"We must press our Enemy, and no longer wait upon him for the move."

–Aragorn, The Return of the King

Don't wait for the Enemy's next move. Start your heroes on their homeward journey. The Mûmakil Adventure Pack for The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game is now available!

The first Adventure Pack in the Haradrim cycle, The Mûmakil finds several of Middle-earth's greatest heroes stranded in southern Harad, hundreds of miles from Gondor and home. The lands around them are populated by Men and Orcs and other creatures loyal to the Dark Lord of Mordor. They have deserts to cross, jungles to navigate, and treacherous passes to climb.

But they have one thing in their favor—the friendship of a small tribe of Haradrim. Led by the Adventure Pack's new hero, Kahliel (The Mûmakil, 1), these Haradrim have no love for the Dark Lord. And they have decided to serve the heroes as guides in order to accompany them north to Gondor—where they hope to start new lives free from the Shadow of Mordor.

Their first suggestion? The heroes should tame Mûmakil to ride along the long journey north.

Finding and Fighting Your Way Through the Jungle

While the scenario from The Mûmakil pits you against a host of new jungle perils and predators—as we saw in an earlier preview—many of its player cards offer new ways to navigate these perils safely. Among the most impactful of these player cards is the new Tactics event, Wait No Longer (The Mûmakil, 5).

For the cost of two resources, Wait No Longer allows you to search through the top five cards of the encounter deck for an enemy and put that enemy into play engaged with you. If you do this, Wait No Longer then reduces the number of encounter cards you need to reveal by one.

While this is already a strong ability in multiplayer, ensuring that your Tactics player should be able to engage the nastiest enemy your group might have revealed, it's even more powerful in solo play. While Tactics players gain some limited ability to place progress on locations outside of the quest phase, thanks to cards like Arod (The Treason of Saruman, 8) and Blade of Gondolin (Core Set, 39), they still tend to have difficulty if they reveal too many locations. Or even treacheries.

Tactics decks excel at dealing with enemies. And Wait No Longer allows you to deal with enemies as often as possible, especially if you can play it over and over with Háma (The Long Dark, 76), Book of Eldacar (Encounter at Amon Dîn, 59), or a similar means of recursion.

There's a chance, of course, that you'll fail to find an enemy among the top five cards of the encounter deck. And two resources may feel like a hefty gamble. But if you can successfully fetch a string of enemies to slay with Háma and your other heroes or allies, you can completely avoid any "location lock" or surge effects that might choke your staging area. For many Tactics players, that's the sort of guidance they've long hoped to receive—a direct path from enemy to enemy—and they'll consider two resources for Wait No Longer a bet well worth placing.

Making Use of Every Resource

Rather than focusing heavily on a single trait or two, the Haradrim cycle revisits a number of different mechanics alongside its introduction of the Harad trait. You'll find side quests, plus more support for the multi-traited events introduced in The Sands of Harad deluxe expansion. But you'll also find new support for traits like Dúnedain and Pipe.

It's a very long journey home for your heroes and their Haradrim allies, and it's not one they can complete without any rest. Accordingly, you might find the chance to break out a Dwarf Pipe (The Mûmakil, 7), especially if you've gone mining for a day or two with your Zigil Miners (Khazad-dûm, 9). Your Dwarves would appreciate it, of course, but so might Bilbo Baggins (The Road Darkens, 6), the rest of your Hobbits, Gandalf, any other Istari, and any other character prone to blowing Smoke Rings (The Black Riders, 10).

The introduction of Dwarf Pipe to the collection means you could theoretically reduce your threat by as much as eight from a single play of Smoke Rings, and you could easily arrange your group's party compositions in such a way as to generate twelve or more points of Willpower from that same two-cost event. Pausing to smoke those Pipes all the time may not be the most effective way to push through the jungles of Harad, but an eight-point reduction in threat from a single Smoke Rings may be the realization of a goal in and of itself!

Ready Your Horse-Hair Lasso

Ready your Horse-hair Lasso (The Mûmakil, 11) or spread your Noose of Vines (The Mûmakil, 14) across your jungle trail. The Mûmakil is available at retailers now. So pick up your copy, and take your first steps along a journey full of surprises, wonder, and awe!