War of the Rings Board Game
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Post Posted: Sat Sep 24, 2005 3:17 pm 
 

Hi,



I *think* my brother & I have a copy this game from 1970s. I say that because of hazy memories of it sitting on top of my mothers' wardrobe back in the 80s and never been allowed to touch it. Then at some point it ended up in my brothers' hands who proceeded to scatter bits of it across his room when he was in his late teens. Is it worth me trying to ferret it out and see what pieces we have left? (It may be complete but scattered, or he may well have lost most of it :( ).



Edited: Because I can't spell & Harami can ;)


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Post Posted: Sat Sep 24, 2005 3:36 pm 
 

Winterwords wrote:Hi,



I *think* my brother & I have a copy this game from 1970s. I say that because of hazy memories of it sitting on top of my mothers' wardrobe back in the 80s and never been allowed to touch it. Then at some point it ended up in my brothers' hands who proceeded to scatter bits of it across his room when he was in his late teens. Is it worth me trying to ferret it out and see what pieces we have left? (It may be complete but scattered, or he may well have lost most of it :( ).



Edited: Because I can't spell & Harami can ;)




hey winty



i had this a while back - the war of the ring game, with sauron and gondor in it too. its VERY collectable - i sold mine for £50+ then and i have seen it sell a fair bit higher than that. been looking for one since i sold mine. i only sold it cos i got divorced and needed the £.



Al


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Post Posted: Sun Sep 25, 2005 3:19 am 
 

Thanks.



Ah well. It's probably mostly destroyed now though I know the maps are still there (haven't looked but I remember they were stacked up). :(



The strange thing is, both my dad & I remember a large-ish landscape box (heh, and he's talking about the game having last seen it in 83!). He also remember from playing it that there was something fatally flawed with the rules or something & generally not being a very good game (maybe why my brother & I were never allowed to play it).



Edit: Ok, there was apparently a plastic package version of this game which must've been the one we have/had. Can't find any more information on this version though.


Mount Celestia doesn't want me and Baator's afraid I'll take over.



Ninty-eight Blue and Green Slaad at the door, Ninty-eight Blue and Green Slaad, Take one down, they gate in two more, Ninty-nine Blue and Green Slaad at the door...

  

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Post Posted: Sun Sep 25, 2005 4:37 am 
 

Winterwords wrote: Ok, there was apparently a plastic package version of this game which must've been the one we have/had. Can't find any more information on this version though.




wellthere were two releases of it - well i had two anyway. one was "war of the ring" and that was on a massive 2 piece middle earth map and believe me it was huge. one player played the fellowship, one saruman and one sauron, and basically that was it - a massive war game and the fellowship's task was to destroy the ring and defend their own realms. i managed to win it as the fellowship but it was real hard. sauron attacked saruman first (because the player didnt like the other player!!) so weakened him some, giving me the time to move all my forces to minas tirith and then he couldnt beat me. while he did that i destroyed the ring :D was good fun, although not exactly that great a game.



that was one release, just that game.



the other box, which is really in demand, had that game, plus two others. two scenarios: one sauron, which was on its own map and one player plays the forces of the last alliance of elendil and gil-galad, while the other plays sauron and his forces. that one is a real blast. the other, is gondor, which replicates the battle of minas tirith. this one is amazing!



hope that helps winty :)



i really wish i had them still. i bought them for £4 cos me mate just didnt want them anymore :D


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Post Posted: Mon Sep 26, 2005 1:13 am 
 

I remember that Saruman had no chance to win the game.  There were two ways to play, including the full wargame and a shorter and easier quest to destroy the ring.



    Every time I played this game it came down to a battle royal at Mount Doom.  



    A silly business, but maps of Middle Earth and Middle Earth lore in general were more rare at the time.



    I remember wishing that Tolkien had included more names for Nazgul.



8)


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Post Posted: Mon Sep 26, 2005 9:06 am 
 

That game goes for at least $75 in very good condition. I've been watching for one for some time. I am dabbling gack into SPI games. Most go for good money and I am really pissed at myself for sellling most off way back when at the Gencon auction where they routinely sold for around $10. :(


And I could've bought these damn modules off the 1$ rack!!!

New modules for your Old School game http://pacesettergames.com/

Everything Pacesetter at http://pacesettergames.blog.com/

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Post Posted: Mon Sep 26, 2005 1:57 pm 
 

bbarsh wrote:That game goes for at least $75 in very good condition.


Yeah, and then some...

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 5242502313



The Bakshi set actually appears to be slightly cheaper than it was in the midst of the film releases;

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 5243568905

Would have been more than $109 NM & unpunched then, IIRC.



*adds in useful link*

http://www.freewebs.com/tolkienboardgam ... ngsspi.htm

  


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Post Posted: Mon Sep 26, 2005 2:36 pm 
 

harami2000 wrote:
*adds in useful link*

http://www.freewebs.com/tolkienboardgam ... ngsspi.htm


Yipyip, those are definately the maps I've managed to find. Now to get my bro to find the erst of it next time I see him.



Ah well at least in my rummage I managed to find my dad's copy of Kingmaker (the original one, not AH) :D.


Mount Celestia doesn't want me and Baator's afraid I'll take over.



Ninty-eight Blue and Green Slaad at the door, Ninty-eight Blue and Green Slaad, Take one down, they gate in two more, Ninty-nine Blue and Green Slaad at the door...

  


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Post Posted: Wed Oct 19, 2005 8:24 am 
 

There are a least three versions of the game, possibly more.

The first one I saw was an SPI box version with a rather drab ochre-green/mustardy cover of the Balrog.  What it did have, however, was four hard-mounted maps.  I bought this version in 1977 or 1978, but unfortunately have nothing but the maps left.  

However, there was also an SPI flat plastic presentation with the ochre-green cover that was identical except for the maps were not hard-mounted.  The version I have also contains the Minas Tirith and Final Alliance add-ons, each showing their own cover art in miniature.  This makes me think that there may have been a flat-plastic version of the game without the supplements as well, but I don't know.  It seems to me that SPI usually ran the flat box versions before a full box version, but that may not have always been the case.

Finally the white movie tie-in boxed version from SPI came later, which continued the paper map tradition.   I have a beat up version of this set.  The big problem with the non-mounted boards is that you will have literally hundreds of paper chits stacked out on the board when you play, and the thin paper maps, bumped even slightly, will cause serious disruption to carefully laid strategic plans.

The game is amusing, and the scope is magnificent, but ultimately it takes pretty poor play from the Fellowship player to lose.  The Dark Power Player cannot search effectively enough to find the ring early for a ring victory, and never has enough Shadow Points to effectively move his armies for a military victory.  If you play it 3 ways, thus taking Sauraman away from the Dark Power Player, it's a gimme for the Fellowship.  The only way we could make it close was to double the Shadow Points for the Dark Power Player, allow him to mobilize at the first reveal of any fellowship character (not just a hobbit), and allow Nazgul to move for free.  

The new War of the Ring game, which is so clearly based on SPIs version that they should have had at least a courtesy nod in the rulebook, is actually pretty good, and not just because it uses miniatures instead of paper chits.  It plays very much the same, but the power balance is much better and you have at least a shot of winning from either side.


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Post Posted: Wed Oct 19, 2005 8:50 am 
 

Good guess.  I can confirm that the SPI WOTR flat tray without add-ons does exist.

  

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Post Posted: Wed Oct 19, 2005 10:38 am 
 

wins in the last few weeks for me, includes the "fellowship of the ring" game, from 1983 (ICE), which looks very much like the war of the ring set, and i also won "gondor" from SPI, which is the same, but one part of the ultimate set they did (war of the ring/sauron/gondor).

both sets are complete so me is happy :)

Al


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Post Posted: Wed Oct 19, 2005 3:20 pm 
 

Here is a site if you're interested in Tolkien-related games:

http://www.freewebs.com/tolkienboardgam ... /index.htm

or RPGS:

http://www.darkshire.net/~jhkim/rpg/enc ... index.html

They've been posted here before, but it never hurts to find them again.

  

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Post Posted: Wed Oct 19, 2005 3:31 pm 
 

tfm wrote:Here is a site if you're interested in Tolkien-related games:

http://www.freewebs.com/tolkienboardgam ... /index.htm


yeah its a good little site that. seen it before.

the FOTR boxset i got is "1st version" of the 2 sets it shows


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Post Posted: Wed Oct 19, 2005 3:41 pm 
 

tfm wrote:Here is a site if you're interested in Tolkien-related games:

http://www.freewebs.com/tolkienboardgam ... /index.htm


Thanks, good site.  Just seeing the cover of what he calls the "designer set" takes me way, way back.  I bought that set when I was 9 years old from a hobby store in Union Gap, Washington with money I had saved for months.  It was my first wargame, and I was completely befuddled by the rules, but I still had a blast with it.  

And let me put in a plug for those mounted maps and the quality of the laminated cards; the rest of the game has long since been lost/destroyed, but those maps look as good as new, and only one of the cards has even a slight tear.


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Post Posted: Wed Oct 19, 2005 3:53 pm 
 

It is an interesting (and sometimes pricey) sub-genre of game collecting.  I've got about half the games listed from 1970-1991.  The Middle-Earth Wargames Rules by S.E.L.W.G. (apart from the D&D stuff) is one of the rarer ones I have, but Wargamer's Battle of the Ring (Issue #1, 1977) is probably one of hardest to get.

  


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Post Posted: Wed Oct 19, 2005 4:40 pm 
 

Agreed. Neat sub-genre. :D



tfm wrote:The Middle-Earth Wargames Rules by S.E.L.W.G. (apart from the D&D stuff) is one of the rarer ones I have

yeah, this one; http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 8704329351 :)

tfm wrote: but Wargamer's Battle of the Ring (Issue #1, 1977) is probably one of hardest to get.


Not got that one; http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/6180



There are a few others with "extra" LotR rules; for example, http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 8702324132

(*wonders whether Mike <mdr003> is a Rush fan* :o ;))

  

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Post Posted: Wed Oct 19, 2005 7:59 pm 
 

harami2000 wrote:There are a few others with "extra" LotR rules; for example, http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 8702324132
(*wonders whether Mike <mdr003> is a Rush fan* :o ;))


A Rush fan?

I thought $21 would be enough for Ancient Warfare, but that LOTR reference in the description makes it a lot more desirable.

From the same seller:

cgi.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewIt ... 8702324019

A companion volume called Sword and Spear - man to man rules for the same period. Not stated in the auction, but there is a 'fantasy' section included, with hobbits, balrogs etc....  :D

Regards

Mike

  


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Post Posted: Thu Oct 20, 2005 12:17 am 
 

mdr003 wrote:A Rush fan?

*chuckles*. (21.12 on your bid, but maybe I should've left that to the Canucks to explain :oops:)

mdr003 wrote:I thought $21 would be enough for Ancient Warfare, but that LOTR reference in the description makes it a lot more desirable.

Indeed. Had been looking for a copy and was hoping that would be worthwhile combined with some others goodies from that seller's list, but I kinda messed up on that and missed out on other items, too.

mdr003 wrote:From the same seller:

cgi.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewIt ... 8702324019

A companion volume called Sword and Spear - man to man rules for the same period. Not stated in the auction, but there is a 'fantasy' section included, with hobbits, balrogs etc.... :D

Y'know, I never knew that Mike! (Did you, beforehand? ;))

Nice pick-up, indeed, for $1.99! 8)

  
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