Sam and Frodo desperately race to destroy the One Ring at Mount Doom, relentlessly pursued by the Nazgûl. Will you aid the Fellowship in defending Middle-Earth, or seek to conquer it as the forces of Sauron?
What Is The Lord of the Rings: Duel for Middle-earth?
The Lord of the Rings: Duel for Middle-earth is a tableau building, area majority, and set collection game for 2 players, ages 10 and up, and takes about 30 minutes to play. The game reimplements 7 Wonders Duel, but is far from a simple reskin of that earlier title. It’s available to purchase from the Repos Production store on Amazon or from your local game store, and retails for $34.99.
The Lord of the Rings: Duel for Middle-earth was designed by Antoine Bauza and Bruno Cathala, and published by Repos Production, with illustrations by Vincent Dutrait.
The Lord of the Rings: Duel for Middle-earth Components
Here’s what comes in the box:
— 69 cards
— 44 pawns
— 18 tokens
— 30 coins
— 7 tiles
— 2 boards
— 2 transparent elements
— 1 helpsheet
— 1 Rulebook
The main game board is a fairly compact map of Middle-earth. There are three win conditions in the game, and one of them is to have at least 1 Unit or Fortress in each of the 7 regions.
The forces of the Fellowship have gold Units and Fortresses, while the forces of Sauron are grey. The wooden pieces are quite small but easy to handle, and have some lovely screen printing on both sides to add to the visual impact.
There are 7 Landmark tiles, which can be acquired through gameplay. These Landmarks match the regions on the game board, and each one allows for the placement of a Fortress at that particular region as well as various other one-time effects.
Another victory condition in the game is for either Frodo and Sam to reach Mount Doom (if you’re the Fellowship player), or for the Nazgûl to catch up to the pair if you’re playing Sauron’s forces. There is a Quest of the Ring track made out of 4 pieces: Two interlocking cardboard tiles, an acrylic overlay with Sam and Frodo printed on it, and a separate acrylic tracker with the Nazgûl. As Sam and Frodo progress towards Mount Doom, you slide the overlay along the cardboard tiles, and as the Nazgûl moves towards Sam and Frodo, you slide the acrylic tracker along the overlay.
The Lord of the Rings: Duel for Middle-earth is played over 3 rounds, known here as Chapters. Each chapter has its own deck of cards.
It’s worth discussing for a moment how beautiful this game is. Vincent Dutrait is one of my favorite board game artists, and the illustrations here are a perfect blend of classical and modern design. If he was to do the artwork for an illustrated The Lord of the Rings trilogy, I would happily have those books on my shelf.
How to Play The Lord of the Rings: Duel for Middle-earth
You can download a copy of the rulebook here.
The Goal
The goal of the game is to stretch your presence across Middle-earth, rally Races to your cause, or advance the Quest of the Ring in order to win.
Setup
Place the Central board between you and your opponent. Choose who will play Sauron’s forces and who will play the Fellowship, and take your respective Unit and Fortress pawns.
On the Central board, place 2 Fellowship Units on Arnor, and 2 Sauron Units on Mordor.
Assemble the Quest of the Ring track and place it below the Central board.
Create a reserve with the coins. The Fellowship player then takes 3 coins, and the Sauron player takes 2 coins.
Sort the Alliance tokens according to their backs. Shuffle each stack and place them facedown in the notches above the Central board.
Shuffle the Landmark tiles and place 3, faceup, on the table next to a facedown stack of the other tiles.
Sort the Chapter cards into their 3 decks, shuffling each deck separately.
Finally, arrange the cards from the Chapter 1 deck into the central play area according to the illustration shown both in the rulebook and on the side of the box, placing the leftover 3 cards facedown into the discard pile. Each chapter is set up differently; here are the three chapter setups:
Gameplay
Gameplay starts with the Sauron player, then alternates between players.
On a turn, a player can either take a Chapter card or take a Landmark tile.
Take a Chapter card
You can take any of the available cards (any card that is faceup and not covered by other cards), as long as you pay any associated costs if there is one. You will immediately benefit from a card’s effect. Then either add that card to a stack of the matching color, keeping the effect of the card visible, or immediately discard the card to earn coins equal to the Chapter number currently in play.
There are 2 different types of costs for cards: Coins, and Skills. If Coins are required, pay the number of coins shown when taking the card back to the reserve. Skills are shown on Grey cards, and you must have the requisite number of Skills shown on the card in your tableau in order to take that card. If you don’t have all the Skills shown, you can still take the card, but must pay 1 coin for each missing Skill.
In the example below, to take that card, you must have 2 of the “Ruse” skill and 1 of the “Leadership” skill in your tableau:
There are 6 card colors in the game:
— Grey cards. These permanently provide 1 Skill per symbol shown, and each symbol may be used only once per turn.
— Yellow cards. These give you coins from the Reserve.
— Blue cards. Showing the One Ring symbol, these move your character along the Quest of the Ring track, one space per ring shown. If you move onto or past any bonus spaces on the track, you immediately take the bonus shown.
— Green cards. These represent the Races of Middle-earth that you can ally with. If you ever collect 6 different Race cards, you immediately win the game. Additionally, as soon as you have 2 matching Race symbols, you take the top 2 Alliance tokens, reveal them, and then choose one to take and one to return facedown to its stack. You may now permanently benefit from the effect of the token you have taken. Finally, once per game when you have 3 different Race symbols, you take the top Alliance token of those 3 races, reveal them, and then take 1 while returning the other two facedown to their respective stacks.
— Red cards. These allow you to place Units into the various regions on the Central board. Whenever Units enter a region with enemy Units, a conflict occurs and they eliminate each other on a 1 for 1 basis.
— Purple cards. These only appear in Chapter 3, and allow you to move Units into adjacent regions, cause opponents to lose coins, and remove enemy units from regions.
Beginning in Chapter 2, some cards will have a chaining symbol, in the upper right corner of the card. If that symbol matches a symbol on the left-hand side of one of the cards in your tableau, then you may play that card for free without having the required skills.
Once all the cards from a Chapter have been played, then the cards for the next Chapter are arranged in the central play area and play resumes with the next player taking their turn.
Take a Landmark tile
Much like with the cards, if you can pay the requisite costs for a Landmark tile, you may take that tile and immediately gain its benefits (which also include placing a Fortress into one of the regions on the Central board). Landmark tiles also cost you one gold for each Fortress you already have placed on the map.
In the example above, the Isengard tile allows you to place a Fortress on Enedwaith, discard a Grey card from your opponent’s play area, and move your character 1 space on the Quest of the Ring track.
Game End
The game ends immediately once one of 3 victory conditions is met:
— Quest of the Ring. The Fellowship wins if Sam and Frodo reach Mount Doom, thereby destroying the One Ring. Sauron wins if the Nazgûl catches Sam and Frodo, reclaiming the One Ring.
— Support of the Races. If you gather 6 different Race symbols on green cards, you rally support of the Races and immediately win the game. The Eagle symbol that is represented on one of the Alliance tokens may count as 1 of the 6 required Race symbols.
— Conquering Middle-earth. If you have a Fortress and/or at least 1 Unit in each of the 7 Regions, you immediately dominate Middle-earth and win the game.
If none of these win conditions are met by the end of Chapter 3, then victory goes to whichever player has the most fortresses and units on the map. If both players have the same amount, then it is a shared victory.
The Lord of the Rings: Duel for Middle-earth is GeekDad Approved!
Why You Should Play The Lord of the Rings: Duel for Middle-earth
I’m already a Tolkien fan (see my reviews for LEGO sets of Rivendell and Barad-Dûr), so I was predisposed to already like the theme of The Lord of the Rings: Duel for Middle-earth. What I didn’t know until playing it was just how well the gameplay and theme would mesh to create an eminently satisfying gameplay experience.
Much like its predecessor 7 Wonders Duel, there are 3 different ways to win the game. Each of these three ways is intrinsically tied into the events of The Lord of the Rings. Over the course of the trilogy, support of the races of Middle-earth are won, battles for domination are fought across the land, and Frodo and Sam try to get the One Ring to Mount Doom while pursued by the forces of Sauron — represented here by the Nazgûl chasing the pair across the Quest of the Ring track.
The Quest of the Ring track itself is simply yet elegantly represented. There is an inherent tension in the pursuit of the Nazgûl, as Sam and Frodo can only ever move towards Mount Doom, while the Nazgûl only moves ever closer to the pair.
With three paths to victory, there’s a lot of consideration towards which cards to take on a player’s turn. It’s a delicate balance between pursuing your own path to victory while making sure your opponent doesn’t draw a card or landmark which guarantees theirs. In one of the games that I played, the key to my victory came from getting my first pair of Race cards, and then drawing the Eagle Alliance token. Then, when I took my fifth unique green Race card, the Eagle token acted as my sixth, giving me the win. Which was a good thing, as my opponent was getting perilously close to filling the map with their units!
The Lord of the Rings: Duel for Middle-earth is quick to learn, and really does play in about the 30 minutes listed on the box. While there are a lot of symbols on both the cards and the Landmark tiles that may initially overwhelm a new player, they are easy to understand, and there’s also a handy reference sheet that explains every symbol and effect. The game is swift to set up and put away, thanks in part to a simple yet effective insert in the box. With the speed of both setup and play, it’s easy enough to turn right around and play another game after you’ve completed your last.
There’s really just so much to like about this game. I’ve already gushed about the Vincent Dutrait artwork, which permeates every aspect of the production. The components are high quality, especially considering the affordable price of the box. And while I’m not going to go into detail comparing the two, rest assured that Duel for Middle-Earth is not 7 Wonders Duel with a thin veneer of Tolkien painted over it. While it incorporates some of the same mechanics as 7 Wonders Duel, this game stands entirely on its own, distinct in gameplay and theme.
If you’re looking for a fun, fast, and deeply thematic 2-player game that’s easy to get to the table, then definitely check out The Lord of the Rings: Duel for Middle-earth. The gameplay is tense yet fun, and deeply satisfying. It’s one of those games that, whether you win or lose, you want to jump right back in for another match. The Lord of the Rings: Duel for Middle-earth is sure to hit my game table for years to come, and is well-deserving of the title of GeekDad Approved..
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Disclosure: GeekDad received a copy of this game for review purposes. As an Amazon affiliate, I may earn a small commission on qualified purchases.
