War of the Ring: The Card Game Review — A Lord of the Rings Surprise
Shelfside
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We reviewed the original area control board game, so onto this card game version! War of the Ring: The Card Game is a 2022 release from Ares Games, designed by Ian Brody, trying to capture the magic of the Lord of the Rings fantasy trilogy, with 4 decks of cards and a shorter runtime. Play as Gandalf or Frodo in the decks to protect Middle Earth, or Saruman and the Witch King to spread corruption in the form of tabletop chits. With plenty of thematic rules, mechanics, and interactions that make Tolkien fans happy, including stars of the fellowship like Legolas, Strider, Gimli, and more, War of the Ring CG seeks to create the same epic tensions as the original tabletop war game. Does it create amazing stories like the predecessor? Does it need to? How much are the hand and randomness mechanics affected by trying so hard to be faithful to the original? Are the Shadow even depicted in a similar way as in the board game or original lore?
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Table of Contents:
Intro & Overview – (0:00)
How to Play – (2:51)
Pros – (5:26)
Cons – (17:31)
Nitpicks – (29:15)
Recommender Score – (29:58)
Grinding Gamers – (35:20)
Ashton’s Personal Score – (35:54)
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#boardgames #tabletop #review
31.03.2023
Why does legolas 03:31 looks like Jennifer Aniston?
sounds like you're playing really weird, all our games either the shadow player has the upper hand a lot of the game, or it's really balanced and tight. also, playing the shadow player in the card game really feels like you have a lot of dispensable armies to throw around, so don't know how you play to have the opposite experience.
I loved this game so much
RULES CORRECTION: Events are eliminated right after played, so you cannot spam events (e.g. The Black Captain). But you can spam Gollum! And hobbits abilities!
This review took a little longer than anticipated because we had to play it 7 times! Let me know what you think of the Shadow's role.
Written review: https://www.shelfside.co/reviews-2023/wotrcardgame-review
first!
Did the color grading just got better? Video looks sharper. As always great content, thanks!
Where is Daniel? What happend? I alway cared alot about his recommender score.
Feeling the same exact way about this
You should definitely do a comparison between War the Ring the Card Game and The Lord of the Rings Card Game, which focuses more on cooperative questing in Middle Earth with deckbuilding and a mana system similar to MTG.
I think the game would have been better if it were not a LotR themed game. But it would not sell as much. GoT would have been better.
Aragorn looks vaguely like Nicolas Cage in this artwork.
Will you guys ever do a review of Sidereal Confluence? I'd love to hear your opinions and your opinions on the new expansion.
best intro yet! and as always great in depth balanced review
You should play Fantasy Flight Games' LOTR. It's a cooperative card game and I really like it
I felt the cooperative parts of the game really added something that doesn’t really work at the scale of WOTR. My favorite moments were where my attempted read of my teammate’s plan went horribly wrong, or amazingly right.
That intro made me laugh harder than any recent NPI or SU&SU video. You guys are seriously underrated. Wish you all the best.
The intros never disappoint 🙏🙏🙏
Sounds like LOTR needs to be made as a COIN game. I don't know if you are familiar with them, but it is a fusion of board and card game where each player plays cards to either take generic actions (move troops, fight, etc.) But also activate special events. (Awaken the Ents! Place 3 troops in Fangorn Forrest until end of round. You may move them once and fight.) Never played one, but it seems like it would work. Also COIN games are usually asymetric.
Great review, love the work you put into them. No one needs a review based on one or two plays.
I was so disappointed by the 2p modes. Can’t believe people are defending it. What a letdown.
Events played are always eliminated afterwards, so you can not use The Black Captain multiple times per game.
Man I got War of the Ring for Christmas and it is SO GOOD. I have played it like 6 times in 2 weeks after I got it and I fell in love with it. We also got pretty efficient at setup and the lenght does not bother you when the game is that epic.
This card game seemed really cool when you were mentioning the pros but the cons… I cant wrap my head around that the shadow does not have many units :D. Also the randomness in locations seemed cool at first because of replayability, but giving a free people 3 points first turn seems boring.
Thank you for the review.
I played the board game 20+ times, and I have never exceeded 3 hour playtime. Most of my games last between 120 and 150 minutes, including setup ;).
Like other people has mentioned on here as well, maybe look at Lord of the Rings The Card game as well. It's not a replacement for WoTR, but it does some thematic things well as well as engaging with the larger context of Middle-Earth. The only downsides are it's expensive as hell and the deckbuilding is hard. I'm also not convinced that one should compress WoTR into a smaller game as it is such an odd and unique game to start off with. Have you guys looked at Hunt for the Ring yet?
Your War of the Ring box is looking a little worse for wear there Ashton haha good sign that it’s been well-loved and weathered many plays since we first saw it in your original review 🥲
People complain that Axis is extremely hard to win in QMG but you get 6 experienced players and they will have the edge. I've not played this yet, but I feel that if it's like the Axis in QMG then the shadow side need to play both aggressively and seek double actions, it's a theme of all Brody games where you play as the "bad guys".
Have you seen the "expert duels with experienced players" and bgg? Was posted by the developer of the game. Try it out and let us know what you think.
Nice tease for The Battle of Five Armies
the looks like a car you buy to only go down the street rather than getting to work. It doesnt look like it realizes its true pontential.
Great review! I think 6/10 is spot on and fair. This game doesnt have a great identity. Competitive card games and War of the ring are 2 player games so its frustrating this was designed with 4 player in mind as a starting point and the 2 player variants are weak. This was one of my most anticipated games given War of the Ring is my favorite of all time so it was a big let down. Thanks again for the thorough review!
The effort you put into this was fantastic. Well done.
Have you considered some kind of mulligan rule for starting hand if you feel its too random
I recommend you to try the Titans from łukasz woźniak seems to be scythe but with more actions of fighting not gathering resources
Do you use a filter or change your color grading? Looks great – I'm trying to make my videos look sharper with the camera I have
Wow, just discovered this channel! Your videos are really well done!
The quick overview was spot on! You should make a playlist of quick 5 minute “how to play videos” for a bunch of games!! You do it better than most channels out there!
Curious if you could do a review on battle of the 5 armies or hunt for the ring as well
I just watched your review of War of the Ring tonight, subbed, and wouldn't you know my luck–you just put out a review of the card game!