As anticipated in my review of the previous LOTR game materials (LW 145) the third Lord of the Rings game arrived this Christmas! The main components are the updated rules manual, two new sets of plastic figures (Gondor soldiers and Mordor orcs), and a new set of scenery items (thank goodness!). There are also some dice and a pair of maps showing parts of Middle Earth.
The latest edition of the rulebook is the biggest yet – 178 pages compared to the 130 pages of the edition that was released with the Fellowship of the Ring game. The rules themselves are very similar to the previous editions – some minor tweaks here and there. The most unusual thing is that the siege rules from the Two Towers edition are not included in the Return of the King edition. This is a bit odd as I’d rather assumed that the final rulebook would sweep everything up together. However, there is a lot of compensating materials – twelve scenarios recreating scenes from the film, and an additional five scenarios linking together covering the attack of the forces of evil on the dwarves of the Lonely Mountain and the elves of Lothlorien (both mentioned briefly in the books, and not at all in the films). This is a great bonus, as it adds additional information on the dwarves (although some of this has appeared already in the Shadow & Flame supplement). It’s also nice to have material which doesn’t use the main heroes again. There is further very inspiring and well-illustrated information on terrain construction and figure painting.
The plastic figures in the game consist of 2 sprues each of 12 Orc and 12 Gondorian foot troops. These are very close to the representations in the films. There are 6 orcs with double handed weapons – various polearms, axes and picks, 3 with swords and shields, 1 with a pick and a shield, and 2 archers. These wear a mixture of armour and generally look like a disorganised rabble. The Gondorians consist of 4 spearmen, 4 archers and 4 swordsmen. These are all armoured identically (apart from the archers not having shields) with plate armour, a conical helmet and a large shield with the white tree motif on it. These are quite nice, but are very uniform – and as the film representations don’t match closely with my own imagination (the books make it quite clear that the forces of Gondor are drawn from disparate lands and are far from uniform) - I can only say that they are well-sculpted figures and look a lot like the film representations.
The final new sprue is a set of terrain items, which can ideally be used to represent parts of Gondorian architecture either in Osgiliath or during the siege of Minas Tirith. The set consists of a large standing statue of a hooded man, the same statue fallen to the ground and shattered, two bases of fallen masonry and a small base with some rubble and a neat pile of weapons – which seem to have come from a warrior of Rohan judging from the shield shape. Bizarrely there is one more item – the one ring. This is large enough to fit my little finger. I’m not sure what it’s for – perhaps if a character puts on the ring and becomes invisible their figure could be removed and replaced with the ring to indicate that they cannot be attacked and so forth. This sprue is available separately as half of a terrain package, and I’m sure that I’ll be buying at least a couple more, so what I’ll do with three “one rings” I don’t really know.
As with all the GW Lord of the Rings games, the boxed sets make a good value package – for £40 the set contains £29 worth of figures and scenery – making the rulebook, dice etc just another £11 which is pretty reasonable value. As before, the game is recommended, either to someone with or without any of the earlier games.
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