Games Workshop, Ltd. will be releasing a new game, Battle of Pelennor Fields, the first new boxed game in their Middle-earth line of tabletop miniatures games since their Escape from Goblin Town game in 2012, and their first self-contained Lord of the Rings product since 2005’s Mines of Moria.
Posted in Collectibles, Gaming, J.R.R. Tolkien, Lord of the Rings, LotR Movies, Merchandise, Movie Return of the King, Return of the King
The Russian publisher Sezonoj has just published a reprint of the second edition of La Hobito, world famous work by J.R.R. Tolkien, as the ninth volume of the Mondliteraturo series of books. (more…)
Back in October, New Zealand Post announced that they would mint special-issue gold coins as a tie-in with Jackson’s The Hobbit. The press release stated:
The rim of each coin is inscribed in both English and Dwarvish with the words “Middle-earth — New Zealand.” (more…)
Posted in Green Books, Hobbit Book, J.R.R. Tolkien, Lord of the Rings, LotR Books, The Hobbit
The following is an editorial by long-time staffer and original Green Books contributor Ostadan and does not necessarily represent the opinion of our entire staff:
Most people agree that Jackson’s film adaptation of The Lord of the Rings was both an artistic and commercial success. For many fans of the book, it was as good an adaptation as they had any reasonable right to expect (although with some questionable choices); for those who did not know the books or did not remember them well, it served as an introduction to Tolkien’s work. For my part, although there were numerous scenes and bits of dialogue that were distracting — whether because they strayed unnecessarily far from Tolkien’s text (Denethor), or because it simply didn’t ring true to the story at hand (the very over-the-top Hollywood treatment of the Army of the Dead) — there was much more that did feel like reading The Lord of the Rings for the first time. This is very important to me in watching a cinematic book adaptation, even if it is not fully “faithful”, whether the work in question is The Lord of the Rings or Watership Down. In some undefinable way, the film should remind me of the experience of reading the book so that I feel that I am reading a translation of a sort, rather than a new work “inspired” by the original.
Posted in Hobbit Book, Hobbit Movie, The Hobbit, TheOneRing.net Announcements, TheOneRing.net Community, Tolkien
Fantasy Flight Games has posted another teaser for its new expansion of The Lord of the Rings: the Card Game.
We’ve now seen several card previews from the forthcoming cardgame expansion. As always, the artwork for these cards, not based on film images, is imaginative and well-executed. As noted in earlier previous teasers, this set still requires the original The Lord of the Rings core set. Fans of the game will likely enjoy the expansion, but new players will also have to get the core set — gift-givers or new players should take note.
Also note that the Shadow and Flame, completing the six-part Dwarrowdelf expansion cycle for the core game, will also debut soon.
[More]
Posted in Gaming
Parma Eldalamberon (The Book of Elven-tongues) is a journal of the Elvish Linguistic Fellowship, a special interest group of the Mythopoeic Society. This new issue presents previously unpublished writings by J. R. R. Tolkien about an early version of one of his invented scripts, edited and annotated by Arden R. Smith, under the guidance of Christopher Tolkien and with the permission of the Tolkien Estate.
The Qenya Alphabet is an edition of Tolkien’s charts and notes dealing with the circa-1931 version of the writing-system later called Fëanorian Tengwar. It includes 40 documents in which Tolkien’s examples of the scripts are reproduced using electronic scans of black-and-white photocopies of the original manuscripts. (more…)
Posted in J.R.R. Tolkien, Languages, Silmarillion, Tolkien, Tolkien EstateIn April, the cover image of a new ‘Hobbit’ card game from game designer Martin Wallace was leaked — a very nice illustration indeed, and attributed to Ted Nasmith.
Now German publisher Kosmos has announced the publication of this game for October 2012.
“In Der Hobbit: Das Kartenspiel, two teams play against each other: good versus bad. The basic game mechanism is trick-taking, but whoever wins the trick can distribute the cards amongst all the players, depending on his character’s ability. Some cards hurt, some heal — and only one team can win the game.”
Posted in Gaming, Merchandise, The Hobbit
Back in 2001, I wrote Glossopoeia for Fun and Profit (also reprinted in The People’s Guide to J.R.R. Tolkien), for our Green Books department, in which I discussed three examples of invented languages: Esperanto, Elvish, and Klingon. For those who found that necessarily brief article of interest, University of Indiana linguistics professor Michael Adams has now edited a new book, From Elvish to Klingon: Exploring Invented Languages (Oxford University Press, 2011), comprising eight essays (including his a general introductory essay by Adams) about linguistic invention, though not precisely the “invented languages” suggested by the book’s title, as we will see. Each essay is accompanied by an appendix by Adams that extends or clarifies some aspect of the essay.
Adams’s introductory chapter deals with the spectrum of linguistic invention, and considers the motivations for such inventions. He considers whether invented languages are an attempt to re-create “the language of Adam”, i.e., a perfected language as spoken by Adam before the fall (it appears that Adams takes the Biblical texts quite literally here), and considers slang and poetry as examples of human linguistic creativity; Adams is the author of Slang: The People’s Poetry(Oxford Press, 2009).
Posted in Books Publications, Fans, J.R.R. Tolkien, Languages, Lord of the Rings, LotR Books, Merchandise, Miscellaneous, TheOneRing.net Announcements, TheOneRing.net Community, Tolkien Wizkids Games (publisher of the Heroclix Lord of the Rings game) announced the Lord of the Rings: Nazgûl semi-cooperative game about a year ago, but gave no release date. They have now announced the release date as May 16, 2012. The idea of casting the players as Nazgûl is a fairly novel one. We will probably learn more about actual game play during the next few months, since Wizkids is pretty good about posting rules on their site. (more…)
The WizKids product brand, under various owners, has been publishing the ‘HeroClix’ series of collectible miniature boardgames for several years now; they are move-and-fight combat games played on maps with miniature pre-painted figures whose movement and combat statistics are recorded on a dial that clicks to (usually) lower values as the figure receives damage. The most popular and numerous HeroClix products have been based on Marvel and DC superhero franchises, though there have been other settings as well.
Their newest product is a Lord of the Rings game. There are (at present) two ways to buy: an ‘Epic Campaign’ starter set, which contains eight characters (Sauron, Witch-Kingm ‘Ringbearer’ (Frodo), ‘Esquire of Rohan’ (Merry)m ‘Guard of the Citadel’ (Pippin), Strider, Captain Lurtz, and Olog-Hai), as well as rules, six largish maps, ‘Horde’ tokens representing generic Orcs or warriors, dice, character cards, and other play aides; and the standard ‘booster’ style in which one of an initial set of 21 figures (with various degrees of rarity) and its associated character card is purchased sight unseen. You might get a common ‘Frodo’, or a rare Gandalf the Grey. There will undoubtedly be many expansions with additional figures and maps before long.
Posted in Board Game, Collectibles, Lord of the Rings, LotR Movies, Merchandise, Movie Fellowship of the Ring, Movie Return of the King, Movie The Two Towers, Other Merchandise, Shop, Tolkien
Welcome to TheOneRing.net’s Boardgame Gift Guide!Boardgames that portray Tolkien’s world have been a part of the hobby since the 1960s. Ranging from easy family games to hard-core wargames, there is something for everyone. Since the merchandising license for such games can be expensive – and boardgames are not a huge mass market – there are only a few quality companies licensed to produce Tolkien-themed games.
Posted in Gaming, Merchandise, Miscellaneous, Other Merchandise, TheOneRing.net Community, Toys
No, no, not the film — it’s a new boardgame by Dr. Reiner Knizia, who designed the recently-republished ‘Lord of the Rings’ cooperative boardgame and many other excellent titles. Fantasy Flight Games has announced this for ‘Winter 2010’. Some time back, Knizia indicated that, like the book, this will be a lighter title than ‘Lord of the Rings’ and playable by younger players and non-gamers. 2-5 players represent dwarves who accompany Bilbo on his journey; the goal is to end the game with the most loot!
With the forthcoming cooperative LotR card game and the new edition of the older Knizia LotR co-op (and a likely new edition of the big-box War of the Ring wargame next year), and now this new product, Fantasy Flight is keeping their Tolkien line very much alive. In any case, this game can keep us occupied on those long Yule nights while waiting for news about a Hobbit movie.
Learn more at the Fantasy Flight Games website. [Click Here]
[disclaimer – I (Ostadan) have nothing to do with FFG, but think they’ve done a fine job in their handling of the Tolkien game license, unlike some other companies I could mention…]
Posted in Fans, Gaming, Merchandise, Miscellaneous, Other Merchandise, The Hobbit, Toys