Players: 2-5
Playing Time: 15-30 minutes
Difficulty: 2 (of 10)

Age: 6+*

* I actually think it might be a tad older, as the game is fairly complex, but read about The Game Play below, and judge for yourself.

This game should not be confused with another game designed by Reiner Knizia, also called Lord of the Rings. That other LotR game is published by Hasbro/Fantasy Flight Games/Kosmos and is intended for adults. Why they chose the same name for two games by the same designer, I dunno.

The Components

Lord of the Rings comes with a large set of evocative components:

• 1 Board
• 3 Dark Towers
• 5 Hobbit Pieces
• 3 Flying Nazgul
• 42 Wooden Cubes
• 1 Die
• 1 Glass Palantir
• 5 Hobbit Cards
• 30 Character Tiles
• 1 Ring Spinner
• 1 Rulebook

Board & Dark Towers: The board is a a simplified two-panel map of Middle Earth, printed on solid, textured cardboard in full-color. It does something cool that I haven't seen before on many game maps: Three sets of four holes are punched out of the map to hold the bases of three three-dimensional Dark Towers. There's also a hole punched out of the board to hold the Palantir in place. On the two-dimensional plane of the map, spaces and encounter locations are all clearly marked, as are special Dark (Tower) paths.

The Dark Towers are three-dimensional cardboard towers which you construct the first time you play the game. They're a cool innovation which really gives the board some color. The only deficit is they don't easily fit into the holes on the board; it takes some work & struggle.

Wood Bits: A number of wood bits are all shaped and painted at the usual high level of quality you'd expect from a German game. The pawns are nicely crafted and painted in 5 very bright colors (orange, green, purple, blue, and yellow). The Nazgul are quite cool, and look like big, evil bats. The wooden cubes, which are used to keep track of enemy health, are all bright red. The die is an oversized wooden die, with sides marked 2, 3, 3, 4, 5, and Nazgul.

Palantir: A red marble.

Hobbit Cards & Character Tiles: These are all printed four-color on thin cardboard. The hobbit cards show five hobbits, and are primarily used to identify which player is playing which color pawn. I was surprised that the hobbits weren't named, nor were they immediately evocative of the specific hobbits from Lord of the Rings.

The character tiles are divided into three categories: the light tiles, the dark tiles, and Sauron. The dark tiles depict major enemies such as the Balrog and Shelob. The light tiles depict some friends such as Gwaihir and Legolas and some minor foes such as wolves, orcs, and black riders. Finally, the Sauron tile is just an oversized dark tile for Sauron himself.

Every tile (and the hobbit cards) features fair to average art of the entity in question. All of the foe tiles also feature a life rating, marked by clear red boxes.

(As a caveat, some editions of this game were misprinted with the light tiles featuring enemies actually printed with the dark tile backing. You should only have 7 dark tiles plus Sauron and thus 22 light tiles. If this isn't the case just look at their fronts and it's easy to separate them, as the dark tiles feature a black border on the front while the light tiles are beige. The mismatched light-tile backs doesn't really matter for Lord of the Rings' level of strategic play, but from what I've seen Eagle Games is also quite happy to replace them if you have such a set.)

Ring Spinner: A thin cardboard spinner, printed four-color, with a plastic (spinning) arrow. it's divided into four quadrants and is used for fighting. It seems to spin well.

Rulebook: The rulebook is a four-page oversized sheet printed in full-color on glossy paper. Some of the text is a bit awkward, but it's full of illustrations and examples, and thus does a good job of explaining the rules.

Box & Tray: The tray that sets in the box is fairly amazing because it has careful spots laid out for everything, from the assembled towers to the individual Nazgul pieces. It also has little fingerholes next to a number of the slos to make it easier to pull the pieces out. The box itself is a typical, sturdy square German model.

Overall, the components of Lord of the Rings are nice and evocative, though not amazing; it thus earns an above average "4" out of "5" for Style.

The Game Play

The object of Lord of the Rings is to journey across Middle Earth to Mount Doom, and there fight and defeat Sauron.

Setup: There's a bit of setup for this game. First, the Palintir and the Dark Towers are put in their appropriate spaces on the board, while the hobbits are placed in Hobbiton. Then tiles must be placed in the 9 encounter locations on the board. Sauron is placed in a big encounter location at Mount Doom, while the Witch King and Shelob are placed at Black Gate and Shelob's Lair, respectively. Then the last six encounter locations are filled with light tiles: the first three (High Pass, Moria, and Barrow-Downs) are randomly drawn until a friend tile is found for each, while the last three (Mirkwood, Amon Hen, and Isengard) are randomly drawn until a foe tile is found for each. Finally, the appropriate number of red cubes are put on each foe tile and the three Nazgul are put on Sauron's tile.

Now players go in turn, each round moving, then facing an encounter or a dark path.

Moving: The map contains a number of paths which branch and meet up with each other on the way to Mount Doom. A player could, for example, head mmediately down to the Barrow-Downs, then over to isengard, or alternatively up to High Pass, then over to Mirkwood. Every half a dozen spaces or so, there's some type of movement choice (a branch or an encounter).

Regular movement goes along these standard paths, but these paths also sometimes adjoin special encounter circles, which can be used as short cuts to leap ahead.

Each player begins his movement by rolling a die. He either gets a number between 2 and 5, and moves up to that many spaces (perhaps stopping at an encounter location) or else rolls a Nazgul, in which case he moves any Nazgul to any encounter location, then rolls again.

Encounters. If a player stops at an encounter tile, he may choose to have the encounter in order to short-cut across the space to the other side.

If there is a Nazgul on the tile, he spins the spinner: a "Nazgul" symbol means the Nazgul is defeated (the player takes it); a red eye means the player is temporily defeated and his turn ends. The player keeps spinning until one of these results come up. Only after a player has dealt with a Nazgul may he move on to any other encounter at the location.

If the tile is a friend, the player simply takes it and places it in front of him, then moves across the encounter space to the other side.

If the tile is a foe, the player must face it. Each foe has a number of life counters displayed upon it, from 2 (a lowly wolf) to 9 (Sauron himself). The player spins the spinner, which will have one of four results: 1 cube, 2 cubes, 3 cubes, or a red eye. If the player gets cubes, he removes that many cubes from the tile; if he gets the red eye, he is temporarily stymied and his turn ends. The player spins until he either defeats the foe, at which point he takes the tile and crosses the space or until he gets the eye.

After a tile is taken, it's replaced from the unused tiles: a light tile for the first six tiles (which could come up friend or foe), a dark tile for the last two spaces before Sauron. This will form the encounter for any hobbits trailing behind the one who just faced this encounter.

Dark Towers: As part of the Advanced Game, the three Dark Towers also come into play. Near each is a Dark Path, where the move spaces are marked with towers. If a player ends his turn with his pawn on one of these spaces he must avoid falling into the thrall of the Palintir. Another player takes the Palintir and hides it in one of their hands, and the player must then guess a hand. If he picks the Palintir, he's captured and moved back to the Dark Tower, where he'll begin his next turn.

Using Friends: In the Advanced Game, the friends tiles may also be used to get out of jams. You can discard a friend tile you've won to: move a second time; ignore spinning a red eye; or ignore picking the Palintir. The friend tile is then discarded.

Winning the Game: Far to the East, at Mount Doom, is Sauron, a fierce foe with 9 life. The player who successfully removes his last cube wins.

The rules suggest that multiple games can be scored by adding up points for defeated Nazgul, displayed tiles, and the defeated Sauron (1 for each Nazgul and small tile, 5 for Sauron).

Relationships to Other Games

You can't help but compare this game to two others: the traditional Candyland/Chutes & Ladders fare and Reiner's other Lord of the Rings game.

Much like classic kid's games, this one is a race game, with the winner being the first one to get from point A (Hobbiton) to point B (Mount Doom). The encounter mechanism is as much as anything a speed variation mechanism: get lucky and you can cut through an encounter (much like a "ladder"). Contrariwise if you get unlucky with a Palantir you can keep going back (much like a "chute"). However, this game does one very notable thing: it allows the players choices as to which path to take, which encounters to face, etc. In doing so it allows for the start of strategy rather than the mindless die-rolling of many kids' game.

In comparison to Knizia's other Lord of the Ring game, this one also allows for the same slow passage of up to five hobbits from Hobbiton to Mount Doom, encountering foes along the way. Younger players might find Knizia's other Lord of the Rings game easy to begin playing because they're already familiar with the places and locations, but beyond that the resemblence is superficial, as Knizia's other game depends on cooperation and strategizing, which are largely absent from this game.

The Game Design

Knizia's Lord of the Rings teaches and/or requires the following skills:

• Understanding of Turns & Ordering: Gameplay is segmented into turns, where a player roles a die, moves, then potentially faces an encounter.
• Randomization: A die is rolled to determine movement while a spinner is spun to resolve conflicts.
• Counting & Numbers: Understanding the difference in health levels of foes, from 3 to 9, is crucial for success.
• Bluff: There's some potential for bluff through the Palantir mechanism, though most kids probably won't encounter this.
• Sophisticated Strategy: The strategy is surprisingly sophisticated, involving weighing risk and reward for different paths taken and different encounters faced. The movement of Nazguls to harry other players can also be very strategic. This category generally encompasses risk taking and decision making.

Overall, Lord of the Rings is a fairly simplistic game that at the same time provides for a lot of strategic complexity. I have some minor qualms about the age recommendation, as discussed above, and am certain that adults will have to at least help set up the first couple of games, but once you get inside the complexity is OK.

My only other qualm with the game has to do with the potential for unlimited failure. It's possible to spin a "red eye" a number of times in a row, and thus never successfully complete an encounter. Likewise, it's possible to keep picking a Palantir and thus never get to Mount Doom. This is slightly offset by the Advanced rules for using friend tiles, but still youngsters could get quite frustrated (in fact my playtest game ended abruptly after my opponent picked a Palintir for the fourth time in a row, then threw a tile across the room in disgust).

Nonetheless, Lord of the Rings is still an above average design, and thus earns a "4" out of "5" for Substance.

Conclusion

If you've got kids in the 6+ age group and are ready to graduate them onto some games where they actually think, and don't just push pieces around in response to die rolls, this is a terrific choice, especially since it might appeal to them based on its Lord of the Rings license.

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