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Let's Talk Knizia's LotR Expansions
I understand there are three expansions to this game: Friends & Foes, Sauron, and Battlefields. I've gotten a potential trade offer for LotR w/ Friends & Foes and Sauron, no Battlefields. Is this a decent combo to have? Will I feel the game is incomplete without Battlefields? Should I just get the new silverline version and not mess with expansions at all?
So, those of you here that dig the series, what's the rundown on the expansions?
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The Friends and Foes expansion adds the Bree/Isengard scenario board, so it's worth having once you've figured out reliable strategies for beating the four scenarios in the base game. The "military victory" option that this expansion introduces should probably be harder to achieve than it is; destroying the ring is a grander and more satisfying accomplishment, IMO.
The Sauron set is actually three small, independent expansions. I don't think I've ever played as the Sauron character, so I can't vouch for that role being any fun. I dunno.
I haven't played Battlefields at all.
Overall, I'd say that the basic game is an absolute classic must-play game that gets tired after 5-10 plays because that's the point at which the scripted gameplay becomes repetitive. The expansions don't eliminate the problem, but they do forestall it a little by adding some variety and difficulty.
I doubt you'd miss the Battlefields expansion. I don't imagine that there are many groups that use all the expansions at once. The combination of Friends and Foes and Sauron will give you plenty of ways to customize the game once you're finished with the base rules.
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It's recommended by Knizia that you play with the Black Gate variant when playing with F&F, which eliminates the "easy military victory" problem mentioned above. Completely.Juniper wrote: The Friends and Foes expansion adds the Bree/Isengard scenario board, so it's worth having once you've figured out reliable strategies for beating the four scenarios in the base game. The "military victory" option that this expansion introduces should probably be harder to achieve than it is; destroying the ring is a grander and more satisfying accomplishment, IMO.
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Lots of people don't like Battlefields; I have it but haven't played it yet. I like having the option, and the completionist in me is happy to have it.
I would recommend the old "big" version with Sauron & F&F over the Silverline version. Partly because I really like the older artwork, and partly because it feels to me like there's much more game in the box with F&F and Sauron options.
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The others are both good.
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- san il defanso
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wkover wrote: Battlefields is my least favorite expansion. I don't own it, and I can't really recommend it.
The others are both good.
I have the opposite opinion... I think Battlefields is the best expansion and adds a really interesting and more dynamic aspect to the game. Yeah, the flowchart layout of the boards is lame... the same essential thing could have depicted actual battlefields, though they were obviously trying to conserve the size of the boards... but in terms of something happening, I think it's a lot more interesting than Friends & Foes, the new mechanic of which is just a line of cards. And for me it completes the LOTR experience better because now you're not just moving the Hobbits in the game, but Aragorn and Gimli and Legolas and Boromir and Gandalf are also doing their thing on the side.
Btw, I don't think of any of the expansions as essential. They're all nice to have, but the base game still holds up on its own.
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The other two were ok for the novelty value at first but I never use them now.
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- Michael Barnes
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It also feels, as Grudunza pointed out, like a more detailed implementation of some of the concepts of F&F. And as much as I like that you've got the rest of the Fellowship more "present", it does shift the focus off the Hobbits and some of the game's core thematic values.
You know, it really kind of makes sense...Battlefields is the parts of the story that Knizia didn't think were essential to the themes he wanted to bring out, all the mass battle War of the Ring-type stuff.
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Michael Barnes wrote: I have always suspected that Battlefields was never really finished. It just doesn't feel completely integrated to me, and the whole thing with the flowcharts feels very prototype-y. Remember that this was an expansion that came out WAY after the others, kind of out of nowhere. I've always suspected that Knizia never really felt like it was done, and eventually it just got published anyway- probably due to contractual obligation.
Years ago, before the publication of Battlefields, but after the release of Friends and Foes and Sauron, Reiner mentioned in a BoardGameSpeak interview that he had done work on a third expansion but decided to leave it in its drawer because he didn't think it quite worked.
Unlike the base game and the other expansions, Battlefields was not developed by Kosmos. I've wondered in the past whether Battlefields came about because someone at Fantasy Flight heard that same interview and specifically requested Knizia's "lost" Lord of the Rings expansion.
Or maybe Battlefields is completely different from the "lost" expansion. Someone should ask Reiner.
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- Michael Barnes
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Playing with it again recently, I didn't dislike it as much as when it first came out but it's still definitely the weakest element of the entire set. If it were just a LITTLE more obscured that the "battles" are flowcharts, it would have helped.
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The scenario boards in the base game and Friends and Foes have lots of text on them. However, Knizia has said that it was not possible to put text on the Battlefields boards because, unlike the base game and the other expansions, Battlefields was a combined French/German/English edition.
If Battlefields had place names or chapter titles on the flowcharts, maybe the relationship between gameplay and the books' narrative would have been apparent. My understanding is that Battlefields needed more character tokens, too, so that you weren't required to do stuff like field Boromir in battles that transpire long after his death.
The production run on Battlefields was much lower than the other Lord of the Rings stuff, so such luxuries as English-language boards with explanatory text, or an appropriate selection of characters for each battlefield were probably not possible, economically.
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