Category Archives: Board Game Reviews

Board Game Reviews

War Of The Rings By Ares Games 2004

Designers:  Roberto Di Meglio, Marco Maggi, Francesco Nepitello

War of the Ring is a two player game (though there are some gibberish rules for 3 or 4 players) that depicts the epics story that is The Lord of the Rings.  One player takes the side of the free people’s of middle-earth on a quest to defend the realm while the fellowship of the ring attempts to carry the one ring of power to Mount Doom while the other player takes on the evil forces of Sauron trying to crush the people of middle-earth and re-claim the ring of power.  In a nutshell you are effectively re-writing the history of the Lord of the Rings story in the form of an epic board game with every finite detail from the books and movies imaginable built into the mechanics.

To say that War of the Ring is anything but one of the most thematic games ever made would be a major understatement.  It IS the story of the Lord of the Rings and every mechanic, every card, every action and every nuance of the game reeks of the middle-earth theme.  I have played many Lord of the Rings board games, card games and miniatures games but none come even close to capturing the story with as much gusto and detail as War of the Rings.  War of the Rings however isn’t just an amazing re-telling of the story in board game form, it’s actually mechanically one of the most intuitive two player board games I have ever played.  The game is epic in scale, which means that you can expect a game to last at least 4 hours. There is no question that to tell a story like that of Middle-Earths great conflict depicted in the Lord of the Rings books and movies, nothing short of epic board game would do it justice and as such it’s one of the very few long games I think is worth every moment of time spent playing it.

A collectors edition exists for true fans, though the hefty price tag will likely have you running for the hills.
A collectors edition exists for true fans, though the hefty price tag will likely have you running for the hills.

There are many clever way’s the story is depicted mechanically in the game, most notably the all-important story of the fellowship of the ring.  From movement of the fellowship itself, with the evil forces always at their heels, the corruption of the ring and how each character and villain is represented with his own card and figure, all making plays as the fellowship moves towards Mount Doom.  You have a clear sense of the journey, an important part of the story.  These characters are used to support the fellowship itself in various ways but can leave the fellowship for various tasks like rallying the people of middle-earth or even directly leading critical battles on the game board.  Suffice to say that these mechanics, the characters, they all do what you hope they could in this game, giving the characters of the Lord of the Rings story as much relevance in the great war as they do in the books.

Then there are the amazing event cards, each depicting scenes and story elements of the books and movies, tied to the mechanical advantages they yield to each player, ones that feel thematically correct, each more epic than the last.  These cards not only help to tell the tale but there use is critical to each side winning the game as they depict important events in the story, they also bestow powerful advantages.  Often despite the great war happening on the army filled map of middle-earth that is the game board these cards turn battles with a single play and sway the flow of power.

Finally there is the amazing use of specialty dice, the precious resource that determines what sorts of actions will be available to you from round to round.  While sometimes unwieldy, the dice themselves shift the focus of the game and allow for maneuvers, tactical and strategic decisions that give each game despite being setup identically each time a completely unique feel.  Each play of the game ends up being definitively a different version of the story as a result.  It’s often like watching the movies but with alternative story arches that pull you towards unique side story’s you would not expect, but still fit like a puzzle piece into the story and the game as a whole.  It’s amazing how in each game I have played different area’s become the focal parts of the story.

You also have events being tracked via the very important political tracker, which is a critical element to the game making things much more difficult for the free peoples player.  In essence most of the nations in the game are reluctant to join the war and this political track represents this element of the story in the game.  This basically means that despite the evil player being able to quickly push his forces to war and start raising armies, as the free people’s player you must first rally all the nations to the cause before you can take advantage of the weight of their armies.  This is difficult and forces the free peoples player to make hard choices between using his companion characters to protect the ring, or to send them out to rally the nations to war (yes just like in the books!).  Yet another wonderful mechanic that puts the players to making endless streams of important decisions while always thematically bringing out the Lord of the Rings story.

The question of balance (equal chance of winning) is often discussed in this game and I will grant the nay sayer’s that the Free People of Middle Earth side is a bit tougher to win with, at least in the sense that the war itself is obviously rigged. The free people have a limited amount of time to succeed in getting the ring to Mount Doom before they are crushed by the forces of evil militarily.  The evil forces outnumber you greatly and have an unlimited re-supply of combat units that floods the board turn after turn.   It so happens now and again that the evil player blunders by mismanaging his resources opening the window to make a rare military victory but in most games the free people must get the ring to Mount Doom and they must do so under the overwhelming forces of evil.  It’s tough, perhaps tougher to win for the free people but the more you learn about the nuances of the game the less impact this slight imbalance has on game play.  Two veteran players of the game stand a pretty equal chance of winning in my opinion, the divergence comes largely from inexperienced players as the actions of the player controlling the evil forces of Sauron has more room to make errors than the free peoples player.

I think the main difference between playing the two sides is that one player, the free peoples player dictates the direction of the game for both players.  Another words  if the free peoples player focuses on moving the fellowship, his opponent must respond, if the free peoples player gets aggressive with cards, the opponent must respond, if the free peoples player gets aggressive in the war, again, his opponent must respond.  In a way whenever the forces of Sauron lead the action by pushing a strategy not opposing the one the free people’s player is deploying, they are at a disadvantage as any action that isn’t a direct response to the tactics of the Free People player will typically result in him having a very easy time of executing it successfully.  As such one side is more responsive while the other directs the action.

A good example is moving the ring.  The Sauron forces player must dedicate his action dice to the hunt, if he does not, the result can be that the Fellowship moves very quickly to Mount Doom unharmed.  If he does however commit action dice to the hunt, he gets fewer actions which in turn buys the people of middle-earth time to rally their forces as the free peoples player can simply choose not to move the fellowship if it’s too dangerous without affecting his action dice resources.  As such, the evil forces must be wary of what the good people of middle-earth are trying to accomplish and making smart decisions when to try to block a strategy and when to recognize it as a rouse to buy time.

The strategic elements and choices players in the course of the game make create an amazing array of cause and effect, it’s almost a game that combines bluffing and miss direction at times, where you make sacrifices to get your opponents attention in one place as you sneak it an action that will help you win in the long term.  The subtlety and nuances of this game take time to pick, it’s very likely that if you play against someone who has played before you may play several games before you can beat him.  It’s worth the trip however, as the game rewards you over and over with amazing story’s of that time when you played War of the Rings.

If it’s not only clear that this game gets my highest recommendation, than let me re-affirm it, if you love the Lord of the Rings as much as I do, this game belongs in your collection.  There are no better games on the market that depict the Lord of the Rings story, in fact, this one is so far ahead of the pact you will find that once you play this, all other Lord of the Rings games seem very flat by comparison.

One game to rule them all, War of The Rings.

Board Game Reviews

Shogun by Rio Grande 2006

Designer: Dirk Henn

Rio Grande typically releases Euro style games and as such I approach anything they make with caution. Not that I have anything against games made in Europe, but I find that the quality of the games wavers greatly most having a pretty limited feel for game board presence and emersion, rather focusing strictly on mechanics. In fact you can take almost any Rio Grande game, strip its typically thin layered theme and replace it with zero impact on the game. I really dislike games without a proper mechanical connection to its theme but I’m a sucker for games based on medieval Japan so when I heard about Dirk Henn designed Shogun I was excited but cautious.

Shogun is largely based on another Dirk Henn creation called Wallestein using similar mechanics but built around the map of Japan. The three key mechanics around which the game resolves is the use of a cube tower for the resolution of combat and a pre-action planning phase in which players decide what they are going to do for the entire round in secret in advance followed by an execution phase of those actions.

The combination of the three core mechanics mixed in with some resource management and interesting strategic elements like trying to predict what your opponents are going to do effectively creates a solid strategic game with a madning element of often unpredictable combination of actions as players plans interact during the action phase. The suprising thing about it is how true to the theme it really is. All the chaos of war and economics blended into a wonderfully simple yet fun mechanic. I have found that this game creates so many great “oh shit” and “gotcha” moments. It’s just plain fun.

I never played Wallenstein so when I committed to buying the game I only had a vague idea about the origins of the mechanics but unlike most cube pushing Euro games, there was some purpose behind those cubes outside of simply saving money on components.

The main battle resolution mechanic (the cube tower) is used when a battle is to be resolved between two armies (made of cubes). Essentially all the cubes from the attacking territory and defending territory are picked up and thrown into the cube tower and what comes out are the results of the battle. The cube tower itself has layers of cardboard with holes in alternate position which causes many of the cubes to get stuck in the tower. The result is a rather unpredictable but ultimately anticipation and excitement building result. The fun part is that quite often more cubes come out than where put in for any given battle as cubes that are thrown in can knock loose existing cubes from previous rounds of combat. Chaos yes, fun definitely, but is it thematic? Surprisingly the answer is yes.

Tower
The cube tower is the center piece, but hardly the focus of the game. Its a much needed random element to resolving battles, but with a fun gimmick that goes beyond using dice or cards.

It’s a bit gimmicky I will say that but combat is actually not the main focus of the game, its equal parts resource management and planning, with a part of that being the resolution of battles so the fact that its unpredictable actually creates a unique nuance where planning is often offset by unexpected defeats and surprise victories.  Not unlike dice or cards, but without that statistically predictable element where you know going into it that there are x cards or y type in the deck or that odds wise you are likely to roll that 1 to 5 you need to win a fight.

I really love this mechanic but really like the impact on the game is only a part of the whole. Shogun also shines in the resource management and planning department.

During the action phase players will take 10 actions each round. The caveat here is that these 10 actions will happen in a randomly determined order each round (using cards) and you will only be aware of the order of the first 5 actions in the planning phase and which actions they will be. This little trick has an awesome effect in which you not only must plan well and manage resources well, but you also have to think about the order of the 5 hidden actions that will appear in random order later in the round. Sort of planning for the unexpected.

Again, like the cube tower, I love this mechanic, it’s really clever and creates a lot of dynamics which is one of the things most Euro games fail at miserably and again, creates a lot of great moments during the action phase.

The great thing about Shogun for me is that it’s a fast game. It’s really got this great tempo which constantly keeps everyone involved as so many of the activities are done simultaneously. Throwing cubes into the tower always creates exciting moments when it’s your turn or not and the planning phase really feels like you’re a strategic leader trying to outsmart your opponents for the coming action.

gameboard
Immersion of a game often comes from its appearance and Shogun despite the blandness of cubes looks great on the table.

The game is played over the course of 2 years and in each year there are 4 season (rounds) so you effectively play 8 rounds. This fixed time period means you’re under pressure to act, so right out of the gate in round one there is action and the tempo just picks up until the final rounds which are frantic land grabs and last minute heroic moves to try to get that final edge. I really love the fact that scoring only happens at the end of each year (hence you only have 2 opportunities to score points). It means that something that happens in the summer that might have been detrimental to your score can be fixed by the time winter comes. It gives everyone a chance to make a comeback and that is one thing that is so awesomely built into the game. It’s highly unlikely anyone is ever eliminated from the game, but it’s also very likely that someone falling behind suddenly has a surge because of the way combat actions work its actually often beneficial to fight out of a couple of strong locations rather than being spread thin all over the map.

There are so many great nuances and dynamic elements to this game and its one of the few Euro games out there that does a wonderful job of blending the theme into the game. I never played Wallenstein, but to be frank the thirty year war is a rather dry theme, I’m not surprised that this game is ranked in the top 100 games on boardgamegeek.com. I will be talking about other Japanese medieval era games, as I have a few, but this one is by far my favorite. Very easy to learn, extremely difficult to master and visually, despite the cubes, it’s very appealing. A lot of great ingenuity went into this game and I’m glad to see that there are games like this coming out of Euro publishers that prove that you can be both a Euro game and have a theme and still be a great game.

Love it, recommend it!

Board Game Reviews

Board Game Time!

It was never my intention to make this blog just about 5th edition Dungeons and Dragons.  Neither was it my intent to have long winded articles and so few of them. I always assumed to some degree I would write one or two shorter articles each week but to be fair when I find time to write about games I’m usually wondering why I’m not playing them instead, a classic dilemma.

Starting today I’m going to push out a few board gaming articles.  Its strange that I haven’t already given how much more often I play board games compared to role-playing games.  My goal with these articles is to be less a reviewer, and more an informer about some of the great board games to fill the needs of different types of player.  Now they will be reviews on some level, but generally I’m going to focus on games I have a positive opinion on because frankly, I tend to not play games I don’t like and so there really isn’t much to say about it.  That said I might use other board games I don’t like as references of comparison when talking about good board games as that is often a good way to keep things in perspective.

I will also use some terminology which I think is important to define up front.  Words like Euro Game and American Game for example or Euro Gamer/American Gamer.  These are commonly used terms, sometimes intended to be derogatory, but they do help to define elements of game play.

Euro Games to me are typically games with certain types of common mechanics in them.  Worker placement, area control, most tile laying games tend to be mixed with other Euro Game mechanics.  Euro games tend to use a lot of un-thematic components (cubes), or be considerably lighter on the connection between theme and actual game play.  Euro Games very often have extremes on the scales of luck, either leaning completetly in one direction and having no luck or random elements at all to the other side of the spectrum having insane amounts of randomness and luck.  Good examples of that are like Puerto Rico (Almost no randomness at all) and Carcassonne where you draw one random tile each round and put it in play (lots of luck).

I think the main feature of American games is that they usually very theme heavy and themes tend to have a strong connection to mechanics and sort of run the game.  American games also tend to have a moderate amount of luck elements, its rare that an American game doesn’t have dice to roll and cards to draw.

In any case its not often easy to differentiate the two and there are a lot more ways to define either type of game, but there are sufficiently familiar motives where most gamers will identify themselves as either preferring Euro games or American games.

In my discussions of the games I’m not going to score them, nor will I spend too much time defining the game mechanics.  I may link some videos if I find them of people doing that, I find its much easier to learn “how to play” games visually.  I will spend most of my time trying to get to the heart of what makes the game fun and what sort of gamer might or might not enjoy it, with the why’s and how’s of it mixed in.

Board game articles incoming, enjoy!