Eagle Games has announced the April release of a Lord of the Rings board game for kids six and up.  The game was licensed from Sophisticated Games, U.K.  Design was by Reiner Knizia, with artwork by children's book illustrators Ingrid and Dieter Schubert.  This slices the Lord of the Rings game license pretty fine: Fantasy Flight Games has the adult board game license, Games Workshop has the tabletop miniature game, Sabertooth has the CMG, and Decipher has the CCG and RPG.  And Eagle says in its release that it is 'currently in discussion with the Lord of the Rings licensor regarding a future title aimed at adults.' 

 

Eagle also announced three other games for 2003:  Age of Mythology: The Board Game, based on the Age of Empires PC game franchise; Attack!, and Attack! Expansion, World War II games.   All three games will feature hundreds of professionally-sculpted plastic miniatures, over-sized game boards with art by Paul Niemeyer, and multiple rule sets for gamers at varying levels. 

 

The new games represent a shift in strategy for Eagle, which says it is '...taking its high-quality game concept to a mainstream audience in the coming year.'  This will manifest itself primarily in price point -- the new games are expected to be in the $20 to $30 MSRP range, vs. the $50 pricetag on Eagle's past releases.