Celebrating Tolkien Day

2022 is a big year for JRR Tolkien fans. Not only is it the 85th anniversary of The Hobbit, it's also the year we'll be seeing The Lord of the Rings back on our screens with the upcoming Amazon show The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. If you can't wait until September to head back to Middle-Earth, though, there are plenty of great tabletop games you can try to tide you over!

This isn't like your average trading card game, like Magic The Gathering or Pokemon. Instead of needing to crack open lots of random booster packs to find what you need, every box contains all the cards you need to play straight away.

A cooperative card game that can be played on your own or with up to four players, the Lord of the Rings Card Game has you assemble a party of heroes and amass armies and allies as you and your friends work together to defeat enemies and complete quests.

The really cool thing about it is it's a "Living Card Game", which means new expansions are added regularly. Just this year we've had The Dark of Mirkwood, which introduces two new adventures as part of the ongoing Mirkwood Paths campaign and leads your group into a rescue mission to save the villagers of a Woodman village from a band of goblins.

If you fancy the strategy of a card game with the longer storytelling of an RPG, the Lord of the Rings Card Game is like nothing you've ever played before.

If card games aren't quite your thing, then Journeys in Middle-Earth might be more your style. This is a boardgame that uses mobile app integration to lead you and up to four other players through an epic, cooperative campaign across Middle-Earth.

As you progress through Middle-Earth, the app will detail the twists and turns of your story, as well as control any enemies you encounter. Much like The Card Game, this is meant to be played as an ongoing story you and your friends continue over multiple play sessions, but each adventure is also self-contained for short, no-commitment needed blasts of fantasy adventuring. Individual adventures take between an hour and 90 minutes to complete, and the box includes fourteen of them.

Though everything you need to play is available in the box, keep in mind that the included miniatures are not pre-painted. You don't need to, but you can add to your immersion (and maybe fall into another new hobby) if you have a go at painting them yourself!

If your group find yourselves clamouring for more, there are two expansions for the game already out: Shadowed Paths, which features an entirely new campaign with thirteen adventures across Moria and Murkwood, and Spreading War, which features a whopping fifteen adventures in Gondor and Rohan. Both of them are practically as big as the base game, so you could be spending a long, long time in Middle-Earth.

Maybe you like your tabletop gaming a little more wargame-y? In that case, why not let the masters of wargaming, Games Workshop, take you to the fields of Pelennor.

The Battle of Pelennor Fields was the biggest battle of the War of the Ring, where Sauron's armies marched on Minas Tirith. The last time we saw it was in The Return of the King, but this starter kit includes everything you need to recreate the war yourself.

With a hefty 84 unpainted miniatures across both the armies of good and evil for you to customise, dice, custom range rulers for both the forces of Rohan and Mordor, effect and status tokens, a scenario book to help recreate the war and give you ideas for battles to reenact, and a full rules book to help you get started, this is a brilliant way to get into wargaming if the thought of diving into Games Workshop's Warhammer is a bit intimidating for you.

The miniatures are stunningly high-quality, with everything from the Riders of Rodan and their king, Theoden, to the Morannon Orcs and the Witch-King of Angmar, you could spend just as much time painting these. To help you out, Games Workshop does supply a full colour key on its website, just so you know which colours you should get to bring the war to life in its true colours!

f you've never played an EXIT game before, you're missing out. They're essentially escape rooms in a box, where you and your friends try and complete the puzzles in a set amount of time. Shadows Over Middle-Earth is one of the first licensed properties to make its way to EXIT, making this something really special.

Scheduled to launch in June 2022, the box tasks you with helping Frodo reach Mount Doom by completing tasks set to you by Gandalf. If you're an EXIT fan, this has the same code-cracking, puzzle solving cooperative fun of the other boxes, and if you're a Lord of the Rings fan it's full of lore, maps, and references to uncover.

One of the coolest aspects is the helper app. By installing the app you can track your time, compare you score to the leaderboard, and even play sound effects to really build the atmosphere of your session. EXIT games can take entire afternoons, and are always a great time.