First Age is Here!
After a long journey of more than a year, I have gone there and back again and can now proudly announce the release of First Age! This has been one of the most draining, but also the most enjoyable, projects I have ever undertaken. I’m now happy to set First Age free so that you all can enjoy it. When you’re ready to get started, head over to the First Age page here at Tales from the Cards! This is where everything related to First Age will live, including future expansions, any errata, frequently asked questions, and more!
As part of the release, I can happily announce that those who want to play First Age on OCTGN will have minimal work to do to get it up and running. That’s because the next time you load up OCTGN, the set, cards, and quests will be there already waiting for you! All you have to do is head over to the First Age page to download the latest version of the Custom quests image pack to make sure you see the cards in their full glory. Thanks to Tom and Daryl for making this happen. Also, a special thanks to those who have worked on and continue to work on the LOTR LCG plug-in for Strange Eons, as this was an integral tool for the project.
For those who are interested in playing First Age on CardWarden, the backup.zip file will be available soon. For those who would like to see this expansion make its way to Lackey, Vassal, or some other platform, I would love to see that happen, but my knowledge is sorely lacking in that department compared to my familiarity with OCTGN set creation. If you would like to help at all, contact me and let me know!
As for future expansion plans, this is something that will definitely happen. Although I’m looking forward to taking a break to recharge my batteries, part of me is already raring to go and missing the creation process. So look out for news on that front soon!
Finally, community is one of the strongest elements of LOTR LCG and First Age should be no different. If you have questions about something in the set, or come up with decklists/strategies that you want to share, send them to me and they’ll end up being posted here on Tales!
Tales from the Cards 
Kudos, Ian, for all of the hard work that you put into this project. I can’t wait to have a chance to play it with you, in person, at GenCon!
Thanks! I’m definitely looking forward to playing this at GenCon!
Congratulations Ian, you’ve just made my weekend!
Very exciting, congratulations on the release!
Excellent! Been really looking forward to this. Will be making a thoroughly massive ArtsCow order shortly
Yes, ArtsCow just ate my wallet…
Mine too. I was hoping it would be a bit more affordable. Make sure you guys use the coupon code!
Cirdan the Shipwright as a hero… my life is now complete.
I have not played them yet, but well done anyway quite an achievement. From what I have heard/seen it looks awesome. Once I finish my exams I will get stuck into them.
This looks like a lot of fun. I am concidering going for the printed version. I see there is a coupon code for it. Can you tell me how much this code knocks off the price?
I’m not sure how shipping works for different areas. I can say that for me it knocked off a whopping 40 bucks! As for quality, I’ve ordered from artscow before and it’s not quite FFG POD quality, but they come out pretty nice. If you want to wait about a week or so, I’m also going to upload these sets to another place, printerstudio, which some people say have pretty great quality. I haven’t used it myself, so I can’t verify, but I’ll have that option available as well.
Also, do you know about the quality of the printing? Is it on par with official FFG printed sets or more like the POD?
Can’t find anything about possible legal issues, are FFG and MEE ok with this, and the artists who’s work you’ve used? Certainly don’t want to spoil any parties, I love fanmade stuff, just wondering if/how it’s dealt with.
From my understanding, fanmade expansions of this kind are tolerated by companies like FFG as a type of “fair use”, since no one is making any money or profit off of them and they’re basically just something fun for the community. There are dozens of other fanmade expansions for this game out there, and First Age is far from the only one. For my part, the main motivation for this work was to have something I could play myself, and shared it with others as I figured they would be interested, and I make $0 from this.
Sure, you might not profit, but it might deny FFG some profit of course.
But if it is like you say, that FFG have never bothered to send in the sharks and tolerate these small scale initiatives that promote fandom, so much the better. Did you ask consent from the artists involved, or also assumed they would welcome the free publicity for their work?