War of the Ring: Expansion Thoughts.

Sunday, Devon & I got our first game in of War of the Ring in with the Twilight of the Third Age expansion.

It was a good game. Seems like the Balrog & Galadriel (since they can't leave their homes, and given their abilites) aren't likely to do too much but give you an easier die than you'd otherwise have. Unless attacking Moria & Lorien is a more important part of high-level playing (any Free People army coming near Moria could take an attack-out punch, and mustering in Lorien while under siege is good). On the other hand, Galadriel using an elven ring to discard a hunt tile you don't like is a good Free People move. And saving a few moves by moving the Fellowship through the Balrog's Moria becomes much more dangerous.

The other elements seem more quickly useful. The ents, at least, prevent Saruman from overusing the Voice... which is interestingly offset by the Dunlending muster. And a few Voice uses after the ents are mustered turns the ents into a big central Middle Earth threat (5 dice on army adjacent to any ent in the chain, hit on 5 or 6, used over and over as long as there are spare ents in Fangorn).

The Corsairs... not sure how useful they'd be in moving troops up the west coast. Dol Amroth clearly... but beyond that... the Grey Havens and the Shire are a looong way off. But you can instantly dump Umbar-mustered troops on the far North West.

Smeagol never made it into play, because Devon didn't move the Fellowship much, but he seems useful, with a permanently recycled "0" hunt tile in the bag, mid-turn declaring to negate hunt re-rolls, & a sacrifice to cancel hunt damage. The alternate Witch King (Chief of the Ring Wraiths, as opposed to the Black Captain) still has jump-around military potential, but also becomes a major hunt-re-roll threat with how he magnifies the Fellowship-tailing nazgul, and gets a free jump to declared Fellowship locations.

Trebuchets and Siege Towers seem interesting, though I never did much once I pinned Devon in siege... even though he mustered two trebuchets. Whoever has more of their respective engine gets a few big advantages (+1 for Shadow or -1 for Free, plus no extending with elites or free extending), and the Fellowship can burn a trebuchet to break a superiority tie and have one battle of superiority.

All in all, very easy to integrate, with very promising depth increases. Figured I'd keep the base-game expansion stuff in the base-game box, though it meant I had to trash the moulded plastic inside to make more room.

I definitely want to play more. Devon said so too. Play once a week, he said, or more... and I agree. :) If possible.