War of the Ring II
November 24th, 2004My brother and I played War of the Ring for the second time last night. I lost, but narrowly. I rarely post exact details in my session reports, but one nice benefit of playing such a strongly themed game is that session reports are so easy to write and (I hope) read.
My brother, as the Shadow, went for a military victory from the start and managed to overrun Gondor and Rohan fairly easily. The Free Peoples held out in Dol Amroth, spending many dice to get Aragon crowned, but it was ultimately futile. I set out for the Crack of Doom, but got distracted by the attacks on my strongholds. Although I spent most of the game feeling like I was losing, in the end it was suprisingly close. I was on the second space of the Mordor track, with four Character and Will of the West dice in hand, and almost no corruption, before my brother captured Erebor, the Lonely Mountain, to get ten victory points.
I made some big errors:
- Until half way through, I forgot Gandalf the Grey lets you regenerate Character cards.
- I should have used Gandalf the White to defend Rohan.
- I did not notice the mountains between Helm’s Deep and Dol Amroth until it was too late.
- I should have used Elfen rings more freely.
- I should have reinforced my strongholds more cleverly.
- I should have been bolder on the Fellowship Track. I could have run up it faster, while carrying more corruption.
It is the mark of a great game, when it makes you think this carefully about it afterwards.
We both enjoyed War of the Ring very much overall, but some things stop me rating it as a perfect 10:
- We started at 7.30pm and played until 1.15am, with about a half an hour break – almost six hours and I am now at work feeling groggy. I still think we can bring this down, as we were still referring to the rules, and my brother was excruciatingly slow at times, but this is still very long. Think twice about getting this if you cannot leave the game laid out on a table between sessions.
- There is a lot of downtime for the Free People, as the Shadow has so many more dice to use.
- Handing the figures gets very fiddly, especially for the Shadow.
These issues are not enough to stop me looking forward to playing next Tuesday, when Michael comes to visit. I hope I can persuade my brother to join in, so we can try it with three.
November 24th, 2004 at 14:10
Sounds like I’m in for a drubbing next week. I can guarantee I won’t be there at 1:15am however. Looking forward to it.
Michael
November 25th, 2004 at 03:36
You want to be careful with the Elven Rings. The good guys tend to get much less hosed by the dice than the bad guys, since the main face they need (characters) is 50/50 on every die (2 + Will of the West). The bad guys, on the other hand, really need a balance of move and recruit and character, and without the wild side they can end up with and almost-wasted turn, unless you’ve kindly given them an Elven Ring. So the good guys should use the Elven Rings only late, I think, and only to move the Fellowship if they get shut out of Character symbols (note you can’t use the Elven Rings to change to a Will of the West, which is what you’d often like to do).
And yeah, you want to move the Fellowhip fast and early I think. You can burn Gandalf to eat a bunch of corruption right away and still bring him back with Gandalf the White, and you can always rest in Lothlorien to recover. Unless there is some overwhelmingly compelling reason not to, they need to move at least once per turn, and probably as often as possible.
November 25th, 2004 at 14:49
Thanks for the tips. Using Gandalf the Grey to absorb corruption at the beginning had not occurred to me at all.
December 7th, 2004 at 22:38
6 hours seems incredibly long. I’ve played 6 times, all 3-4 players, and 4 hours was our longest, when all 4 of us were new. 2 player games should go faster than 4 player.
We’ve played in 2 1/2 hours or so several times when everyone knew what they were doing. I think 3 hours is about average.
If the game goes long, it often means that the light player isnt focusing enough on advancing the fellowship, and the dark player isnt doing well enough on winning militarily. In general it will come down to a race, can the fellowship destroy the ring before the shawdow takes 10 points. The light side corruption will sometimes kill them, but usually will just slow them down, becasue they take more the faster they run it. The fellowship moving fast is the clock, and the dark player needs to move it. There is a balance in how much energy you need to focus in each aspect.
Also, killing gandalf off during a hunt and bringing him back is a great way to go, as mentioned…
December 8th, 2004 at 14:29
Alex: See my next WotR post…