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The first thing that I appreciated about The Two Towers was the fact that it came wrapped in some beautiful, beautiful bubble wrap - big, gumball-sized bubbles stitched into a lengthy plastic sheet. I spent some of my time flipping through the miniatures, still on their sprues, flipped through the rulebook, and then went back to popping those gigantic bubbles. There's something so primally entertaining about having one of those things burst between your fingers that it must twig into some fundemental impulse in the human psyche, like there was some food animal back in the old days that could only be killed by popping each and every one of its tiny little lungs.
Anyways. The Two Towers is the sequel, so to speak, of the original Fellowship of the Ring game, which I didn't happen to get around to picking up. The first game focused on recreating scenes from the movie - in other words, if you wanted to recreate the scenes where Arwen fled from the Ringwraiths, or the fight between Aragorn and the Ringwraiths, or the melee in the Mines of Moria, then you could do so with the original game. It was a modest hit, I think, but one of the complaints was that it was designed specifically for scenario play: you were given a specific army list for each side, then given the scenario to play. It prevented oddities like Arwen being chased by, say, Grima Wormtongue and a bunch of Uruk-Hai through the mines of Moria; on the other hand, it also limited the amount of play value that you could get out of the game. (I think; I could easily be wrong.)
Two Towers focuses more on the broader aspects of the game, expanding the army lists while giving players much more freedom to mess around. Since the movies have moved away from the Fellowship as a single unit into the mass battles at Helm's Deep and the destruction of Orthanc by the Ents, the game has followed its lead. On the other hand, the game is still limited by its palette; it's great at simulating the movies, but I have the distinct impression that the game isn't as open as I would have hoped it to be.
Let's start from the beginning. The Two Towers comes with a rulebook, a cardboard ruler, four dice that are just adorably cute, and a bunch of miniatures on sprues - twenty Uruk-Hai and twelve Riders of Rohan, ready to be washed, clipped, assembled, primed, painted and sealed. There's also some plastic ruins that you can clip together and paint if you need somed scenery in a hurry, but they're not going to do a whole lot to liven up an otherwise empty field - this really isn't a beginner's game for painting miniatures, so those just getting into it should be warned.
Back to the miniatures later. The central rulesbook is in full color, liberally sprinkled throughout with still frames from the movie and the unbelievably high-quality paint jobs that GW throws on their miniatures. Even the background pages have a nice parchment color/texture to them, tying the book's look together. After running through some fluff text - including a complete recitation of the inscription of the One Ring, gorgeously set next to a page-sized map of Middle Earth - we get into the rules of the game.
Really, I don't envy GW the task of making a LOTR wargame. Besides having to satisfy their licensing requirement with Peter Jackson and the studios, they also have to come up with a game that'll entertain the casual hobbyist, or even the complete neophyte - since these games are being sold in Borders - while keeping the diehard Tolkien grognards and Warhammer migrants interested as well. On top of that, they've also got to constantly adjust the game to work with the varying combats in the movies, ranging from the claustrophobic skirmishes in Balin's Tomb to the far-ranging battle to keep Merry and Pippin out of Uruk-Hai hands to the siege of Helm's Deep and its lifting. You've also got to keep your options open for the next movie, since it's obviously going to have a different combat layout than the movie previous.
What GW did is to create a skirmish game which they could scale up - roughly designed as a battle between 15-20 figures on a side, or the Fellowship itself versus a variety of evil troop types. In The Two Towers, an effort is made to scale the game up to simulate the epic battles breaking the siege at Helms's Deep, the destruction of Orthanc by the Ents, and so on and so forth. At points, it works; at other points, the game's scale almost works against it, requiring a lot of miniatures in order to support the major battles.
The basic system is remarkably simple; combat basically consists of rolling a single dice; whoever's highest gets to proceed to the very familiar Strength vs. Toughness chart, or, as it's described here, Strength vs. Defence. If you tie, the model with the highest Fight value automatically wins, so there's more to the individual model than just what strength weapon they're using.
I'm appreciative of this system mostly because it doesn't involve having to pick out what number you have to exceed in order to hit somebody with your WS of 4; just a simple dice roll, with the higher fight value breaking the tie. And yeah, you do get to know instantly what number you need to hit WS 4 with WS 3 - 4 , I believe - but any step to reduce charts is, in my book, a good step. Missile combat is just as simple; each figure has a score to beat right in its profile, instead of a BS score necessitating yet another table lookup. (If I sound bitter, it's because I play Mordheim, where each figure is different enough to have to check the chart each time for its particular dice scores. Warhammer makes it easier because you're rolling for huge blocks of miniatures in a single go.)
Speaking of missile combat: there's a rule that Good troops can't fire into close combat, since they'd run the risk of hitting their own men. I realize entirely why they didn't allow this, but Legolas does so at least twice throughout the movies - shooting the Watcher in the Water as it flails around with Frodo, and to kill an Uruk-Hai that's got Aragorn pinned against a pillar during the climactic fight in which Boromir dies. No big deal, but it's something that I noticed.
One thing that I'm a touch nervous about is the movement rules - or, more specifically, the areas of control rule. Essentially, each miniature has a 1' "control range", through which miniatures can't be moved; you can't duck between a pair of Uruk-Hai to get a shot at Saruman, since you'd have to slip through both of their control ranges. If you wind up getting teamed up on, or if you get your back to some terrain and can't escape, then the people wailing on you get double attacks - so there's a definite advantage in making sure that you've got some place to escape to. While I'm probably being paranoid, it's the kind of rule that seems simple initially, but winds up creating huge discussions over just how much space is available between two Uruk-Hai. I'm not saying it's guaranteed; I'm just saying that it strikes me as a potentially skippy rule.
Siege rules. The game's added in a lot of siege rules in order to simulate the siege of Helm's Deep, including rules for boarding ladders, knocking down walls, how to fight a battle over a wall - and the wall rules I especially like; if you kill a unit while you're on a ladder, or fighting over a wall, you take its place, so that you can accurately simulate an "Over the wall, men!" moment without having to wait for your next turn. (It also makes it very easy for single models to get themselves surrounded with, and beaten to death by, every model that's waiting on the other side of the wall - so you have to plan your assaults carefully.)
I am quite impressed with the rules for shielding and for fighting with pikes. The first, shielding, allows characters to simply stall for time - you double your attack dice, but only throw your opponent back an inch if you win. It's a brilliant idea because it lends an extra option to combat than just attacking; if you need more time for Legolas to get to his sniping point, or if you want to keep the Uruk-Hai from getting through that door, then you can stall for extra time.
On top of that, there's also rules to allow spearmen to fight through their own units; so you can stack pike-wielding spearmen up to two deep behind a single combat, so that sword-wielding models aren't left fighting alone while their fellow compatriots sit around and pick at their nails one base-length behind. While it could be left open to abuse, it's an extra bit of strategy that I think adds to the game quite a bit - you're not just throwing units up against each other and hoping that your dice rolls are good.
The game also includes mechanics to simulate the heroes of Middle Earth as well - Will, Might and Fate points. Might points are the ones that get tossed around the most, as you can spend them to automatically win any combat; if you want to make sure that Gimli's going to kill those Uruk-Hai to allow Legloas a clear shot at that bomb team, Might points are the way to go. They also permit heroes to break the standard initiative - one Might point allows a unit to move first no matter who has Priority, so you can have a Hero and any units within six inches to break the turn system and pin down a threatening unit. That's a pretty hefty advantage in itself, so I imagine that the best strategists will be paying as much attention to their store of Might points as they will of their units. Fate points allow an 4 save for any unit so affected, so heroes can survive in seemingly impossible odds as long as they've got Fate points - and a good dice roll; and Will points fuel magic.
We also have stats for just about every creature that ever appeared in the movies so far, and there's a lot of neat uses of the character's stats throughout. For example, Aragorn's gets a free point of Might every turn, allowing him a lot more freedom than the average Gondorian captain; Legolas can make three shots in a single round; Frodo can wear the Ring, rendering him invisible at the risk of allowing the Evil side to move him if a 1 or a 2 is rolled. The Ringwraiths are especially neat - they can fight, but lose Will if they do so; once they're out, they discorporate. If you want to use the Ringwraiths as blocking troops, or as the spearhead for an attack, be prepared to lose them after a while. (On the plus side, if they fight the Ringbearer, then they don't lose Will at all. More annoyingly, the rules block for the Ringwraiths mention that there's a Witch King amongst their number, but there's no way that I can think of tell the Witch King apart from the others. Perhaps I should model a small fedora out of green stuff, so as to tell him apart from the rest.) All of the figures have their own point values, a fact for which I think GW deserves major kudos.
The scenarios all try to simulate various scenes from the movie, some of them skirmishes - Riders of Rohan fighting Uruk-Hai near a burning farm, the battle that frees Merry and Pippin from the Orcs, - some of them larger battles, like the ranger's ambush of the Southrons, or the Warg / Rohan battle near the refugee column - and yet others about the siege of Helm's Deep, where the game's rules for sieges kick in.
Here's the problem, though - while most of the scenarios require low scenery, like the farmland battle, any scenario involving Helm's Deep requires vast collections of scenery, all of it somewhat mimicking the layout of Helm's Deep - there's instructions given for how to make the Deeping Wall, for example, but for the man who picks up the game at B. Dalton's 'cause he likes the movie, all of that scenery is going to seem like a lot of work put forth for the benefit of an hour and a half's enjoyment. I create scenery myself - enjoy the hell out of myself doing so, too - but those interested in the game, or in the Helm's Deep battles, be aware that your scenery skills will be put to the test and then some. The scenarios give you a pretty good basis for simulating the game itself, and the book does provide guidelines for making your own scenarios - I have one in mind called "Is that a great hard root in my back, Samwise, or are you just happy to see me?"
One thing that I should mention: While you can play the game without it, picking up the boxed Fellowship of the Ring set - Legolas, Gimli, Boromir, the four hobbits and so forth - is pretty much required; the Fellowship is such a major part of the good side's forces, and of most scenarios, that the average player will find himself missing them very, very often. So that's an extra $40 on top of the original $40 - and while they're good miniatures, I'd recommend that those interested be aware of that extra cost.
The painting section: I've been painting miniatures for about eleven, twelve years, so a lot of the stuff mentioned here is fairly straightforward - I would advise against using GW paints, since their pots tend to seal themselves shut with powerful occult magick and then never ever open up again EVER after the first use; other than that, it's a good place to start. (I think that it's weird that they grab some paint from the pot with the blunt end of their brush, then dab it on; you can dip straight into the paint if you're pathlogically careful to wipe the brush every single time you do so.) You can get good paints at Wal-Mart, or an art store if you want a higher quality. The tips on putting miniatures together are also good, although I truly pity the man who buys the Balrog without having some experience in putting together multi-part miniatures.
The miniatures themselves - the game comes with twenty Uruk-Hai, who are all pretty much movie accurate; half of them have swords, I believe, while the other half have pikes. The projecting, sharp slopes on their armor - I'm sure that they have a technical name, but I'll be damned if I know what it is - will take paint beautifully, so even a casual drybrush will define the miniatures very well. Plus, with twenty Uruk-Hai - and cheap reinforcements available for about $15 - neither side will find itself wanting for cheap reinforcements. (Tragically, they're out of scale with Warhammer - while you do save a little money on a unit of twenty Uruk-Hai, it would have been nice to see them marching side by side with standard WFB Orks.)
The Riders of Rohan have a lot of good detail as well - while I'm still getting the hang of painting horses (translation: Slapping paint on horses and trying to figure out how the damned things are actually supposed to look,) the riders are pretty decently detailed, if not quite as pointy as the Uruk-Hai. There are an awful lot of cloaks hanging around, so you might want to start brushing up on your blending skills now.
Is it worth buying? If you're enough of a fan of the movies that you're comfortable spending about $80 to simulate just about any battle that you can think of, then yes; as a matter of fact, it might make a nice change from Warhammer 40,000, or as an entertainment option for your fraternity house. On the other hand, if you're a casual fan; if you're not interested in getting into a hobby wargame; if you're not good with scenery; if you don't want to invest a lot of time - then you might want to investigate further, or consider splitting the cost with a friend.
-Darren MacLennan
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