WAR OF RINGS

In War of the Ring, one player takes control of the Free Peoples (FP), the other player controls Shadow Armies (SA). Initially, the Free People Nations are reluctant to take arms against Sauron, so they must be attacked by Sauron or persuaded by Gandalf or other Companions, before they start to fight properly: this is represented by the Political Track, which shows if a Nation is ready to fight in the War of the Ring or not.
The game can be won by a military victory, if Sauron conquers a certain number of Free People cities and strongholds or vice versa. But the true hope of the Free Peoples lies with the quest of the Ringbearer: while the armies clash across Middle Earth, the Fellowship of the Ring is trying to get secretly to Mount Doom to destroy the One Ring. Sauron is not aware of the real intention of his enemies but is looking across Middle Earth for the precious Ring, so that the Fellowship is going to face numerous dangers, represented by the rules of The Hunt for the Ring. But the Companions can spur the Free Peoples to the fight against Sauron, so the Free People player must balance the need to protect the Ringbearer from harm, against the attempt to raise a proper defense against the armies of the Shadow, so that they do not overrun Middle Earth before the Ringbearer completes his quest.
Each game turn revolves around the roll of Action Dice: each die corresponds to an action that a player can do during a turn. Depending on the face rolled on each die, different actions are possible (moving armies, characters, recruiting troops, advancing a Political Track).
Action dice can also be used to draw or play Event Cards. Event Cards are played to represent specific events from the story (or events which could possibly have happened) which cannot be portrayed through normal game-play. Each Event Card can also create an unexpected turn in the game, allowing special actions or altering the course of a battle.

The game plays much like Warcraft III with added features, some previously used in Battle Realms. A similar layout and control system is used, and the player gets to control hero units with special abilities. Most regular units also have abilities of their own. The game also follows standard RTS conventions by having rally points, unit creation and purchase of upgrades at certain buildings, etc.
Some features from Battle Realms that were carried over include toggleable walking and running for units and the ability to set buildings on fire. The game also emulates Battle Realms’ yin and yang system, where combat experience (or special actions) would provide a special resource that could be used to buy upgrades or units. This resource is called Yin or Yang in the previous game, depending on the faction being used, and is called Fate here. The player can use Fate Points (gained in combat) to summon Heroes, purchase their special abilities, and activate special faction-specific Fate Powers that will aid him or her in gameplay (such as summoning an Ent or a Balrog). Some influence from Warcraft III can also be seen, with the Minions of Sauron corrupting land with War Posts before they can build upon it — very similar to Warcraft's blight.
Unique to the game are the Places of Power, monuments that award bonuses (like increased armor or attack) if controlled by the player. The player takes control of one by either finding on the map (by having a unit go near it) or wresting it from the foe (killing guards, if any, or else taking it when left unguarded).
The game features two factions to choose from: The Free Peoples of Middle-earth (the good side) and the Minions of Sauron (the evil). The Free Peoples include Men – such as those of Gondor and Rohan, the Dúnedain of the North, and the Beornings – as well as the Elves and the Dwarves. Playable heroes on this side include the Fellowship of the Ring, as well as leaders such as Faramir and Erkenbrand. The Minions of Sauron include the various kinds of Orcs and Goblins, Wargs (ridden by the Orcs), Trolls, the Haradrim, and the Giant Spiders of Mirkwood. Playable Evil heroes include Gollum, Saruman, and the Witch-king of Angmar.
The game features a Good and an Evil campaign, in which one fights the War of the Ring from opposing sides. The game does not actually dwell on prominent battles such as the Battle of the Pelennor Fields (the Battle of the Hornburg is featured in the Good campaign, though) but rather presents scenarios based upon Tolkien’s writings (with varying degrees of license taken). For example, the Good campaign starts with Gimli and the Dwarves fighting the Orcs in the Iron Hills, and one Evil mission has Grishnákh destroying the warning beacons of Gondor. A relatively more faithful scenario is the defense of Osgiliath with Boromir and Faramir.
The game also features a multiplayer mode of gameplay, where players fight against either the computer (skirmish) and/or other humans (via network) on preset or user-created maps. Like Battle Realms, this mode includes several variations like Razing and Survival.
The entire game is divided into several playable categories. Players have the power to chose from playing a single skirmish game as either Good or Evil, a campaign game as either Good or Evil, or an online game with other players as Good or Evil. In addition to these, the player may also take the tutorial, a preset game that explains the way to move, attack, and order around your units. Playing the skirmish game is the simplest of the three main options, as no storyline is involved, and thus the player can utilize the full array of soldiers, spells and building available. Playing a campaign game is very different, as a storyline is involved, and the player must follow that predetermined storyline in order to advance to the next stage of the campaign. Online play is the same as the skirmish, with the exception that you play against another player rather than a computer.
Whilst playing, you will order a variety of units around using the mouse, these units will vary depending on your faction, and use them to fulfill the predetermined victory condition, usually the destruction of your enemy faction. Occasionally, units you control will come into contact with enemies, and battle will be optional. During battle, units' health will be reduced with each blow from the enemy, although this can be altered with healing or protecting spells. When a unit's health is fully reduced, it dies, or in the case of Heroes, vanishes in a beam of light. Heroes that have been killed may be regenerated at the camp, though losing one in a campaign may be a losing condition. At the camp, units are created from a number of buildings, provided there are sufficient resources with which to do so, which range from barracks to stables, and, as with troops, are destroyed when under prolonged attack from enemies. Spells and sorceries also come into play, and can boost the efficiency of units or cause damage to enemies.

Spells can only be cast once sufficient Fate has been gathered, and depending on the strength of the spell, the amount of Fate required increases. Fate is gathered by performing acts of great damage on enemies, and the destruction of something such as an enemy camp will provide a fair deal of it. 

From Ares Games:

War of the Ring is the greatest board game based on THE LORD OF THE RINGS™ ever created! WAR OF THE RING is a grand strategy board game that allows its players to immerse themselves in the world created by J.R.R. Tolkien’s and experience its epic action, dramatic conflict, and memorable characters.

As the Free Peoples player you command the proud hosts of the most important kingdoms of the Third Age. From the horse-lords of Rohan to the soldiers of Gondor and the Elven lords of Rivendell, you lead the defense of the last free realms of Middle-earth. Face the evil minions of Sauron on the field of battle in a desperate attempt to delay their onslaught, while you lead the Fellowship of the Ring in the Quest for Mount Doom.

As the Shadow player you lead the hordes of the Dark Lord and his most powerful minions as they try to bring darkness to Middle-earth. Legions of Orcs, Trolls, Wolfriders and the dreadful Ringwraiths await your command. Hunt the Ring-bearer and bring the precious Ring to his Master, or crush your enemies with your unstoppable armies.

This is your chance to forge the destiny of an age…

I played the first War of the Ring game back in the 80’s. It was the version released from SPI, and featured a hex map and could actually be broken by the shadow player so that the Fellowship player would almost certainly lose.

In 2004 we saw the release of a new War of the Ring from NG International (Nexus) and published in the USA by Fantasy Flight Games. It was a beautiful game, complex, and had victory conditions achievable by either side.

Fast forward to 2011, Ares games received the rights from defunct NG International and decided to publish the game in the United States on their own. The FFG version has long been considered one of the best adaptations of the struggle between the shadow and the inhabitants of Middle Earth ever made. So how can you improve on that?

What Ares did was to keep the changes to a minimum. Improve the areas that fans and critics didn’t like, and leave the rest intact. After all, the game has been out of print for a few years now, so there is a whole new segment of Tolkien fans that do not have copies of the game.

War of the Ring isn’t a wargame, it is more in the line of Risk or Axis and Allies. The battle part of the game involves plastic figures representing regular, elite, leader, and character members of either side rolling dice to attack or defend. The bigger the attacking force, the better your chances of success.

What we are talking about here is the entirety of the Lord of the Rings trilogy of books by JRR Tolkien, transferred into a boardgame. As a Free Peoples player your goal is to either have Sam and Frodo throw the ring into the fires of Mount Doom, or for the armies of the peoples to overcome the Shadow on the field of battle by amassing 4 victory points. As the Shadow player your goal is to either corrupt the Ring Bearers to the point where they turn to the Shadow, or to defeat the armies of the Free Peoples by amassing 10 victory points. It takes more victory points for the Shadow, but they have the benefit of unlimited reinforcements. Once a Free Peoples unit is destroyed, it is gone forever.

Beyond the military conflict side is the quest of the Fellowship of the Ring to get to Mount Doom and throw the ring into the fires, destroying the power of the dark lord forever. The Fellowship consists of all of the characters from the books and movies, at least in the beginning. You may lose companions along the way, or they could be forced to leave to try to save another part of Middle Earth from the unrelenting march of the Shadow’s armies.

All this is the same in both editions of the game. Let’s discuss a few of the differences. First and foremost, the rulebook has changed. The 23 page Fantasy Flight rulebook has been replaced with a 47 page Ares games version. Many of the sections are the same, word for word, but there have also been many clarifications, revisions and improvements to the readability. The FFG book featured a font so tiny to be only readable by sharp eyed elves. The new version has a larger font, many more examples, and a full two page spread of the board with all of the starting army locations clearly marked. The rulebook is a vast improvement. It isn’t perfect, there are a lot of rules to remember and 47 pages is a lot to digest, so don’t think it will be a walk in the park. There is a lot of meat to the game that you just have to bite the bullet and learn, this version just makes it a bit easier.

Along with the bigger is better motif, the cards are much larger. They are at least twice the size of the FFG cards, more like the size of Tarot cards, if you know what those are like. They are also much more readable, and have room to make everything bigger, so that you can see all of the icons without a magnifying glass. Some cards have been modified to improve their usefulness, and the abilities of the characters themselves have been changed as well. Pippen and Merri might actually be useful for something more than just fodder to prevent corruption to the ring bearers.

The artwork is the same, it is just bigger so that you can see it better, the figures are the same for the most part, the Nazgul have changed so that they don’t fall over all the time like they tended to do in the FFG version, and a few others are different, but not many. The dwarves setup has been changed a wee bit (ha! wee bit). The combat sequence has been modified to be easier to follow, and so has the hunt sequence. Plus the fellowship can enter Mordor now even if it is not hidden.

The board, although it looks similar, has been completely redrawn. It is far easier to see the borders of the nations than in the FFG version, and somehow the regions look bigger despite the fact that they cover the same Middle Earth. I did spy a few changes to the regions; the one I can think of off the bat is the addition of the “Old Forest Road” region. I’m sure there are more; I just haven’t compared them section by section. The new map also has a victory point track, so that you don’t need to keep counting them up on the board. Like everything else, I found the board much easier to read.

Remember all those times that you had no space to fit a whole army in one region? Ares has added three boxes and some counters so that you can replace all your figures from one army with a single counter, and then place the army in the box on the board. You can swap them out at any time; they are there to help you when you just don’t have enough space.

It has been awhile since I’ve played the FFG version, so I had to go through and relearn the specifics for this one all over again. As I mentioned, it is not a simple game. There are many rules and little things to remember. There are two player aids, but you will still find yourself paging through the rules for the first few games. You can rely on common sense for the most part. For example, you can’t recruit troops into a stronghold that is under siege, duh!

WOTR is as thematic a game you will find based on the Lord of the Rings. Gandalf the Grey can become Gandalf the White, Strider can become King Aragorn. The cards do much to add events from the books, but you always have the difficult decision whether or not to use the event on the card, or the combat bonus on the card. Once they are used, they are out of the game.

For me, this version is an improvement to the original. It tries to help you learn the game rather than fight you as the FFG version seemed to do at times. If you already have the FFG version, you can purchase an upgrade kit that has all of the new cards in a nice tin for about $30, and then download the new version of the rules from the Ares Games website, that might be enough for you. I personally like the new board a lot. There is less topography than on the FFG version, but it is easier to read and use. If you have been waiting to try this game out, I recommend getting the Ares Games version while it is in print.

Our whole world was overshadowed by the darkness. It did not fall from wings of the Ringwraiths as we expected, but funneled through mountains, that surround Mordor as a sort of indescribable plague. Somewhere in the distance, dark humming echoes together with rhythmic sound of drums. Armies are put together and will do something, that our world will remember forever. War for the One Ring.

And you stand at the helm. You will not hesitate even for a moment, because such an honor cannot be refused. Board game War of the Ring comes after eight years for the second time to our tables. Shiny and brand new with its release year is 2012, but spread similarly slowly and quietly to the world, as darkness covered the Middle-Earth. Game finally got to us, although a little bit later, but we are glad we had the opportunity to try it out. Its author is a trio of Roberto Di Meglio, Marco Maggi and Francesco Nepitello. And it was not even possible to use illustrations from none other, than John Howe with help of Fabia Maiorano. Everything was published under logo of Ares Games and later joined by other languages.

Dimensions of this box leaves no doubt in your mind, that this will be a monstrous experience. The entire world of Middle-Earth is stuffed into one package and lid shouts it loudly far and wide, to all The Lord of the Rings fans. Even the map lying on the top is really respectable, divided into two halves, which should be placed together. On it, we find known world ranging from Hobbiton to Mordor, including a number of cities marked with colored diamond. The map contains a number of other scales and positions, including some for elves, other for free people, or the Fellowship of the Ring and some for Sauron (marked here as Shadow player). There are also three tracks – one for progress of Fellowship, second is political for convincing nations and third serves to track victory points.

This game is not yet finished with glamouring us. And its still not done after we mention tokens, which can be found a total of 76 in the sheet, again for both sides. Whole world but desperately needs miniatures.. And believe us, they are all here. All those characters, you know and love from movies and/or books – a complete Fellowship, Saruman, Mouth of Sauron, but even dwarves, warriors of Rohan or warggs and giant mammoths on the side of evil. The perfect picture is missing perhaps only ents. Game pieces are complemented by twenty special dice (six for the side of good, ten for evil player and five battle ones) and cards. Package contains hundred of cards to show us events, which will move the game forward, but also character cards.

At the beginning of the gam, players must split the role of Shadow, and Free people of Middle-earth among themselves and put a game board in the middle. The most important thing (for saving Middle-earth) is to put the Ringbearers, Frodo and Sam on Rivendell. Their token is put by players on zero position of blue scales along with marker for influence of the ring. All of their companions then start the game placed into a box Fellowship of the Ring at the top right corner of game board. Each character is also equipped with his own card. They are placed at the last blue position with Gandalf, who is their guide, on top.

Entire game of War of the Rings revolves around dice rolls, which will take place at the beginning of round. This is preceded by chance to discard and draw event cards, but also opportunity for Shadow player to reserve several dice for upcoming hunt for Fellowship. To the contrary, the small group of brave men can change their guide at this moment. Then its all followed by rolling the dice. Among them are the sword and flag used to move either the hero (and his troops) or separate armies, helmet used to persuade nations to go to war or recruit new units, or the opportunity to play or draw a card events.

War in Middle-Earth seems quite far away. Some nations simply do not want to believe, that something is happening and players must gradually lead them to enlightenment on political scale. Important characters can be brought into the game through dice. Rolls allow players also to use cards with a specific symbol, and these cards are a very important element of the game. They always have some playing its condition and effect. There is more possibilities of using the symbols on the dice, so player always has more choices. Opponents alternate in turns, so they must respond to one another.

If the Fellowship attempts to move through action dice, Sauron may perform his Ring hunt. Thus, in the case, that he has set aside some dice at the beginning of the round to do so. If Shadow player manages to come across their track, a search in the form of drawing tokens follows. And these can detect position of the Fellowship or increase impact of The One Ring on ringbearers. This part is the hardest to grasp in the rules and it takes time to get into it. In addition, rules vary by location heroes and on who is currently their leader.

But while the journey to Mount Doom takes place somewhere in the background, most of the attention is focused on battles. It is the second moment, when it is possible to play cards, this time for their combat support. Such a card is then discarded. It´s important to think twice, when you play any card, whether to use it in combat or outside of it. The battle is then solved using dice (twice, the second time for leader units) and is influenced by the presence of fortifications, which give an appreciable advantage to their owner.

During the game, there is more and more war, battles are raging and suddenly everything is over. Free nations can win by Frodo and Sam slipping under curious Eye of Sauron and throwing The Ring into the heart of Mount Doom. Or their friends will get the upper hand on the battlefield and get a certain number of areas, pushing Sauron back. The same with some area goal goes for Shadow player. Likewise, darkness fills Middle-Earth in case, that Frodo can no longer resist the Ring and succumbs to its power.

War of the Ring is a game, about which so much has been already written in the English language. But we have published Czech version and we thought it would be bad not to translate it to our second site as well. That is, why the time has come, to look at the game together. At least bit slightly uncover the mystery, that hovers around her (for Czech players). And find out, why all like it so much.

First and foremost, it is in its length. At least for common man playing board games just for fun. You must set aside the whole evening, sometimes even night for one match. The game takes three hours and with no pauses and when Frodo does not linger. But with it comes the feeling, you had lived a story. Again and again, you can return to the world of Mr. Tolkien and experience the fate of the Ring and always a little differently. As if he rewrote the book before your own eyes. Always with slightly different ending.

The game is challenging, there is no doubt about that. Its just enough to look at the 48-page guide full of information. But when you learn it, it really is not anything complicated. Just a few little tought-to-grasp procedures, that support otherwise very simple and literally epic entertainment. And it still would not welcome any beginner warmly, only when he is taught by experienced player.

An important reason for this was the fact, that if Sauron is not played by an experienced player who has a clear idea of his plane, the game suddenly starts to diminish somewhat in tempo. Free people suddenly have too much action, are not under pressure and everything is not working as it should. But the experience must be obtained somewhere, and therefore some matches are required to finish even with slower tempo and learn from them to get a full experience.

The game will enchant you mostly with its asymmetry. While in the background, Frodo and Sam carry the Ring, going through their own battles and step-by-step approaching to Mount Doom, all around them are weapons rattling and armies of unprecedented proportions again and again meet in the seemingly never-ending war. Both parts of this struggle are equally important and can lead to victory or defeat.

And both are driven somewhat by luck. Now, that is second moment (after long playing time), when you need to decide, whether this is the game for you. Sometimes, even the best planning must bow to will of dice. And sometimes all the efforts may be thwarted after a hundred and fifty minutes of the fight for the future of the Middle-Earth, when Frodo succumbs to the power of the Ring and with terrifying laughing retreats into the shadows of Sauron to follow in his footsteps.

Selection of action is essential for the whole game and everything revolves around it. It elegantly reduces the amount of actions you can do in your turn, thus accelerating the flow of the whole game. But then the fight is actually inspired by a simple Risk (review). Yet there is many tactics behind. Altogether it creates right mix of tactics and luck in its pot.

The game is best with two players, because both have clearly defined sides. Otherwise, player must always somewhat divide them and thus atmosphere might suffer for someone. It´s not important, because some players on the contrary praised the cooperation, so this impression is probably pretty individual and depends on the positions, on which individual participants find themselves.

Processing itself is amazing. There are only cosmetical changes in the second edition compared to the first, different board graphics and a larger and more readable cards. But this game becomes what it is with its monstrosity and number of miniatures.

War of the Ring is full of stories and atmosphere. We could tell you here, but it is much better, if you experience it for yourself. This game is a living and breathing fiery monster hiding in the depths of Khazad-Dum. It overflows you with all the stories and characters you love from Lord of the Rings. War of the Ring is a must for any rock fan of JRR Tolkien, but also for lovers of quality and truly epic board games.