Merakon
01-24-2005, 02:02 PM
I had a chance to play the War of the Ring boardgame this weekend, and it blew me away and was way more fun than I expected. Its biggest drawback, that it takes a lot of time to play, is also one of its biggest strengths, as it really gives the game an epic feel, if you have time to play it. It has so many different rules and cards that do various things, so it takes a while to get moving along when you first play it, yet despite all those rules it retains an elegant feel overall, which I found truly impressive.
There's lots of cool mechanics of various sorts, from action dice that affect the way you can take various actions during your turn to interesting rules dealing with moving and hiding the fellowship. Combat mechanics are simple and straightforward and work fine. There's an interesting combat mechanic in which bringing and sacrificing elite troops lets you extend sieges beyond one battle round, useful for the Dark side as they pretty much have a time limit where they need to conquer much of the world before the ring reaches the Crack of Doom. There are very interesting mechanics dealing with the different nations and whether they are active or passive and how close they are to being at war. But the various cards and the way they add flavor to an already-cool war/boardgame, especially in terms of that flavor evoking the epic feeling of the books, is what pushes this game into the category of great games.
My friend and I spent 6.5 hours playing it, and those hours pretty much just flew by. His wife came over at about the three hour mark and asked if we were ever going to sit down, because the board is so big and there's so much potential for stuff going on at any part of the board that you're always reading your cards and looking over the possibilities on the board. "Hmm, do I play the Witch King Returns card" and give a shot at bringing forces down from Angmar to conquer Rivendell for +2 victory points? Or do I continue massing forces in Mirkwood and strike north toward those easy pickings strongholds of men, dwarves, and elves in the northeast, but risk the backlash of bringing the humans and dwarves into the war?"
Our game ended with Merakon the Dark Lord conquering the dwarves of the north for the +10 necessary points for a military victory, as the fellowship was one step away from destroying the ring. I haven't been that excited by a boardgame since the first time I played Tigris & Euphrates, and while T&E is certainly a more elegant game, I dare say the War of the Ring might be the most fun boardgame I've ever played. However, I've only played it once, so who knows what I'll think after I play it again.
There's lots of cool mechanics of various sorts, from action dice that affect the way you can take various actions during your turn to interesting rules dealing with moving and hiding the fellowship. Combat mechanics are simple and straightforward and work fine. There's an interesting combat mechanic in which bringing and sacrificing elite troops lets you extend sieges beyond one battle round, useful for the Dark side as they pretty much have a time limit where they need to conquer much of the world before the ring reaches the Crack of Doom. There are very interesting mechanics dealing with the different nations and whether they are active or passive and how close they are to being at war. But the various cards and the way they add flavor to an already-cool war/boardgame, especially in terms of that flavor evoking the epic feeling of the books, is what pushes this game into the category of great games.
My friend and I spent 6.5 hours playing it, and those hours pretty much just flew by. His wife came over at about the three hour mark and asked if we were ever going to sit down, because the board is so big and there's so much potential for stuff going on at any part of the board that you're always reading your cards and looking over the possibilities on the board. "Hmm, do I play the Witch King Returns card" and give a shot at bringing forces down from Angmar to conquer Rivendell for +2 victory points? Or do I continue massing forces in Mirkwood and strike north toward those easy pickings strongholds of men, dwarves, and elves in the northeast, but risk the backlash of bringing the humans and dwarves into the war?"
Our game ended with Merakon the Dark Lord conquering the dwarves of the north for the +10 necessary points for a military victory, as the fellowship was one step away from destroying the ring. I haven't been that excited by a boardgame since the first time I played Tigris & Euphrates, and while T&E is certainly a more elegant game, I dare say the War of the Ring might be the most fun boardgame I've ever played. However, I've only played it once, so who knows what I'll think after I play it again.