ETA Q4 2026

The heart of Middle-earth beats within its lore, its moods, its ethos. Tolkien’s words immerse the readers into his wondrous creation, weaving beautiful and powerful stories.

Hope and Despair is an expansion for War of the Ring: The Card Game that adds a new type of card: the story card. Inspired by key events and turning points of The Lord of the Rings, story cards represent natural and supernatural influences on the events of Middle-earth, providing a powerful way to modify your playing decks.

This expansion includes 54 story cards, 40 story tokens, and rules for adding story cards to your game, both in multi-player and solo scenarios.

Hope and Despair can be used in conjunction with Fire and Swords, or just with the base game alone. A set of Shadow “bot” cards are provided for use with Against the Shadow to play solo or co-operatively.