From: "Jon Waddington" Subject: War of the Ring: For Spielfrieks? [LONG] As most of you know, Nexus' War of the Ring is due in stores soon. I chanced into an early copy from GenCon and played it (once, with two other players). It's a bit of a "crossover" game, in that I wouldn't really call it a wargame, nor a eurogame; it has elements of both, but is overall pretty original. Here are some comments that will hopefully be relevant to spielfrieks[1]. -- The first game is LONG. -- Very long. Ours was 6+ hours, but that was in part due to children being, well, children. The rules are reasonably well-written, but are organized more for reference than for game flow. Which works fine, but only after (or later during) the first game. Our first four turns took about as long as the remaining game took, which is VERY encouraging. I firmly believe the "setup to finish in 3 hours" camp, as by the end we were on that pace, or close. And we're not fast players by any stretch. -- There are significant constraints. -- There is a strong sense of "three things you *must* do, now pick one". You are always constrained by the Action Dice you roll during each turn, and there are hard choices at every turn. Do you move the Fellowship despite the high risk of Corruption or death? Do you play this Action Card "too soon", even though your "best" action would be to do something else (knowing you'll have to discard a card if you don't use it)? Do I spend this Action Card as a Combat Card (each has two uses), giving up on one really great effect for a different one? Do you "blow" a die just to rearrange the Nazgul "properly"? Do you break up the Fellowship early or late (or ever)? -- It doesn't really feel like a wargame. -- The system makes the movement of units, the attacking, the mustering, etc. all subservient to your overall strategic goals. There's little of the wargamey movement of all or most of your pieces at a time, trying to outmaneuver, etc. Each act is discrete and limited. I, who have played a lot of light wargames (and a number of heavy ones, such as War in the East), found it much less a wargame in feel than I expected. The question is much more "if or when" to allocate forces to region X than "how". And the combat system and resolution itself was the part we spent the least time on; it's intuitive (but clever, with some nice little unexpected ramifications and twists). -- It is strongly thematic. -- It's considerably asymmetrical. It has an original "Heisenberg" movement system for the Fellowship where no one really knows exactly where they are. All the characters are present. The Event Cards drive a lot of the theme, and the dramatic moments are there (the Ents trashing Isengard, Aragorn's march to the Morannon, Saruman's Palantir, the Black Breath of the Nazgul, etc. -- 96 cards X 2 functions each). However, there isn't much in terms of unit differentiation (so Elves pretty much fight like Trolls, or Southrons, or what-have-you; there are cards that sometimes alter this or key off certain types). There's no mistaking that this was designed from the theme down, not the mechanics up. -- It appears highly replayable. -- There are a lot of different ways to skin this cat. The cards will dictate some of this, but your dice each turn also create many unexpected changes of plan. You may desperately want to move the Fellowship, but you just don't have the dice for it. You may want to lay siege to Minas Tirith, but you only got two Army dice this time. You have to manage hard choices in a fluid environment. -- It's not a eurogame. Maybe. -- It has dice and combat. It has little plastic figures. Playing time is long. It's relatively complex (rules, card text). Yet...it has tons of hard choices and tight constraints. It is both strategic and tactical. Player decisions, not dice or cards, dictate both the flow and outcome of the game. It has a distinct arc. It has rich, wonderful components. The rules really aren't that byzantine, and after the first few turns it really flows. I hope this is helpful to someone out there, one way or the other. I know this would flop with some of you, but I mostly wanted to point out that it isn't a wargame by any normal estimation, in case that was causing people to dismiss it out of hand. It's...different. Happy to answer questions, if anyone has some. Oh, and the rules are available online: http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/PDF/warofthering.pdf Jon [1] I play more euros than any other type, but I still like light wargames and "American" games quite a bit. They're just not as manageable, and require advanced scheduling, time allotment, rule allotment, etc. So I guess I'm a spielfriek with strong contrarian tendencies.