Lord of the Rings – Board Game
Eagle Games
By Greg Kessler
We have a few months until the next installment of Peter Jackson’s Fraud of the Ring sally’s forth to give me another case of temporary brain cancer. Since the release of the first movie I have seen every type of LOTR game short of an authorized Tolkien whack-a-mole (or whack-a-nazgull whichever you prefer). There have been some board games, card games, lots of video games but what no one has ever done is make a kids LOTR game for those of us who want to pass along our obsession with Tolkien to our unsuspecting kids (my daughter has no chance to be anything but part geek). Lord of the Rings from Eagle Games (another in a long line of great Illinois game companies) is for kids 6 and up and is designed to take about 30 minutes to play.
Unlike most of the recent games the graphic on this game are not taken from or based on the new movies. The drawings look like they were taken from a children’s book and really fit with the nature of the game (Sauron is still kind of evil looking but nothing scary enough to put of the kids).
Setup is easy. You have a nice board about thirty character cards that cover the good (Aragorn, Bill the Pony) and the bad (Shaloub, etc), three evil towers and five hobbits. You play the hobbits. The object of the game is to make it to Mount Doom and destroy Sauron, battling evil beings and making friends along the way. To make things interesting the board contains some Nazgul that players can use to impede the process of their opponents.
One great feature of the game is there are two different skill levels. There is a stripped down version of the game for beginners and an advanced game that adds a few rules that allow them to make elementary strategic decisions (really giving kids a god primer in game play, looking forward to the day they get their first Battlefleet Gothic army) and uses a Palantier (a really nice rule that get players involved in interacting with each other and not just the board).
There is a real lack of introductory games for gaming parents to play with their kids (good games that don’t send you into a crazed fit just reading the rules). I see a lot of talk online about older gamers using stripped down versions of Tunnels and Trolls to get their kids interested and introduced to the hobby, but that is a bit much for a six year old. Eagle Games has done a great service by taking a chance on a game like this. I have not seen the game in many stores yet but that could be rectified by everyone out there. If it sounds like a good game, make a visit toy store (or your normal gaming store) and see if they will order the game. If you got kids and you love this stuff you will not be disappointed. Hopefully by next Christmas you will be able to pick a copy up wherever you go.