War of The Ring Solo Session 16 Sept 2010
Ξ September 16th, 2010 | → 0 Comments | ∇ Boardgames |
After the first play with the Wife, I decided that the card mechanic was too distracting for beginners and it lengthens the game tremendously for an intro game. As I feel the Introductory rules as included in the rule book was too different from the full game to be a valid stepping stone, I decided to try out a variant myself after being inspired by some suggestions from fellow Bgg users:
“Take out the event cards from the game, players do not draw event cards at the beginning of turn.
During the action dice roll, the ‘Palantir’ dice can be used as a character/army/muster action, subject to the limitation that each ‘Palantir’ dice must be used for a different type of action.
I.e. if three ‘Palantirs’ were rolled, they can only be used for a character action, an army action and a muster action, they cannot be used for all three character actions or all three army actions.”
As I do not intent to do a rigorous testing of this variant, I did not record the turn by turn moves or results. However I will present here the aftermath and some thoughts on the variant.
end game picture
The Fellowship reached Mount Doom with only 3 corruption. Let me explain: throughout the Fellowship’s movement from Rivendell straight to Minas Morgul, I took the most direct path of 12 spaces. There were an incredible 5 successful hunts only, only one of which revealed the Fellowship. Gandalf, Strider and Merry took the hits for the successful hunts (Strider took the hit from a random flip of companion tokens, not by choice) and the Fellowship reached Minas Morgul with 1 corruption as well as surviving Fellowship companions Legolas, Boromir, Gimli, Pippin.
all the Fellowship companions gave their in service to the Ringbearer
As to be expected, the last companions bit the dust in the 5 spaces of the Mordor track and the Ringbearers only need to take corruption from the last space.
But while all this was happening, where was the Dark Lord’s army?
Sauron emptied Mordor
Mordor was emptied, Osgiliath, Minas Tirith and Pelagir were overran and Sauron’s army headed by the Witch King were within marching distance of Dol Amroth. But before that…
Saruman occupy Helm’s Deep
Saruman took over Rohan’s Helm’s Deep, sat fat and contented and watched Rohan muster every last bit of plastic to prevent it from taking Edoras as well. But EVEN before that…
Moria thrashes Lorien and looks for next target
The armies of Moria and Dol Guldur stormed Lorien in the first turn and took it down the next. When it became apparent that the Fellowship will reach Mount Doom with plenty of companions to spare, it made a slow step towards woodlands realm. Meanwhile…
fat lazy hobbitses and dwarves idle!
The fat lazy hobbitses and dwarves sat in the North, sipping tea. The cads!
Some thoughts:
This is the 2nd game and the North, Dwarves, Southrons and Easterlings still did not play a part in the war. I’m not sure if it’s lousy rolls on the part of the Shadow forces or is it because of the nature of this variant that the Fellowship got to Mount Doom so easily. Perhaps another run through with this variant will be able to tell. If that is the case, I might change the rule such that the ‘Palantir’ die if changed to a character die, may not be used to move the Fellowship.
Another note is that in this game, I artificially left at least one orc with Saruman in Orthanc to simulate a defense against a possible ENTS uprising.
Overall it took me two and a half hours only to get through this game. By removing the need to read cards, I was able to take out a whole hour or more of reading and agonising over additional options. I would use this rule again to teach beginners, only to adjust the game balance if it is still too easy to reach Mordor.
