Lord of the Rings: The Confrontation – Deluxe Edition
In the wastes of Mordor, the dark lord Sauron plots to cast the lands of Middle-earth into eternal darkness. He only lacks the One Ring, an artifact of ultimate power... and it hangs around the neck of a humble and unassuming hobbit, Frodo Baggins. From the Shire, Frodo and his companions plan their perilous route. He must bring the One Ring to Mount Doom, deep in the lands of Mordor.
To be sure, Sauron’s forces, including nefarious orcs, sinister black riders, and formidable flying nazguls, will be hunting Frodo all the while. But he isn’t alone. The powerful Gandalf, valiant Aragorn, loyal Sam, and many others will help him on his journey, and are prepared to pay the ultimate price to ensure that Frodo destroys the One Ring and brings peace back to Middle-earth!
Lord of the Rings: The Confrontation is a two-player board game set in J.R.R. Tolkien’s beloved setting of Middle-earth, in which one player controls of the Fellowship of the Ring, and the other player control of the forces of Sauron. Each side has nine units at its disposal, with varying strengths and abilities, and each player has cards that augment his or her units’ strength values. Additionally, the identity of a player’s units is hidden from his opponent through the use of plastic character stands.
User Reviews (3)
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There’s lots to like about this game. It can be a very different experience depending on whether you are playing as Mordor or the Fellowship. Let’s break it down by a few categories
Theme
Typical of LOTR games the artwork is fantastic. Either you know if you like a LOTR themed game or not. You don’t need me to tell you whether you’ll like it or not!
Components
Simple board, simple pieces (think Stratego.) Part of the beauty of this game is it’s simplicity though so it shouldn’t held against it.
Flow of Play
In addition to a quick setup, this game moves quickly (like a 2 player game should.) There may be a bit of time used up with analysis paralysis but once players are experienced and have a good handle on the options available to them it should have a quick pace to it.
Strategy
I have found this to be quite diverse. I’ve been able to try a number of different strategies that can be very effective. It’s more dependant on the opponent that you’re playing against, and of course the side that you’re playing with.
Game Play
I found that this fits the theme very effectively. If you are playing as the Fellowship, it very much feels as though you are being evasive and at times very unlikely that Frodo will make his journey all the way to Mordor. The forces of Sauron are naturally more agressive because of their strength. You can go with that agression in your hunt for the ring but it will also work against you sometimes.
The one drawback I’ve found with this game is that the learning curve of knowing what different characters and cards do can lead to a pretty big divide between an experienced player and a new one. The new player may not enjoy himself all that much until they’ve gotten enough games in.
I’ve been enjoying the base game enough that I haven’t even gotten in to the variation offered in the deluxe addition, although it looks to offer some interesting wrinkles. All in all, I very much enjoyed it and recommend it for a quick 2 player strategy game.
This is one of my favorite 2 player games. Don’t let the fact that it is vaguely like Stratego turn you off.
Components
A++
The artwork is really great.
There 2 sets of large plastic stands the have slots in the top to slide the characters into.Each of the characters are printed onto thick board and they are double sided. So you have multiple versions of the same characters.
Gameplay
Players advance their characters on the board to try and achieve their objective. If you are the fellowship you need to get Frodo to Mount Doom. If you are Sauron you got get into the Shire or kill Frodo.
The cool part is that you can’t see the characters of the opposing team. This makes for a really fun meta game, I love messing with my opponent by taunting them and trying to do silly hand tricks so they forget which character is where.
Easy to Learn
This is one of the easiest to learn but still engaging Lord of the Rings Games out there. I have played it with younger games as well as seasoned gamers.
A couple of months ago, my cousin Jesse, sent me a text telling me he got this game from Reindeer Kwaanza. I had no idea what that meant, but he seemed to think it was important, so i drove over to his house after i finished my laundry and we talked about girls for awhile.
Then he showed me this game. At first i was like “oh no, I’m not playing a game about Mid-earth. Their elves are wimpy.” Everybody knows The entire fantasy genre that we know and love today is because of Forgotten Realms, so i don’t know why all these other worlds even bother trying.
Anyway he showed me how to move the hidden guys around and play. I was the dark side and i just pretended that i was controlling a cavern full of avenging Drow and that theme really clicked for me.
So if you can get over the weak theme, give this a shot. we are going to play next weekend when we have a cook out for our mom’s.
Happy Reindeer Kwaaanza!