Review: War of the Ring (Second Edition)

Introduction & Overview

But wherever he looked he saw signs of war. The Misty Mountains were crawling like anthills: orcs were issuing from a thousand holes. Under the boughs of Mirkwood there was deadly strife of Elves and Men and fierce beasts. The land of the Beornings was aflame; a cloud hung over Moria; smoke rose on the borders of Lórien. Riders were galloping on the grass of Rohan; wolves poured from Isengard. From the harbours of Harad ships of war put out to sea; and out of the East Men were moving endlessly: swordsmen, spearmen, bowmen upon horses, chariots of chieftains and laden wagons. All the power of the Dark Lord was in motion.

This is how War of the Ring (in its second edition) is presented to us, a design by Roberto Di Meglio, Marco Maggi, and Francesco Nepitello (The Battle of the Five Armies, Age of Conan). The game was first published in 2004 by Ares Games, receiving a second edition in 2012. The illustrations are handled by John Howe (Ethnos).

It is published in Spanish by Devir (language dependency is significant, with a large amount of text on the cards). It allows for games of 2 to 4 players, with a suggested minimum age of 13 and an approximate duration of between 150 and 180 minutes. The retail price is €79.95. For this review, a review copy of the Spanish version by Devir was used, kindly provided by the publisher.

Important: if you already know the game and/or are only interested in my opinion about it, you can go directly to the Opinion section. The Content and Mechanics sections are especially intended for those who do not know the game and prefer to get a general idea of how it works.

Go to Personal Opinion

Components

Inside a two-piece cardboard box (lid and base), measuring 40.6×27.9×8.9 (a large rectangular box similar in size to Western Legends), we find the following elements:

• 2-part game board (cardboard)
• 76 Tokens (cardboard):
  • 24 Hunt Tiles
  • 6 Army Tokens
  • 3 Elven Ring Tokens
  • Corruption Marker
  • 9 Companion Tokens
  • Fellowship Progress Marker
  • 8 Political Tokens
  • 20 Control Tokens
  • 2 Victory Point Markers
  • 2 Leader Player Tokens
• 205 Miniatures (plastic):
  • 3 Minions
  • 8 Nazgûl
  • 18 Isengard Units (12 regular and 6 elite)
  • 42 Sauron Units (36 regular and 6 elite)
  • 30 Southrons & Easterlings Units (24 regular and 6 elite)
  • The Ring-Bearers
  • Gollum
  • 7 Companions
  • 14 Dwarves Units (5 regular, 5 elite, and 4 leaders)
  • 19 Elves Units (5 regular, 10 elite, and 4 leaders)
  • 24 Gondor Units (15 regular, 5 elite, and 4 leaders)
  • 19 North Units (10 regular, 5 elite, and 4 leaders)
  • 19 Rohan Units (10 regular, 5 elite, and 4 leaders)
• 16 Action Dice (resin)
• 6 Free Peoples Dice
• 10 Shadow Dice
• 5 Combat Dice (resin)
• 110 Cards (70×120 mm.):
  • 10 Companion Cards
  • Gollum Card
  • 3 Minion Cards
  • 96 Event Cards (24 character event cards and 24 strategy event cards for each faction)
• 2 Reference Sheets (cardstock)
• Rulebook

How to Play

War of the Ring is a strategic game set in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth, recreating the epic conflict between the Free Peoples and the hosts of the Shadow. Over a series of turns structured into six phases, the Free Peoples faction will attempt to defend their last realms and guide the Fellowship of the Ring to destroy the One Ring in Mount Doom, while the Shadow player will mobilize their military superiority to conquer the continent or corrupt the Ring-bearers. At the start of each turn, dice are recovered and event cards are drawn; right after, the Shadow can assign dice to the Hunt box, and both contenders simultaneously roll their available action dice. Following this, players alternate turns in the resolution phase. On each action, the active player spends a die to execute the action dictated by its icon, allowing them to move or attack with armies through the map’s regions, recruit new reinforcements and leaders in free settlements, advance or hide the Fellowship, or move individual characters across the board. Furthermore, it is possible to play event cards from their hand to apply effects or use them as combat cards during battles, which are resolved over multiple rounds through dice rolls and rerolls based on the leadership of the heroes present. The game ends as soon as the victory conditions are met: the Shadow will triumph if they conquer enough enemy cities and strongholds or if corruption completely consumes the Ring-bearers, while the Free Peoples will claim victory if they manage to destroy the Ring in Mount Doom or if they succeed in capturing Shadow strongholds, with the side that reaches its definitive goal first being proclaimed the winner.

Key Concepts

Let’s start with the Board. This mostly represents a map of Middle-earth divided into various regions. These are separated by white borders, rivers, and black borders. The first two can be crossed without issue. However, a black border separates two regions with no possibility for a miniature to cross it. These regions, in turn, are grouped with colored borders to indicate their ownership by the various nations. A nation’s regions may show a square Shadow or Free Peoples symbol to indicate it is a town, a rectangular symbol to indicate a city, or a large square symbol to indicate a stronghold. The latter two also display a specific amount of victory points that the opposing side can obtain if they take control of it. In the top right corner, we have the Fellowship area. On the left side, there is a representation of the strongholds in case they are besieged, allowing defenders to retreat inside. Right next to it, we have three areas to place miniatures and resolve battles more comfortably. On the top track, we find the Fellowship track (with spaces numbered from 0 to 12) and a reserve area for the Elven rings when they are held by the Free Peoples. On the right track, we find the political track, which serves to determine the status of each nation involved in the conflict. On the bottom track, we find, from left to right, the Hunt area, the victory point track (with spaces numbered from 1 to 10), and the area for the Elven rings when they are held by the Shadow. Finally, note that the Mordor region shows the Mount Doom track, along which the Fellowship must progress to succeed in throwing the ring into the lava and defeating Sauron.

One of the most important concepts of the game is the Fellowship, which has several associated elements. The first is progress and corruption, which are marked with their respective markers on the Fellowship track. The first serves to keep track of how far the Fellowship has advanced on the terrain. This progress will be virtual, since as long as the Fellowship is not revealed (voluntarily or because the Shadow discovers them), it will be represented solely as a number of steps. When it is revealed, then the movement is resolved, with the player controlling the Free Peoples deciding which regions they travel through. An important detail is that the Fellowship cannot move forward if it is revealed (something that only happens if the Shadow discovers them, not when the Fellowship reveals itself), which is indicated by flipping the marker. On the other hand, we have the corruption marker, which will progress along the same track, indicating the Shadow’s influence over the Ring-bearer. If corruption reaches the maximum, the Shadow wins.

This corruption will be assigned using the Hunt Tiles. Every time the Fellowship advances on this track, the Shadow will have the opportunity to conduct a hunt (depending on several factors). If successful, they will draw one of these tiles from the pool, which indicates how much corruption the Fellowship suffers, as well as whether it is revealed or not (in which case it must declare its current location). There are numerous special tiles that will be added to the pool via events once the Fellowship reaches Mordor.

Next, let’s talk about the members of the Fellowship. This is represented by tokens with a back showing the Ring of Power and a front showing an illustration of the companion. These tokens are initially placed face down next to the Fellowship deck and will serve when sacrificing companions when the Fellowship takes damage.

And speaking of the companions, these are represented by a series of miniatures (just like the Fellowship itself, represented by a miniature of Frodo and Sam) which will mark the progress of the Fellowship on the board. On the other hand, we have the rest of the Fellowship’s companions, who are initially integrated into it, but as the game progresses, can take different paths and enter the board to interact with the armies and trigger powerful events. The only miniature that does not enter the board is Gollum’s, who will become the Fellowship’s guide when no companions are left.

In parallel, the Shadow player will have the Minions on their side, which are also represented by miniatures, though they will not be in play initially, requiring certain conditions to be met. Something similar happens with Gandalf the White and Aragorn, who initially start in the Fellowship as Gandalf the Grey and Strider. These characters have the unique feature of adding action dice to their respective sides’ pools when they enter play.

The characteristics of each companion and minion are shown on the Character Cards. These have a series of attributes to pay attention to, namely: their level (in the top right corner), which is used as a priority element when determining the guide of the Fellowship, as well as the movement capacity of these characters across the map; their leadership (which is applied in combat to reroll dice when these characters are integrated into armies), whether they add an action die to the player’s pool, and which nation they activate with. In the rest of the card, we find text referring to how the character is activated and their abilities, both if they form part of the Fellowship (in the case of the Free Peoples) or if they are on the board.

The Action Dice will be the backbone of the game. In each round, both sides will have a certain number of dice (a minimum that can be increased with the presence of certain characters). Each of these dice allows executing the action associated with the resulting symbol after making a roll at the beginning of the round. A unique feature for the Shadow side is that at the start of the round, the player can reserve a die (up to a maximum depending on the number of companions still in the Fellowship) to conduct the hunt for the ring, which will occur when it moves.

Let’s move on to the Units. On one hand, we have the Free Peoples, made up of five nations: Gondor, Rohan, Elves, Dwarves, and the North. Each of these nations has its own symbol and regions. Each nation has its own army, composed of regular units, elite units, and leaders. The difference between the first two is that elite units take two hits (a first hit degrades them to a regular unit, and the second eliminates them). Leaders do not add strength to combat nor are they taken into account when applying stacking limits (a player cannot have more than ten miniatures in the same region, or 5 if entrenched in a stronghold); instead, they allow for rerolls in combat. These units can be recruited in regions belonging to their nation that remain under their control.

On the other hand, we have the Shadow units, composed of three nations: Isengard, the Southrons & Easterlings, and Sauron. Just like the Free Peoples’ armies, we will have regular and elite units. However, these nations will not have their own leaders; instead, the Nazgûl will act as leaders without being associated with a specific nation. The fundamental difference between Shadow and Free Peoples units is that Shadow units return to the reserve when eliminated, whereas Free Peoples units are removed from the game (although they can be used when degrading elite units).

To resolve combat, Combat Dice will be used, which are simply six-sided dice numbered 1 to 6. Each unit (regular or elite) allows rolling one die, although you can never roll more than five dice in each combat round. By default, a value of 1 is a miss and a value of 6 will be a hit. Under normal conditions, 5s will also be a hit (although there will be cases, such as the first round of attacking a city or any round against a stronghold, where they will not be hits). These dice can be rerolled thanks to leadership (from leaders and characters) present in the battle.

On the other hand, we have the Event Cards, divided into two decks: Character (with a sword symbol) and Strategy (with a banner symbol). At the beginning of each round, players draw one card from each of these two decks, and can never have more than six cards in hand (they would have to discard the excess). These cards can be played with an action die that matches one of the symbols shown on the upper half, or as an effect in a combat round. For this, the initiative value shown in the lower corner would be taken into account (the lowest value acts first, and in case of a tie, the defender).

The other path to victory will be through military conquests. Gaining control of a city initially belonging to one side will provide 1 point, while controlling a stronghold initially belonging to the opposing side will provide 2 points. These points are temporary, since if control of a city/stronghold initially belonging to the enemy is lost, the points are also lost. To keep track, each player has a score marker. The number of points required to achieve victory at the end of a round will be different for each side, since the Shadow’s military power is much greater than that of the Free Peoples.

Every time a player controls a region marked with a symbol of the opposing side and their armies leave it, a control token will be left behind, indicating that, as long as a rival army does not enter the region, it will be under the control of the last side that had a military presence in it.

When recruiting, moving armies, and attacking, players must take into account the status of the different nations. A nation can be active/inactive, as well as at war. To indicate that a nation is active, we have a series of double-sided markers with the symbol of each nation. On one side, the border will be white (inactive side), while on the other, it will have the color of the corresponding side (active side). A nation needs to be active in order to go to war. And to mark that a nation is at war, there is a political track on the board. Each nation begins at a specific position on this track, and action dice and/or event cards must be used to advance this marker. If an inactive nation is attacked by the rival, it will activate immediately. And if the Fellowship is revealed in a city or stronghold of a nation, that nation will also become active.

Finally, the Free Peoples player will start the game with three Elven rings that will have the ability to change the value of an action die at any time during the round. When the Free Peoples player activates one of these rings, they will pass it to the Shadow player, who can do the same later. When the Shadow player uses a ring, it will be destroyed and removed from the game.

That is enough to get started.

Setup

1. The board is placed in the center of the table.
2. The political markers are placed in the corresponding spaces of the political track (all Shadow nations are active, while only Gondor is active on the Free Peoples side).
3. The victory point markers are placed at the start of the score track.
4. The battle identification tokens are placed in the corresponding spaces.
5. The Fellowship and corruption markers are placed at the start of the Fellowship track.
6. The Fellowship miniature is placed in Rivendell.
7. All Fellowship tokens are placed in the Fellowship space.
8. All companion cards are placed in a deck in the Fellowship space, with Gandalf as the guide.
9. The Gandalf the White and Aragorn cards are set aside, as are the 3 Shadow minion cards.
10. Each player takes all the action dice for their side, leaving one action die on each character card that was set aside.
11. A general supply is formed with the control markers.
12. The combat dice are set aside.
13. The Hunt tiles with a background color other than white are set aside. The rest are put into a bag.
14. The 3 Elven ring tokens are placed in the spaces allocated to them on the Free Peoples player’s side.
15. The event card decks (Character and Strategy) are separated, shuffled individually, and placed in their corresponding spaces.
16. Finally, the starting units are placed in each region according to the rulebook.

We are ready to begin!

Game Flow

A game of War of the Ring (2nd Ed.) is played over an indefinite number of rounds. Each of these rounds consists of five phases.

Phase I: Recover Dice and Draw Event Cards

In this phase, each player gathers the dice they used in the previous round, as well as introducing new dice obtained or removing dice lost when bringing into play/removing a companion/minion.

Additionally, each player must draw 2 event cards, one from each deck. After this, if a player has more than six cards in hand, they must discard down to the limit (they can choose any card from their hand).

Phase II: The Fellowship

In this phase, the player controlling the Free Peoples can declare the position of the Fellowship. To do this, they will move the miniature up to as many regions as the value of the Fellowship marker and reset it to zero (they can advance less if they see fit). If the Fellowship marker is at 0, the player can also declare the Fellowship (it will not move).

If the Fellowship stops its movement in a Stronghold/City of a nation, that nation activates if it wasn’t already, and the corruption level is reduced by 1 point. If the Fellowship was already in a stronghold/city of a nation and is declared with 0 points on the Fellowship marker, the corruption level will also be reduced by 1 point.

Finally, it is at this moment that the player controlling the Free Peoples can decide to change the guide of the Fellowship, placing the card of a companion who still belongs to the Fellowship into the appropriate space, provided there is no higher-level companion.

If the Fellowship is in Morannon or Minas Morgul, even if revealed, it can decide to begin progressing along the Mordor track. At this point, all revealed Hunt tiles with an eye symbol are returned to the bag, as well as tiles activated by events.

Phase III: Hunt Allocation

In this phase, the player controlling the Shadow must decide how many action dice to allocate to the Hunt, taking into account whether the player controlling the Free Peoples performed at least one action to advance the Fellowship (meaning that the player controlling the Free Peoples recovered at least one die from the Hunt box). The maximum number of dice that can be allocated is the number of companions remaining in the Fellowship, counting Gollum as a companion when he is the guide, so that at least one die can always be placed.

Phase IV: Action Dice Roll

Each side will roll their available action dice (the Shadow will not roll the dice allocated to the Hunt in the previous step). In the Shadow player’s roll, all dice showing an eye symbol go to the Hunt box.

Phase V: Actions

In this phase, starting with the player controlling the Free Peoples, players alternate action turns in which they must activate one of their dice and remove it from their personal pool to indicate its use, with the exception of those used by the Free Peoples player to advance the Fellowship, in which case they will be placed in the Hunt box. Alternatively, if the active player has fewer available dice than their rival, they can choose to pass the turn.

The phase ends when both players have exhausted their dice pools.

During this phase, players can activate one Elven ring per turn to change the value of a die to whatever they deem appropriate (with the exception of the Free Peoples, who cannot choose Will of the West as a value). The three rings are initially held by the player controlling the Free Peoples. When the Free Peoples player activates a ring, it passes to the control of the Shadow player. When the Shadow player activates a ring, it is destroyed and returned to the box.

The actions available based on the symbols obtained on the dice are:

• Will of the West (Free Peoples only): acts as a wild card for any action and is required to bring Gandalf the White or Aragorn into play (meeting the requirements indicated on their respective cards).
• Character (sword symbol):
  • Both Sides:
    • Move an army with a leader or a companion/minion to an adjacent free region.
    • Attack with an army with a leader or a companion/minion into an adjacent region occupied by opposing armies.
  • Free Peoples:
  • Move the Fellowship (must be hidden). The fellowship progress marker advances one step. Next, a Fellowship hunt is resolved:
    • The player controlling the Shadow rolls as many combat dice as there are action dice in the Hunt box. They will achieve a hit if they roll at least one six (adding one to the values for each Free Peoples action die in the Hunt box). The player can reroll a die for each of the following conditions met: the Fellowship is in a region with a Shadow-controlled stronghold, a Shadow army, or a Nazgûl. If the hunt is successful, the Shadow player draws a Hunt tile from the bag, applies the result, and sets the tile aside. If the tile reveals the Fellowship and it enters, leaves, or crosses a Shadow stronghold while moving, the Shadow player draws an additional tile and applies its result. The value indicated on the tile is the damage the Fellowship receives (if it shows an eye symbol, this will be equivalent to the number of Shadow hits in the roll). Now the Free Peoples player can reduce the damage by discarding any active event card on the table and/or using the guide’s ability if it allows for damage reduction. The remaining damage can be managed in two ways: eliminating the guide (who absorbs as much damage as their level, after which a new guide is chosen, who can use their ability if it allows reducing corruption immediately) or eliminating a companion at random (the Shadow draws one of the face-down tokens and the damage is reduced by as many units as the level of the eliminated character). Any corruption that could not be absorbed by abilities, events, and/or companions will be added to the corruption marker. Finally, the Free Peoples player places the action die in the Hunt box. If the Fellowship is in Mordor, no roll is made; instead, a Hunt tile is drawn directly, and the Fellowship advances on the Mordor track as long as the tile does not have a stop symbol. If the tile shows an eye, then the damage will be the number of dice in the Hunt box (both Shadow and Free Peoples dice). If the Fellowship is on the Mordor track and has not attempted to move, corruption increases by one level.
    • Hide the Fellowship (must be revealed). Simply flip the Fellowship marker to show its ring side.
    • Move all companions who are not with the Fellowship. Each companion can move separately up to as many regions as their level. As long as they are not integrated into an army, companions can move without restrictions across the map regarding strongholds, cities, and enemy armies.
    • Separate companions from the Fellowship. The player chooses which companions they wish to separate and sets their cards aside, removes the companion tokens from the Fellowship, and places the corresponding miniatures in the region currently occupied by the Fellowship.
  • The Shadow:
    • Move all Nazgûl and Minions. Just like companions, as long as the Nazgûl and minions are not integrated into an army, they can move freely across the board with the sole restriction that if they enter a region with an enemy-controlled stronghold, they must stop their movement (they can resume moving with a subsequent movement action). They also cannot enter or leave besieged strongholds.
• Muster (helmet symbol):
  • Both sides:
    • Advance a nation marker that is not yet at war towards war. If it is a Free Peoples nation and is not yet active, it cannot enter war until it becomes active.
    • Play an event card with the muster symbol.
    • Recruit reinforcements (if the nation is at war). You can add 2 regular units, 1 regular and 1 leader, or 1 elite unit to regions controlled by that nation. If more than one unit is recruited, they must be deployed in different regions. Units cannot be recruited in strongholds under siege. Remember that there can never be more than 10 units of a side in a region (5 in a besieged stronghold).
  • The Shadow:
    • Recruit a minion if the conditions are met.
• Army (banner):
  • Both sides:
    • Move up to two different armies to adjacent free regions. Remember that an army cannot enter a region of another nation if it is not at war.
    • Attack with an army into an adjacent occupied region.
    • Play an event card with an army symbol.
• Event
  • Both sides:
    • Play an event card of any type.
    • Draw an event card from any deck.

Battles occur when one army attacks another located in an adjacent region (or continues a siege). These are resolved over a series of combat rounds (minimum one), proceeding as follows:

1. First, if the player is attacking a stronghold, the defender can retreat into the stronghold (the miniatures are placed in the corresponding stronghold space) and the attacker enters the region. If this happens, the combat ends immediately.
2. If combat continues, players declare whether they will play an event card (first the attacker, then the defender). The cards are chosen and placed face down. Once both players have decided, the cards are revealed and effects are applied in order of initiative (from lowest value to highest value, with the defender going first in case of a tie).
3. Each player makes a combat roll with one die for each unit (elite or regular) present in the battle (check if any companion adds dice to the combat), up to a maximum of 5 dice. On their roll, the player will have the ability to reroll as many dice as their leadership level (summing the leadership of leaders and companions present in the battle).
4. Now hits are counted, keeping in mind that a 5 or 6 is a hit (with the exception of the attacker in strongholds or in the first round of combat in cities, who will only hit on a 6). Each hit means removing a regular unit or degrading an elite unit to a regular unit (the Free Peoples player can use eliminated miniatures to make this degradation). Each player removes their casualties (the Shadow returns miniatures to their reserve, the Free Peoples remove miniatures from the game). If the player has no regular units to degrade, the elite unit is eliminated directly.
5. If both players still have units on the battlefield, the attacker decides whether to continue or retreat (in which case they leave the miniatures in the region they attacked from). If they continue, the defender must choose between continuing or retreating. If they choose to retreat, they must leave the region by moving to an adjacent free region (the nation’s political state restrictions do not apply here), and the attacker can occupy the attacked region with all or part of their army.
6. If both players continue, they proceed with a new combat round. In a siege, the attacking player must degrade an elite unit to play a new combat round.

Remember that the stacking limit must be applied after an action, so if a player has more than 10 army units (regular or elite) in a region, they must return the excess to the reserve. A stronghold under siege cannot hold more than 5 units inside. Leaders, companions, and minions are not taken into account for the stacking limit.

If the attacked nation is a Free Peoples nation that is not yet active, it activates at this moment.

Finally, if an army leaves a region initially belonging to the opposing side, it will leave a control marker on it (town, city, or stronghold).

Phase VI: Victory Condition Check

In this phase, it is checked whether either of the two players has reached the amount of victory points required for their side to be proclaimed the winner. Otherwise, a new round would begin.

Game End

The game can end in two ways:

• Military Path. If at the end of a round one of the two sides has reached its objective in victory points (10 for the Shadow, 4 for the Free Peoples), the game ends, proclaiming that side the winner. In the event that both sides achieve this goal in the same round, the Shadow would be the winning side.
• One Ring Path. If at any moment Frodo succumbs and corruption reaches 12 points, the Shadow wins immediately. Conversely, if the Fellowship of the Ring is able to reach the last space on the Mordor track and the corruption value is below 12, the Free Peoples will be proclaimed the winners.

Variants

There are variants for 3 and 4 players in which players divide the different armies. Each team with more than one player will have a leader who will make the major decisions. During the action phase, players alternate turns (once each team, and within each team, once each player), resolving actions with the available action dice, keeping in mind that they can only apply effects to the nations they control.

Personal Opinion

I think we will all agree that the work of John Ronald Reuel Tolkien marked a turning point when it comes to fantasy-medieval literature. An epic, extensive, and tremendously descriptive tale in which we find a story full of twists, and if you haven’t had the pleasure of tasting it, I invite you to do so. It’s true that it might come across as a bit dense due to its close attention to detail, leaving the alternative of enjoying the magnificent adaptation Peter Jackson delighted us with, released at the beginning of the new millennium, and therefore, a new century and a new decade.

A story full of adventures and spectacular battles that has served as inspiration for subsequent works, including board games and role-playing games. But of course, why resort to a substitute when it is possible to relive the events that took place around the One Ring once Gandalf discovers it is in Bilbo Baggins’ possession? That is what War of the Ring proposes to us, which can be acquired in its second edition (which modifies some parameters, both in armies and characters, compared to the first edition). Let’s see how it behaves on the table, but not before thanking Devir for providing the review copy that makes the following write-up possible.

Well, first a brief introduction to get into the subject. We find ourselves in the Third Age on a fictional continent called Middle-earth. It is inhabited by numerous creatures, such as humans, elves, dwarves, hobbits, orcs, trolls, goblins, and many more. At the beginning of the story, this continent is divided into a series of nations. On one hand, the so-called Free Peoples, where we have two human kingdoms (Gondor and Rohan), the Elven kingdom, the Dwarf kingdom, and other peoples lumped together under ‘The North’. On the other hand, we have the Shadow, where the great Eye of Sauron (who has no corporeal form after losing the One Ring and searches for it desperately to spread terror once again in Middle-earth). We have three nations, with the forces of Mordor, Isengard (where the cunning Saruman has decided to stray from the right path), and the Southrons & Easterlings.

With the Free Peoples divided by various disagreements in the past, the forces of the Shadow are increasingly numerous and threaten to conquer all of Middle-earth. Their military power is overwhelming and the Free Peoples have little chance of emerging victorious. That is when Gandalf, a wizard of great power, discovers in the Shire that Bilbo Baggins, an adventurous hobbit, has the famous One Ring in his possession, which Sauron is eager to recover.

Alarmed, he entrusts Bilbo’s nephew, Frodo, with the mission of leaving immediately with the ring towards Rivendell, where a council would be held with representatives of the different races to determine what to do with the dangerous object, as it grants great power but also corrupts its bearer. Finally, at the council, it is decided that the ring must be destroyed, and the only way to achieve this is to cast it where it was forged, that is, into the depths of Mount Doom, in the heart of Mordor. For this purpose, a diverse group is formed, which will be known as the Fellowship of the Ring.

This will be the starting point that players will find in War of the Ring, where each will take control of one of the sides. On one hand, the Shadow, with the goal of conquering Middle-earth by taking control of the most important cities and strongholds of the nations that have not yet sworn allegiance to Sauron. On the other, the Free Peoples resisting the conquest. Parallel to the military conflict, we will have the progress of the Fellowship of the Ring through Middle-earth with the goal of destroying the ring, although if the bearer’s corruption gets out of hand, the evil will be even greater.

In this way, the game presents us with two possible victory conditions. On one hand, the military one, which will consist of managing to control strongholds and cities whose sum in value reaches a certain amount depending on the side. On the other, the fate of the One Ring. It will be up to the players to decide which option to bet on more heavily, although I can tell you right now that it won’t be possible to achieve victory through one path while completely neglecting the other.

The main mechanic of the game will be an action selection system determined by dice. Each side will have a certain number of dice (which can increase if a series of characters are in play), each of which provides an action. In this way, in the main phase of each round, players will alternate turns activating these dice to execute various actions, which, while not particularly complex or numerous, do have their quirks.

Actions such as recruiting units, politically advancing the nation markers (initially they are not at war and cannot act against the Shadow so easily), moving armies, or moving the Fellowship, which will begin its journey in Rivendell, with a long way to go to Mordor.

Essentially, we are looking at a light wargame, where we find greater weight in the military aspect, as the Shadow will press almost from the beginning with waves of units aiming to snatch enough strongholds and cities from the Free Peoples to achieve victory.

To achieve this goal, armies will have to be developed and moved across the board wisely, so as not to leave strongholds or cities undefended that could be conquered by the Free Peoples in a burst of bravery, because one false step and the Shadow will lose the game, since their rival only needs to reach four victory points. Taking over a couple of strongholds is enough.

Topics such as region control, stacking limits, sieges, etc., have a place in this design, so the first thing to be clear about is that we are dealing with a relatively complex game. Not so much because the conceptual load is particularly high (the core of the game is simple), but because there are a large number of exceptions that apply at certain moments.

There are many examples, such as the stacking limit when a stronghold is besieged (which is reduced from 10 to 5), when a nation is activated (of which there are several ways), what happens if the Fellowship crosses certain locations when revealing itself, how to determine the guide of the Fellowship… These are details that are not complicated, but it is tremendously easy to leave them by the wayside in the first few games. It is likely that not until the third or fourth occasion will all these small rules be internalized enough for the experience to be fluid and fully satisfying.

The resolution of combat will be through dice rolls, where luck has a lot to say, since even if a player goes to the battlefield with a very large army, if they aren’t having their day they might find themselves unable to defeat a single figure. To slightly reduce Lady Luck’s influence on the outcome of the different combat rounds that make up a battle, players can resort to event cards, as well as rerolls depending on the leadership that the army possesses.

It is here where the Free Peoples show themselves to be more powerful than the Shadow, as they have numerous characters and leaders that they can bring into play so that, even when outnumbered (and given that each casualty is permanent, potentially leading to an exhausted pool where they cannot recruit), the probabilities of emerging victorious in combat are higher. By contrast, the Shadow will have an unlimited capacity to produce an army.

That’s why the management of the Fellowship of the Ring carried out by the player controlling the Free Peoples will be extremely important. Initially, all these characters are off the board, traveling alongside Frodo and Sam. But, just as it happens in the novels, the Fellowship will soon dissolve, with the various protagonists taking different paths.

This is, perhaps, the element of greatest impact for fans of this story, since, battles aside, the narrative closely follows the different characters, so it is in the player’s hands to decide whether to relive the story or, on the contrary, try something completely different. In some games, you can try to keep the Fellowship together for as long as possible, so that the ring’s corruption ends up shared among the players, even if this allows the Shadow to redouble its efforts in searching for the ring.

Or, for example, it is possible to attempt an early coronation of Strider, so that Aragorn enters play right at the beginning, something that didn’t happen in The Lord of the Rings until practically the end.

The other thematic element of the game will be the events, which will force players to make certain decisions to reach the necessary conditions to trigger their effects. Thus, for example, the simple way for Gandalf to return as Gandalf the White is for him to have died as the guide of the Fellowship (preferably avoiding maximum corruption damage).

The game will be clearly marked by the resolution of these events, causing turning points in it that will remain engraved in memory. So we could say that War of the Ring perfectly fulfills its mission when it comes to allowing players to experience from the inside one of the most epic stories ever told.

It is very satisfying to manage to reproduce events exactly as they happened in the story, while on other occasions it will be very fun to alter the course of events, as if it were an alternative reality. A game in which Boromir makes it to the end alongside Frodo and Sam and doesn’t die, to the joy of Sean Bean, a well-known actor who is a walking spoiler (there are few movies or series in which he doesn’t die).

When it comes to comparing it and looking for references, nowadays it is very easy to draw a parallel with Star Wars: Rebellion (here is its tocho-review) for the sake of both offering the opportunity to relive what happened throughout a trilogy, focusing attention on the main characters and presenting situations to players where they can try to reproduce the events or go off-script. And in both games we have one side that is an overwhelming military power whose goal is to locate a small group of the opposing side (here it is the Fellowship, while in the game set in George Lucas’s universe it is the Rebel base).

The inevitable question of which game achieves its goal better does not have a clear answer, since at a thematic level both designs reach extremely high levels of satisfaction, so players’ tastes will be tremendously important when choosing. If a player does not enjoy the story of The Lord of the Rings, they will hardly be attracted to this design. And we must not forget that the entry curve is steep and that games can easily drag on up to three hours when players master the design. There will always be exceptions, but if a player does not like the story that came out of J. R. R. Tolkien’s head, they most likely won’t like this game either.”

But if this blog is known for anything, it is for paying special attention to the mechanical aspect of games, so, assuming that players adore both stories, let’s try to analyze the strengths and weaknesses of War of the Ring from this point of view.

The main problem I see with War of the Ring is that we have a fairly high level of randomness. And I don’t mean the resolution of combat (which we will talk about later), but the rolls that determine the actions a player can carry out in a round.

Let’s take as an example a player controlling the Free Peoples who finds that in their first rolls they keep rolling dice with helmet and banner symbols, that is, those that allow activating armies, advancing political markers, and recruiting. The first problem is that to recruit it is necessary for the nation to be activated, and for that it has to be attacked, activated by the Fellowship upon being revealed in a city or stronghold controlled by it, or else some effect of an event card allows it. Advancing political markers is necessary to be able to attack but, again, if the nation is not active, it is not possible to declare it at war. And, finally, moving armies is not particularly recommended in the early rounds, as the risk of making a false step is high. Perhaps some minor adjustment to reinforce a line, but not much more.

This would lead to the Free Peoples player almost limiting themselves to trying to play event cards and little else in those first turns, which can be very unsatisfying. To alleviate these possible gridlock situations, the Elven rings are available, which allow converting dice into any value (except for Will of the West, which is already a wild card in its own right, though it is the value needed to activate Gandalf the White or Aragorn). But there are only three of them and they are single-use, so a bad afternoon when rolling dice and we might never want to see the game ever again.

Another even clearer example is the case of the Shadow. If the Shadow has ‘bad luck’, they can find themselves with turns in which almost all of their dice have resulted in the Eye of Sauron, so they will be locked in the Hunt box, leaving few dice (or even none) to resolve actions. Meanwhile, the player controlling the Free Peoples gets to roam freely across the board in the current round.

As a consequence of the above, the second problem with this system is the irregularity of the pace. Thus we have rounds in which tons of things happen, and others in which actions are resolved in a short interval of time, almost like a formality that must be passed through to reach a better situation.

Another problem I find is the management of the armies. This is more a problem of the story being represented, but it’s one of those games where setting up the game is a real chore. Some kind of visual aid with the units that must be deployed in each region during setup wouldn’t have hurt. And then managing this huge amount of miniatures on the board is not easy, since the miniatures for some nations are very similar to each other, and it’s easy to get confused.

Finally, we have combat. In this case, the randomness seems fair to me and I don’t have special complaints about how it’s resolved beyond the fact that, of course, luck plays a significant role. But the leadership theme and rerolls work fine for me as a solution, leveling the balance a bit thanks to the Free Peoples being packed to the brim with charismatic characters and leaders who allow rerolls against the waves of orcs, goblins, and other creatures with unfriendly faces.

It is for all these reasons that, despite being a great design and very satisfying, there are things that do not quite please me enough to reach the highest rating (oh! surprise!). In this sense, and returning to the previous comparison, Star Wars: Rebellion seems to me a mechanically more polished design, with greater weight on characters and their actions, increasing the narrative load because they are constantly doing things, in addition to simplifying the military aspect, though the resolution of battles is not as random thanks to the attributes of the different ships and how they interact with each other.

So, theme aside, I think Rebellion is a better design. Now, if we take theme into account again, it rather depends on the affinity that each person has with the story, and from this point of view, those who are bigger fans of The Lord of the Rings will surely find War of the Ring much more satisfying than Star Wars: Rebellion. The important thing is that both games achieve the goal they seek, even though both present their problems. In any case, one thing that is clear is that this design has a greater touch of a wargame than the one following the adventures of Luke Skywalker and company.

Surely some of these problems are solved with the various expansions that have been published. First it was Lords of Middle-earth (which adds more characters and events) and, subsequently, Warriors of Middle-earth (which brings into play new factions like the corsairs or the Ents). And a third and final expansion, Kings of Middle-earth, has been announced. With all three expansions, I suppose an absolute Tolkienian experience will be achieved, although I don’t think any of them tackle the main problem explained in previous paragraphs.

As for scalability, another aspect in common with Star Wars: Rebellion is that they are designs especially intended for two players, but with this trend of trying to widen the scope, they allow playing in teams, with two players splitting the nations of the factions. In my opinion, these are poor solutions that only succeed in increasing downtime in games that already have a considerable duration.

Replayability is total, because each game turns out very different thanks to the direction that the various events take. In this sense, I do believe that War of the Ring is more variable than Star Wars: Rebellion, which is slightly more scripted by establishing a certain order in the mission cards. Here there are events that may not even appear in a player’s hand, while in others they are crucial to their outcome.

Let’s move on to the production. We find ourselves with a game from another era, with a huge amount of miniatures, but with a quality quite below current standards. The material is too flexible and it is quite common to find warped miniatures (it is necessary to apply heat and cold to them so they recover their shape). Still, the biggest problem is identification. It wouldn’t have been bad if the color of each army matched the color assigned on the board, as the tones chosen are easily distinguishable between factions, allowing for a much more efficient game setup. The cards are large, have a good weight, smooth texture, and acceptable snap. Sleeving wouldn’t hurt, although it’s true that they aren’t handled too much and are only shuffled at the start of the game. The cardboard components have a somewhat tight thickness, especially the board, which feels a bit flimsy considering the large dimensions of the two parts that compose it. Finally, the rulebook is somewhat disorganized, making it difficult to understand concepts for the first few games, though it is later relatively convenient to consult when resolving doubts.

As for the visual aspect, I think it is very well achieved. I think it’s a success that the game tries to distance itself from the film adaptation, as it gives it a certain personality, even if it implies that there are characters hard to recognize because in our minds the actors have taken over the respective roles. Thus, for example, we recognize Legolas because he carries a bow and has long hair. The same goes for the hobbits. Perhaps readers who have memorized Tolkien’s descriptions do know how to recognize who is who at a glance. Perhaps the biggest complaint with the visual aspect is that, even with a huge board, the regions are too small to house numerous armies. It is true that markers are available to make allocations, so you don’t have to be moving blocks of many units, but a larger board would have been preferable.

And let’s wrap this up. War of the Ring (in its second edition), a colossal design that combines a die-driven action selection system with an asymmetrical political-military simulation of Tolkien’s work. The management of the Fellowship to mitigate the advance of corruption, the constant tug-of-war on the battlefronts, and the agonizing tension between the military path and the progress of the ring-bearer allow players to enjoy games with a sublime and dramatic narrative weight. Although the capricious randomness in the action rolls can lead to blocked turns and its pace feels at times irregular due to an entry curve plagued with small exceptions, its brutal thematic fidelity and great strategic depth make it an essential titan for lovers of epic experiences. An imposing game that manages to bring the essence of Middle-earth to the table in a way that few titles can even imagine. For all this, I give it a…