Fantasy Flight Games Ares Games War of The Ring 2nd Edition, Multi-Colored (AGS WOTR001), 2 to 4 Players

I love this game. In fact, I wish I had someone to play it with weekly I love it so much. I bought all the expansions. That said, this is a game review for people who are wondering if they should invest in War of the Ring: Some potential turnoffs: - The game takes a long time to set up. If this isn't something you are willing to spend at least 20-30 minutes just with setup then this game may not be for you. - Lots of rules. It's not necessarily a complicated rule set, but the rules are very "deep" in that, you will be referencing the rule book almost every turn, if not every other turn for your first few playthroughs. We were well into our 5th or 6th game and were still asking things like "wait, what's a sortie again and why do I want to do it?" - The game will make a LOT more sense if you are familiar with the LOTR world. If you are not, I can imagine you may miss some nuance in the gameplay and rules. - You will spend time looking over the map trying to find out the locations referenced during gameplay. I am LOTR fan and have poured over the appendices and maps for many years. Even I found myself asking, "where's Mount Gundabad again?" - Differentiation of the little figurines and markers can be hard. We often would reference the rule book to figure out which elites were Rohan or which political marker was what. We finally took different colored Sharpie markers and colored around the bases of the miniatures to assist. - Luck. There is a serious element of luck in this game. Whatever strategy you work towards in this game could be thwarted by a series of poor dice rolls. On a scale of chess to Monopoly, War of the Ring is Risk. - Some may consider this game long - block out 4+ hours your first few run throughs. - It's not really a four player game even though it is advertised 2-4 players. Yes it does have four player rules, but it is best played with two people. Cool things: - This game is a truly amazing adaptation of the tension associated with the story in the original Lord of the Rings books. My long history spent with the books (and movies of course) was rewarded in this game through their skillful application of everything from political drama or the power of the ring to corrupt, to Sauron's feverish search for the ring, on and on. I am amazed at how the game designers made this work. - Balance - This game has great balance. Every time I have played, against multiple opponents, there has never been a blowout victory. In fact, 9/10 times it has come down to the last few turns to decide the victor. We found that highly satisfying. - Design quality - the artwork, figure design, board, almost everything is of a very high quality. You will feel you got your money's worth when you unbox, set up, and ultimately play through this game. - Not too long. Yes, I said above that this is a long game, but I have played other games that can post 6-12 hours (Risk, Axis & Allies, Diplomacy). This game, once you get the hang of it, can be knocked out in 2+ hours. That is a fantastic game length and totally worth the set up and tear down time. - It is a really great 2-player game, which sometimes is hard to find. I hope this helps some of you decide if you should go all in on War of the Ring.

The rules are complex and I doubt even the most seasoned board game player can get through this game without referencing the rules every so often. The game Itself can take a long time to set up and can easily take up to 4 hours to complete. It does come with 2 handy rules reference sheets that outline the core game mechanics as well as providing a glossary for key words. Despite the games convolution I found that my second time playing the game was much easier and faster. However, if you make it past the daunting rules you'll find an incredible board game that provides a genuine middle earth experience. As players of the free people, you'll feel the sense of impending doom of invasion from the shadow player, you'll share the same frustrations as the fellowship and you'll celebrate the smallest victories from huge sacrifices. The free people's army's are significantly smaller and when defeated leave the game forever, a representation of the limited population of Elves, dwarves and humans. As well as the time it takes for someone to reach adulthood and because of this, every army feels valuable and every sacrifice meaningful. Because of these limitations, your greatest hope in winning the game is getting the ring to Mount Doom which in itself is a long and difficult journey. Alternatively the shadow player has a massive military advantage. Larger and more prepared armies, an endless amount of batch born orcs and the Nazgul on fell beasts who can traverse middle earth near instantaneously. However finding the fellowship isn't easy and conquering middle earth can become difficult when Saurons greed for the ring interferes with the players plans. Each player must play into their strengths and with event cards there is a good deal of surprising twists and turns. This game tells a story of how lord of the rings could have been and builds a massive appreciation for the source material. What if Boromir left the fellowship at Rivendell and went to Gondor? What if Isengard won at Helms deep? The game begins with the founding of the fellowship in Rivendell and from there the story is told by the players choices and strategies with great depth and an even greater amount of possibilities. I consider myself a board game enthusiast and this is my favorite with no close second. If you're a fan of lord of the rings and board games this is an absolute must.

An amazing game! If you like lord of the rings and you’re willing to put in the time to learn, this is one of the best games I’ve played. Pros -Lord of the rings theme is awesome -Miniatures look cool -Rich lore based gameplay -Gameplay seems really fluid once you get the hang of it -Fun mechanics with moving the fellowship and hunting for the ring -combat is good Cons -Rules are complex and easy to forget/overlook rules -Games can take 2-3+ hours typically (could be a pro if you like really long games) -miniatures look very similar (I painted the stands of all mine to be able to tell them apart easily) -many of my miniatures had bent spears and some stand kind of wonky Overall, this is an awesome game and as long as you’re willing to put in the work to learn the rules and probably get a few wrong the first few times you play you’ll have a great time. Make sure you set aside enough time to play it 2 hours minimum, and probably more than that if it’s the first time you are playing it. The figures look cool but since they’re all the same color it’s hard to tell some apart. They only include 5 small dice in the box, this slowed down combat and such so I ordered extra dice online so each player had access to 5 dice at all time. In the end I love this game and it’s a lot of fun, but I’ve invested hours of my time trying to learn all the rules, you definitely will be looking in the instructions a lot the first few time you play. I really like the mechanics of moving the fellowship and hunting for the ring. I just wish they would have included more six sided dice in the box and made the figure easier to tell apart out of the box.

Great 2 player game. Its hard to get alot of people together to play complex board games. I really liked this game because it is lengthy, complex, and all together holds the lotr theme. Best part, its a great 2 player experience. The rule book seems overwhelming but a read through and a few games with book revisits makes the game easy. The part i love the most is how different each side plays. FP player will spend most of there time holding out in seiged fortresses while sam and frodo make it to the crack of doom. The SP focuses on conquering ME. Cards are another great part. To use them, most of the time a specific line up must be prepaired. Its not just draw and play a card to make gandalf the grey into gandalf the white. Another great part is that most games will end neck in neck. Even if every battle is against you as the FP, odds are you will be in mordor creeping around Gorgoroth while the SP frantically tries to take over that last stronghold to win. You will never get 20 minutes in a game and call it quits when the dice are against you. This game crawls for both sides and thats a good thing. It was cleverly set up to somewhat follow the books. For example, you can take the high pass from Rivendell but it will take twice as long as taking the path right through Moria. But, moria is more dangerous and risk the FP player in taking corruption. Small notes like this bring the lotr feel into the game. One downfall is that gandalf the white and Aragorn do not have figures. Instead you are just given tokens to replace the figures. Yes the expansion gives the figures but its 30 dollars. It just feels like with the hundred plus minatures, two more wouldn't be that hard. This is my only complaint and it does not have anything to do with the gameplay. Next to twilight struggle, this is my favorite 2 player game.

Simply put, this is one of the best war games ever made, even if you're not an LOTR fan. The game is drenched in theme and the designers consciously incorporated it into the game design from the ground up. What's even greater about War Of The Ring is that, by playing the game, you can write your OWN version of the epic series! You're NOT limited to the same choices made by the heroes-and villains-of the Tolkien classic. Yep, each game of WOR is in effect the writing of an epic story within the world of Middle-Earth. A story you and your friends will remember for a very long time, if not forever. War of the Ring uses a simple action die system, wherein each side rolls a set of specially designed dice (very pretty, actually) at the beginning of their turn. The die faces have symbols that allow for a set of 6 basic actions (i.e. move an army, move a character, recruit more army units, play special event cards, combat cards, move the fellowship, etc.). Players alternate choosing an action die and playing that action until both sides have used all of their dice. A large set of character and event cards (which are/can be activated by the dice) supplement the each players turns giving them a powerful ability, or allowing them to 'break the rules' for a turn, are another key feature of the game. As I mentioned earlier, War of the Ring is a game all about choices; sometimes obvious choices, sometimes powerful, game winning choices, but more often terrible choices. Every decision, every move presents the player (especially the Free peoples player) with an, "if I do action A, I will get this really cool benefit, but I will lose out on action B, which is also a really cool ability and might help me later in the game." This creates an intense tension on every turn that can have both players sweating bullets! The Shadow player must balance his ability to win an outright military victory with the slower, more deliberate strategy to corrupt the ringbearer and regain the One Ring. Ignore the One Ring and throw all of his dice into conquering Middle-Earth in a lightning military campaign, and the Fellowship might just sneak into Mordor unseen and destroy the ring! Play too cautious and wait for the One Ring to corrupt the Fellowship, and the Free Peoples of Middle-Earth just might unite and pull out a miracle and defeat the forces of darkness. For the Free Peoples player, the choices are even more dire. The Shadow has unlimited military power, making a straight up confrontation virtual suicide (though it can be done). Time is on Sauron's side. Do you try to go for a lightning quick drive for Mordor with the Fellowship? But, alas, the Shadow has many servants. The faster the Fellowship moves, the easier they are to track, Once the Shadow player finds the fellowship, he has many weapons to force the ringbearer to use the ring for protection and defense, thus driving poor Frodo closer and closer to total corruption! Do you move the fellowship slow and stealthly? While safer, it give the Shadow time to muster his limitless armies to sweep across Middle-Earth before you can reach Mount Doom! Do you gamble on a near suicidal attempt to take on the forces of Mordor head on and hope for a miracle, or do you play for time-sacrificing whole armies, or even entire nations, of Men, Elves and Dwarves just so that the Fellowship can inch closer to Mordor? Allow Lorien to burn just so the Fellowship and sneak off in an unexpected direction, thus fooling the Dark Lord? These are the tough choices the players in War Of The Ring must make, and why the game is so brilliant.

War of the ring is a great game for Lord of the Ring fans. It drips with theme and relies on the facts and events in the books for nearly every aspect of the game. It says it's a 2-4 player game, but in reality it is a 2 player game with a 3-4 player variant. It's definitely at it's best when played as a two player game. One player plays as the shadow player, controlling the armies of Sauron, Saruman and the Southron & Easterlings. The other player plays as the free peoples player controlling the armies of the elves, dwarves, Gondor, Rohan, the north and the fellowship themselves. The goal is for the free people to control a certain number of strongholds/cites for a military victory or get the fellowship to the crack of doom for a fellowship victory. Along the way, the armies of the shadow player are trying to thwart the efforts of the free people by taking over a certain number of strongholds/cities for a military victory or corrupt the ring bearers so they succumb to his power and give him the ring. The game play has a lot of area control aspects, similar to risk, but with the other victory conditions it's not all a military battle. The figures are very well made and the board comes in two huge pieces. Production value is very high through out the game from the rules to the board and miniatures. The box says play time is 120+ minutes. You can count on it being much longer than that for your first couple times, assuming you aren't learning from someone who has already played. One con for me has been the digestion of the rules. The rule book is 46 pages long and very detailed. Once you read through the rules and start playing a sample game it all starts to make sense and is pretty easy to play. Reading through the rules is the rough part as it is often referring to things that have not been covered yet. For us, we read through the rules and then started playing a game and referring to the rules as we played to make sure we were doing it correctly. I then re-read the rules to see if there were any small things we were failing to do. On the second read through it was much much easier to understand as I had more of an idea of what it was talking about. Overall the game is great! It's a lot of fun to reenact scenes and battles from the book. Check out the entry on BoardGameGeek to get more reviews, pictures, etc.

This might be the most well-designed board game I've ever had the chance to play. If you are a LOTR fan, it is HIGHLY recommended. Just ensure beforehand that you have someone interested in playing/learning it as well.

This game takes awhile to learn but looks like it’s going to be pretty epic once we learn the mechanics of how to play and start trying strategies.