Lord of the Rings is a massive narrative and is able to build the fantastic world of Middle Earth in 3 books introducing dozens of characters from little Frodo Baggins to the towering ent Treebeard. War of the Ring is a board game that attempts to turn this epic into a board game for 2-4 players. War of the Ring is a massive game made in 2011 by Roberto Di Meglio, Marco Maggi, and Francesco Nepitello and published by Ares games. This game faces a difficult challenge of trying to turn this beloved story into a fun game and it does the unthinkable. It works.
In War of the Ring one player will take control of the free peoples trying to hold out against the shadow while helping the fellowship to Mt. Doom, while the other player will play as the shadow sweeping their armies across middle earth outnumbering the free people by the dozens while searching for the fellowship willing them to succumb to corruption. War of the Ring can be played with 3-4 players which requires each side to be split into between the factions. When played this way players lose control by drawing half as many cards and controling half as many armies as when played with 2 players. War of the Ring is purposefully unbalanced, at the beginning of the game the free peoples player gets 4 actions a round but the shadow starts with 7 making the shadows conquest of Middle Earth inevitable. The shadow armies will also be put into their reserves after dying while free peoples armies will die permanently being thrown back into the box.
War of the Ring is very complicated, it has endless detail to adapt the source material and can be very overwhelming. Cards will refer to specific places on the map and with how big the map is it can get confusing quickly. Each different faction has their own regular, elite, and leader units that can only be recruited when they’re at war. The end of the game can also be very anticlimactic. Frodo can be on the edge of Mount Doom ready to destroy the ring but then lose to corruption. But if you’re up for a long game with amazing moments it’s very worth it. War of the Ring is able to put substantial weight in all your actions. Characters can leave the fellowship and permanently die. But just a few troops can change the fate of a siege.
War of the Ring also has two spin-offs Battle of Five Armies, and War of the Ring, the card game. The card game is a fun experience but it massively decreases the scale of the game, rather than a huge army game, you’re playing troop cards to battlefields and pathways. Battle of Five Armies is based on the Hobbit the book which takes place before the Lord of the Rings. I do not own and have not played Battle of Five Armies but there are some conceptual issues with it. Rather than a game with the source material of a three book epic, it takes influence from only one book, and it limits its game further by centering on the single battle that was barely covered. These games fail to match the grandeur of War of the Ring and show just how special the experience of the game is.
War of the Ring is very heavy in gameplay and components but all of this adds to a phenomenal experience. Out of 5 stars War of the Rings gets 4.5. A fantastic game but there is a large time and space commitment and it will be difficult to learn and teach.
4.5/5
