Players: 3-6*
Playing Time: 1-2 hours
Difficulty: 2 (of 10)

* increases the player count by one

The Components

Sauron comes with:

• 40 dark cards
• 6 resource cards
• 5 hobbit cards
• 2 Gandalf cards
• 2 special cards
• 4 sauron event tiles
• 23 dark event tiles
• 1 bag
• 12 resource chips
• 1 dark rider

Cards: The cards are all full-sized, medium-weight, and full-color, like all the other Lord of the Rings cards. Each one has a slightly differentiated back from the original game's cards, which makes it easy to sort the cards, but is a deficit for the Sauron character card, because you can't randomly select it from among with the hobbit cards.

The forty "dark" cards include: 1 Sauron card which helpfully notes his various abilities; 9 Nazgul cards, which have original art and various nasty effects, and 30 Sauron cards, which iconically denote various penalties for the hobbits.

The other 15 cards help the hobbits in various ways. There are 6 resource cards, each with an original piece of art and which are related to the resource tiles, 5 new color-coded hobbit cards which give each hobbit a one-time ability, 2 new Gandalf cards which will help the fellowship out, and 2 new special cards, "The One Ring" and "Watchful Peace" which can be used to make the game easier, though there's not any really good guidelines for when to do so.

The art is again all by John Howe and is quite attractive.

Event Tiles: The event tiles are again printed on thick cardboard, just like the original. Four of them have red borders and are intended to be used if there's a Sauron player. The other 23 have black borders and are used only if you want a more difficult game.

These tiles feature a variety of easy to understand icons to explain their various (bad) effects.

Bag: A nice cloth bag with an imprinted eye, used to hold all the tiles, so that you can draw from here rather than having to pick off a stack.

Resource Tiles: Another set of cardboard markers. These are each arch-shaped. Half of them show pictures of the resource cards (and give you those cards), while the other half show standard icons from the game (e.g., gain life, gain shields, etc.)

Dark Rider: A nicely molded plastic figure of a Nazgul atop a horse.

Rulebook: An 8-page full-color rulebook with lots of pictures and illustrations. It does a good job of explaining everything.

Overall this new supplement offers some of the advantages of the original, including the beautiful John Howe artwork, the good graphic design sense, and the good usability of all the components.

It also has two small problems.

First of all, besides the main "Sauron" rules, there are two additional features: the dark tiles and the special cards, the first of which makes the game harder and the second easier. These feel tacked on, and there's no good explanation for when to use which (other than a note not to use the dark tiles on your first game). This will probably leave players fumbling in early plays as to what to use.

Second, the box really doesn't pass the heft test. It's pretty light in comparison to the price paid for the supplement.

Putting all that in balance, Sauron is still quite nice Stylistically, but not as much as the original game. I give it a "4" out of "5" for Style, with points lot mostly due to the lower content-to-price ratio.

The Game Play

Sauron introduces rules for a Sauron player, and a few new elements to help out the hobbits in this harsher environment. In addition there are two independent gameplay elements: the dark tiles and the special cards.

Sauron: Now a player may be selected as Sauron at the start of the game. He gets to pretty constantly take turns to try and foil the fellowship. He's partially activated at the start of each player's turn (before the tile draw) and he's fully activated whenever the die icon comes up (instead of the die being rolled).

The Sauron player starts out with two Sauron cards in his hand and two Nazgul cards face up in front of him.

Sauron cards have one to three bad effects on them, for example: move the black rider three spaces, take a corruption; or move the black rider three spaces, discard a card, discard a card; or move the black rider four spaces, discard a ring token.

The Nazgul cards list a single bad effect, and then have some very bad, more complex effects, such as: active player loses his turn; one player discards 5 fight or Sauron moves forward two; or the next event occurs. Fortunately these are face-up, so the fellowship can often plan for them.

Partial Activations. A partial activation (which occurs at the start of each player turn) allows Sauron to draw one Sauron card or play one Sauron card for partial effect (which is to say, just one of the effects, at the player's discretion) on the active player or activate a Nazgul card (which affects the active player, then may effect the whole group).

Full Activations. These are much nastier. They occur when the "die" icon comes up and they allow Sauron to play a Sauron card on the active player for full effect (other than Sam, who gets off with just partial effects) or to draw up to a hand of 6 Sauron cards.

The Black Rider. May of the cards advance the black rider. He starts at 15 on the corruption track, then races toward the hobbits as Sauron and/or Nazgul cards are played. If the Black Rider reaches the ring-bearer before the end of a scenario, then (1) Sauron gets a new Nazgul card, which goes in front of him; (2) the ring-bearer must immediately fully activate Sauron; and (3) the Black Rider turns around. At this point the Black Rider tries to race back to "15". If he reaches there before the end of a scenario, Sauron automatically wins. If he doesn't, the Black Rider goes back to "15", facing the hobbits, for the start of the next board.

The Nazgul Cards. What may not be immediately obvious from the above is that the Nazgul cards are really nasty. You want to avoid Sauron getting them if you can. However, he's going to start off with 2, and he gets 1 more whenever a Black Rider reaches the ring-bearer. He also receives a new one at the end of each board.

The Sauron tiles. As also noted above, there are four new Sauron tiles. These each have a "die" symbol on them, which gives additional opportunities for full activation of Sauron at the start of a player's turn.

The Hobbits' New Resources: To try and offset this deadlier threat, the hobbits get a few new resources: new character cards; more Gandalf cards; and 12 resources.

Character Cards. Each character now gets a "Fellowship" card, which lets him take a one-time action during the game. Most of these cards temporarily give some form of a hobbit's special ability to his fellows.

Gandalf Cards: The new Gandalf card, "Protection", offsets a Sauron or Nazgul card. There's also a replacement for "Foresight" to accomodate the new bag of tiles.

Resources. There are now 12 resources, 4 of which are placed on each of the first three boards. They're put on the subsidiary tracks of the board, one at the end of each subsidiary track, one 4 spaces back. They're generally very useful, giving immediate beneficial effects or else cards which can be used later. Some are standard icons (e.g., take 3 shields, move back 2 corruption, take 3 cards) while others give access to pretty powerful cards that let you move the Black Rider, jump forward on activity lines, automatically take a feature card, or retrieve cards. I appreciated the fact that the 3 elven rings are among these new resources--a nice bit of color.

Winning the Game: As with the original game, the hobbits are trying to destroy the ring at Mount Doom. Now, however, Sauron is working against them, and wins if they fail. He also has an additional victory condition, where he wins if he can get a Black Rider to the ring-bearer and back again.

Other Features: There are also two unrelated features in the game: the dark tiles and the special cards.

Dark Tiles. This is a set of 23 new, bad tiles. There's events, corruptions, die rolls, and more. When you use them you draw a first tile out of the bag, and may reject it if you want, but then have to take the second tile.

Special Cards. These are included in case you want any easier game. "The One Ring" lets you once trade the ring from one hobbit to another. "Watchful Peace" pushes Sauron back 3 spaces, or else is worth 10 VPs at the end of the game.

Relationships to Other Games

Sauron is the second supplement for Reiner Knizia's Lord of the Rings. You can play it just with the base game, especially if you have a sixth player. Or, if you prefer, you can combine it with Friends & Foes for a really nasty game. (There are a few notes in the rules for how to do this, but I'd only suggest it for the most experienced players.)

Ironically this is the second board game expansion named Sauron. The first was an expansion to SPI's original War of the Ring game, produced in 1977.

The Game Design

Sauron introduces an active, manipulative evil, rather than the random evil of the original Lord of the Rings game. This makes the game much tougher, and also makes the game feel and play very differently. This is generally a good thing.

I originally had concerns about the Sauron player feeling left out, because he didn't get to engage in all of the planning of the other 2-5 players. However the Sauron player tells me that this is largely offset by the fact that he got to go every turn, and thus was constantly active.

The Sauron player does get to use some interesting strategy, as he makes choices between advancing the black rider, which is a shorter-term goal, and doing things with longer-term consequences, such as corrupting the hobbits or advancing himself. The decision on when to activate the rare, but powerful Nazgul cards is yet another orthagonal level of strategy, thus giving Sauron lots to think about.

From the hobbit's point of view, the Black Rider introduces a new, short-term menace, much as the foes did in Friends & Foes. There's thus the opportunity to have a quick, short-term victory, which can revitalize the hobbits (emotionally), even though they'll still have to worry about more dangers down the road.

Besides introducing new strategy and tactics, both for the new Sauron player and for the hobbits, there's also some fun replayability introduced by this new set. Everyone wanted to play Sauron after our first outing with this set, and the Sauron player agreed that it'd been a very different experience.

In many ways I like Friends & Foes better than Sauron, because it felt more cohesive, and it better maintained the gestalt of the original game. Sauron on the other hand disturbs the cohesive feeling of community that the original Lord of the Rings engenders, because there's a thoughtful evil sitting at your table, taking in everything you say ... and perhaps that's exactly as it should be.

I've let Sauron eke in the same Substance rating that I gave to the original game: "5" out of "5". It's a very inovative expansion for the Lord of the Rings that really moves things in a totally different direction.

Conclusion

Sauron introduces a thinking evil into Reiner Knizia's Lord of the Ring board game, changing up the strategy and increasing the replayability of the original game. I think Friends & Foes offered a slightly more cohesive expansion, but this one is still quite recommended, both for the new gameplay and for the extension of Lord of the Rings to include a sixth player.

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