The War of the Ring

War of the Ring is Fantasy Flight Games’ wargame based upon The Lord of the Rings, where one or two players take the side of the Free Peoples and the Fellowship of the Ring while their opponent (again, one or two players) plays the Shadow Peoples, namely those countries under the sway of Sauron and Saruman.

The Game Detailed

Appearance

This is a beautiful game. Nice box, great art, full-color rulebook, a great map of Middle-Earth serving as the game board, and a 137 thick cardboard counters. The most stunning though are the 204 plastic figures that come with the game, representing the Fellowship and its companions, the Minions of evil, and the various good and evil units in the game. They are well-sculpted and a pleasure to look at.

Game Play

Moving beyond the appearance of the game, the game play is centered on the game board featuring Middle Earth on which most of the fighting and game play takes place. Around the periphery of the board are various tracks to keep track of the political states of the nation, the amount of secret movement by the Fellowship as well as the Corruption that the ring-bearer has been afflicted by, and the intensity of the hunt for the Fellowship conducted by the Shadow Player(s).

Although play is a complex interaction of dice, cards, tracking charts and army and character movements on a board, game play itself is conducted primarily through the use of dice. Initially each side has a set number of dice that limits and defines the actions available: the Free Player starts out with four and the Shadow Player starts out with seven. This is a theme throughout the game: the Free Player is at a disadvantage in many respects and is using a limited amount of resources while the Shadow Player is wielding superior resources in an effort to overwhelm the Free Player.

Game play is fairly interactive, both roll their dice allocated and then each takes a turn to conduct one action indicated by the die, switching back and forth until all their actions have been spent. These actions are a Character Action (allowing them to move the Fellowship, companions, minions, armies led by leaders, minions or companions, or to play a character card), Muster Action (allowing you to move a country closer to war, bring in a leader or minion or reserves, or to play a muster card), an Army Action (allowing you to move two armies or attack with one or use an army card), a Palantir or Event Action (allowing you to play a card of your choice or to draw a card of your choice), and the Free Player(s) also have the Will of the West, which is a wild card action allowing them to choose whichever option they want. The Shadow Player also has a “Eye” die which is used to hunt the Fellowship.

Play is also enhanced by two decks of cards for each side, a character deck which influences the Fellowship, the hunt, or companions and minions running about on the board and a strategy deck which is comprised of cards that bring in troops (muster cards) or have an effect on armies on the board (army cards). As noted earlier, each card has to be brought into play by spending a dice to use that card’s primary effect. Each card also has a secondary effect listed used to conduct battles. Thus each card is a unique and no-renewable resource and a player must decide between using a card’s primary effect or saving it up and using it for battles. Each card has a theme and title reflecting events that did or could have transpired in the books.

Victory in the game is multi-faceted: the Free Player can win by guiding the Fellowship into the heart of Mordor, Mount Doom or by winning a military victory and seizing roughly two major Shadow strongholds (or their equivalent). The Shadow wins by corrupting the Fellowship or by winning a military victory: ten Free Strongholds (or their equivalent). In general, the Free People’s attempt a Ring victory putting much of their resources (cards and dice) into getting the Fellowship into Mordor while the Shadow Player tries to stall the Fellowship while racing ahead to win a military victory. Basically, each are attempting different victory conditions while trying to stall their opponent’s efforts.

The Fellowship

Central to the game is the Fellowship and its Fellowship track at the top of the board. The Fellowship begins its journey in Rivendell and a miniature is placed on the board to indicate its position. From this point on, each time the fellowship is moved, all movement is tracked on a chart at the top numbed 1 to 12. The number indicates the possible range in distance that the Fellowship has traveled and thus the Fellowship’s movement is kept secret from the Shadow. The miniature of the Fellowship on the board merely indicates the last known position of the Fellowship. In a corner of the board near the Fellowship track is a box which represents the members of the Fellowship, indicated by their cards and miniatures. The character guiding the Fellowship can offer benefits to the Fellowship but is greatly at risk of being killed by the Shadow.

Probably the first concern for the Free People’s Player is whether to keep the Fellowship together or to split its members off to pursue their own agendas – and once a member leaves the Fellowship and becomes a Companion running amok in Middle Earth they can never rejoin. Keeping the Fellowship together allows the Fellowship to endure much more damage, called Corruption, inflicted by the Shadow. Each time an opportunity to damage the Fellowship, the Free People’s Player may instead of absorbing the corruption, decide to kill off one of their own members to reduce or negate all of the damage. Alternately, some cards can be used to defend the Fellowship as long as those members are still a part of the Fellowship. Thus breaking up the Fellowship directly affects your ability to resist damage and make it to Mordor to dump the ring.

On the other hand, the members of the Fellowship have some remarkable powers. When Gandalf the Grey is killed off or removed from the Fellowship, he may return as the Gandalf the White, a very powerful character who also gives the FPP an additional action die. Strider is a powerful guide, working hard to keep the Fellowship hidden, but if split off and sent to Gondor, he can become a powerful general and provide the FPP with another additional action die. When splitting off Companions, the FPP reduces the effectiveness of the Fellowship while giving their armies and nations on the board considerable more power and ability to resist the military might of the Shadow.

The Hunt

The Fellowship and its members are largely out of the reach of the Shadow’s armies, and the Fellowship can never be attacked on the gameboard. However, the Shadow is not without means of harming the Fellowship and reclaiming the ring. Everytime the Fellowship moves, it is at risk of discovery and corruption. Before rolling their dice, the Shadow Player must announce how many of its resources it is going to allocate to the hunt: these are dice that are not rolled but put in the hunt box. The Shadow Player is constantly faced each turn with the question of much to allocate to the military game and how much to harm and slow the Fellowship.

Each time the Fellowship moves, the Hunt comes into play. For every die allocated to the hunt before the action dice are rolled and for each die rolled that came up with an eye, six-sided dice are rolled, up to a maximum of five dice. If any come up “6” then the hunt is successful. Thus the hunt is unlikely to succeed, but cards or the presence of Nazgul or Shadow armies in the last known location of the Fellowship allows for rerolls. If a hunt is successful, then a tile is randomly drawn and this can inflict damage in Corruption (typically between 1-3) and there is the possibility of the Fellowship being revealed. When the Fellowship is revealed, it has been spied out by the forces of evil and its secret movement has come to an end. The Fellowship is then moved, region by region on the board up to its maximum movement. Once revealed, the Fellowship cannot move again until a character die has been used to hide it again, and while revealed the Shadow can hit the Fellowship with other cards causing further damage (“corruption”). As noted above, corruption can be absorbed by the Fellowship (tracked on the same chart as the Fellowship movement), cards can be used to reduce or negate the damage, and characters can be killed off to stave off the damage as well. Should the Corruption ever reach “12”, then the Ring has corrupted the Ring Bearer and the Shadow player wins automatically.

Politics

As in the books, the Free Peoples of Middle-Earth have become indolent, careless, or fallen under the intrigues of the Shadow. Early in the game Isengard, Mordor, and the Southerlings and Easterlings can quickly rally to war politically and begin mustering their hordes and launching attacks. The Free People’s have a much more difficult time rousing themselves, and begin the game in a passive state. Passive nations cannot go to war and thus cannot muster troops or march beyond other borders to attack other nations. The only way to activate these introspective or misled peoples is when they are attacked by the forces of evil, when certain cards are played, or when Companions split off from the Fellowship arrive in their cities and strongholds rallying the people to the cause.

Remember, the Free Players are disadvantaged in the military and political game, and they are exceedingly slow to rouse themselves. To better contend with the Shadow player, these countries need to be quickly activated and then moved along the political track with Muster dice to get them ready to defend themselves – yet each Companion split off from the Fellowship weakens the Fellowship’s overall strength.

Battles and Combat

Ultimately the game often comes down to a rush between the Free Players dash to Mordor and the Shadow Player’s conquest of Middle Earth and thus a considerable portion of the game is played out in battles and sieges.

Keeping in the asymmetry of the game: the hordes of the Shadow army are replaceable; each time a shadow unit is killed they can later be brought back into the game. On the other hand, each Free People Player’s casualty is removed from the game forever – their losses can never be replaced.

Armies ranging from one unit to ten are moved about using the action dice, and can be accompanied by any number of leaders, minions, or companions. Each nation (Elves, Dwarves, Rohan, Gondor, the North, Sauron, Saruman, Easterlings & Southerons) in the game has its own leaders and elite and regular units in the game. Leaders allow for a missed die to be rerolled while elites can take more damage than a regular unit.

Combat begins by attacking from an adjacent region. Cards can be played at the beginning of each round to give a special effect to each battle. Combat is usually simultaneous with both side rolling damage and then removing casualties. The number of dice rolled is equal to the number of units in battle, up to a maximum of five dice. Any missed dice can be rerolled if there are enough leaders or Companions about. Each successful hit of 5 or 6 on a six sided die inflicts one casualty, with each elite counting as two units for casualty resolution (if 2 casualties are suffered you could remove one elite and if one casualty is inflicted, you could break an elite down to a regular). After this the battle continues or someone retreats. Cards and characters present as well as the location of a city or fortification can affect the rolls.

Now if the Defender is in a region with a Stronghold, such as Minas Tirith or Helm’s Deep, battles can take a different path. Instead of meeting on a field of battle (or at any time after a round of a normal battle), the defending player can retreat a maximum of five defending units into siege and the attacking army becomes a besieging army. Sieges are timely and costly affairs: as soon as an army retreats into siege there is no further fighting using that action die. Each additional action die used to extend the battle only allows the attacker to stage a single round of combat against the defender, unless they are willing to break down one of the besieging elites to a regular unit to extend it for an additional round. Making sieges even more difficult is that during each battle during a siege, the defender hits on a five or six while the attacker normally only hits on a six result. Sieges are a considerable investment for the attacker, but as Strongholds (in conjunction with cities) are the means to a military victory, sieges are inevitable.

The Endgame

In my experience, this has proven to be a surprisingly balanced game: the Fellowship makes it to Mordor and begins climbing Mt. Doom, a five step process, while the Shadow Player is busily besieging the last locations he needs to win the game. Once in Mordor the Hunt is called off and a new process of drawing Hunt Tiles every time the Fellowship moves is instituted, thus each step brings greater corruption to the Fellowship, making in my own experience some very tense and very close games.

It is possible to deviate from this, with the Free People’s attempting a Military Victory, but in truth, due to the disparity in forces and resources, this is a difficult challenge for the FPP.

The Game as Played

Double Plus Good

Choices & Asymmetry

I’ve played this game close to twenty times now with two, three, and four players and I have to say its one of my favorite games. While there is asymmetrical play, the games are typically close and exciting, and at the heart of the game is one of making difficult choices: Do you use the action card or save it for combat? Do you risk moving the Fellowship again? Bring in the Witch King and make it easier for the Free People’s to rally themselves to war? Keep the Fellowship together or split Companions off? Use your Nazgul to hunt the Fellowship or use them to guide your armies? Do you move Gandalf and Aragorn into places that might soon be besieged and risk losing them? Each action in this game has a price, an opportunity cost and it makes for some difficult and meaningful decisions.

Theme

This game was designed with its theme in mind: The Lord of the Rings. Whereas MERP never seemed to fit Middle-Earth, this game is firmly grounded in Tolkien’s world. The cards in particular are a way of integrating events and concepts from the books into the game: the Ents, Tom Bombadil, the Dead Men of Dunharrow, the Balrog all appear in appropriately themed cards that do have a meaningful effect in the game. Likewise, many of the characters in the game have appropriate abilities: Merry and Pippin when taken as casualties can be brought back into the game, as if they had been taken hostage by the Uruk-Hai as in “The Two Towers”. This game oozes ambiance and style.

Card Synergy

There are some great and entertaining card combinations that work well, such as a card that allows you to relieve Minas Tirith with your forces from Rohan (“Path of the Woses”) and smashing the besieging army (“Help Unlooked For”). Other times the cards may actually shift your plan as new opportunities arise.

Different Mechanics

The designers have drawn upon a number of mechanics which enhance the game: I like the use of dice to limit actions, the cards to carry out special effects, the various tracking charts to account for the vagaries of the hunt and political intrigue, and the hunt tile pool. The only thing missing is a bidding system!

Different Play with Three and Four Players

The games are quite different: a two player game is often very focused on one particular strategy, whereas with a three or four player game you have to adopt a different strategy as you and another person are having to split your resources and may have slightly different strategic plans.

Double Plus Bad

The Rulebook:

First off is the rulebook which may seem serviceable at first, but in truth is terrible. Terrible. This game has a lot of little and conditional rules and caveats and trying to find them in the book is miserable. Pictures are used, but they’re not terribly useful. What some components are used for are not readily apparent to all. Passive nations and their restrictions are covered at the very end of the Political Track section under the heading “Entering War”. Why there? Some terminology that could have been defined: Is a “losing a unit” the same as “taking a casualty”? for example.

Quick Start Rules

Terrible. Ignore them as they’ll do more damage than good. It should not have been included in the game.

Playing Time

You’ll find your first few games go for up to three, four, or even more hours. Successive play should limit it, but this is a time-consuming game to play. Furthermore, set up can initially be exceedingly long as well, until you get your units sorted out and begin memorizing the set-up.

Luck of the Draw

Luck is a big factor in the game: what dice you roll, the luck of the hunt, but most irksome of all for me is the luck of the draw. There are a number of cards which are very time- or context-sensitive. You really shouldn’t, but you’ll be waiting for cards to play, hoping they’ll show up in time, whether you’re sitting Gandalf the White in Fangorn hoping for Ent cards or hoping you’ll draw “Faramir’s Rangers” when the Shadow Player is marching through Ithilien. Oh, you’ll get them, but never when you need them and then you often have a hand full of useless cards. Not a big issue, but a mildly irritating one for me personally.

Short but Very Sharp Learning Curve

Document your first game: it will be a strange one. You’ll be doing all kinds of wacky stuff: sending Strider to the Shire to rally the North, marching an army of Dwarves led by Legolas from Ered Luin to relieve the besieged Rohan army occupying Moria…

The sheer number of rules and seeming open-endedness of the game makes for some strange and bizarre first plays, especially as the Free Peoples Player often ignores the Fellowship and tries to contend with the Shadow militarily. However, experience tells in this game. Someone who has played it and knows the cards and the board will almost certainly trounce the inexperienced first time player. The learning curve to mastery is fairly short however, as there are actually a very small number of strategies that are superior to others and once you’ve mastered that element of the game, its all a matter of nuance after that.

Patterned Play

It is this short but significant learning curve which indicates one of the major issues with the game: against an experienced player play tends to fall into patterns of play where particular strategies are often the only ones that will work. The Fellowship Sprint, keeping the Fellowship together and using Strider to lead the Fellowship into Mordor can win the game quickly before an inexperienced player can react. There are certain actions and areas you tend to shy away from after you’ve got a sense of the game, after all there is little point in activating the North instead of Rohan, or mustering troops in the Grey Havens when Lorien and the Woodland Realm are much great targets.

While play hasn’t gotten repetitious, it would seem from my own experience and from what I’ve read online that a small handful of strategies are far superior to anything else. As one becomes more experienced with this game, the possibilities inherent in the game actually seem to diminish rather than expand, and I think in the long-term this could be a potential problem. That said, I’m still enjoying this game immensely!

Conclusion

There are a number of issues with this game, yet despite these problems this is one of my favorite games and I’d recommend it to most casual and serious boardgamers who like thematic or setting-heavy games. The theme of Middle-Earth permeates this game: each time it is played, it feels less like a conventional boardgame and more like a “What If…” story.

The components are wonderful, the game play is both interactive and tense, and the battle system does what is says on the tin. This isn’t one of those chit-heavy wargames of the last century, nor is it a Euro game; it’s a dynamic and fluid resource game merged with a good but not-too-complicated wargame. Most of the choices one makes are difficult, costing you something in return which heightens the tension in the game. Ultimately, the endgame tends to be very close and tense, making that two or three hours dedicated to this game worth every minute.

There are a number of play aids as well as a FAQ out there, many of them available at boardgameeek.com. Remember, avoid the quick start rules and do read the rulebook between games, because you’ll discover rules that you overlooked.

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