FFGs LotR Games

I'm not sure if they're euros or not, but being by FFG I'm posting here.

Anyway, I've been starting a few threads asking about FFG games lately as I'm trying to sort out what to get before the price hike. The previous two threads were helpful, so I'm looking forward to the responses here.

I'm looking for a good co-op game to play with the wife. AH is already out as it's too long and complicated for her. I was thinking about a Touch of Evil, but I feel the LotR theme might go over better than Sleepy Hollow.

So, what's the verdict on these games according to F:ATrashers? What about the expansions, any worth getting? I'm not talking about War of the Ring, Confrontation, The Hobbit, or that Trivia thing either, solely the co-ops.

Thanks!

I liked the game a lot and played it many times with my friends. It was really hard and we never won. Then we won. Then we won again the next time. I moved a couple times and the game stayed boxed up for a year or two. I told my wife how much fun it was, and that we had to get it out and play. So we played..and we won..without much difficulty at all. To quote my wife "that's it?".

So in summary:

I think it's a really cool idea and enjoyed the heck out of it for at least a dozen games.

Once you figure out how to play, it becomes pretty easy to beat. Unless of course you get a bad run of tiles (equivalent to an unlucky shuffle of the deck) in which case you're going to lose and there's nothing you can do about it no matter how good you are. Oh yeah, it turns out when my friends and I first started playing, we had a couple of rules wrong, and all of our misinterpretations were to the detriment of the players, so if we'd been playing the rules correctly, we would have been beating the game even sooner.

I ended up selling (or trading? I can't remember which) my copy. I'd be happy to play it someone else who had it and wanted to play, but I don't miss my copy.

Never played with any of the expansions.

On the other hand, my wife does like War of the Ring.

It seems to be a pretty divisive game. If Mr. Skeletor shows up he'll likely call us all fuckwits for liking it. And frankly, I used to be on that same team.

LOTR is Knizia's best game, I think. It's hugely thematic, but the themes from the books it tackles are different than the usual military ones like we see in WAR OF THE RING. It's more about companionship, cooperation, sacrifice, and succeeding against impossible odds.

The whole game is basically a gauntlet that tries to grind you and the other players into an unwinnable position. With careful cooperation, good judgement, measured risk-taking, and luck you'll make it about 3/4 of the way through. That last quarter...well, you're kind of on your own by that point.

It's obvious Dan hasn't played with the expansions because he says it's easy to beat...it kind of is without them. The expansions make it way harder and more interesting. FRIENDS AND FOES is essential to the game, SAURON less so but still worth getting, and BATTLEFIELDS is almost totally worthless unless you like flowcharts.

Playability and accessibility are extremely high. Your turn is basically playing one of four different kinds of cards to advance a marker. There are special cards, short-term objectives, and special effects but it's all pretty straightforward and nowhere near the complexity of ARKHAM HORROR, particularly taking into consideration the card interactions, equipment, monster abilities, player stats, and all that- LOTR doesn't have any of it.

Length isn't too bad...maybe 90 minutes-2 hours with 2?

LotRs is a good game. It isn't that thematic (Hobbits in Helm's Deep), but it really conveys a co-op feeling.

The Sauron expansion is almost useless, if you are planning on playing with only two players. It is mainly for giving an extra player the ability to play Sauron. There is a mini-expansion included which features dark tiles.

Explanation of tiles. Before each player's turn you flip a tile. About half of them are good and half bad (in the basic game). If you flip a bad tile you keep flipping until you get a good tile or run out of tiles. Running out of tiles is usually bad.

Dark tiles adds a bunch of really nasty tiles into the mix, but adds a choice when you flip tiles. Some people hate the way a run of bad tile draws can "wreck" the game. Dark tiles fix that "problem", but with a cost. When flipping, you can reject a result, but if you reject then you have to take the next tile (remember they've more than doubled the number of bad tiles).

I don't think Friends and Foes is well balanced for 2 players. It works fine with 3-5, but the difficulty is ramped up a lot with this expansion (assuming you don't play with military victory; military victory is easier than the base game). With only 2 players you are short on cards and also have fewer hobbits to spread the foe effects out on. The help added is also reduced with 2 players. You gain 2 "one time use" powers. Larger groups gain more.

I don't think Barnes gave Battlefields a fair overview. Battlefields adds a nice risk/reward mechanism. You can spend your already scant resources to aid members of the fellowship on a separate battle board. Occasionally you need to do this to prevent a bad event, other times defeating a foe will give a good reward.

As for the flowchart criticism, the base game uses white cones to represent your progress, but has detailed art on the board (the board is 3 or 4 lines which you advance white cones on). The Battlefield expansion is reversed. The boards have generic map of Middle Earth as art, but each foe (and you will play with a minimum of 20) is represented by art on a cardboard chit (art by the same guy who did the board art for the main game).

Are cones thematic? Probably not. Are flowchart boards thematic? Again probably not. But the risk/reward play of the Battlefield boards seems to scale well with different numbers of players. I've played them with 2, 3, and 5 players. It was a little more difficult than the base game, but the added depth (to your choices) more than made up for it, in my opinion.

Frodo: "I've got a 2!"

Sam: "I've got a 3!"

Frodo and Sam: "Together we beat that 4. Go Team Hobbit!"


Yeah, its just that exciting and thematic.

Agreed. The most fun I've had playing it was pantomiming Mr. Bill as the eye advanced and swalloed Sam up.

Steve"OhNo!!!"Avery

hmmm...some good arguments for and against. I'm leaning toward picking this up but two comments have me hesitating.

Once you figure out how to play, it becomes pretty easy to beat. Unless of course you get a bad run of tiles (equivalent to an unlucky shuffle of the deck) in which case you're going to lose and there's nothing you can do about it no matter how good you are.

This sounds like once you learn the system it's either a guarantee victory or you get an unbeatable set of tiles. So, unless I get that 'unlucky shuffle' I win? Doesn't sound so dynamic.

Or does this following statement address this issue?

The whole game is basically a gauntlet that tries to grind you and the other players into an unwinnable position. With careful cooperation, good judgement, measured risk-taking, and luck you'll make it about 3/4 of the way through. That last quarter...well, you're kind of on your own by that point.

If I understand this right the first 3/4 of the game you're tooling up, after that it's going to depend on the run of tiles?

No, it depends on whether you can stay awake long enough to finish the last part of the game...

Steve"Veritas"Avery

C'mon - it's not that bad . I like it and will play it whenever (OK - not that often) I can get enough people and none of our 'must play' games are around. It can be easy some times but then, apparently (as I have never done it), you just handicap by moving Sauron closer.

For 5 or 6 players (4 if you're fucking hard) Sauron is great (essential?) as it makes it pretty fucking hard/impossible as you have got someone actively trying to burn Hobbits, plus it makes a great atmosphere with a co-op group and someone hellbent on taking them down. And then there's all those extra dark tiles ...

Haven't been able to try Friends & Foes - I was told that it made it easier for the Hobbits as they just had to kill off foes to win, but do want to see for myself.

Counting down for Octavian to arrive ........

I enjoyed the first couple of games of LotR that I played, with the base set, plus Friends & Foes. Then it started to get boring. Part of the problem was that the group of players was almost entirely drab EuroGamers. But the other part of the problem was the game itself. Gameplay felt scripted, almost as bad as watching Rocky Horror Picture Show with a devoted audience of fans. And as Mad Dog mentioned, the conversations at the table tend to strip down the theme to bare mechanics, though I remember more discussions about trees and shields than specific numbers.

I like it. I've only played the base game, but it's been a good time. It's well-designed--I definitely haven't had the blowouts some folks are experiencing--I've have two games come down to a die roll at the precipice of Mt Doom (0-2 for those keeping score, dammit). The theme is there, the art is great (John Howe), and the game is pretty fun. There aren't a lot of co-op games out there, and this one has immediate appeal to a whole wing of Nerddom. Worth getting.

Yes, the base game can feel scripted, but I feel that Battlefields adds a lot of variability (enough to bypass any scripted nature of the base game).

Yes, a run of bad tiles can wreck your plans, unless you are playing with the Dark Tiles expansion from Sauron. You pick and choose which ones to suffer (to a limited extent). You can mitigate the results of a bad run of tiles, but dark tiles does make the game harder (if you make the wrong decisions you suffer a lot more from the tiles than you would in a normal game).

Michael Barnes wrote:

It seems to be a pretty divisive game. If Mr. Skeletor shows up he'll likely call us all fuckwits for liking it. And frankly, I used to be on that same team.

Actually I have changed my tune - I use to hate it but now it has won me over, in fact I own it and all the expansions (though I have only played F&F.)
It really is a unique game, there is no other game that feels remotely like it.

I'd recommend it.

I'll still happily call you all fuckwits though.

Mr Skeletor wrote:

Michael Barnes wrote:

It seems to be a pretty divisive game. If Mr. Skeletor shows up he'll likely call us all fuckwits for liking it. And frankly, I used to be on that same team.

Actually I have changed my tune - I use to hate it but now it has won me over, in fact I own it and all the expansions (though I have only played F&F.)
It really is a unique game, there is no other game that feels remotely like it.

I'd recommend it.

I'll still happily call you all fuckwits though.

Back at you, Frankie.


Knizia's LOTR is good shit.