The Lord of the Rings: Duel for Middle Earth

• Designers: Antoine Bauza and Bruno Cathala
• Publisher: Repos
• Players: 2
• Age: 10+
• Time: 30 minutes
• Played ~10 times with review copy provided by publisher
• Amazon Affiliate Link: https://amzn.to/48NmV9T 

A dark rumour rises from Mordor. The Eye turns to Middle-earth. The hour has come. The Fellowship is reunited. The Heroes prepare for battle. Will you play as the Fellowship of the Ring to defend the free races and destroy the One Ring? Or will you play as Sauron and pursue Frodo and Sam while deploying your hordes to the gates of the enemy cities? The destiny of Middle-earth is in your hands!

A game plays over 3 successive chapters that unfold similarly. On your turn, strengthen your Skills, hoard your treasure, stretch your presence across Middle-earth, rally Races to your cause, or advance the Quest of the Ring.

Setup

Decide who will play as the Fellowship and who will play as Sauron.  Place the board on the table, it shows the seven different regions that you will fight for control.  Each side starts with two units in one area.   Assemble the Quest of the Ring track.  This three-part widget shows the progress of the Fellowship as they move towards Mordor as well as the Nazgul which is racing towards the Fellowship.  The three decks of cards (one for each round of the game) are separated and shuffled.  

Turn Overview

To set up each round, using the rules or the inside cover of the box, make up the array of cards in the pattern specified for the particular round of the game.  Also, lay out Landmark tiles until there are three faceup on the table.

In each chapter, players take cards from a display of face-down and face-up cards arranged at the start of a round. A player can take a card only if it’s available, that is not partially covered by any other cards. Players can either play the card, paying its cost and placing it in their play area, obtaining its benefit, or discard the card and take as many coins from the reserve as the current chapter.  Cards have costs in resources seen in the top middle of the card.  You can use resources from cards already chosen (that provide said resources as their action) or you can use a coin for each resource you do not produce.

Cards with different colored backgrounds have different effects:

• Yellow – generate coins when chosen
• Gray – generate resources that can be used once per turn
• Blue – advance on the Quest of the Ring track, if you pass over bonuses take them immediately
• Green – let you ally with other Races of Middle-Earth – if you have a pair of the same race icon, you get one of their alliance tokens.  You can also gain a token the first time you have icons from three different races.
• Red – let you place units on the Middle Earth map. Combat on the map is simple, at most one color of unit can exist in an area; opposing units simply cancel each other out.
• Purple – let you move units on the map or cause your opponent to lose forces/coins

As you advance in the game, it might be possible to obtain some cards for free through chaining – if you have already gained a card with a chaining symbol on it, you can then pick any other card with that symbol in the cost for free.

Players can also take a Landmark tile from one of the faceup tiles, paying its cost placing it in their play area. They will be able to immediately place a Fortress pawn on the corresponding region of the central board and benefit from its other effects.  A Fortress guarantees you a presence in a map area – regardless of the unit situation of that area. Successive Landmark tiles become more expensive as part of the cost of a Landmark tile is paying a number of coins equal to the current number of Fortresses you already have on the map.

A chapter continues until the final card of the card display has been taken.  If you have not yet completed the third chapter, set up the next round of cards and repeat.

Victory Conditions

Immediately win the game by fulfilling one of the 3 victory conditions:

1) Quest of the Ring

• For the Fellowship: If Frodo and Sam reach Mount Doom, they destroy the One Ring and you immediately win the game.
• For Sauron: If the Nazgûl catch Frodo and Sam, they seize the One Ring and you immediately win the game.

2) Support of the Races – If any player gathers 6 different Race symbols on their Green cards, they rally the support of the Races of Middle-earth and immediately win the game

3) Conquering Middle-earth – If a player is present in all 7 regions (with a Fortress and/or at least 1 Unit), they dominate Middle-earth and immediately win the game.

If none of these three victory conditions are achieved by the end of chapter 3, the player who is present in the most regions of Middle-earth (with a Fortress and/or at least 1 Unit) wins the game. In case of tie, share the victory.

My thoughts on the game

So this appears to be a re-imagining of 7 Wonders: Duel, a game that was very well received here a few years ago.  The game uses many of the card collecting/buying ideas from 7W:Duel, but adds in a LOT of theme from the Lord of the Rings universe.

The bulk of the game comes from drafting the best cards you can from the board – but the pattern of face up / face down cards always creates interesting situations.  There are times when you may see a card you want, and then you spend half of the chapter trying to be the person in position to draw the card when it is finally freed up.  

As you’re drafting cards, you’ll have plenty of things to consider.  Do you stick with the gray cards early on to build up your production to allow for easier purchases in the future?  Do you try to short cut things, take yellow cards for gold, and simply buy the resources you don’t have?  Once you have some experience with the game, you’ll become familiar with the chained cards, and you could plan on nice free cards in Chapters 2 and 3 with canny drafting in the first round…

The chase for the Ring is a great addition. Not only is it true to the story, but the acrylic widget and track that is used to show the chase is just great.  The Fellowship move on the bottom piece along the track while the Nazgul chase them on the smaller piece on top.  

Since there are three immediate ways to win the game (as well as the non immediate map control method at the end of the game) – you’re always watching things on all fronts.  If you ignore any of the paths too much, your opponent might be able to sneak off with a sudden win condition.  This delicious tension keeps the game tense and interesting, and definitely gives you the impression that every decision matters – and you shouldn’t waste a turn on a play that doesn’t further your own goals or at least defend against your opponent’s attempts.

There is a bit of a learning curve to the game, and you might need a game or two to wrap your head around the multi-pronged nature of the game – but almost all of my games with experienced players have been very close affairs with just more than half of them coming down to the map tiebreaker win condition (but many close calls on the sudden death conditions).  For a game that takes 20-30 minutes, there is so much going on.  This game is likely moving into my top 3 two-player games as a result.

Amazon Affiliate Link: https://amzn.to/48NmV9T 

Thoughts from other Opinionated Gamers

Mark Jackson: I was worried it would just be a light re-theme of 7 Wonders Duel (a game I really enjoy) – instead, it is its own game that uses the card drafting mechanic coupled with well-designed thematic elements.

Ratings from the Opinionated Gamers

• I love it! Dale Yu, Mark Jackson
• I like it.
• Neutral.
• Not for me…