Lets Talk War of the Ring

i'd agree what hannibal is better. As a game it really clearly gives you strategic options from the out set and has a much cleaner rule set. Still yet to get Rommel some table time.

A more interesting question in my mind, is why is WoTR better than Horus Heresy, i like both games and i can see that WoTR is a better value physical product and has a more endearing theme, but in my mind i class them in the same category. They are both thematic war games that are slightly over done, but get away with it due to the story that they tell.

Malloc wrote: WoTR is a fantastic game.
I think it plays well with 2 but I also really dig the 4 player version.
Give it another shot. -M

There not a whole lot of team war games out there unless you're playing Axis and Allies or some other WWII game and why not play the best game ever as a team game. Lately, I've been playing WoTR mostly as a team 4 player game and it's great unless you're playing against Malloc the luckiest mother fraking in the world.

As you are learning the game it's better to play as team because you have less to deal with.

Jeff White - Are you following the Mustering rules correctly. You can't muster to area under siege in almost all cases.

KingPut wrote: Jeff White - Are you following the Mustering rules correctly. You can't muster to area under siege in almost all cases.

I think we did. Fortunately, my opponent never went to castle for me to siege. I think he was forgetting.

I feel similar to Dragonstout...If WotR is really a 2-player game, why not just stick with HotS, CRex, WWr, and other classic, easy to play, short(er) playtime, low bit count, wargames?

Now, WotR does have a great theme, but a bigger draw would be that the 3 and 4 player games were also good, then I can see where the value would be above and beyond the others I mentioned here.

A few of you are chiming in with it being a great team game....that's what is having me consider it more than I thought I would. The downside is that I'll need to own it to try the team version. My friend who currently owns it is influenced a bit too much by BGG and will 'never play more than 2'. Maybe I can borrow it...

Jeff White wrote:

KingPut wrote: Jeff White - Are you following the Mustering rules correctly. You can't muster to area under siege in almost all cases.

I think we did. Fortunately, my opponent never went to castle for me to siege. I think he was forgetting.

In which case you haven't played WoTR, as this is a critical strategy to use and know how to beat. Sometimes, an epic game requires more than 20 minutes of your life as the twists and turns of fate reveal themselves. Too many games, these days, succumb to relieving the ADD symptoms of their owners.

ThirstyMan wrote:

Jeff White wrote:

KingPut wrote: Jeff White - Are you following the Mustering rules correctly. You can't muster to area under siege in almost all cases.

I think we did. Fortunately, my opponent never went to castle for me to siege. I think he was forgetting.

In which case you haven't played WoTR, as this is a critical strategy to use and know how to beat.

If WotR hangs it's hat solely on siege, then I'll stick with Crusader Rex which has more interesting siege choices (at least 1.4). I castled a few times so we did play out two sieges.

I don't know what the hell the rest of your rant is about. I still play Titan and Crayon rail games face to face with more than two players. Game length on it's own isn't an issue here.

Can it qualify as a rant if it's only 3 sentences long?

The sieging of strongholds is just one element of the game. The freeps needs to run into the strongholds and hold out to give Frodo more time to dunk the ring. I don't think I,d ever be able to say that WotR hangs on just one thing. It's everything going on at the same time which makes it so awesome.

Anyway, Thirsty's reply was directly responding to this:

If WotR is really a 2-player game, why not just stick with HotS, CRex, WWr, and other classic, easy to play, short(er) playtime, low bit count, wargames?

WotR is epic and incredible. It's a great experience (one of my wife's favourite games, thank God) and I can't imagine ever thinking 'why don't we just play something simplier and shorter?'

War of the Ring is not that far off from being Star Wars: the Queen's Gambit. The Anakin track is similar to the Ringbearer progression track, the Jedi are like getting Aragorn to the right places to play those big muster cards (if I remember correctly), and in both you're juggling a million things at once. I did like War of the Ring better, though, just because the "rolling one die at a time 5 times in a row" thing in SWQG drove me nuts.

wadenels wrote: War of the Ring wouldn't be the high-ranking hit that it is without its theme. If it were set in Terrinoth it wouldn't hold a hell of a lot of appeal. If the ringbearers were instead a behind enemy lines situation in eastfront WWII then WotR would be much more niche than it is.

I concur that theme is WotR's strong suit and the marriage of mechanics to theme is very strong. Just consider how poorly many of these same or very similar mechanics worked in Age of Conan.

dragonstout wrote: War of the Ring is not that far off from being Star Wars: the Queen's Gambit. The Anakin track is similar to the Ringbearer progression track, the Jedi are like getting Aragorn to the right places to play those big muster cards (if I remember correctly), and in both you're juggling a million things at once. I did like War of the Ring better, though, just because the "rolling one die at a time 5 times in a row" thing in SWQG drove me nuts.

I've always considered them sisters to each other, and they are both in my top 10 games, no question.

If FFG ever make a LotR: The Confrontation IOS game I think they will become rich. That would be a perfect game center game.