Gents: The most detailed board game dealing with Middle Earth
was the old SPI (Simulations Publications, Inc.) trilogy "Middle
Earth." It had one large board game, 24" by 36" map, and two
"folio" sized, (Small games with a 12" by 24" board). The three
games were:
1) Large- "The War of the Ring." It was a full sized standard
paper and cardboard counter game. It was an army based game with
counters for leaders and troops. It had a card based character
game, with the Nine, the fellowship, etc. The basic idea was
that the free had little chance to win the military game but had
to hold out until they could stuff the ring into Mt. Doom. The
DS had to try and either nab the ring or win militarily before
the ringbearer succeeded. It was a pretty good game with
standard SPI "combat strenght- movement allowance" counters and
an odds based CRT. It was closer to the actual book than our
game in some ways. Certain characters, Galadriel, Elrond, etc.,
who did not leave their locations during the trilogy, could not
move. Our "neutrals", who all went DS in the books, started DS.
Their was a "three player" option in which Saruman and the
Dunlendings were a third side who could go either way so their
was an option for a neutral player.
Fun Game all around.
This was an ABSOLUE hoot. There were three games playable of the War of the
Ring: A character game of FP v. DS (stinko), a military/character game FP
v.
DS (excellent beyond reproach), and a military/character FP v. DS. v.
Saruman (even more Excellent). The biggest problem with the game is a few
rules questions
Too right!
Whilst the game was good fun my feeling is that it was not THAT good, due to
some seriously ill-thought out rules. For instance, in the army based game
it was possible for individual characters to fight each other. However,
suppose the 9 nazgul have managed to ambush Gandalf when he is on his own.
What do they do - gang up on him and kill him quickly? Of course not, that
would be dishonourable! Instead they queue up to fight him one at a time,
patiently waiting their turn. If Gandalf managed to beat the Witch King (a
roughly even combat from memory) he had a fair chance of polishing off all
the rest of the nazgul (who were significantly weaker than Murazor).
Also, a high proportion of the games I played in seemed to end up with all
the characters crowding on to Mount Doom to fight for the ring. Since the FP
had about twice as many they tended to win most of the time.
From what I can remember of the army side of the game some of this was just,
well, wierd. It was based on odds columns. Due to the way the combat tables
were written it was generally advantageous to attack at 1-2 odds rather than
1-1 or 2-1! Still, despite this it was quite a lot of fun.
Regards
Adam Mitchell
The War of te Ring game gets even better if you use hidden movement and
amend the search rules - there's a site somewhere which has the free
downloads of these variants. It makes the game much more of a challenge for
both sides, the searching becoming a battle of wits.
Remains one of my all time favourites, which is now supported by a damn good
battleset for ADC2 - so you can play the game by email.
Fond memories of playing the game whilst liostening to a recording of the
Radio 4 adaptation.........
Cheers
Simon
ยทยทยท
----- Original Message -----
From: Heather Taylor <heather.taylor@virgin.net>
To: <mepbmlist@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Thursday, July 05, 2001 7:35 PM
Subject: [mepbmlist] Re: RE:SPI Fond Memories
>> Gents: The most detailed board game dealing with Middle Earth
>> was the old SPI (Simulations Publications, Inc.) trilogy "Middle
>> Earth." It had one large board game, 24" by 36" map, and two
>> "folio" sized, (Small games with a 12" by 24" board). The three
>> games were:
>>
>> 1) Large- "The War of the Ring." It was a full sized standard
>> paper and cardboard counter game. It was an army based game with
>> counters for leaders and troops. It had a card based character
>> game, with the Nine, the fellowship, etc. The basic idea was
>> that the free had little chance to win the military game but had
>> to hold out until they could stuff the ring into Mt. Doom. The
>> DS had to try and either nab the ring or win militarily before
>> the ringbearer succeeded. It was a pretty good game with
>> standard SPI "combat strenght- movement allowance" counters and
>> an odds based CRT. It was closer to the actual book than our
>> game in some ways. Certain characters, Galadriel, Elrond, etc.,
>> who did not leave their locations during the trilogy, could not
>> move. Our "neutrals", who all went DS in the books, started DS.
>>
>> Their was a "three player" option in which Saruman and the
>> Dunlendings were a third side who could go either way so their
>> was an option for a neutral player.
>>
>> Fun Game all around.
>
>
>This was an ABSOLUE hoot. There were three games playable of the War of
the
>Ring: A character game of FP v. DS (stinko), a military/character game FP
v.
>DS (excellent beyond reproach), and a military/character FP v. DS. v.
>Saruman (even more Excellent). The biggest problem with the game is a
few
>rules questions
Too right!
Whilst the game was good fun my feeling is that it was not THAT good, due
to
some seriously ill-thought out rules. For instance, in the army based game
it was possible for individual characters to fight each other. However,
suppose the 9 nazgul have managed to ambush Gandalf when he is on his own.
What do they do - gang up on him and kill him quickly? Of course not, that
would be dishonourable! Instead they queue up to fight him one at a time,
patiently waiting their turn. If Gandalf managed to beat the Witch King (a
roughly even combat from memory) he had a fair chance of polishing off all
the rest of the nazgul (who were significantly weaker than Murazor).
Also, a high proportion of the games I played in seemed to end up with all
the characters crowding on to Mount Doom to fight for the ring. Since the
FP
had about twice as many they tended to win most of the time.
From what I can remember of the army side of the game some of this was
just,
well, wierd. It was based on odds columns. Due to the way the combat
tables
were written it was generally advantageous to attack at 1-2 odds rather
than
1-1 or 2-1! Still, despite this it was quite a lot of fun.
Regards
Adam Mitchell
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