Thursday, March 10, 2022

#62: Lord of the Rings (Mark's Top 100 2022)


Lord of the Rings
  • rank: 946
  • rating: 6.7
  • published: 2000
Print Status
  • in print 
Why It's On The List
  • There had been cooperative games before this one... but Knizia broke the mold and created a sprawling (and gorgeous) cooperative masterpiece that reflects the tensions & storylines of the books in a highly abstracted way. And my wife likes it.
Tips & Tricks:
  • There are three expansions to the already meat-y base game...
    • Friends & Foes (which added Foes as well as two new "locations" - boards - to work through) - yes, it did make the game longer by almost half.
    • Sauron (which added several different ways to play the game, including a "one player - Sauron - versus everyone else" variant that works like a charm)
    • Battlefields (which added another board for each location... and is highly abstract... I played once and then sold it for a ridiculous amount of money.)
  • Suggestion: don't combine the Friends & Foes and Sauron expansions - it's just too darn long.
  • I've played 65+ games of this... and will happily play it again if someone asks. Especially my wife.
Extras
  • Here's what I wrote about the game for The One Hundred: both my personal entry and the group entry.
  • This is the fourth of seven (!) games on the countdown designed by Reiner Knizia.

1 comment:

Chris said...

This was _the_ game that got me into the hobby 22 years ago. It will always have a spot in my heart and my collection.