This is a card game that my dad and I invented. You may play it if you want. It helps if you know the story of lord of the rings. You just need a regular deck of cards with two jokers.

Battle of Helms Deep: (Card Game)

Regular deck of cards with two jokers.

by Henry and Matthew Frigon

Overview: 2 player game. Red cards are the good guys. Black cards are the bad guys.


Object of the game:

Black player attacks and tries to break through the outer defenses
and destroy all red archers. If this occurs, black wins the game.

Red tries to defend until all black cards have been destroyed. If this occurs, red
wins the game.


Set up for red player:

Separate the deck into 3 piles: hearts, diamonds and black cards.

Shuffle the hearts and deal out 7 cards face up as the outer wall of defense.
Deal out the six remaining heart card, face down, behind and in between the outer defense cards.
These two walls represent the walls of Helms deep.

Shuffle the diamonds + one joker added in (Gandalf). Deal out 3 piles of four cards each.
These are Red players archers.
Set aside the two remaining cards, face down. These are red players spies.


Set up for black player:

Shuffle all the black cards + one joker added in (influence of Saruman).
Place the deck face down in front of you.


How to play:

Red player turns over the top card of each of his archer piles. Red may only use three archers at a time
Black player turns over three cards to use as his assault force.

Red goes first. Red may use only one of his archers in a turn. If any (one) of his archers is higher than
any (one) of the overturned black cards. The black card is removed from the game (sklitch!!!) and replaced
by another black card from the black deck.

If none of the red archers are higher than the upturned black cards, red cannot play during that turn.

If the successful archer is the same value as the upturned black card that is its targer, both the archer
and the black card are removed from the game (double sklitch!!!) The black card is replaced as usual, and
the red archer is replaced by the card directly underneath it. If there are no more red archers in any given
pile, sorry charlie, you are out of luck and down to two archers.


Black player goes second. He chooses a weak card in the outer red wall and attacks it with one of his upturned cards.
If the black card is higher, the red card is removed from the game (crumble). Once any two outer wall cards have been
removed, red player may replace those cards with his spy cards, face down. Any card of the inner wall, may not
be attacked until the two cards of the outer wall(including spies) in front of it have been removed. Once the two
outer wall cards and the inner wall cards behind it have been removed, black may enter Helms Deep,and begin attacking
the closest archer pile.


Play continues until one or the other side runs out of cards, thus loosing the game.



Magical exceptions:

When red player upturns a joker(Gandalf) as one of his archers, the three upturned black cards are removed from the game +
the top three cards of the black deck are also removed from the game.

When black player upturns a joker (influence of Saruman) as one of his Orcs, the three upturned red archers are removed
from the game + the three replacement archers are also removed. If there are only two or one archer piles, 2 cards are removed
in the case of on archer pile, or 4 cards removed in the case of two archer piles.

copyright 2005 Henry and Matthew Frigon (don't be stealin our idea to make a bunch of money, this game is free to
share with every one)