the Orcs' area." To prepare the Orcs' area, the players must prepare a second quest deck consisting of stage 1C, stage 2C, stage 3C, and stage 4C, in that order. (The quest stages labeled stage 1A, 2A, 3A, and 4A are used in the player's quest deck, as normal.)
The Orcs' Area
The Orcs' area is a new play area, separate from the staging area, that represents the Orcs' pursuit as they try to overtake the players on their journey through Harad. As the players advance through their quest deck, the Orcs also advance through their quest deck, attempting to reach the same stage as the players and defeat it before they do. The quest stage on top of the Orcs' quest deck is called "the Orcs' stage." Each of these quest stages has the following text: "Forced: At the end of the quest phase, discard the top card of the encounter deck. Place X progress on this stage, where X is the discarded card's Threat plus the total Threat in the Orcs' area." Every round, this effect causes the Orcs to make progress on their stage, just as the players try to make progress on their quest stage. If the Orcs' quest stage has progress on it equal to or above its quest points, they advance to the next quest stage in the same way players would, first advancing to the "C" side of the next stage, resolving its effects, and then advancing to the "D" side.
While the Orcs are at a different quest stage than the players, cards in the Orcs' area are immune to player card effects, cannot leave the Orcs' area, and are not considered to be in the staging area (and thus do not contribute their Threat to the total Threat in the staging area). Players are considered to be at "the same stage" as the Orcs if their main quest stage's name and number match the Orcs' quest stage ("2B–Racing North" and "2D–Racing North," for example).
When the players and the Orcs are at the same quest stage, cards in the Orcs' area are no longer immune to player card effects, can leave the Orcs' area, and are considered to be in the staging area (and thus do contribute their Threat to the total Threat in the staging area). Thus, when the Orcs catch up to the players, the players can engage enemies in the Orcs' area and travel to locations in the Orcs' area.
Transcriber's note: in the PDF's text layer, the icon used in these sentences is a bare "$" symbol, and the page image shows a small glyph in its place. The booklet uses the same icon for a card's Threat value that it uses for the total in the staging area, so it is rendered here as "Threat". This reading is an inference from the context and the house LOTR rulebooks' use of "Threat" for staging-area totals, not a printed word.
Suggested Play Area for Race Across Harad
The booklet's suggested play area for Race Across Harad is laid out as follows:
- The Players' Quest Deck is shown with the quest card "Racing North" on top.
- The Orcs' Quest Deck is shown beside the players' quest deck, with its own top quest card.
- The Staging Area is a dashed area holding two Desert location cards.
- The Orcs' Area is a separate dashed area, to the right of the staging area, holding one enemy card.