Ruhtra

Game play:
1-4 players customize their decks and take them on against an event deck tailored by the Quest cards chosen. Player decks each have 3 heroes that belong to one of 4 spheres: Tactics (Fighting), Spirit (Questing), Lore (Support), Leadership (Kind of a Jack-of-all trades, with strong tricks). You must battle monsters, explore areas, and endure dangerous treacheries. The game is extremely difficult and without well built decks, you will be unlikely to succeed. One nice thing about this game is that in can be played Solo, although I have not yet tried it.

Components:
The art on this game is fantastic. I was originally worried it would just be screen-caps from the films for card art, but was very happy to see it is all high quality original art work for every card. I also find the layout of the cards to be very well done, easy to read, and great looking. These cards really capture the feel of Lord of the Rings.

If there is any real problem with the game, it is that it is very difficult. You are not looking for a challenge, I would not get this. But for those who are, you are definitely in for a treat with this one.

Your goal is to reach the boss room of the dungeon, slay the overlord, and retrieve the powerful artifact called a Summoning Stone. The player in possession of it becomes a summoner with new abilities, and the must either reach the entrance of the dungeon or kill the other players. One of my favorite aspects of this game is its connection to Summoner Wars, an important part of the lore of that game being summoning stones. It almost makes this game feel sort of like a prequel to that one (it would be really neat if they made characters from Dungeon Run into Summoners for SW).

The game itself is very fun as well. You can work together with the other players, and then back-stab them when they least expect it. I really enjoy games that allow you to manipulate others and form tenuous alliances.

One great aspect is the re-playability. The dungeon is always randomly generated. There are 8 characters, each with a unique deck of 10 skill cards, only 5 of which you will be able to use in a game. This along with a fairly large deck of encounters full of monsters, traps, and strangers (NPCS), and a treasure deck as well. Its also very quick, around an hour to play, but the game is fun enough to try to fit in more than one game a session.