Ares Games War of The Ring: The Card Game – 60+ Minutes of Gameplay for 2-4 Players – Card Games for Teens and Adults Ages 13+ - English Version

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Move a card from the reserve to a path or battleground. Note: Cards that have been played to the reserve in the current round may not be moved during the same round (though there are some card effects that can override this). Card Action

There are a number of actions you can take. Mostly you’ll be playing cards. Three Dùnedain Cards. An item, a character, and an army. Play Action Shadow isn’t weaker, but need careful playing and do not follow the rulebook’s marketing. If you’re a really careful gamer, this won’t be an issue. I won’t spoil the details of the strategy: but essentially you cannot get concerned that the FP are utterly destroying you in points- you just need to keep that a little below 10 until late game, where paths 8/9 are very shadow favored. I’m not saying that these are inherently bad cards to have in a game, they have really big thematic upside, but are just a double-edged sword of undercutting decision making if you draw them at the wrong time. In a game with hand draws between 3-5 cards on average, these can feel like dead weight, ESPECIALLY becoming discard fodder if their complement is removed from the game or is in a small discard pile.

Both Battlegrounds and Paths may have some text that tells players immediately to carry out an action. Usually directing players of certain affinities to draw or discard cards. Both types of cards also have a number of victory points associated with them. In each round, the cards are fought over, with the victor taking the spoils. The person with the most victory points at the end of the game is the winner. War of the Ring: The Card Gameis a game about choices. The Free Peoples players have less leeway to make sub-optimal decisions, so it suits the game best if you give the Shadow cards to the less experienced players. Because it’s semi-cooperative I found it possible to play with my youngest son, for whom the game would probably be a little too hard for him to play solo. His big brother could help to explain his options.

Two battleground piles are prepared. There is one pile for the Free People players and one for the Shadow players.As the Shadow player you lead the hordes of the Dark Lord and his most powerful minions as they try to bring darkness to Middle-earth. Legions of Orcs, Trolls, Wolfriders and the dreadful Ringwraiths await your command. Hunt the Ring-bearer and bring the precious Ring to his Master, or crush your enemies with your unstoppable armies. Set up of the game is straightforward. Assuming you are playing the full trilogy scenario for 4 players the game is set up as follows.

And you know how to play any card, you must cycle another card? Well that’s card inflation, meaning you’re basically paying 2 cards to play 1, making certain ‘drawing cards ability’ not as healthy as you think. These 2 cards can be REALLY good, especially since you can +1 off of getting 2 cards, but what if you draw 0 of what you’re looking for? Then you just played 2 cards to get literally nothing, which feels absolutely terrible. This play alone won’t lose you the game, but its like you threw some part of your hand into mount doom. The two FP equivalents to these Shadow drawing events are Eomer and Theoden… but if you fail these, you still have a dude on the board with some upside, so not sure why these Shadow cards don’t just let you draw more so they don’t poop out. The Free Peoples desperately try to complete their quest to destroy the One Ring, while at the same time defending their homelands from the encroaching hordes of Sauron and from his evil allies.War of the Ring: The Card Game has launched an interest in Tolkien in my kids that I’ve been quietly hoping would come along for about 15 years. (Admittedly, my oldest was 2 then, so I was perhaps being a little premature.) I played the game with my 3 boys, 17, 13, and 10. They were all very taken with it. My youngest in particular has now wanted to learn more about Middle Earth ,its stories, and characters. I am in clover! My Comments: There is an extra level of abstraction since it is a card game, but this game does a good job at both capturing the Lord of the Rings theme and feeling like an adaptation of the board game. All cards apart from event cards can be played into reserve. This is often done to allow you to use a beneficial effect printed on the card, but can also be a way of holding useful cards for later rounds (using move actions). This game has received post game support including new scenarios to try which can be found online and I’m excited to hear they’ve just announced a solo and co-operative mode to be released via an expansion later in the year, meaning you’re going to have a wide array of options to play this game depending on what fits your mood. Is This The One Ring? War of the Ring is widely considered to be one of - if not the - greatest adaptations of JRR Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings to a tabletop experience. Recreating the entirety of Tolkien’s book trilogy as a Risk-style board game, War of the Ring is soaked through with the dense lore and worldbuilding of the novels, combining a faithful commitment to the story of Frodo and the Fellowship of the Ring with the sprawling battle between good and evil that spans the whole of Middle-earth.