War of the Ring Strategy Board Game

Azog · **Posted:** Fri Oct 08, 2004 9:56 pm

The little Azogs received a late joint birthday present from their
Auntie in Glastonbury today. (8th October)

It's a strategy board game for 2-4 players called

"War of the Ring" made by Fantasy Flight Publishing - American company and featuring illustrations by John Howe. She was waiting for it to come out so it's new Sept 2004 I think in UK.

The board is massive, about twice the size of typical boards
(actually 2 boards laid together that fold in half again.

It features 204 plastic figs , 137 counters, and over 100 cards
also 21 different types of dice.

It looks like it was created by Nexus Editrice at www.nexusgames.com
and manufactured in the EU by the combined efforts of Dice & Games Ltd (UK) and Ludwig Scheer GmbH & Co (Germany). Plastic figures made in China :wink:

despite the Fantasy Flight Publishing logo.

I don't know if anyone is interested but Christmas is coming.....

I will feedback what we think of it when we get around to playing it.
I has a basic game and more advanced rules so might take a while to do it all.

If anyone is interested you could try

www.fantasyflightgames.com (USA)

or www.gameslore.co.uk where their auntie got it from.

also a link I found to one of the playtesters websites
http://home.rixtele.com/~charmtroll/wotr/wotr.htm

It looks like it retails at £36.99 in UK and $59.95 in USA

USA Blurb below from fantasyflightgames website.
__________________________________________________________

The War of the Ring board game is a grand strategic simulation of Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy.

While the Fellowship of the Ring advances towards Mordor, the Dark Lord Sauron tries to find the location of the Ring-bearer, and unleashes his armies against the last strongholds of the Free Peoples.

Faithful to the epic flavor of the books, characters and strongholds play a major role in the flow of the game and represent the main focus of the action. A simple and fun, dice-based, resource management mechanism is used to determine the various types of action possible for each player. Smooth, original mechanics have been devised to handle the hidden movement of the Fellowship and the Hunt for the Ring.

This enormous game includes a gameboard depicting a large color map of Middle Earth; 200+ plastic figures representing the Armies and Characters of the War of the Ring, including the Nazgûl, each member of the Fellowship of the Ring, Shadow Army units, Free People Army and Leader units and Minions of the Shadow; 135 die-cut cardboard counters; 100+ cards for Events and Characters; and over 20 dice!

LTR07
$59.95
Available in September

phew I think this must be an Azog records for a post
long even by my standards ...lol

Azog

Gstormcrow · **Posted:** Fri Oct 08, 2004 10:31 pm

Looks interesting. Wonder if it will be easy to play though. I hate complicated board games. Also what's the level of detail like on the minis? Could you paint them?

Grimboldofeastfold · **Posted:** Fri Oct 08, 2004 10:44 pm

Talking of painting board games- I painted the pieces from cluedo all int eh wrong colours to annoy my mum lol!
The board game sounds interesting- tell us about it when you get the chance!

Gollum Rules! · **Posted:** Fri Oct 08, 2004 10:48 pm

Well, the minis are all 25mm scale, and with 204 minis for £36.99, how can you go wrong? Obviously the Fell Beasts and Mumaks will be no use (as they also look about 25mm tall) but the rest of it looks pretty good from the pic on that playtesting site.

I would get it, but I have nobody who would play it against me, so I guess I'll have to pass, and carry on with my huge GW painting backlog instead.

Azog - would you be able to post some close-up photos of the different minis, maybe with comparisons with GW minis?

Stewart

Grimboldofeastfold · **Posted:** Fri Oct 08, 2004 10:55 pm

hees a mad thought- the fell beasts etc might be BOT5A scale.......
or maybe not

Potenza · **Posted:** Sat Oct 09, 2004 7:05 am

I know this game, I saw it before on the Internet...somewhere! (Don't ask!) Anyway, it looks a bit like Risk if you ask me, but still it looks and sounds great. Maybe all those little Azogs should play it and let us know how fun it is! :wink:

Azog · **Posted:** Sat Oct 09, 2004 7:23 am

ALL

... lucky for us we only have two :wink:

We've got the LOTR Risk and it's good fun so we can
do a direct comparison.

I think some of the movement sounds like Risk..you have Regions
to regulate movement and combat and standard and elite troops.
I think what might make it different is you can have a a non-military victory with getting the ring to Mount Doom for the Free people.
The bad guys hope to corrupt the ring-bearerand sieze the ring
before it gets to mount doom.

Also at the start of the game many of the free people are reluctant
to go to war so need to be pursuaded by political pressure or
arrival of members of the fellowship.

It's interesting to notetheir is no Gollum figure as he is always
thought to be either following the fellowship or leading the fellowship
if the ring-bearers are alone. THere is a gollum character card though
and certain event cards that modify his actions.
" The proverbial loose canon I reckon "

Gollum Rules! - I will try and get some close ups when I get time
it looks like John Howe had a hand in sculpture design too
as well as general artwork.

Azog · **Posted:** Sun Oct 10, 2004 7:35 am

Well we had a go at playing last night but it took
us quite a bit of time to set up so we did'nt get
anywhere near to the end of it.

It does seem complicated on first playing
(and we are only playing the simplified rules) but if
you like stategy games then I think there is plenty of
fun to be had even at the basic level.

I already like the fact that you must muster your forces for
war, so the fellowship player has a real job mobilising
his forces unless he wants to expend some of his dice rolls
to do it. This is at the expense of moving the fellowship.

The rolling of the dice to decide what you can do is good I think.
For example, we (shadow nations) had a roll that came up
with 4 muster symbols. This allowed us to suddenly bring two
shadow nations to war which then allows us to attack with these
nations. Also the Shadow player(s) have to put aside so many dice
to hunt for the ring. This means you have to balance hunting
for the ring against military objectives.

I reckon that this isn't a game you could just get your
visiting friend to play as you need to spend a bit of time
reading and understanding the rules.

It could be a good game for a group od LOTR enthusiasts
who meet regulary however or two friends who see each
other often to play the LOTR battle game sice you could spend
the time to learn all the aspects of the game.

In conclusion, any LOTR battle game player should be
able to work out the rules, but don't expect to be able
to play it straight out of the box.

Potenza · **Posted:** Sun Oct 10, 2004 12:04 pm

Thanks for clearing this out Azog. It sounds extremely interresting if you ask me! (I should go and babysit soon somewhere!)

EllesarTheKingOfGondor · **Posted:** Sun Oct 10, 2004 5:12 pm

It sounds good...maybe ill try and get it. BTW when I first started collecting lotr sbg I found the rules really complex and complicated. (that was in march) Now I pretty much now them of by heart. So it can't as complicated, because in the sbg you have catapults battering rams and stuff like that, you just have to get used to the rules.

Azog · **Posted:** Fri Oct 15, 2004 10:22 pm

Lots of pics of figs, dice and board in my gallery on palantir at moment
thought Krahl might move them elsewhere soon.

http://www.thepalantir.org/phpBB2/album ... ser_id=152

Potenza · **Posted:** Sat Oct 16, 2004 7:30 am

Aha thanks for these Azog!

The models are almost the same if you ask me...
(according to Risk of course.)

TheBucklandBrewer · **Posted:** Fri Nov 19, 2004 3:42 pm

I have just ordered the boardgame (for only 40.75 euros, boardgame club price) and I'm looking forward to have it!

I've seen people playing demo's etc, but was to lazy to learn the rules on that games-weekend..; so now, when I have it, I'll bother you with loads of enoying questions Azog!

CHeerz,
Isc.

LurtzofIsengard · **Posted:** Sat Dec 11, 2004 10:09 am

Sounds ool, but this ain't anything i'm gonna buy.

Bolg · **Posted:** Sat Nov 12, 2005 9:44 pm

Me and my bro played this quite recently and I was doing so well until right at the end when he beat me :cry: . Grrr typical brothers :wink:

.

War of the Ring Strategy Board Game

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