Game: Lord of the Rings - Friends & Foes

Thread: Re: Whats the story about the Black Gate card?

Drew1365 — 2008-09-19T15:29:21+00:00

Just to say, I've only played with the F&F expansion once so far, although I think now it'll be the standard way we play, but the military victory wasn't all that easy to achieve, even though it was how we won. So it still felt quite satisfying even without the Black Gate.

Thread: Re: Whats the story about the Black Gate card?

aschvey — 2008-09-19T14:30:07+00:00

A related question --

If one uses the Black Gate card, is it good to use The One Ring and Watchful Peace cards as well? Are those just there to make the game easier? Or are they needed to offset the Black Gate? And if they are used, how? Do you just put them off to the side and they can be used any time? Or are they rewards for killing all foes or whatnot? I've seen a number of variants, but no clear rule. For the record, I own the base game and the Friends & Foes expansions only.

Thanks!

Thread: Re: End-game and foes

Der Das — 2008-08-15T13:59:38+00:00

I'm not sure if I understood you correctly. In any case, life tokens are not used in Mordor in the same way they are used in the preceding scenarios.

Thread: End-game and foes

MasterDinadan — 2008-08-15T02:32:42+00:00

I have a few questions regarding foes at the end of the Mordor scenario.

The die roll to destroy the Ring technically happens after the Mordor scenario ends, right?
Does this mean that I lose all of my life tokens prior to rolling the die (the life tokens may be useful if the die roll reveals new foes).
Furthermore, do I lose if this die roll puts me above 8 foes? Foes don't make you lose until the end of a turn, and it seems like you win after rolling the die and that there is no turn to end.

I just played an extremely close game where Pippin (the only living hobbit) reached the end of Mordor with only two corruption points away from defeat, and 7 foes in play. The die roll revealed two more foes and I defeated one by taking a damage and one by discarding a heart token. But I'm not sure I would have been allowed to discard the heart token, and furthermore I'm not sure it would have mattered since I'll win before "ending my turn" with 8 foes in play.

Thread: A Necessary Expansion

voynix — 2008-07-05T15:46:24+00:00

I obtained Lord of the Rings, as well as Friends and Foes and the Sauron expansion earlier this year. This is one of those games that I have seen on BGG for years but never payed it much mind for some reason. On a whim, I bought this with the two aforementioned expansions. Since the base game has been reviewed numerous times, I feel like I didn't need to say much more about it aside from the fact that personally, I love the game and could kick myself for not having acquired it sooner.

Components
Friends and Foes is an expansion to the base game that adds 2 new boards and a new element to the game: The Foes. The game comes with a new scenario board depicting Bree on one side and Isengard on the other, a deck of 30 Foe cards, 2 new Gandalf cards, feature cards for Bree and Isengard, and 1 card for each hobbit that grants them a one-time special power. There are transparent stickers for Isengard and Bree to be adhered to the master board.

New Rules
1. Now the Hobbits must travel through Bree, which occurs just after Rivendale. Isengard occurs just after Lothlorian.

2. Bree, Moria and/or Shelob's lair may be omitted if certain criteria are met (usually no foes on the foe line, see below). However, if you are lucky enough to bypass Bree and Moria, you won't be able to bypass Shelob's layer.

3. The Foes come into play. Whenever a square discard icon(s) is encountered, that many foe cards are drawn (in lieu of discarding cards from your hand) and placed in such a manner to create a foe line. If this foe line is ever 8 or more cards after a player's turn, the game is lost. To defeat foes, you can pay the consequence listed on the card (i.e. roll the Sauron die) or discard it for free, which is now a new end-of-turn action (now you can play cards, collect 2 cards, move toward the light, or eliminate a foe for free). Note foes usually have to be eliminated in order, last one first. Some new yellow cards can also let you eliminate foes. Eliminate all 30 foes and the hobbits win.

4. Hobbits now have a special card outlining a one-time special action.

I think that covers all the new rule changes/additions.

My Overall Impressions
I really enjoy the base game, though we lose a lot. I personally think you do get a sense of adventure and questing, despite the fact the game is a bit scripted. The Friends and Foes expansion, in my opinion, "complete" the game especially since it gives you 2 important scenarios: Bree and Isengard. I also really enjoy the foes. It offers a whole new aspect to the game and a whole new way to win. My recommendation is that if you enjoy the base game, definitely get this expansion. It adds a lot to the game without adding too much additional rules. The Sauron expansion is another consideration for those who want a Sauron player rather than an auto-Sauron. I cannot speak for the Battlefields expansion.

Thread: Lord Of The Rings: Friends & Foes - posthumous victory! - [session report]

ackmondual — 2008-05-09T19:29:39+00:00

This was my second time playing Lord Of The Rings. First time was with the Sauron expansion (5p + one extra playing as Sauron) and the expansion that adds MANY bad tiles to the draw bag, but also gives you the option to draw another tile if the one you drew before wasn’t something you don’t want to do. However, you must play the next tile you draw. Dunno about the rest of the group, but I expected us to win the game this time around. This game was with the 5 max players, one of them the game owner, who’s played it before several times, and who knows the game very well. The Friends & Foes expansion was new to me, but he mentioned playing with was nowhere near as brutal as the Sauron expansion. There were PLENTY of questions throughout the game, but he did spend about 10 minutes going over the basics and whatever else fitted in that timeframe

Turn order
Green..... me
orange ..... I think he went first
blue
red
yellow

Refer to the pics for their special powers. First one shows their normal, “used once per turn” special powers while the 2nd one shows their one time use, “ultra-super” power that’s only a part of the Friends & Foes expansion. Err, I’ll refer to the latter from now on as “super power” and the former as “special power”
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Game Highlights
overall
--In just as soon into the game at Rivendell or Moria, Sauron makes good progress, moving himself onto the 12 space (1st space on his side is 15, so that’s 3 spaces so far)
--We ended up using a one time only thing that moved him back 2 or 3 spaces. In fact, it was the ONLY thing in the game + expansion that could move Sauron back

--We were delighted whenever red got to roll the die. Most of the time however, his special power effectiveness was minimized. Only twice did it help. Once to add 2 foes and another roll landed on the take 2 damage. The rest were move Sauron one, take one damage, or add one foe. He rolled 2 blanks which again, doesn’t let him use his special power, but a good roll without using red’s special power was still much better than a bad roll’s negative impact that gets “dumbed down”.
--on many occasions, blue suffered one less damage from his special power. -1 on two turns and -0 on another.
--orange ended up not getting as many cards as he (and likely the rest of us except the game owner) thought from his special power. This was b/c 1) you don’t get cards for completing places on the overall map without their own individual boards (such as Rivendell) and 2) you don’t get cards for boards you skip
--at some point orange used his super power to get a Gandolf card for only 3 shields. It may have been when we entered mordor instead.

Isengard
Full map, but in Dutch
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Readable closeup of events
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--good progress on main Hiding trail
--first event came up. 2 Combat cards and rolling the die didn’t pose much problem...... until the die rolled Sauron’s eye. At least that player got the Treebeard card (double Fellowships)
--second event came up. I was the active player on this one. I was told there are twice as many gray cards as white. Still, I had two quantities of 2 symbols types, so there was a good chance I could mitigate the nastiness that that event brought up. I was feeling lucky and went for it. I got my Gandolf The White card (triple wild). I didn’t quite get the part about if Sauron didn’t advance, I could continue to reveal cards. Was that to keep it? Whatever it’s supposed to be, I stopped that event after I got my special card.
--Progress on the Hiding trail turned out to be TOO good. A Hiding tile pushed us to finish before we could activate the next event. This event WOULD be bad, except having already finished the Traveling trail would’ve gotten us the Pipe Weed card. Oh well. At least we didn’t have to go through any of the bad stuff the rest of events would bestow
--We had the option to pitch in a combined 12 Combat points to bypass Helm’s Deep. We decided against it. Cards weren’t in dangerously low supply, but we needed all the Feet cards we could get to get us through Mordor, and even Combat cards shouldn’t be wasted like that.
However, even though Traveling and Fellowship trails were completed, the Saruman’s Forces event never got triggered. I’m confused how we had that option anyways AFAIK, the game owner said we still had that option as it was mentioned in the rules somewhere?

somewhere mid game-ish
--we got as many as 6 foes on our tails. This spiked the tension level for us
--Shortly, blue used his “super power” and ended up taking down 3 foes. VERY HELPFUL.

Helm’s Deep
--Rather than risk committing A LOT of Combat cards but STILL unable to finish the Combat track, we planned our way through this board via the Event track. Instead of playing Combat cards, we would use our turns instead to either heal or draw 2 cards to better prepare us for the trials and tribulations at Mordor ahead

Shelob’s Lair
--SKIPPED! We eliminated all foes prior to this board

Mordor
--Corruption track status:
Sauron on spot #12
orange and green on #10
yellow and blue on #9
red on #8

--red was the ring bearer
--we were all toe to toe with Sauron on the corruption track. It was do or die. The sufficient combination of luck, planning, and miracles would REALLY help us out.

--I used my special card that allows me to heal any player one spot. I used it on the ring bearer b/c he was dangerously close to bumping into Sauron
--orange is the first Hobbit to die. He actually ended up one space past Sauron. This was either from the 2nd or 3rd event
--We definitely reached at least the 2nd event. Eown was very far along the Fellowship track and we didn’t have it to cancel negate the bad thing of that event. We planned from the get-go that we would need to throw everything we had at the Foot trail to quickly rid the ring before Sauron inevitably and very soon enough would have the chance to take us all out
--Can’t recall exactly, but it was either for the 2nd event, 3rd event, or an event in Helm’s Deep (I’d guess in Helm’s Deep) where red used his super power rather than all of us or the ring bearer taking a lot of whoop-ass from that event.
--The Fellowship trail was only 1 or two steps along
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--Since Morder started until my turn from orange, they were able to move us as far along as #52 marker on the Feet trail. Several players didn’t have any Wilds or Feet cards, so they had to opt for Combat and Fellowship cards instead.

--my turn. There was no doubt it would be my last. I was practically toe to toe with Sauron. It was way likely that I would be finished after rolling the die). The only question in my mind was whether or not I would be make the most of it (or any of it for that matter).
~~I pulled a tile that would’ve killed me, but it was cancelled out by some special or Gandolf card (sorry, can’t remember ALL the details )
~~before pulling my second tile, a Gandolf card was bought that allowed us to draw 5 tiles from the bag, leave them out face up, and choose any one of them to play per turn. We would need to get through those 5 tiles before digging through the bag again. Mostly not good as usual. We did have 1 Foot tile, one Hiding, and 3 bad tiles (mix of event and roll the die)

I was going to do the following......
~~play the Foot tile. Go from #51 spot to the 1st #52 spot.
~~Use my super super power to play up to 4 gray/white tiles on my turn. THAT was definitely a no-brainer
~~Was gonna play my card #1, Gandolf The White first (3 wild which I would use on the Foot trail)
~~pray that I would make it through the die roll on #53 and land on #54
~~if I made it, play card #2, a double Feet card to go from spot #54 to #56
~~Then finish off with card #3 and card #4, both single Feet cards. That would have taken me from #56 to #57 to #58. The black square at #58 would surely kill me, but at least I got to throw down my cards that progressed along the Feet trail

Here’s what the group planned and suggested, and what I ended up doing instead......
~~I would still play the Foot tile going from #51 to the 1st #52 spot
~~I would still use my super super power to play up to 4 gray/white tiles on my turn.
~~Instead, of Gandolf The White, card #1 was I played a single Foot card taking me to the 2nd #52 shield spot on the Foot trail, one spot just before the die roll on #53
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~~The idea? I would likely die at #53 and wouldn’t get to use the rest of my Foot cards let alone advance the 3rd space from my Gandolf The White card. Instead, yellow used his super power to move onto the black spot on #53 black square spot, roll the die, and take the damage in my place. Excellent move since at best, yellow would be able to take the hit. At worst, he would die, but would keep me alive long enough to burn up my other 3 cards that advance along the Foot trail by 6. Yellow lived, but was hanging on by a thread
~~It was THEN I played card #2, my Gandolf The White (3 wild which I would use on the Foot trail). Went from #53 to #56, and picked up 3 shields along the way
~~Card #3. Had a double Foot card. Took us from #56 to #58. Rolled the die as #58 was a black square, and low and beyold, that was it for me. Green is the second Hobbit to die. Didn’t get a chance to play my 4th card which would’ve been a single Foot card

--the next player, blue (or also red) finished off the game through the black square at 60 and where the ring picture is (cliff of the lava bed)

End Game
We were trying to just successfully destroy the ring. Period. However, score was tallied up for fun anyways, and it ended up something like this...
60 pts for progress on trail + 15 pts in foes + 8 pts in shields = 83 pts total

Again, me (green) and orange were done for, but on the corruption track:
Sauron was on the #12 spot
yellow on the #11
red on the #10
and blue on the #9
......so it was cutting things close indeed.

Time played: 2 hours 20 minutes (yes, I did actually timed it )
That includes some time it took for us to get up, grab some snacks, and the usual short delays

We destroyed the ring!! If we were to play again, not quite ready to move back to the Sauron expansion... unless there was a huge demand for it. Personally, I wouldn’t mind trying this expansion again to see if we could ALL be still alive after destroying the ring.

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vekoma — 2008-03-19T18:37:55+00:00

sample of foe cards

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vekoma — 2008-03-19T18:36:09+00:00

back of cards

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vekoma — 2008-03-18T20:38:28+00:00

dutch rulebook front and back

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vekoma — 2008-03-18T20:36:46+00:00

isengard - dutch version

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vekoma — 2008-03-18T20:34:45+00:00

bree - dutch version

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vekoma — 2008-03-18T20:32:45+00:00

dutch box cover

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vekoma — 2008-03-18T20:31:26+00:00

dutch box back

Thread: Re: About the Black Gate Card

pkitty — 2008-03-13T06:18:08+00:00

Since the Battlefields expansion comes with the extra foreign-language cards, I printed out the PDF of the Black Gate card, trimmed it to fit, and glued it to one of those cards. It looks completely professional.

Thread: Re: "Experience" Variant

Der Das — 2008-03-07T14:31:36+00:00

The idea is an elegant one, but I have the feeling that as is, the cost vs. reward balance favours the benefits.

Especially this one...
* defeat the leftmost foe instantly without paying any extra cost (and the foe, like any other defeated foe, goes into the player's experience pile);
This sounds like returning two easy foes to defeat (and gain) a difficult one. I'm pretty sure that this way no difficult foes will ever have to be defeated the hard way again. Plus the difficult ones will be kept in hand if possible (as opposed to Knizia's Black Gate card that returns them to the pile when actioned).

1. First, the foes regenerate. The player chooses two foe cards from their "experience" pile. One card is placed on the bottom of the unrevealed foes deck. The other card is placed rightmost in the line of active foes (all other active foes move to the left). The player may choose which card goes where.

Why the need to place a regenerated foe in the line of active foes? You could add a foe from the draw-pile instead. This would prevent 'diluting' the foe line's strength which would surely happen if only the weakest of foes would be added.
I don't see the need for adding rightmost/cycling either, there are benefits for clearing all inline foes built into the original rules.
An added benefit of adding the foe the usual way would be faster play. There will be no need to shift the cards anymore and there is no need to choose which foe goes where.

Have you tried this variant? If so, what are your observations? I feel it needs some tweaking. For instance in the top quoted case, moving the defeated foe to the foe pile instead of the player's experience.

Do you know about the "black gate/watchful peace/one ring" variant for replacing the MV scenario?

Thread: "Experience" Variant

onigame — 2008-03-07T10:32:07+00:00

This variant was first posted on the LOTRboardgame Yahoogroup on December 9th, 2002. It eliminates the "Military Victory" way of ending, which I found to be rather anticlimactic.

Instead of putting the defeated foes in one pile, each player keeps the foes that they have defeated in their own separate pile. This pile of foes represents the "experience" the hobbit has earned through defeating the foes.

Any time during a player's turn, they may decide to turn this "experience" into a tangible benefit. To do so, do the following steps:

1. First, the foes regenerate. The player chooses two foe cards from their "experience" pile. One card is placed on the bottom of the unrevealed foes deck. The other card is placed rightmost in the line of active foes (all other active foes move to the left). The player may choose which card goes where.

2. Second, the player receives a benefit. They may do any one of the following:

* defeat the leftmost foe instantly without paying any extra cost (and the foe, like any other defeated foe, goes into the player's experience pile);
* take three shields from the bank and give them to any one player (including themselves);
* take the top two hobbit cards from the draw pile and give them to any one player (including themselves);
* heal any hobbit one space towards the light;
* take a life token from anywhere (including from another player or the "bank") and give it to any one player (including themselves).

Players may do this at any time during their turn, even during the execution of another action.

(Note that the player choosing the first option has an effect of "cycling" the foes -- the current foe is defeated, and a previously-defeated foe is now at the back of the line. The player could do this as many times as desired, but as their "experience" pile shrinks by one foe each time, they cannot do so indefinitely.)

There is no more military victory. If the unrevealed foes deck runs out and another foe should be revealed, all players must contribute an "experience" card towards a new deck (their choice of which card). This represents the hobbits' overconfidence at their military prowess -- expecting a military victory, only to see more of Sauron's forces come streaming out of Mordor.

At game end, players score 2 points for each foe in the "experience" piles. Foes that have been regenerated do not count for points.

Thread: Re: Playing without foes?

Tommaso 73 — 2008-03-04T18:00:52+00:00

What an interesting option!

Cameron, have you tested it? Sounds really great, very much like the book! Would it be with or without foes? Maybe with foes and with black gate + watchful peace? I'm going to check it out...

Thread: Re: Military Victory = Watchful Peace

Tommaso 73 — 2008-02-28T13:28:53+00:00

I also wish to thank MMM for this billant idea, much better than the standard rule!

My only doubt is that, as we usually play with 2 Hobbits, the One Ring is useless most of the games. What we've tried is to allow to trade it for any Gandalf card, it seems to balance the reward better for two-player games.

Thread: Re: Playing without foes?

MasterDinadan — 2008-02-19T21:03:08+00:00

Kneebyter wrote:
Octavian wrote:
It is nearly impossible to actually go through all six scenario boards. F&F introduces means for skipping two of the six boards that is tied-in to the Foes. It would require more than a small tweak to remove the Foes and still have a winnable game.

-MMM

I, too, would rather play all the scenarios instead of skipping them. It just seems to flow better , story wise.

Would it be possible to compensate for the added difficulty by giving each player additional cards at the start of the "unskipped" scenario?

If you want to follow the story, play with 2 players and give each 1 Frodo and Pippin and the other Sam and Merry. When you get to Isengard and Helm's Deep just play with Merry and Pippin, and when you get to Shelob's Lair just play with Frodo and Sam. Each hobbit only plays 4 scenarios, but all 6 scenarios are used! Merry and Pippin are not eligible to become ring bearer at the end of Moria (Sam or Frodo must take it). If Merry and Pippin BOTH are defeated before beginning Shelob's Lair, the game is lost as one or both of them are captured by Saruman, the plot to destroy the Ring is discovered, and the ring-bearer is found.
It will be harder since you have to split the feature cards and can't bring them all into the last two scenarios. Also, if Merry and Pippin do poorly (even if they don't die) they may cause Sauron to advance and make it harder on the others. But I think it could work, if you really want to play all 6 scenarios AND follow the story.

Thread: Re: Playing without foes?

Kneebyter — 2008-02-19T19:14:13+00:00

Octavian wrote:
It is nearly impossible to actually go through all six scenario boards. F&F introduces means for skipping two of the six boards that is tied-in to the Foes. It would require more than a small tweak to remove the Foes and still have a winnable game.

-MMM

I, too, would rather play all the scenarios instead of skipping them. It just seems to flow better , story wise.

Would it be possible to compensate for the added difficulty by giving each player additional cards at the start of the "unskipped" scenario?

Thread: Re: Playing without foes?

Der Das — 2008-02-19T14:37:43+00:00

Pruning out cards/etc that refer to the foes should be rather straightforward. It is tackling all 6 boards consecutively without skipping that will be the challenge.
With Sauron starting at 15 and the "Watchfull Peace" card as backup it should be tough but doable.

Compare:
4 boards vs. 12 corruption
6 boards vs. 18 corruption (15+3 from WP card)

Starting with 12 corruption is a hard level game. Multiply by 1.5 (6 vs. 4 boards) and 18 corruption would be approximately at the same level.

As others mentioned though, I wouldn't bother. The foes are really the fun part and is the default* way I play, even with novices. The extra rules are few and fit in naturally. It has been suggested that Herr Knizia intended the game to be with foes initially.

-
*PS: I never use Military Victory as a winning condition, but rather use rewards for defeating all foes.

Thread: Re: Playing without foes?

Deodand — 2008-02-16T10:01:59+00:00

MasterDinadan wrote:
I wouldn't start them off with Sauron because it's such a huge variation on the game anyway

Interestingly I get the impression that Sauron is the preferred method of playing the game amongst my friends. I think they like the human opponent. Possibly I agree. I know I enjoyed playing the Dark Lord. But I haven't played either the original LOTR or Sauron enough to develop a firm opinion.

Alas, I need more gaming time!

Thread: Re: Playing without foes?

MasterDinadan — 2008-02-16T09:23:50+00:00

Depends on how game-savvy your friends are.
Most people I know, even those that only play relatively light games, have no problem jumping right into F&F. I wouldn't start them off with Sauron because it's such a huge variation on the game anyway, and I definitely wouldn't start off with Battlefields because I don't feel like Battlefields really gives the "intended" experience.

Thread: Re: Playing without foes?

Octavian — 2008-02-16T09:06:29+00:00

It is nearly impossible to actually go through all six scenario boards. F&F introduces means for skipping two of the six boards that is tied-in to the Foes. It would require more than a small tweak to remove the Foes and still have a winnable game.

-MMM

Thread: Re: Playing without foes?

Deodand — 2008-02-16T08:50:14+00:00

I've got all the expansions, but only played with Sauron so far. I was just curious as to whether it would be possible or interesting to tack the extra scenarios onto the regular game. I certainly intend to play Friends and Foes as it was designed, but just wondered about the extra scenario boards as a minor variation on the regular game. Each new expansion, though, means more rules to explain to my friends! Slipping a couple of extra boards in seemed like a potentially easy and painless variant.

But you've almost convinced me that it's pointless.

Thread: Re: Playing without foes?

MasterDinadan — 2008-02-16T04:43:57+00:00

You might be able to come up with a way to do it... but it seems like a pointless amount of effort. A few events and feature cards specifically involve foes, and foes are a condition for skipping scenarios. Skipping scenarios sounds lame, but I assure you it works well.
Could you do it? Probably. Finding a new consequence for skipping scenarios (or figuring out how to balance it if you don't intend to skip any scenarios at all) would be the tricky part. I can't think of anything in Bree and Isengard that REQUIRES foes, except the firebrand feature would be rendered useless.

Most importantly, I can't see the game improving any by taking out the foes. You said you haven't even played it, so give it a few tries with foes before you go talking about getting rid of them :-)

Thread: Playing without foes?

Deodand — 2008-02-16T02:59:09+00:00

Does anyone play this expansion without the foes (ie just as a standard game of LOTR but with the extra scenario boards added in)? Is it at all a desirable way to play the game?

I've got the expansion sitting on my shelf, but I haven't had a chance to try it out yet (my gaming time, alas, is rather limited and there are so many great games to play - Santa was very kind).

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fractaloon — 2008-01-31T03:38:04+00:00

Lots of blank space inside the box. Note the insert is plastic instead of the usual Fantasy Flight plastic.

Thread: Thanks Santa!

surfitch — 2007-12-25T18:17:15+00:00

I recieved this game from my secret santa along with 2 other games I wanted! I have no idea who this person is but they are wonderful.

Thank you Secret Santa!

Thread: Re: Red Shield Symbol on Foe Cards

deltabob — 2007-12-07T00:08:53+00:00

Thanks for this quick, concise answer. I just got the expansion, and this was my one question.

Thread: Re: Whats the story about the Black Gate card?

Sputnik — 2007-11-07T17:12:36+00:00

Is there anyone who has an extra Black Gate Card available? Or is it possible to order one from Mr. Knizia himself?

Thread: Re: About the Black Gate Card

Werbaer — 2007-10-26T11:45:08+00:00

It was a free givaway in Essen some years ago, together with the 2 cards in the Sauron expansion. I don't think it's included in any edition.

The card with the 10 points symbol is a variant.

The rules are on the card itself. Basically, it turned out the a military victory was too easy to achieve with the original rules. Now when playing with the 'black gate' variant, after the foes stack is exhausted, some foes are 'recycled' to make military victory harder to achieve.

Thread: About the Black Gate Card

Sputnik — 2007-10-26T11:32:07+00:00

I have some questions about the Black Gate Card:

1) Is it only available for download or is it avalable in an "upgraded" F&F Expansion?

2) I saw there are two downloadable versions of the card: one with a 10p shield in the lower right corner and one without. Which one is the "official" card?

3) What are the Black Gate rules and how does the card work?

Thanks for help.

Thread: Re: Friends & Foes - What An Expansion Should Be

rarbelaez — 2007-08-30T19:48:17+00:00

Yeah, this expansion is a must.

Thread: Friends & Foes - What An Expansion Should Be

MasterDinadan — 2007-08-30T17:33:10+00:00

I picked up Lord of the Rings about a month ago on a whim, fell in love with it completely, and played it tons.
So I had high hopes for the first of it's three expansion, Friends & Foes.

Let's start with what you get in the box. A rulebook, of course, a two-sided scenario board, and a pack of cards which includes Foes, Features, and a few new Gandalfs and Hobbit powers. It doesn't sound like much, but the expansion isn't too pricy so that's not even a problem. All of the artwork on the components is done by John Howe who did the art in the original as well, so it is all gorgeous and fits in perfectly with the existing components.

So how does it play? Getting used to the new Foe mechanic might take a bit. The "Discard 2 cards" symbol now means "Draw 2 Foes" and you also draw a Foe if your first tile advances an activity track. You're likely to forget to do this several times in your first game, but once you get the hang of it, it's second nature. The Foes have various requirements you must fulfill to defeat them. You don't have to defeat every Foe as soon as you see it, but you don't want to let them build up or you will lose! If the cost on the Foe is more than you are willing to pay, you can spend an action to get rid of it, or use the new Firebrand or Firestorm cards.

The new scenarios are outstanding as well. They play out much like the existing scenarios, with three activity tracks and various good and bad events. Bree has a lot of exciting feature cards, including some interesting yellow ones such as Gandalf's Letter, which allows you to play a Gandalf card without spending shields. Very handy if you suffer some bad luck early on before someone is able to get five shields!

Isengard is a very interesting board as well, with even more unique events and feature cards. One of the more interesting events is called "Battle of the Spells" and causes the hobbits to take turns rolling the die until someone rolls the white side. Dangerous indeed, but don't despair, as the new feature cards are also very valuable. "Pipeweed," for example, will allow you to distribute three healing among hobbits of your choice!

What do I love so much about Friends & Foes? Well, it gives plenty of new options. Everyone likes options right? But what makes it remarkable is how much depth it adds to the game while adding very few new rules and components. It's sheer brilliance. The game is probably a little more difficult (it could just be my inexperience speaking) but if you enjoyed the original game, you will enjoy Friends & Foes! It's still the same great gameplay, just expanded.

Thread: Re: Tom Bombadil

MasterDinadan — 2007-08-25T12:56:44+00:00

helo wrote:
Just to remind that your selection is not only the 3 new foes, but also include previous revealed foes. You probably already revealed some foes before the first event, due to "good luck" to draw good tiles at the first time of each turn.

You can also use Tom Bombadil to defeat foes that appeared as a result of rolling the die during the same event, right?

Thread: First Crack at F&F

MasterDinadan — 2007-08-25T05:03:34+00:00

Friends and Foes arrived today, which was a pleasant surprise (I'd been having some issues with the retailer and wasn't sure it had even shipped yet) and I just had to play so I set up a solitaire game.

I've played Lord of the Rings solitaire plenty of times. I use Frodo and Sam and keep their hands seperate. Basically I play as if I'm two different players, same as a two-player game. I normally do alright in this manner with Sauron on 12.

But there's a bunch of new things here, so maybe it's better to try with Sauron on 15. I set everything up and off we go!

I got off the a bad start with only a single grey card in my initial deal, and a roll of three black dots on Preparations (this seems to always be the case for me)

I got started on Bree. It was quite nice getting right into brand new stuff as soon as I started the game. The events and feature cards in Bree were very interesting and much more original than most of the old scenarios. Sam pulled the first event and I had my first taste of the new Foes. Two of them were quite simple Foes, but the third was the dreadful Barrow-Wight! I rolled the die and out came another Foe, then smacked down two of them with Bombadil.

The rest of Bree went quite smoothly. Pulled a few ring bearer damage tiles and spent a lot of cards, but it was mostly without incident. Unfortunatly, the only Friendship card Frodo had in Rivendell was Barliman Butterbur, and I wasn't about to waste a double. I should have, because I ended up rolling two black dots. Frodo was already dreadfully close to Sauron considering we hadn't started Moria. I could have easily skipped Moria, but I've read the boards enough to understand that most people recommend doing it.

The situation got even worse in Moria. I pulled one event after another and before I knew it, Frodo was face to face with Sauron. Over the next few turns I had to throw all the shields and feature cards I had to keep Frodo alive, but it looked like I might just make it. The last event is no biggy after all, that three damage is nothin for Sam. But I forgot one thing. Frodo would take damage anyway because he didn't have enough life tokens! There was nothing I could do, and Sauron claimed the Ring.

It's not often I lose in MORIA, but then again, I'm used to Moria being the first scenario instead of the second, so that surely makes a difference. All in all I really enjoy this expansion. It adds just a few things, but they really give you a lot more options and managing your hand is even trickier than before. F&F is exactly what an expansion should be. It doesn't rewrite the rules of the game, just adds a few new features, but the result is a very different and enjoyable experience.

Thread: Re: The Enemy Overplays His Hand

gjnave — 2007-08-23T20:25:43+00:00

Nope.. no black gate card

Thread: Re: The Enemy Overplays His Hand

franklincobb — 2007-08-23T16:13:07+00:00

Was this with The Black Gate card added?

Thread: Don't Enter Mordor Without Them

gjnave — 2007-08-23T15:47:42+00:00

This session would take place with only three brave hobbits. Breezing through Bree and killing all enemies we made a leisurely stroll around Moria (stopping to see the elves) and entering into Isengard.

Isengard proved to cause some problems as the hobbits moved up the corruption line, but no real problems – the foes were kept in check. (Foreshadow alert)However this would all change in Helm’s Deep.

Once in Helm’s Deep we struggled to pull a good event tile and just kept making our way up the corruption line. Somehow we managed to keep the foes down, but with Sauron advancing towards us, and us towards him, it looked bleak. With one event left, and all the foes dead, we put on the ring and somehow managed to roll a blank and make it through the battle scenario alive – barely.

Skipping Shelob’s lair (later we realized we cheated because we didn’t have the book or Shadowfax card) we entered Moria with no travel cards. We struggled around trying to make our way up the travel track, but with little cards and no help from Gandalf (we had discarded the 2 *’s earlier to defeat a foe) it didn’t seem there was much hope. But… with the luck of good tile draws, we somehow did manage to make our way considerably along.

At this time we hit the event which requires us to throw away a sun token or roll. With two of our hobbits knocking on Sauron’s door we figured all was lost… until we rolled two blanks in a row! Shouting with excitement we pulled the next tile… to discover another event! Arghh! Merry wouldn’t be as luck with this roll as he would succumb to Sauron and be taken back to Minus Morgul to be tortured. Oh well… however, when it came to Sam’s turn once again he rolled a blank! Frodo having the correct tile to discard needed not do anything. We were on track again!

Putting the ring on to skip us forward and past some more dice roll events, we managed to move forward three steps and only reveal two foes. Would we make it?

Nope.. with another string of bad tile draws, we would come to the end of the scenario event list… THE RING IS MINE!

The lesson? When entering Mordor make sure you’ve got enough travelling cards.

Thread: The Enemy Overplays His Hand

gjnave — 2007-08-23T15:44:25+00:00

Playing with four hobbits we started out with a leisurely stroll through Bree… or what should have been a leisurely stroll. Before we were halfway through the scenario we had already moved the ring-bearer 5 steps up the board and gone through a dozen enemies. Not a good start as Sauron had started close. We tried to get all of the enemies killed off to skip Moria, but with our last battle (the rolling of the die) we brought up another two enemies. The dream was over.

Moria also took it’s toll on us as our hobbits continued moving up the corruption line until the lead hobbit was a mere 3 steps away from Sauron. Again, foes just continued to pop up one after another. At this point we realized our only hope in survival lay in defeating all the foes. From this point on we started hoping for “reveal foes” die rolls.

By this time we had gone through over half of the foes deck. Only a few steps from escaping the mines, we began a stroke luck in regards to even tiles. Suffice to say by the time we stopped pulling events both Frodo and Pippin were dead, and we forced out of Moria by the final event. Stopping in to see the elves in Lothlorien and splitting the special cards between the remaining two hobbits, we headed off for Isengard. (Foreshadowing alert) From which we would never move on.

Entering Isengard we had 4 foes revealed, 6 foes in the deck, and both hobbits were only 2 steps away from certain death at the hands of Sauron. Turning over several good tiles on first draws, we were able to draw out several foes, until finally we were down to 2 foes in the deck. Merry had a bad turn of events and would have died if Sam had not had a card to ignore the effects of the die roll. With both hobbits one step away from Sauron it came down to a final die roll. The only thing we could roll and still survive would be 1) reveal foes 2) blank. However, even if we rolled a blank we would just be delaying the inevitable.

Glancing across the table at each other the hobbits threw the die… it landed… and two foes were revealed!!! We screamed out loud and began jumping up and down in our seats (side note: I’ve never had that kind of experience playing Carcassone) as we revealed the last two foes of the deck. The people of Middle Earth celebrated as we killed off three foes requiring cards and tokens, and then called Gandalf to take care of the last two! VICTORY against the odds!

Thread: Re: Variant for Skipping Scenarios

Luke the Flaming — 2007-07-15T01:39:25+00:00

wlaznak wrote:
Luke the Flaming wrote:
wlaznak wrote:

Isengard: One hobbit must discard 5 shields & 2 Gandalf cards.
Do you mean Hobbit cards? or maybe Feature cards? if not, why not asking simply 15 (!) shields?
This rule implies that Gandalf would have to go to Isengard to dispatch Saruman; therefore, the hobbits must sacrifice two of his powers along with the ability to call on him once (2 cards & 5 shields).
I see. You mean that a couple of Gandalf cards won't be available in the later scenarios (i.e. less versatility).
Thanks for the clarification.

Interesting idea (the whole thread, not just this rule), by the way. As long as the "prices" to skip scenarios are balanced, it'd be nice to implement it.

Thread: Re: Variant for Skipping Scenarios

wlaznak — 2007-07-15T01:14:57+00:00

Luke the Flaming wrote:
wlaznak wrote:

Isengard: One hobbit must discard 5 shields & 2 Gandalf cards.
Do you mean Hobbit cards? or maybe Feature cards? if not, why not asking simply 15 (!) shields?
This rule implies that Gandalf would have to go to Isengard to dispatch Saruman; therefore, the hobbits must sacrifice two of his powers along with the ability to call on him once (2 cards & 5 shields).

.w.

Thread: Re: Variant for Skipping Scenarios

Luke the Flaming — 2007-07-15T00:46:05+00:00

wlaznak wrote:
Isengard: One hobbit must discard 5 shields & 2 Gandalf cards.
Do you mean Hobbit cards? or maybe Feature cards? if not, why not asking simply 15 (!) shields?

Thread: Re: Variant for Skipping Scenarios

wlaznak — 2007-07-14T23:12:17+00:00

luckyjim wrote:
My only initial thought is whether the extra cost of skipping Isergard, compared to Helm's Deep or Shelob's Lair, means it's too weighted in favour of always skipping Isengard.
I think Helm's Deep is a tough board, so maybe a higher cost to skip it is needed.

The fact that skipping Isengard makes skipping Helm's Deep much more difficult should be considered as part of the cost. As for the penalties in skipping Helm's Deep & Shelob's Lair, I decided not to stray too far from Knizia's original design.

I hope you enjoy; thank you for sharing you thoughts.
.w.

Thread: Re: Military Victory = Watchful Peace

luckyjim — 2007-07-14T12:14:47+00:00

Just wanted to add my thanks for this variant too. It's simple and it works perfectly.

Thread: Re: Variant for Skipping Scenarios

luckyjim — 2007-07-14T12:10:42+00:00

I think this is a really good idea. I'm going to give it a try.

My only initial thought is whether the extra cost of skipping Isergard, compared to Helm's Deep or Shelob's Lair, means it's too weighted in favour of always skipping Isengard.
I think Helm's Deep is a tough board, so maybe a higher cost to skip it is needed.
I've been using the optional Black Gate card as a penalty for skipping Helm's Deep in the normal game (as well as the Watchful Peace variant), but it's still not enough to make me want to do Helm's Deep.

Anyway, I really like the idea.

Image

jens_hoppe — 2007-07-10T21:39:36+00:00

Frodo and Sam are only at Helm's Deep, but they aren't doing too well...

Thread: Re: A new FREE expansion?!?

Darthlord — 2007-06-25T17:15:59+00:00

No harm in offering encouragement, though, is there?

Thread: Re: A new FREE expansion?!?

Octavian — 2007-06-25T16:13:57+00:00

As the original poster hasn't logged in since 2005 I wouldn't hold your collective breaths.

-MMM

Thread: Re: A new FREE expansion?!?

CUTHALI0N — 2007-06-25T16:03:38+00:00

Yes, definitely interested.

Thread: Re: A new FREE expansion?!?

Darthlord — 2007-06-25T15:37:35+00:00

Yes please.

Thread: Re: A new FREE expansion?!?

Harv — 2007-06-25T14:51:38+00:00

Super interested.

Thread: Re: Friends and Foes: more ways to lose LotR! Yay!

nitromob — 2007-06-18T18:26:08+00:00

Pretty entertaining and nice review. I can't wait to get this, as the base game is fun(haven't gotten to play with my game group yet though), and this just seems like a good expansion to add quite a bit more challenge to the game without changing too much of a good thing(the base game).

Thread: Re: Saruman's Forces on the Isengard board

keithpottage — 2007-06-16T07:22:10+00:00

Some of my group think the phrase "instantly finish the scenario..." means we don't need to take life tokens into account, especially seeing as to qualify for this we have had to have completed Friendship and Travelling anyway. On the whole I tend to agree with you, but the fact that it's not made clear is annoying. Thank-you very much for replying.

Thread: Re: Saruman's Forces on the Isengard board

pkitty — 2007-06-15T07:20:45+00:00

You're still finishing the scenario, much as if you had reached the last event on a scenario board, so you still need all of the life tokens. At least, that's how we understood it. Nothing says to do otherwise, and the rules are pretty clear that whenever you finish a scenario, you need the life tokens.

Thread: Saruman's Forces on the Isengard board

keithpottage — 2007-06-13T09:25:32+00:00

If you manage to complete Travelling and Friendship before landing on the Saruman's Forces event, and you discard 12 fighting symbols to "instantly finish the scenario, omit Helm's deep, reveal 4 foes and proceed to Shelob's Lair" do you first move the hobbits to the right of the corruption line for every life token still missing? Or does the word "immediately" allow you to bypass the end-of-scenario rule regarding life tokens?

Thread: Re: A comparison between playing the original LotR and the F

Octavian — 2007-06-11T07:30:42+00:00

Combination of the hobbit ability that kills Foes that require life tokens, fire brand, fire storm, and a well supplied ringbearer make it very doable.

-MMM

Thread: Re: A comparison between playing the original LotR and the F

lightnng — 2007-06-11T05:30:39+00:00

aristarco wrote:
Do you guys manage to skip BOTH Helm's Deep AND Shelob's Lair? How the heck do you do it?

I'm interested in this too... anyone?

Image

dougadamsau — 2007-04-02T07:50:12+00:00

Friends and Foes, with an upgraded Sauron piece