Game: Lord of the Rings - Sauron

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rober — 2008-11-14T08:26:26+00:00

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Thread: Re: Who came up with THAT for a playing piece?

Barliman — 2008-10-31T03:16:10+00:00

pkitty wrote:
1. Yes, the ring included with the game is pretty lame. ... A "realistic" plastic ring would be easily broken and more easily lost, so an oversized one was chosen.
If you borrow a nicer ring from another source (I use the one from Risk - The Lord of the Rings - Trilogy Edition) to slip over the hobbit piece, the big plastic ring is still useful: keep it on the table in front of the Ring-bearer to remind everyone which player it is.

2. Look in bookstores for a LOTR bookmark with a One Ring tied to it. These aren't very common nowadays, but some may still have one. That's what I use, and it works beautifully -- it's even just big enough to fit around a hobbit pawn.
I'd love to see it! Could you take a picture of it in that position on the board, and post it to the gallery here?

Thread: Re: How to ruin LOTR for everybody

pkitty — 2008-10-29T19:38:01+00:00

We've found that a fair, but still very challenging mix is:

Base Game
+F&F (using the Black Gate/One Ring/Watchful Peace house rule)
+Battlefields
+The Dark Tiles (black only, no red) from Sauron
+The Resources (minus the one card that pushes the Rider back) from Sauron

We're at about 25% wins with that mix, starting Sauron all the way back. The Dark Tiles weren't a killer (not with the ability to reject the first draw), but adding Battlefields was hard enough that we had to throw in the Sauron expansion's Resources as well. They make enough of a difference (especially the Red Arrow) that we feel like we have a fighting chance.

If we managed to have all of the Foes defeated before we hit Mordor, we are usually set up to win (thanks to the One Ring and Watchful Peace card -- that we earned with our sweat and blood), but even then we've hit a run of bad luck, especially since Battlefields make the "quick run through Mordor" a thing of the past.

Thread: Re: Who came up with THAT for a playing piece?

pkitty — 2008-10-29T18:54:42+00:00

A few points:

1. Yes, the ring included with the game is pretty lame. However, there's a good reason behind it. Consider that the cost of a metal component (even cheap metal) is significantly more than the cost of a plastic one -- enough so that it can seriously make a difference as to whether the game will be profitable enough to justify publishing. So it had to be plastic. A "realistic" plastic ring would be easily broken and more easily lost, so an oversized one was chosen.

2. Look in bookstores for a LOTR bookmark with a One Ring tied to it. These aren't very common nowadays, but some may still have one. That's what I use, and it works beautifully -- it's even just big enough to fit around a hobbit pawn.

3. When making multiple pawns for a game, it is always better to keep them a different color than to make them in a different mold. It makes it much easier to see who's who on the board without having to get in close. Now, the best option would be different molds, each in its own color, but again you run into expense. The cost to commission five separate plastic molds is 5x that of commissioning one, obviously, even if the cost per piece after that is the same. And if this start-up cost would make the game's potential profitability too weak, one can't justify making it.

4. And just because someone always says, "Well then, they should've done all that and then just raised the price $2-3 to compensate! We would've paid that!", I'd like to point out that no, "you" wouldn't. By "you", I mean game buyers in general. It is simply a fact of the market that a $49.95 game will far outsell a similar $52.95 game, because people think in decimal. The latter is in a higher "price category", and hence won't be picked up as quickly. (What I mean by that is that people will either classify them as "a $40-something game versus a $50-something one" or maybe "a $50 game versus a $50-something one".)

Thread: Re: What's better with 5 players on their second game, Sauron or F&F?

Octavian — 2008-10-23T05:01:12+00:00

I wouldn't say Sauron wins almost all of the time - with experienced players Sauron should win half the time. That can feel disproportionately large, however, as it's one person winning half the time while the other players psychologically split their half of the wins between themselves.

If you play with the Sauron expansion I suggest you omit the extra dark tiles that come in the box.

F&F is great fun and easier to learn as it feels as if it fits more naturally with the base game. The new boards are fun...just recognize that playing F&F often means not playing some of the original boards...I often lobby to skip right over Moria and Helm's Deep, so when playing with F&F I don't get to see those boards and their respective feature cards.

-MMM

Thread: Re: What's better with 5 players on their second game, Sauron or F&F?

dtolman — 2008-10-21T01:30:33+00:00

Sauron is definitely more difficult than just basic - in addition to Sauron calling the shots, you need to worry about the rider. But always wins? Nah... at 15 the odds are stacked still towards the group - and a first time Sauron is always at a bit of a disadvantage. One Ring and Watchful Peace definitely can stack the odds more - but I think just starting at 15 would be enough.

F&F is definitely the definitive version of the pure coop game (battlefields is cool, but doesn't tie in as nicely).

Thread: Re: What's better with 5 players on their second game, Sauron or F&F?

ralpher — 2008-10-21T00:54:46+00:00

I think playing Sauron first will give the players a chance to learn the strategies without me giving advice. I just hear that Sauron almost always wins. How much better would their odds would be if they had the Watchful Peace and One Ring cards at their disposal? The One Ring card seems very powerful.

I do like how F&F seems to tie the game more to the source material. I found the immediate trip to Rivendale a bit anticlimactic, and find the Helms Deep board puzzling.

Thread: Re: What's better with 5 players on their second game, Sauron or F&F?

dtolman — 2008-10-20T20:52:13+00:00

Sauron is really two smaller expansions - so Sauron might be easier to do (especially if you skip the dark events).

Otherwise its pure personal preference - F&F is basically an advanced version of the same game - more boards, more decisions, more difficult. If you like tension, or feel the basic game is too easy, definitely the way to go.

Sauron changes the game dynamic - you're not playing against the game itself anymore but a real person. If you liked the game, but felt it was impersonal to play against an invisible opponent, then Sauron is a great expansion. Definitely makes the table talk a lot more interesting.

Thread: What's better with 5 players on their second game, Sauron or F&F?

ralpher — 2008-10-20T20:12:51+00:00

I've played a few games of LOTR and picked up both expansions recently. Both seem to have some nice features. I played LOTR once with a group of friends and we lost prior to getting to Mount Doom (however, we misunderstood the 3 items + event card, so we made it harder than necessary). I've played with some other friends have have at least won the basic game (quite easily) with Sauron starting on space 15.

I'd like to play again with an expansion. It's probably better to play with the easier of the two possible expansions. So which would be better, Sauron or F&F? If they're about equally difficult to win, which one expansion in your opinion, is more fun for five players?

Thread: Re: With Friends and Foes

Cactusgod — 2008-10-05T04:42:38+00:00

Yes! That table answered my question. I was basically asking if the ring-bearer got a "turn" between scenarios in the sense that he could essentially kill a foe for free (since he can't do anything)

Thanks a lot.

Thread: Re: With Friends and Foes

Barliman — 2008-10-04T03:05:04+00:00

Cactusgod wrote:
I appreciate the answers!

I'm still unsure of the last point. Are you saying then that you can take a "turn" between boards if you're the ring-bearer or are you saying that its only life-token...etc etc discards that work?
I'm not sure where your uncertainty lies. Let me try summarizing:

- Any player, at any time, may defeat Foes with the appropriate cards (Fire Brand or Fire Storm).

- The active player, at any time while active, may defeat the leftmost Foe by paying its price -- discarding assets, rolling, moving toward the dark. A player is active during their turn on the scenario board, or while trying to destroy the Ring on Mt. Doom. Also, the Ring-Bearer is active between Scenarios just for the purpose of defeating Foes, not doing Event tiles, Hobbit cards, etc.

- During a turn on the Scenario board, the active player may also defeat the left-most Foe for free, as their turn action -- instead of playing Hobbit cards or healing. This can be done only once per turn, whereas there is no limit to defeating the card by paying the price.

- You check for losing the game by leaving 8 or more Foes at the end of each turn, and after each attempt to destroy the Ring. There is no such check between Scenarios.

Here's a table:
[c]
May defeat by May defeat by Check for
When Who paying price? turn action? 8 Foes?
------------- ----------- -------------- ------------- ---------
In Scenario Player Yes Yes Yes
taking
turn

Between Ring-bearer Yes No No
Scenarios

At Mt. Doom Player Yes No Yes
destroying
Ring

[/c]
Does this help?

Thread: Re: With Friends and Foes

Cactusgod — 2008-10-03T03:34:16+00:00

Barliman wrote:
Cactusgod wrote:
I just received the friends and foes expansion and I have a few questions about how it works in conjunction with Sauron.

1) Do the hobbits get BOTH of the new special ability cards or just one? (For instance: Merry has one that stops the black rider movement and one that kills all displayed foes requiring life tokens. However, Frodo's seems to allow both things to occur.)
Yes, you get both. You need both. Both expansion sets add new problems to face as well as new resources to help face them; you're crippling yourself if you take all the bad and half the good.

By the way, I'd like to point out that the Character Ability cards in F&F tend to extend or enhance the hobbits' regular abilities, while the Fellowship cards in Sauron tend to let other players use their regular abilities. This reminded me of Super Flares and Wild Flares in Cosmic Encounter.

2)Do you only put the new sauron resource chits on the main game boards (not bree or isengard?) Obviously since there are just enough for the first three boards in the main game it will make a big difference having two extra boards.
No, put them on each board. In the section "Scenario End" on p. 7 of the Sauron rules, it says that placing 4 Resource chips on the Scenario board "only applies to the first three Scenario boards you play, until all Resource chips are used up." Tho it doesn't say so explicitly, this is referring to the extra boards you get with F&F.

3)This is a non-related question. When the game allows you to skip scenarios, does this mean that before the next one is turned up you can reveal the foes (like when you skip helm's deep and move into moria) and the ring-bearer must then destroy the foes since they become the active player at the beginning of the next scenario?
Yes, that is right. In the last paragraph of "Defeating Foes" on p. 3 of the F&F rules, it says "At the end of the Scenarios Bree, Moria, Isengard, Helm's Deep and Shelob's Lair, carry out the end of scenario activities ... Then the new Ring-bearer acts as the active player and may defeat Foes even before the next Scenario begins. (This may enable you to omit Shelob's Lair after omitting Helm's Deep, see Game Flow in page 6.)"

What confuses me is that they say that no turn ends are played on the master board, therefore the foes don't end the game...but there are also no turns to allow the ring-bearer to drop cards during the master board quests...so why distinguish them from everyone else who can use life tokens and such at any time?
This between-scenario chance to kill Foes should not be considered a formal turn; it's just another opportunity for handling Foes, in addition to your turn.

I appreciate the answers!

I'm still unsure of the last point. Are you saying then that you can take a "turn" between boards if you're the ring-bearer or are you saying that its only life-token...etc etc discards that work?

Thread: Re: My Positive Take on Sauron

caltexn — 2008-10-02T02:47:08+00:00

Yes, I agree you did a good job. I havn't played it in quite a while either. You should not attempt to play Friends and Foes with the Sauron expansion. Very, very difficult. However, I ran into a guy at BGG.CON last year that said they played both and won. I honestly don't know how. I've never come close. But the Sauron expansion by itself is a close, tight game.

Thread: Re: With Friends and Foes

Barliman — 2008-10-02T02:07:07+00:00

Cactusgod wrote:
I just received the friends and foes expansion and I have a few questions about how it works in conjunction with Sauron.

1) Do the hobbits get BOTH of the new special ability cards or just one? (For instance: Merry has one that stops the black rider movement and one that kills all displayed foes requiring life tokens. However, Frodo's seems to allow both things to occur.)
Yes, you get both. You need both. Both expansion sets add new problems to face as well as new resources to help face them; you're crippling yourself if you take all the bad and half the good.

By the way, I'd like to point out that the Character Ability cards in F&F tend to extend or enhance the hobbits' regular abilities, while the Fellowship cards in Sauron tend to let other players use their regular abilities. This reminded me of Super Flares and Wild Flares in Cosmic Encounter.

2)Do you only put the new sauron resource chits on the main game boards (not bree or isengard?) Obviously since there are just enough for the first three boards in the main game it will make a big difference having two extra boards.
No, put them on each board. In the section "Scenario End" on p. 7 of the Sauron rules, it says that placing 4 Resource chips on the Scenario board "only applies to the first three Scenario boards you play, until all Resource chips are used up." Tho it doesn't say so explicitly, this is referring to the extra boards you get with F&F.

3)This is a non-related question. When the game allows you to skip scenarios, does this mean that before the next one is turned up you can reveal the foes (like when you skip helm's deep and move into moria) and the ring-bearer must then destroy the foes since they become the active player at the beginning of the next scenario?
Yes, that is right. In the last paragraph of "Defeating Foes" on p. 3 of the F&F rules, it says "At the end of the Scenarios Bree, Moria, Isengard, Helm's Deep and Shelob's Lair, carry out the end of scenario activities ... Then the new Ring-bearer acts as the active player and may defeat Foes even before the next Scenario begins. (This may enable you to omit Shelob's Lair after omitting Helm's Deep, see Game Flow in page 6.)"

What confuses me is that they say that no turn ends are played on the master board, therefore the foes don't end the game...but there are also no turns to allow the ring-bearer to drop cards during the master board quests...so why distinguish them from everyone else who can use life tokens and such at any time?
This between-scenario chance to kill Foes should not be considered a formal turn; it's just another opportunity for handling Foes, in addition to your turn.

Thread: With Friends and Foes

Cactusgod — 2008-10-01T20:21:02+00:00

Hi,

I just received the friends and foes expansion and I have a few questions about how it works in conjunction with Sauron.

1) Do the hobbits get BOTH of the new special ability cards or just one? (For instance: Merry has one that stops the black rider movement and one that kills all displayed foes requiring life tokens. However, Frodo's seems to allow both things to occur.)

2)Do you only put the new sauron resource chits on the main game boards (not bree or isengard?) Obviously since there are just enough for the first three boards in the main game it will make a big difference having two extra boards.

3)This is a non-related question. When the game allows you to skip scenarios, does this mean that before the next one is turned up you can reveal the foes (like when you skip helm's deep and move into moria) and the ring-bearer must then destroy the foes since they become the active player at the beginning of the next scenario?

What confuses me is that they say that no turn ends are played on the master board, therefore the foes don't end the game...but there are also no turns to allow the ring-bearer to drop cards during the master board quests...so why distinguish them from everyone else who can use life tokens and such at any time?

Thanks!

Thread: Re: My Positive Take on Sauron

panzer-attack — 2008-09-30T12:56:37+00:00

Good review. If you had the Friends and Foes expansion I wouldn't recommend playing it with the Sauron one as it just makes it insanely difficult. Of all the expansions I thought the Sauron one was the weakest but I haven't played it in ages and perhaps I should give it another go.

Thread: Re: Rejecting Tiles?

Cactusgod — 2008-09-30T03:24:55+00:00

Octavian I have to say, I appreciate people like you who still patrol these boards despite the fewer amount of rule questions. Many thanks.

Thread: Re: Rejecting Tiles?

Octavian — 2008-09-30T02:32:36+00:00

That is correct. Adding the dark tiles also adds an option for skipping up to every other draw. Without the dark tiles you must resolve every tile you get.

-MMM

Thread: My Positive Take on Sauron

Cactusgod — 2008-09-30T02:07:39+00:00

I realized that there was currently only ONE review out for the Sauron expansion, and if you're like me, you love to read multiple reviews before you're ready to buy. So, I decided to make one of my own.

Pieces and Cards
In this expansion you do not get any new boards. Instead you recieve

-A bag for your tiles
-New cards
-The hobbits now get an ability card that can be used once per game
-Resource cards that work just like yellow cards feature cards. (When you land on the spots on the board that grants them to you)
-Sauron and Nazgul Cards
-The One Ring card - Which allows you to instantly give the ring to another party member. (Once per game)
-Watchful Peace card - Which allows you to move Sauron back three spaces. (Once per game)
-New Gandalf Cards
-A Black Rider piece
-New resource chits that are placed on various spots on the board
-4 Red sauron tiles
-New dark tiles
-A sauron card that explains your turn summary.

Gameplay

Ok, so that was a basic rundown of the pieces. Here's a basic rundown of the game.

The game plays the same way, except now at the beginning of the turn the active player says "Sauron". This activates the Sauron player, and the Sauron player can do one of three things.
1) He can activate a nazgul card (very bad things happen)
2) He can play a sauron card on the active player.
3) He can draw a card.

On each sauron card there are certain symbols that all mean bad things (such as a black dot which means move one step closer to corruption.)

During the average turn, the fellowship player must choose ONE of the symbols shown on the sauron card to be used against them.

The sauron player can also be activated when the fellowship members land on a black square space on the activity track or when an event calls for the black square (dice roll). This allows the sauron player to play one of his cards, but the fellowship player must take the FULL effect of the card. This means they can no longer choose symbols, but must accept the whole thing. (Example: Move two spaces and the nazgul travels 4 spaces)
The sauron player cannot use a nazgul card when activated this way, but they CAN choose to draw up to 6 cards. This is particularly nasty when each member of the fellowship has the roll the dice (aka activate sauron) because sauron can draw up to 6 and then slam the rest of the members with painful cards.

The Black Rider piece is also a new addition and a painful threat to the fellowship. The black rider starts at spot 15 on the corruption track and runs towards the fellowship at great speeds. If he reaches the ring-bearer he stops then, on his next activation, starts heading back to spot 15. If he makes it back before the end of the scenario, the fellowship loses. However, the fellowship has a few cards to move him back, and they can also choose NOT to play a card on their turn in order to move the black rider back 3 spaces (regardless of his direction)

There's also a new addition of resource chits. These are set up on the first three boards (assuming you're playing with the base game and sauron only). On each board, you place one of them on the 4th and one on the last spot of each non-main activity track. (This generally means you use FOUR per board.) If you land on these spaces, you get the resource card that matches the chit or the bonus associated with it. These are important tools to help in sauron's destruction.

Verdict

So that was a basic rundown of the gameplay and now I'll give you my opinion on the game and how it works.

Personally, I enjoy the expansion. I use it without friends and foes, mainly because I don't currently have it, and I think it works quite well.

Playing against the Sauron player is definitely much much harder than the base game. You no longer have to worry about die rolls, instead you have to worry about cards that hurt pretty badly. The worst ones move sauron a space forward. This can be brutal, especially if you play harder games where he starts on the 10 track.

The black rider element is really cool, and adds another level of suspense to the game. It also is kinda crippling because now you have to worry about HIM too. This means you might have to sacrifice precious turns in order to stop him from moving.

The new tiles add an interesting element to the game, although generally the dark tiles make the game a lot harder. Most of the time we hope that the Sam player gets all of the sauron activations because he still only has to use ONE symbol on the sauron cards.

Overall though, I feel like the Sauron expansion (while being extremely difficult) is relatively well balanced and feels exactly how its supposed to. You're supposed to whine and cry about how difficult it is to win, just like how the hobbits felt during the quest to destroy the ring. I would highly recommend the expansion to anyone looking to add a competitive element (beating sauron feels great) and basically a whole new feel to the game. Plus, you can find it relatively cheap on ebay or the marketplace and thats a plus.

Overall 7.5/10

Thread: Rejecting Tiles?

Cactusgod — 2008-09-30T01:39:22+00:00

I am a bit confused on the rulebook on this matter. It looks as though you ONLY allow the rejection of tiles when you use the dark tiles (the gray ones) however I am seeing some people rejecting them no matter what. As there are only 4 evil tiles without adding the other gray ones, yo should NOT reject them. correct?

Thread: Re: Who came up with THAT for a playing piece?

chrisnd — 2008-08-30T05:38:57+00:00

hakko504 wrote:
chrisnd wrote:
Regardless of whether the employees of Fantasy Flight Games were "drinking on the job" or not has no bearing on the original Sauron component. They were not the original publishers of the game. That belonged to Hasbro. Not sure if they were drinking on the job, but their stock price and profits remain consistent, so I doubt it.Actually the game was originally produced by Kosmos in Germany and the only thing FFG/Hasbro did was to translate the stuff. Everything else was comissioned by Kosmos and have been used in the same way by all international releases.

Okay, we can get really, really techinical here (even though I don't think it was your intention).

Kosmos and Sophisticated Games were the initial publishers, and Hasbro International was the distributor. It's their fault the pieces look the way they do.

Regardless, FFG had nothing to do with the original design of any of the pieces.

Thread: Re: Who came up with THAT for a playing piece?

Frantic Ferret — 2008-08-28T14:54:10+00:00

michaelwmcfall wrote:
Has anyone noticed that the dark rider is "the Headless Horseman"?

Maybe they used the books as a reference. The Lord of the Nazgul has no head, just a pair of glowing eyes between his cloak and crown.

Thread: Re: Who came up with THAT for a playing piece?

hakko504 — 2008-08-28T06:22:51+00:00

chrisnd wrote:
Regardless of whether the employees of Fantasy Flight Games were "drinking on the job" or not has no bearing on the original Sauron component. They were not the original publishers of the game. That belonged to Hasbro. Not sure if they were drinking on the job, but their stock price and profits remain consistent, so I doubt it.Actually the game was originally produced by Kosmos in Germany and the only thing FFG/Hasbro did was to translate the stuff. Everything else was comissioned by Kosmos and have been used in the same way by all international releases.

Thread: Re: Who came up with THAT for a playing piece?

Blackberry — 2008-08-28T04:37:52+00:00

michaelwmcfall wrote:
The ring is still a washer. In the instructions it doesn't say to place it on the Hobbit piece, it says to place it in front the player.

You may want to reread the basic rules, page 9, "The Power of the Ring", first paragraph.

I don't like the artwork of the playing pieces of this game. So, where did you guys get these other pieces I see in the pictures?

Go to your favorite hobby store, purchase some RPG miniatures, paint them, and use them. Voila. Your own custom pieces.

Thread: Re: Who came up with THAT for a playing piece?

michaelwmcfall — 2008-08-28T04:06:03+00:00

I do not doubt that Knizia understands the Lord of the Rings. I am positive he understand Tolkien far better than I. I am also pretty sure that some things like the actual artwork of the pieces was probably out of his hands.

As far as the Tower of Barad-Dur goes, it still seems off to me (but that is a good explanation on your part). The ring is still a washer. In the instructions it doesn't say to place it on the Hobbit piece, it says to place it in front the player. Either way, "its a washer", not a ring. I plan to replace it with a ring as soon as I find one that is reasonable in price.

Now for the dark rider. This is like the "King with no Clothes". Remember that tale? The rider has no head.

I really like this game which is why I am bringing this to light. Too many times the so called artist in the world are not questioned about what they are doing.

I am one of those people who thinks the artwork in most cities is pure trash. But someone put it there and someone paid tax dollars for it.

I don't like the artwork of the playing pieces of this game. So, where did you guys get these other pieces I see in the pictures?

Thread: Re: Who came up with THAT for a playing piece?

Kestril — 2008-08-28T03:54:12+00:00

I wasn't too thrilled with the 5 hobbits, all the same mold, just different colours - that's why I'm going to use Game Workshop's LOTR models as stand-ins. Incidently, there are also minis for Sauron and the riders.

Thread: Re: Who came up with THAT for a playing piece?

chrisnd — 2008-08-28T03:45:31+00:00

Hm...let's see.

Sauron - at least the one that comes with the base game - is a tower. In fact, it is the Tower of Barad-Dur. With a "red, glowing eye" in the center. How else would you propose a "floating eye" to be represented on that particular board?

Regardless of whether the employees of Fantasy Flight Games were "drinking on the job" or not has no bearing on the original Sauron component. They were not the original publishers of the game. That belonged to Hasbro. Not sure if they were drinking on the job, but their stock price and profits remain consistent, so I doubt it.

The Black Rider is not the "Headless Horseman" - he is, in fact, one of the Black Riders, and happens to be crouched over the horse (which is a typical way of riding a speeding horse) with his black hood over his head and face. You can tell he is crouching, because his right hand is way down near the horse's jawbone. You can't do that from the back of a horse without crouching. But the head is still there - it isn't "Headless".

Based on my understanding, Knizia has a pretty decent understanding of Tolkien and his work. I am sure that the designer used his knowledge thoughtfully and correctly.

The Ring (again, originally designed by either Knizia or Hasbro) is designed the way it is so that it can be used in a fashion for which it was intended - see this pic: ]]>

To each his own. Sorry to hear you are disappointed, though.

Thread: Re: Who came up with THAT for a playing piece?

caltexn — 2008-08-28T03:38:16+00:00

Well, I'll have to go back and look. I think the horseman figure is not headless, and the ring is actually gold colored. Maybe that has changed in the 3 years since I purchased my copies.

Thread: Who came up with THAT for a playing piece?

michaelwmcfall — 2008-08-28T03:21:20+00:00

Has anyone noticed that the dark rider is "the Headless Horseman"?

I hate one thing about the "Lord of the Rings" game and it has to do with the playing pieces that "miss the mark". Number 1: The one ring in the game is a washer. Give me a break! Why couldn't they just put in a damn ring?! Also the color of the washer is off; it's more like flat gold than a plain shiny gold RING like it's supposed to be. Shiny gold paint does exist.

Now they make an Nazgul/Sauron based expansion and who's on the horse? The freaking "Headless Horseman"!!!

Let's not even get into where they came up with the idea of Sauron. What is that anyways???

It really makes me wonder about the guy who made the decision to go with these components. Did that person bother to read the book? Does the "component people" at Fantasy Flight drink on the job???

I see a picture of a hooded rider on this site. Where did that come from?

Don't get me wrong, I think this is a great game. I am just disappointed in the playing pieces.

Thread: Re: Softening Sauron

beckeykevin — 2008-06-12T17:55:41+00:00

Werbaer wrote:
beckeykevin wrote:
1x Sauron moves or 2 corruption
1x Sauron moves or discard 2 cards
2x Sauron moves or roll die
IIRC these events are "Sauron moves unless one player volunteers to suffer the consequences", right? Often, they aren't that bad, especially "roll one die" when Sam volunteers.

Correct.

The 1/6 odds of Sauron moving from rolling the die is something that I personally like to avoid whenever possible. However, you do bring up a good point. Should it be more like 10 minor bad tiles compared to only 6 major bad tiles?

Thread: Re: Softening Sauron

Werbaer — 2008-06-12T17:13:11+00:00

beckeykevin wrote:
1x Sauron moves or 2 corruption
1x Sauron moves or discard 2 cards
2x Sauron moves or roll die
IIRC these events are "Sauron moves unless one player volunteers to suffer the consequences", right? Often, they aren't that bad, especially "roll one die" when Sam volunteers.

Thread: Re: Softening Sauron

beckeykevin — 2008-06-12T16:40:26+00:00

I consider the following 7 to be minor bad tiles:

2x Corrupt Ringbearer
2x Corrupt Hobbit
3x Discard 1 card

I consider the following 9 to be major bad tiles:

1x Sauron moves or 2 corruption
1x Sauron moves or discard 2 cards
2x Sauron moves or roll die
1x Ringbearer roll's die
4x Roll Die

Do we agree, or would you classify them differently?

Thread: Re: Softening Sauron

Octavian — 2008-06-12T04:59:04+00:00

Drawing X tiles and noting the results is not as informative as getting a sense of the action:event ratio. And then we still aren't considering how many minor bad tiles are being accepted - presumably we could assign them some fractional value relative to a full event to get a sense of how the situation stacks up when playing with Dark tiles vs playing without.

-MMM

Thread: Re: Softening Sauron

beckeykevin — 2008-06-11T17:34:45+00:00

just as an experiment I decided to draw 15 tiles out of the bag ten times to see my results. Only the first Trial turned out to be an awful experience, whereas the other Trials would have made for some decent to pretty good games.

Trial 1 = 5 Events and Frodo's 1st turn is still not over
2 bad tiles in a row
7 Sundials in a row
1 bad tile
4 Sundials in a row
1 bad tile

Trial 2 = Much better luck this time!
1 Friendship
1 Sundial
1 bad tile
5 Sundials in a row
1 bad tile
1 Hiding
1 Sundial
1 bad tile
2 Travel in a row
1 Sundial

Trial 3 = Decent start. Only 2 Events so far!
1 bad tile
2 Sundials in a row
1 bad tile
1 Travel
1 Sundial
1 Travel
1 bad tile
3 Sundials in a row
1 bad tile
1 Sundial
1 bad tile
1 Sundial

Trial 4 = Best start so far and only 2 Events!
1 bad tile
3 Sundials in a row
1 Hiding
1 bad tile
1 Sundial
1 Friendship
2 Sundials in a row
1 Fighting
1 Sundial
1 Friendship
1 Fighting
1 bad tile

Trial 5 = Decent start, but 3 Events!
1 Friendship
1 bad tile
2 Sundials in a row
1 bad tile
1 Sundial
1 Hiding
4 Sundials in a row
1 bad tile
1 Sundial
1 bad tile
1 Sundial

Trial 6 = Decent start and only 2 Events!
2 Sundials in a row
1 Travel
1 bad tile
1 Sundial
1 Friendship
1 bad tile
1 Sundial
1 bad tile
1 Hiding
1 Sundial
1 bad tile
3 Sundials in a row

Trial 7 = Decent start and only 1 Event!
1 bad tile
1 Sundial
2 bad tiles in a row
2 Sundials in a row
1 bad tile
1 Sundial
2 bad tiles in a row
1 Sundial
1 Hiding
1 Friendship
1 Fighting
1 Sundial

Trial 8 = Really good start and only 2 Events!
3 Sundials in a row
1 Fighting
1 Sundial
1 Fighting
1 bad tile
1 Sundial
1 bad tile
2 Sundials in a row
2 Travels in a row
1 Fighting
1 Sundial

Trial 9 = Decent start, but 3 Events so far!
2 bad tiles in a row
2 Hiding in a row
4 Sundials in a row
1 bad tile
2 Sundials in a row
1 bad tile
1 Sundial in a row
1 Hiding
1 Sundial

Trial 10 = Really good start, but 3 Events!
2 Sundials in a row
1 Hiding
1 Sundial
1 Hiding
1 Fighting
1 bad tile
2 Sundials in a row
1 bad tile
1 Friendship
2 Sundials
1 Friendship
1 bad tile

Thread: Re: Dark Tiles and Mordor

beckeykevin — 2008-06-10T15:52:33+00:00

This is actually covered in the rulebook on page 8. The Scenario ends after the current turn. In Mordor this means game over. Score your endgame position as normal.

Thread: Re: Softening Sauron

MasterDinadan — 2008-06-10T00:11:54+00:00

You drew nearly all the sundials only going through half the tiles.... that's some pretty bad luck.

Thread: Re: Softening Sauron

ipreuss — 2008-06-09T21:17:18+00:00

The chance of drawing a sundial in the base game is 8/23 which is ~0.35. (This is when you just started - once the first tiles are drawn, the chance changes, of course.)

The chance of drawing a sundial using the black tiles is 11/23 which is ~0.48. The chance of drawing two sundials in a row is 11/23 * 10/22 which is roughly 0.22.

So, your experience, while not impossible, at least testifies to some considerable bad luck.

Thread: Re: Softening Sauron

beckeykevin — 2008-06-09T17:12:06+00:00

MasterDinadan wrote:
The dark tiles BARELY make it any harder. Honestly.
The biggest advantage is timing of the events. Because you have some control over WHAT bad things you get, you can accept every single event and "event rush" scenarios like Shelob's Lair that don't have very nasty events compared to what you get on the activity tracks. This isn't possible with Sauron and no dark tiles, because while your sitting around waiting for the last event to come, his Dark Rider is racing towards Mordor. The dark tiles actually allow you to speed up the rate of events, which can be a good thing.

It also allows you to slow it down, though you probably can't stop it. This is certain useful in scenarios like Helm's Deep, which have early events that aren't actually bad, so long as certain conditions are met. Skip the events to buy yourself time to finish the conditions. You'll suffer a few other bad things instead. Once you've made the first few events safe, start skipping the OTHER bad stuff and take pleasure in the goodies that your events are handing you, while you mosy along the main activity track. When it's all said and done, you probably averaged slightly more non-event bad stuff than normal, and the same number of events. The difference is that the events all happened LATER than they normally would, so there is a much greater chance that they actually helped instead of hurt.

I disagree with you. It is more difficult to meet the early conditions for the first few events of each scenario when using the Dark Event Tiles. Even if you are allowed to reject your first sundial, the odds of drawing a second sundial are greater than if you were just using the standard mix of tiles.

My experience has been something like Frodo takes his first turn of the first scenario and draws the following tiles:

1. Sundial (reject)
2. Sauron moves/ or 2 corruption
3. Sundial (reject)
4. Sundial
5. corruption
6. corruption
7. 2 Foes
8. Sundial (reject)
9. Sundial
10. Sundial (reject)
11. Corruption
12. Sundial (reject)
13. Corruption
14. Sundial (reject)
15. Sundial
16. Sundial (reject)
17. Sundial
18. Fighting Activity Tile (Frodo gains 1 shield. Draws 2 cards)

Sam's turn:
19. Sundial (reject)
20. Sundial
21. Corruption
22. Sundial (reject)
23. Sundial = Scenario over!!!

All Hobbits move up 3 on corruption line.
Sam is new ringbearer and draws 2 cards.
Start of new scenario.

Thread: Re: Softening Sauron

MasterDinadan — 2008-05-23T23:36:58+00:00

The dark tiles BARELY make it any harder. Honestly.
The biggest advantage is timing of the events. Because you have some control over WHAT bad things you get, you can accept every single event and "event rush" scenarios like Shelob's Lair that don't have very nasty events compared to what you get on the activity tracks. This isn't possible with Sauron and no dark tiles, because while your sitting around waiting for the last event to come, his Dark Rider is racing towards Mordor. The dark tiles actually allow you to speed up the rate of events, which can be a good thing.

It also allows you to slow it down, though you probably can't stop it. This is certain useful in scenarios like Helm's Deep, which have early events that aren't actually bad, so long as certain conditions are met. Skip the events to buy yourself time to finish the conditions. You'll suffer a few other bad things instead. Once you've made the first few events safe, start skipping the OTHER bad stuff and take pleasure in the goodies that your events are handing you, while you mosy along the main activity track. When it's all said and done, you probably averaged slightly more non-event bad stuff than normal, and the same number of events. The difference is that the events all happened LATER than they normally would, so there is a much greater chance that they actually helped instead of hurt.

Thread: Re: Softening Sauron

pkitty — 2008-05-23T20:50:41+00:00

Octavian wrote:
ipreuss wrote:
It is my impression that if you were able to fully take advantage of the additional options, you wouldn't loose more often than without the tiles.

I believe your impression is incorrect, as I mentioned above. At the very least, you end up facing more bad tiles relative to good ones when the dark tiles are added to the mix. Some of that is mitigated by the limited choice the dark tiles add, but I don't believe it is enough to fully counterbalance the added difficulty.
So this raises an interesting question . . . assuming that you DO want the odds to be the same as in the original game, what Dark Tiles do you remove?

Keeping the red ones out seems like a logical starting point, but IIRC, that still doesn't drop the odds to even ones. How many need to come out, and which ones should they be? (If anyone better at probabilities can answer the former, I'll be glad to offer opinions on the latter.)

PK

Thread: Re: Softening Sauron

Octavian — 2008-05-22T04:31:21+00:00

ipreuss wrote:
It is my impression that if you were able to fully take advantage of the additional options, you wouldn't loose more often than without the tiles.

I believe your impression is incorrect, as I mentioned above. At the very least, you end up facing more bad tiles relative to good ones when the dark tiles are added to the mix. Some of that is mitigated by the limited choice the dark tiles add, but I don't believe it is enough to fully counterbalance the added difficulty.

-MMM

Thread: Re: Softening Sauron

ipreuss — 2008-05-21T12:33:10+00:00

Well, there are two ways to increase the difficulty of a game: make it more complex, or make it more "unfair".

I'd say, for example, that the dark tiles are more about the former. Yes, they are all bad tiles, but they also give you the big advantage of choice - which opens the possibility for a much more strategic play. It is my impression that if you were able to fully take advantage of the additional options, you wouldn't loose more often than without the tiles.

Thread: Re: Softening Sauron

pkitty — 2008-05-21T04:24:36+00:00

I disagree that the expansions are evenly balanced. Some definitely shaft you more than others.

F&F: Okay, now you're fighting Foes, but that merely replaces the existing effects that would otherwise cause you to lose cards. And being forced out of the game because you ran low on cards was always the worst, most anticlimactic way to die in LOTR. So Foes fix that -- that's a wash. Two new boards are added . . . but you can now skip two boards, so that's a wash. The Military Victory actually means the game is VASTLY easier with this expansion, but I don't know anyone who uses it (we use MMM's The One Ring > The Black Gate > Watchful Peace house rule), so that's a wash. There's a greater threat of losing from being overrun by Foes, and that adds to the difficulty. Verdict: F&F adds a small amount of difficulty.

Sauron: An active player working against you can be far, far more intelligent than the die, and he gets to hurt you almost every turn! The Dark Tiles (they're part of the expansion, so I'm counting them) give you enough rope to hang yourself, with new choices, all bad. And the Black Rider offers yet another way to lose the game! The new Hobbit superpowers are very useful, as are the new resources (esp. the Red Arrow), but this is somewhat offset by the fact that they're all one-shots. Verdict: With the Dark Tiles added in, Sauron adds a huge amount of difficulty; without them, it adds a decent amount of difficulty.

Battlefields: Now you're playing two games at once, and the side game hurts you in the main one! Enemies hurt, hurt, hurt, and the only way to stop them is to sacrifice cards or blow your only action on it. The adventure track becomes much more painful and difficult to traverse, and the "Mordor sprint" is basically gone for good, making it a slow, worrisome crawl. (Not that I'm complaining -- that was always the one place where the theme fell apart.) And you have yet ANOTHER way to lose the game, in Mordor! The only benefit in Battlefields is that defeating an enemy can give you a bonus, but the only way to do that is to discard the best Hobbit cards in the game (jokers), and one rarely gets to target an enemy to choose a good benefit -- you target the ones who are about to make you lose the game. Verdict: Battlefields adds a large amount of difficulty.

We've played with all three, minus a Sauron opponent (i.e., F&F, Battlefields, and the Dark Tiles, with the house rule mentioned above to remove Military Victory), and have yet to win. That doesn't make it any less fun, mind you -- the challenge is the thrill! Still, we may add in the Sauron resources next time, just to see if that gives us a fighting chance . . .

Thread: Re: How many Nazgul cards Sauron gets to use?

Barliman — 2008-05-18T03:57:02+00:00

offwater wrote:
If I understand correctly, Sauron only gets to use 2 Nazgul cards during the entire game, +1 more if the Black Rider reaches the ringbearer.

If so, then why does the "Special Cases" section of rule book says that "If the Nazgul deck runs out, the Sauron player does not receive further Nazgul cards"?

These are the rules about how Sauron draws Nazgul cards:

1. At the start of the game he draws 2 Nazgul cards. [p. 3 col. 1 in the rules]

2. During each Scenario, the 1st time Black Rider encounters the Ring-bearer, he draws 1 Nazgul card. [p. 5 col. 2]

3. At the end of each Scenario board (except Mordor) he draws 1 Nazgul card. [p. 7 col. 1]

These are the rules about how Sauron plays Nazgul cards:

4. He gets to play 1 Nazgul card at the start of any player's turn, when that player must invoke Sauron before revealing Event tiles. [p. 5 col. 1]

5. This is only one option for Sauron at the start of the player's turns; he may also choose to play or draw 1 Sauron instead. [p. 4 col. 3]

6. He may not play Nazgul cards once the Fellowship reaches Mount Doom. [p. 7 col. 2]

Summary: Sauron starts the game with 2 Nazgul cards, and gets 1 or 2 more each Scenario; he can play one Nazgul card per player turn.

So, he can conceivably draw all the Nazgul cards before the end of Mordor; if playing with Friends and Foes he may well draw all of them before Mordor. He could conceivably play all 9 of the Nazgul cards during one Scenario.

Thread: How many Nazgul cards Sauron gets to use?

offwater — 2008-05-17T21:20:47+00:00

If I understand correctly, Sauron only gets to use 2 Nazgul cards during the entire game, +1 more if the Black Rider reaches the ringbearer.

If so, then why does the "Special Cases" section of rule book says that "If the Nazgul deck runs out, the Sauron player does not receive further Nazgul cards"?

Thread: Re: Playing with Friends and Foes

Deodand — 2008-04-19T07:24:08+00:00

Barliman wrote:

You did remember the rules correctly. In case you have trouble finding it again, it's on p. 7, the second paragraph under "Special Cases"; and in the middle of p. 8, first paragraph after the tile pictures.

Duh! and I should read other people's posts more clearly! Apologies Barliman.

Thread: Re: Playing with Friends and Foes

Deodand — 2008-04-19T07:22:21+00:00

Hey, I had an original idea at last!

But I see that it is an incorrect idea. This will teach me to read the rules more closely. Page 7 of the Sauron rules, under "Special Cases":

"When this expansion is played in conjunction with the expansion 'Friends & Foes', the symbols [] on the Sauron and Nazgul cards do not require the discard of a card, but a Foe appears instead."

That would seem to seal it.

Thanks everyone for your responses.

Thread: Re: Playing with Friends and Foes

Octavian — 2008-04-19T03:36:38+00:00

Deodand wrote:
Thanks for that. But I'm still not sure. The rules in F&F state:

For each symbol [] that appears in an Event box, on an Activity line or on the die, reveal one foe...

Now, since the Nazgul card is played during the start of a player's move, and is not actioned by any of the three elements above, I would think that it should still be interpreted as discarding cards. Also, the same would apply to any Sauron cards played at the start of a player move, whereas Sauron cards played as a result of him being activated by a dice symbol would activate foes.

I think if that were the case it would be made explicit in the rules as it certainly isn't an intuitive interpretation, and indeed is the first time I've ever heard it suggested since Sauron was released 6 years ago. I find it more likely that they simply didn't include verbiage in the F&F rules that pertain to an expansion that hadn't (and may not ever) come out at that point.

-MMM

Thread: Re: Playing with Friends and Foes

Deodand — 2008-04-19T01:46:15+00:00

Thanks for that. But I'm still not sure. The rules in F&F state:

For each symbol [] that appears in an Event box, on an Activity line or on the die, reveal one foe...

Now, since the Nazgul card is played during the start of a player's move, and is not actioned by any of the three elements above, I would think that it should still be interpreted as discarding cards. Also, the same would apply to any Sauron cards played at the start of a player move, whereas Sauron cards played as a result of him being activated by a dice symbol would activate foes.

Thread: Re: How to ruin LOTR for everybody

Websteria — 2008-04-18T14:06:45+00:00

Agreed... perhaps a seasoned group of grizzled veterans who'd played 20+ games could handle it... but...

2 people with very light base game experience
+
2 people with no experience
+
1 eager sauron (no offense intended Sean)
=
lots of fun in recognizing exactly how screwed we are. If Reiner were here he'd laugh about it too, I guarantee you. :-)

Thread: Re: How to ruin LOTR for everybody

Octavian — 2008-04-18T07:51:28+00:00

Frantic Ferret wrote:
Did you roll in broken glass after the game to complete the experience?

We play with F&F and include the Dark Tiles (at least we feel like we can pick the method of our demise). I can't imagine actually using a live Sauron with all that in play though.

Now imagine throwing in Battlefields as well. I've played in one such game and heard an account of another. Both games ended with the hobbits only a few steps from victory. The game I was in ended in a Dark Rider victory. The other ended with a minion getting to the center Big Eye of the Battlefield board.

The point is, it is a huge challenge, but not an impossible one. Certainly not for the faint of heart, however.

-MMM

Image

autumnweave — 2008-04-02T21:43:41+00:00

Box Front (higher quality image)

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vekoma — 2008-03-19T19:00:20+00:00

artwork from rulebook

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vekoma — 2008-03-19T17:46:16+00:00

back of cards

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vekoma — 2008-03-18T19:29:36+00:00

dutch rulebook front and back

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dutch counter sheet

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dutch box cover

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vekoma — 2008-03-18T19:25:22+00:00

dutch box back

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fractaloon — 2008-01-31T03:33:43+00:00

The counters.

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fractaloon — 2008-01-31T03:33:03+00:00

Inside the box.