I love dudes...

on a map.

It probably goes all the way back to when I was still in grade school and I would go to the mall to buy Magic cards and I see these guys playing Warhammer in the store, and boy oh boy did their armies look massive. And awesome.

Of course, even then I knew what a money sink that would be. Magic was already a money pit on its own, and I knew better than to get involved with anything like that.

Battlelore was my answer. At least, it was at first. Nowadays, we barely ever bring it out. I keep on hoping FFG can do something about it and save it from its grave. Just this evening, me and my brother brought it out, for old time's sake, and I realized how sometimes simple games do have their charms. Of course our main comment about it was "Dude, if you had no idea how to play this game, and you saw some guys playing it, it would look kickass." Sadly, that's about it. There's very little tension, and the game plays flatly most of the time.

On the other hand, we also played War of the Ring. Now that's a masterpiece. The game builds to a climax, and during the very last turn of the game, I was on the brink of both winning or losing, as the Shadow was just 1 point away from victory, and I was just 2 steps away from the Crack of Doom with an almost filled up corruption track. Very tense, very exciting. Of all the games I own, this game is the one that leads to tense endings the most. Now if only I had people who wanted to play it.

I remember reading about War of the Ring for the first time. I remember thinking, "they don't make games like that? Do they?" Someone posted some session reports and they were telling these elaborate stories and I was just flabbergasted.

Then I remember getting my copy and opening it for the first time. My eyes just glazed over at everything in the box.

Then I played it. Match made in heaven.


Don't tell my wife, but I'd totally have sex with War of the Ring.

war of the cock ring?

I love good dudes on a map games. Problem is so many of them that come out miss the point in one way or another and end up being crap. War of the Ring is a game that aspiring dudes on a map designers should be looking at.

The upcoming warhammer game (though it isn't dudes on a map) looks like it might have the same level of theme that WotR did.

Well, I don't get it. Rules are bad, pieces don't fit in the areas and are poorly made, and the game drags and the mechanisms are ill-chosen (Risk? You couldn't find something more creative and that moves faster? And balance - don't get me started!). And the art is so-so...for a game that has to have great atmosphere - el cheapo art. Bet their art budget was in the, gasp, hundreds...

But what do I know?

If I made this game the mobs would be with pitchforks and torches at my home in 20 minutes.

adamant wrote:

Well, I don't get it. Rules are bad, pieces don't fit in the areas and are poorly made, and the game drags and the mechanisms are ill-chosen (Risk? You couldn't find something more creative and that moves faster? And balance - don't get me started!). And the art is so-so...for a game that has to have great atmosphere - el cheapo art. Bet their art budget was in the, gasp, hundreds...

But what do I know?

If I made this game the mobs would be with pitchforks and torches at my home in 20 minutes.

I can see where you're coming from, but for some reason, the game just clicks in my head. It works for me, and because of that, I tend to gloss over all the shortcomings of the game.

kookoobah wrote:

I can see where you're coming from, but for some reason, the game just clicks in my head. It works for me, and because of that, I tend to gloss over all the shortcomings of the game.

Same here. The game has a soul. It feels like you are playing out on a larger scale the events from the books. There are several different interesting viable strategies you can take as either side. It invokes the same sense of wonder I got from reading the books. Much like adding bacon to a sandwich, that one factor will make up for other shortcomings!

Oh yeah. War of the Ring rocks. Everything I could want in a game about dudes on a big map.

adamant wrote:

Well, I don't get it. Rules are bad, pieces don't fit in the areas and are poorly made, and the game drags and the mechanisms are ill-chosen (Risk? You couldn't find something more creative and that moves faster? And balance - don't get me started!). And the art is so-so...for a game that has to have great atmosphere - el cheapo art. Bet their art budget was in the, gasp, hundreds...

It sounds like you're describing Hasbro's Lord of the Rings RISK, and yeah, it does suck.

War of the Ring has dice rolling combat, but it ain't RISK.

adamant wrote:

Well, I don't get it. Rules are bad, pieces don't fit in the areas and are poorly made, and the game drags and the mechanisms are ill-chosen (Risk? You couldn't find something more creative and that moves faster? And balance - don't get me started!). And the art is so-so...for a game that has to have great atmosphere - el cheapo art. Bet their art budget was in the, gasp, hundreds...

But what do I know?

If I made this game the mobs would be with pitchforks and torches at my home in 20 minutes.

Yeah, War of The Ring love is something I don't think I will ever really get. The game just kind of Chugs along and I really have no idea what I'm meant to be doing. I thought Age of Conan was a better, but it seems the vast majority disagrees.
But maybe one day, one day, it shall finally all click.

War of the Ring has dice rolling combat, but it ain't RISK.

It ain't that far from it, either. Yeah, it's got a bunch of flavor. Yeah, it's got the shift in scales. Yeah, there are action dice. But, despite all that, you spend the vast ass majority of the game going "OK let's roll dice over here and see what dies." It's not a huge drag in WotR the way it is in, say, the Gamemaster games, but someone really needs to come up with a less drawn-out way to resolve battles in these games.

mjl1783 wrote:

War of the Ring has dice rolling combat, but it ain't RISK.

It ain't that far from it, either. Yeah, it's got a bunch of flavor. Yeah, it's got the shift in scales. Yeah, there are action dice. But, despite all that, you spend the vast ass majority of the game going "OK let's roll dice over here and see what dies." It's not a huge drag in WotR the way it is in, say, the Gamemaster games, but someone really needs to come up with a less drawn-out way to resolve battles in these games.

I suggest that combat is handled via Trashdome Cock-Ring fight. To the Death.

Ken B. wrote:

mjl1783 wrote:

War of the Ring has dice rolling combat, but it ain't RISK.

It ain't that far from it, either. Yeah, it's got a bunch of flavor. Yeah, it's got the shift in scales. Yeah, there are action dice. But, despite all that, you spend the vast ass majority of the game going "OK let's roll dice over here and see what dies." It's not a huge drag in WotR the way it is in, say, the Gamemaster games, but someone really needs to come up with a less drawn-out way to resolve battles in these games.

I suggest that combat is handled via Trashdome Cock-Ring fight. To the Death.

To be clear, the cock-rings are connected via a short chain. Each figher is given a knife, and then as Ken says, to the death.

I'm pretty burned out on DOAM games, but there is one that I still like to play once in a while: Cults Across America. It's a DOAM game and a satire of the Cthulhu Mythos. It even takes a little inspiration from Creatures and Cultists, a non-collectible cardgame from Pagan Publishing that was a funnier satire of the Mythos and also a shameless ripoff of Naval War.

Cults Across America has a number of elements that elevate the game beyond the rest of the DOAM genre. Nuclear powerplants, deathrays, a briefcase virus, the Pope, and two alternative victory conditions. Instead of just wiping out your opponents, you can win by racking up VP from stuff that comes up in the card deck, or by controlling a chain of cities connecting from the East Coast to the West Coast. The game tends to run a little long, but is just fine compared to all other DOAM games.