About 100 years before the timeframe of our game, Middle-earth was struck by a terrifying cold season known as the Fell Winter. Appendix B’s “Tale of Years” tells us that even the Brandywine froze and that “White Wolves invade Eriador from the North”. It is in these wastes that our heroes encounter the White Warg and the Wolf of Angmar among an assorted pack of prowling enemies.
But is there a difference between a ‘wolf’ and a ‘Warg’ in Middle-earth? In the LOTR LCG, the designers tend to use the two terms interchangeably and, indeed, it appears that Tolkien usually did as well. The only clarifying comment could be a footnote to Letter #297 in which Tolkien says the word Warg is used “for an evil breed of (demonic) wolves” suggesting that Wargs might be an exclusive spirit-possessed subset of wolves.
My favorite is the humpbacked Mountain Warg from Khazad-dûm.
Perhaps this explains why the White Warg has sorcerous mojo wafting out of his eyes while the Wolf of Angmar looks like he simply stepped off an awesome T-shirt from Amazon’s online apparel store. No word yet on what the Northern Warg‘s story is or why neither Peter Jackson or Zoë Robinson (the LOTR LCG Art Director) have been able to produce a coherent design vision for Middle-earth’s lupine denizens.
Either way, it’s almost Nightfall and I’m not hanging around to find out!
Card Info: Wastes of Eriador #21; #22
Artist: Preston Stone; Crystal Sully
Master of Lore 
Keep up the good work with these Hasty Strokes. Though I’d love to see a more in-depth article I know the amount of time longer posts take. That being said, these bite-sized articles are great to read during the work day!
I miss writing the in-depth articles as well, but just haven’t been able to muster the time for once since last April. 😦
These bite-sized articles are just right when I’ve got 30 minutes or an hour to write though. I’m glad you are enjoying them!