by tallgrant
I was pleased to note that a War of the Ring event was scheduled at GenCon and signed up as soon as I saw it. I also was happy to note that the organizer was none other than Roberto Di Meglio. So I thought this was a fantastic opportunity to play my favorite game, and also thank Mr. Di Meglio in person for creating it. As we were waiting for the event to start, Roberto was happy to give a small exhibition of the prototype for the Lords of Middle Earth Expansion. I had the opportunity to look at all the pieces and parts, and ask my share of rules questions. He then suggested that the expansion be used in the game- I was overjoyed to have the opportunity. Roberto suggested leaving out the new Fellowship character cards. I shuffled the new events into the decks, put the Smeagol tiles into the mix, and the game began!The Game
Turn 1: In the opening turn, 3 Eyes went into the hunt box. The Witchking came out in his hunting form, though none of the Shadow nations moved toward war due to a shortage of muster dice. The Fellowship was caught on a second move with a 2 and reveal tile and the Witchking immediately placed himself in position to hunt them.
Turn 2: 3 dice were again rolled for the Hunt box. The Free Peoples worried about going too slowly and made a move, which led to being caught with the Balrog. The Witch-king continued to hound the Fellowship, and the decision was made to go over the high pass.
Turn 3: The Balrog die made its first appearance, though only two eyes were placed in the Hunt box. The Fellowship had a successful move at the start of the turn and We Prove the Swifter was brought out to separate Strider into Minas Tirith. Gandalf was also sacrificed as guide on a second move, placing the Fellowship in Dimrill Dale. The Fellowship was painstakingly followed by the Witchking. The Shadow nations were all brought to war this turn, and Saruman entered play.
Turn 4: The Free Peoples rolled multiple Will of the West dice. Both Aragorn and Gandalf the White entered play. The Shadow threw 4 eyes and the remove from play symbol for the Balrog die, which prevented movement by the Fellowship. Instead, armies were built this turn and a Shadow army captured Osgiliath.
Turn 5: 3 Eyes were rolled. The Free Peoples decided that moving was difficult and would be avoided, but the issue was forced when a Shadow army left Dol Goldur and began harassing the Fellowship in their last known position. A move was attempted, resulting in another reveal. An army from Isengard also attacked The Fords of Isen and placed a weak Rohirrim force in Helms Deep under siege. Rohan began to raise armies in Edoras and the Westernment. Gothmog was brought into play this turn to replace the lost Balrog die.
Turn 6: The Gothmog die made its only appearance. Gondor fought a field battle at the Pelennor, then dropped into siege with 5 regulars. Helms Deep was put out of its misery.
Turn 7: The Fellowship hid and began moving again. There had been hopes that the Fellowship could stop in Lorien to heal some of the 6 corruption that had been acquired, but the constant successful hunts were really hurting the progress toward Mordor and Mount Doom. The hopes of the Free Peoples were further dismayed by the play of Worn with Sorrow and Toil. The armies of Isengard continued to storm through the Fields of Rohan and Edoras was captured. Galadriel appeared, and several elites were mustered at Lorien.
Turn 8: The first battle for Lorien took place. The Elves were placed under siege, but were able to muster units under siege using Galadriel's abilities. The siege represented a turning point in the war- with 4 Elites inside Lorien and a weakened Shadow army after the field battle, the progress of the fighting slowed. The Fellowship resumed moving toward Mordor with greater success.
Turn 9: Elrond's special ring ability was used to retrieve a character die. The Fellowship reached Mordor on this turn after several moves, with Smeagol joining the Fellowship. Nazgul search was used to reveal the Fellowship. The Fellowship had 8 corruption at the high point of this turn but used multiple cards to heal 2 damage and enter Mordor at 6.
Turn 10: Minas Tirith was attacked and weakened, though it did not fall immediately. Galadriel's special ring ability was used at this point. The Fellowship took its first step in Mordor and was revealed. The Galadriel die disappeared this turn, and Elrond's die was brought in to replace it.
Turn 11: On this turn Minas Tirith (with Aragorn), Pelargir and Dale all fell, putting the Shadow player at 7 victory points. The Fellowship countered by recruiting in the Woodland Realm and in Dol Amroth. The Fellowship moved twice, and used Mithril Coat & Sting on the second move to discard a Shadow special tile, replacing it with the -2 tile from the Phial of Galadriel.
Turn 12: On this turn the Fellowship completed its quest and destroyed the Ring in the cracks of Doom.
Analysis
I'm going to make a few remarks on the strategy and flow of the game overall, and then move into how the new items in the expansion added to the narrative. Roberto took to the Shadow side with Sauron, with Kevin (Krieghund) taking Isengard and the Southrons. I worked control of Gondor/Elves, while Kevin’s wife had Rohan/Dwarves/North. Generally, my preference when playing the Fellowship is to focus on moving 1-2 times per turn depending on dice in the box, and then start building up nations in reaction to what the Shadow is doing. My hope is that the movement of the Fellowship will place enough pressure on the Shadow that they overreach, fight battles before they're ready and ultimately give the Fellowship time to reach Mordor. It is a delicate balance to strike as it doesn't take much for excessive corruption to overwhelm the ringbearers. And subtle gameplay by the Shadow can also wreck it by hitting unprepared areas after feinting in one direction.
It was a rough start for the Free Peoples. We had a lot of dice in the hunt box early, and the Witchking being after the Fellowship led to a lot of reveals. The Shadow nations were at war in a relatively decent time frame, and we were forced to go over the High Pass due to the high number of reveals. We also soaked up more early corruption than I'd like. And we got your typical Isengard-Rohan smash rolling early.
Things got better when both Aragorn and Gandalf the White went into play. The Shadow still was building a lot faster than we could handle. We managed to pack a couple of elites into Minas Tirith, but because we had 7 units we chose to fight a disastrous field battle and took 4 casualties. Helms Deep was essentially given away. And the Fellowship was still stymied by constant hunting and large numbers of dice in the box. The only good benefit here was that we survived both the Gothmog and the Balrog dice through a short duration.
When we got to the middle of the game the fortunes shifted. The Eyes in the box became a little less frequent. We were able to protect Lorien and get Galadriel in play. She turned out to be key- there was a most unfortunate series of Shadow battles fought at Lorien that wasted valuable resources and time for the forces of Sauron. And in the meantime the Fellowship went quietly along to Mordor. We lost several companions on the way and eventually picked up Smeagol, but we were able to minimize corruption by avoiding detection on the last 4 moves in.
At this point it became obvious we were in much better shape to win. The Shadow had Worn with Sorrow and Toil, and on the first Turn in Mordor we had to sacrifice Smeagol and put the Gollum card in play. But counting the points we knew that we had enough time to get into Mordor. The Elvish dice stretched out well and helped us.
On the final turn, we knew things were in good shape. We had enough of a corruption shield to survive an Eye if necessary because we’d had favorable draws throughout Mordor, and we’d been bailed out of the only really poor draw with Mirthril coat and Sting, and based on the Shadow armies they weren't quite ready to get 10 this turn. In retrospect, I think the Shadow would have come out better if they had skipped over Lorien due to Galadriel and the troop buildup, and tried to pick up the easier points in Dol Amroth and the Woodland Realm.
On the new components:
The Witch King Chief of the Ringwraiths is a really interesting decision for the Shadow side. In this game he led to three additional reveals of the Fellowship through hunting and made it pretty miserable the first several turns. It always felt like his presence tilted the dice in favor of a successful hunt. He also helped offset the low number of musters being rolled early by bottling up the progress of the Fellowship. While getting action die from his original version may have helped the Shadow, I'm not sure he would have been a tide turning presence elsewhere on the board - he really gave the Shadow a great option that went with the dice they rolled. He seemed to be a better play overall in this game hunting the ring.
Gothmog and the Balrog served their purpose, but ultimately didn't last long. This was more poor fortune by the Shadow players than anything else. The dice gave them a few nice boosts, but not in much of a gamebreaking way. Had they lasted longer I could comment further.
The Galadriel and Elrond dice really helped the Free Peoples. I'm not generally inclined to try for a military victory, and these really didn't nudge me in that direction either. I don't recall the symbols we rolled being useful for much military, or even mustering often. But they often gave us a card or a much-needed character action instead. We weren't ready to use them early as we had other immediate needs, and we really paced ourselves with them as we went to keep our die count consistent. I'm sure that Narya (Gandalf's die) will also be useful, but we didn't have the opportunity to bring it into play. I also like how the different items on the dice are tailored to their keeper and how the Ring was used. It has a nice thematic touch.
The redesigned use of the Elvish rings was also really nice. We were really torn between using each of them for an awesome ability or getting it to change a much-needed action die. We ended up suffering through some rough rolls on the front end and late in the game made big moves with the special abilities. Under the right circumstances these could definitely be game changing.
Smeagol didn't have a huge impact in this game, through Roberto assured me he can be trouble if he comes early. We just happened to pull damage tiles and not get him right away. Roberto also showed us an event that placed more Smeagol tiles into the Hunt pool and hastens his appearance. We were very concerned about sacrificing Smeagol as the "We won't go back" ability was something that we (very rightly) feared being subjected to.
I also was intrigued by the character cards even though we didn’t use them. I like having the option to start a companion back in their own territory and get a jump on the defense. It is another interesting trade-off that can be made at the start of the game, choosing between having that small amount of extra Hunt shielding and propping up your military in a Free Peoples nation.
Overall, I'm absolutely thrilled with this expansion. I was somewhat lukewarm on Battles of the Third Age- I think I'm in the minority on this subject, but I think the flow of the game was overly cluttered with the Siege Engines/Ents/Corsairs. I also felt the Galadriel die both overpowered the Free Peoples and forced the Ring victory strategy into a single predictable path. I generally did not play with Battles of the Third Age, but I can't imagine playing without the Lords of Middle Earth once I've got it in my hands.
I'd like to thank Roberto for setting up the event, and the Chapmans for making the time to play a game. I was absolutely overjoyed to get to meet all of you, and this game was by far the highlight of my trip to GenCon this year.