We spoke to Sabertooth Games COO Luke Peterschmidt at the GAMA Trade Show, where he revealed additional details about the recently announced Lord of the Rings 'Tradeable Miniatures Game' (see 'Sabertooth Announces LOTR CMG').  The game will be released in November in two SKUs -- a $19.99 Starter Set for two players, and $8.99 Booster Packs.  The Starter Set will include eight figures plus a bonus 'figure' of Frodo wearing the ring (which consists of a base with no figure, get it?), dice, one page of rules, a one-page reference sheet with special abilities, and 3-4 maps on hex sheets that can connect into a 'board' for the game.  Each Booster Pack will include four figures of the 120 figures planned for the first series.   The figures will be based on movie likenesses from all three movies including Return of the King, which will be released during the 2003 holiday season. 

 

Peterschmidt also described some elements of play.  Rounds will take approximately 30-40 minutes to play, so that tournament rounds can be played in a maximum of one hour.  The game mechanics are set up so that doubling the size of an army does not double the time required to play; eight to eighty models can be used on a side without lengthening the game substantially.  And to reflect the way characters in the books/movies seem to behave, characters that are injured get closer to death but not weaker; they are strong and able to continue battling until they're dead.