REVIEW

Middle-earth: Dark Minions Charlottesville, Virginia: Iron Crown Enterprises, 1996

Middle-earth: Dark Minions (MEDM) is the second expansion set for the Middle-earth Collectible Card Game. Like its predecessor, The Dragons, MEDM offers 180 new cards with new possibilities of action with the dark servants (nice!), though in this case we get a huge batch of rules, additions and modifications with enough complexity to make us study them carefully before putting them into practice—practically turning the insert in each booster pack into a complete rulebook.

The most important novelty in MEDM is, of course, Minions—a new type of card with its own template and color. Minions are used as Agents (cards with the usual Hazard template, representing a character sent in a secret mission by the Dark Lord or by one of his lieutenants), but not all Agents are Minions. (Other uses for Minions will be introduced with the next expansion, The Lidless Eye (already in the shops since June).

Minions can do almost all the same things that Characters can do, but (like Hazards) they are mainly played during the movement phase. Their capabilities of moving secretly through regions, attacking parties, influencing or making Hazard creatures playable in places where they would not normally be offer enormous new possibilities for the game. It is easy to see that Minions are really powerful Hazards and therefore a useful tool for stopping our adversaries in their quests. Though their employment may seem complicated at first sight, it is just a matter of time getting used to them; they deserve the effort.

The second strong point of MEDM is the new set of site cards, called the Under-deeps. These represent a group of caves and passages created by Nature, joined by Melkor and used by his most powerful servants as a way of surreptitiously traveling across Middle-earth. A card of this type is identical to any other site card, except that it is not situated in a region but under another site, called the surface site. A list of adjacent deep sites substitutes for the "nearest Haven" rule. So, when traveling underground, a Minion can only go to another Under-deep or its surface site. Though attractive, Under-deeps are really dangerous places (playable Hazards and movement are harder) and, unless your party is ready to deal with them, the outcome of a visit means usually a loss not worth taking.

The last important feature of the expansion is the concept of Prisoners. Haven't you ever dreamt of taking Thorin and his mates under you custody, just as the Wood-elves did in The Hobbit? Well, now this is possible with the new Hazard events. When you successfully play one of such card, the prisoner is placed with a site card representing the place from which he must be rescued. The Prisoner's marshaling points are counted as negative, becoming permanent if he is eliminated. Leading a party into the rescue site and defeating all the attacks placed for its defense frees the Prisoner.

As with The Dragons, MEDM offers clarifications and additions to the existing rules—always needed with a game of this proportions, and always evoking thanks from its players, fans and collectors. These clarifications concern permanent events, cards aside, manifestations and automatic attacks creatures.

As a final word, I'd like to add that, taking into account that ICE offers again a serious product with great additions and enhancements, MEDM is another hit in the successful life of this great CCG. This is what I call an EXPANSION!

Reviewer: Marco Antonio Blanco Navarrete