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'The War of the Ring' - Nexus/Fantasy Flight Games
News from the north: (The ring goes south, slowly)
Tonight there are just the two – Phil and Roger. Earlier Roger enquires what will be on offer for the evening – The War of the Ring (from Nexus/Fantasy Flight Games), and is less than enthusiastic. However, the man is nothing if not obsessive, and a quick trip to BoardgamesGeek to acquire a summary of the rules seems to have revived his interest.
Meanwhile in Phil’sl household events take a turn for the worst. It has been a long term in the blackboard jungle (sorry, whiteboard) and far too many tasks have been allowed to drift late in the day. Phil begins to set the game up – and this one is BIG, two huge map-boards, hundreds of plastic figures, lots of markers – but gets waylaid. Attendance on daughters in the bath takes out a chunk of the time and, when sneaking back to the groaning kitchen table, the reminder is delivered that a game of Reiner’s Lord of the Rings has been promised. This is Uncle Nick’s game, but he has rather foolishly allowed Phil to get his hands on it. Not only is it an absolute stormer with the 11-year olds at school, the Kendall daughters – recent converts to the wonders of the film - have also taken to it. Healing themselves on a regular basis (for those who know the game) keeps them happy, whilst Kendall senior desperately tries to drag the party Mordor-wards. The attempt is yet again unsuccessful, but as it is dad complete with the one ring who has succumbed to the darkness, no one is particularly upset.
Accordingly, Roger arrives to find the game in only the earliest throes of being set up. Undaunted, the two roll up their sleeves and rip open bulging plastic bags. Forty-five minutes later, they are almost ‘there’. Whilst the forces of evil have been fairly straightforward, the Free Peoples have caused Roger a lot of stress. Eventually discovering that the shields of the Rohirrim all bear a horse design solves the problem, but it has been a steep learning curve.
This is one of the problems with the game. It does look magnificent, there can be no faulting the components and it does seem to have been very well play-tested. Possibly, though, the uninitiated have been left out of the equation. There seems to be an assumption that the playing pieces will all be sorted without any problem – but those cavalry figures do look very samey until you spot the shield design. Similarly, it is only an hour into the game that Roger spots that what was presumed to be the Gondor symbol on Pippin, Merry, Gandalf and Aragorn (which indicates which nations they can rouse) is actually the Free Peoples symbol (which allows them to rouse any). As I say, the artwork is superb but you do get the feeling that you’re groping for some rather essential bits of understanding.
Nonetheless, the game is set up at last, and with a wistful glance back at the Shire (actually, Rivendell) Frodo turns his face to the south. The system is one of those that you only begin to really appreciate when you start playing. Now years ago, before the forging of German boardgames, SPI produced possibly the best attempt at simulating the war of the ring. It was only slightly successful, and struggled to fit the two themes together – the quest and the war. War of the Ring succeeds brilliantly in both. The driving force of each turn are a pile of dice that you roll – in the case of the Dark Player allowing you a choice of moving armies and fighting, drawing and playing Event cards, building reinforcements, moving your allies onto a war footing or hunting for the ring. It works really well. There is always flexibility – for instance all the event cards have two possible uses. There is a lot to this game – a second review will be in order – but enough of the details for now.
In the game, the Dark Lord summoned Saruman to the fray. Saruman rapidly built up a splendid force of Uruk-hai (Wormtongue had already been played to keep Rohan quiet), and the eventual assault on Helm’s Deep – complete with the ‘Fighting Uruk-hai’ card and plenty of ‘Devilry of Orthanc’ saw Rohan destroyed. The forces of Mordor began to pour forwards and Osgiliath was under threat. Roger Baggins on the other hand elected to be rather too imaginative in his strategy. Send the Ring South? Alright, but verrryyyy slowly. Meanwhile the Dwarfs marched out of the Iron Hills and started conquering various towns in the middle of nowhere, before wandering south to Mirkwood. At this stage, a fascinating but very slow (there are a lot of concepts to get your head round) game came to an end. Three hours of gaming to not get that far.
Future playings I am certain will move faster. The whole game was very tentative with a great deal of discussion going on as to what effect various rules were meant to have. Very, very interesting and already a very successful simulation. Probably not one for the average gamer, but for anyone interested in the Lord of the Rings, the must-buy of the year.
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