Review: Lord of the Rings: The Confrontation Deluxe Edition

Lord of the Rings: The Confrontation Deluxe Edition is a new edition of the old classic game by Reiner Knizia. I haven’t played the original version but from what I know the only changes are the nicer components, new characters, and some special cards. The game comes with the 18 classic characters from Knizia’s original game that you can play just the classic game with or you can use the 18 variant characters also included in the game. You can even mix the two for endless replay ability options. This game really is a masterpiece of two player gaming that has quickly become one of my favorite games.

The gameplay seems simple on the outside. Two players face off with a variety of different characters from Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings books. One player is the Fellowship and must get Frodo into Mordor to destroy the Ring. In the classic game the characters are Frodo, Sam, Merry, Pippen, Gandalf, Aragorn, Boromir, Legolas, and Gimli. Each character has a strength value that is used for combat and a special power that really specializes what a certain character can do.

The other player is the forces of Sauron and he can win either by killing Frodo or getting 3 of his characters into the Shire. In the classic game Sauron’s forces include Shelob, the Balrog, the Witch King, Flying Nazgul, Cave Troll, Black Rider, Saruman, Orcs, and the Warg. They each have special abilities and a strength value.

Your characters are faced towards you in a stand so that your opponent can’t see which character is which just like in Stratego. The board is a square that you turn in the shape of a diamond with the Shire on one end and Mordor on the other. The territories are laid out in a 1-2-3-4-3-2-1 fashion and there are a few rules about special movement things in some of the territories but basically on your turn you move one of your characters one space forward unless you have a special ability allowing you to move sideways or backwards. If you move into a territory with an enemy character then both players reveal their character check their character’s special ability. If neither ability kills the other character (there are some instant kill abilities like that Legolas instantly kills the Flying Nazgul) then each player simultaneously plays a card from their hand. These cards have either a number or a special ability on them. If both players play a card with a number, the number on the card is added to the strength value of the characters and the highest total strength wins and the losing character is defeated. The Fellowship has cards with numbers from 1-5 and the Sauron player has cards from 1-6. Once you play a card you discard it and you can’t use it until you’ve used all of your other cards. Each player has some special cards that they can play that allow them to do things like retreat from battle, play a card that was previously discarded, or sacrifice their character to kill off the other player’s character.

And basically that’s pretty much all there is to the game. It is a real test of trying to outguess your opponent and maneuver around him. There are many tense moments in a game and if you make a mistake you just very well might lose the game very quickly. In fact, your first few games will probably be very quick and not too exciting as you try to figure out just how your characters need to work together towards your team’s goal.

Components: Like any other Fantasy Flight game the components are top notch. In fact it is a bit overproduced. The box is way too big and the board is bigger than it needs to be. I don’t really care though because I’d rather have a game be overproduced than underproduced. Although the cards are very big and I’d prefer them be a bit smaller just because they’d be a bit easier to handle but it isn’t a huge deal. All of the artwork is tremendous too. I really like how the classic and variant characters both have different styles of artwork and the game looks fantastic when it is set up.

Rules: The rulebook is very good. It is easy to read and very understandable with plenty of examples in it. I think it does a very good job of going through each character and supplying answers for the many different situations that can occur during the game so any questions that might crop up during a game you can find the answer in the rulebook very quickly. To top it all off it looks very good with lots of artwork of the various characters throughout the book.

As I have said before I really like this game. It is an incredible two player game. There is no luck at all and at the end whoever played the best will win. There is a ton of replay ability too. For your first few plays I’d suggest playing just with the classic characters. Then once you’ve gotten used to them and can win with the fellowship close to half the time (because there is a strange balance in the game that I’ll talk about in a bit) then you can move on to the variant game. Once you’ve gotten used to the variant game then you can mix them. This allows you to play many games that all feel very different because the classic and variant characters feel very different. This leads into the balance of the game.

I know there is a lot of debate about this but I think that this game is very balanced. Although, Sauron is easier to play with I think that a Fellowship player who really knows the game pretty well can win about half the time. It may take a little while to figure out how to play the Fellowship but after a decent amount of experience it becomes a very good, tense game. In case you don’t know, generally the Sauron player has more strength than the Fellowship player by far. The Fellowship has better special powers that take a little bit of practice to be able to use correctly. The variant game I think slightly reverses those roles but as a whole I think that it is the case that the Sauron player has more strength. The game is really very balanced and I’m very impressed how seamlessly the variant characters work into the classic game.

The theme really takes this game to another level. It really feels like you’re desperately trying to destroy the ring while facing these overwhelming forces that you must somehow maneuver around. It really captures the kind of desperation and hopelessness that the books and movies have and although the theme might not be as prominent as in some other games it is definitely there and it greatly increases my enjoyment of the game.

Confrontation almost has a chess-like feel but I wouldn’t let that turn you off if you’re not a big fan of chess. However, it is very structured and if you generally like crazier dice fest kind of games then this might not be a game for you. This game really is a masterpiece that looks incredibly simplistic on the outside but after a few plays you will start to see all of the intricacies that make Lord of the Rings: The Confrontation Deluxe Edition an incredibly deep, strategic game that will deliver for hundreds of plays.

9/10

Casey Stump

Review: Catan Dice Game

Catan: The Dice Game is designed by Klaus Teuber and was released in 2007. And it is yet another game in the Catan series of games. The game is very short and you should be able to play it solo (which is the only way you should play this game) in about 15 minutes. The rulebook is very short and you can have the game down in only 5 minutes and you probably won’t have to look back at it during play at all.

The game is played by rolling the six dice on your turn up to three times and setting aside certain dice and re-rolling others just like in Yahtzee. After you have done this you can use the resources that you rolled to build either a road, settlement, city, or knight. When you build a certain thing you shade it in on the board which is a pad of paper that has room for up to 120 games on it. However, there are certain rules about what you can build. For instance, a settlement/city has to be connected to road and roads have to be connected to other roads just like in normal Settlers. The catch is that you have to build knights, settlements, and cities in the order of their point value. For example you have to first build the settlement worth 3 points before you build the settlement that is worth 4 points and so on. Cities start out at 7 points and can be worth up to 30 points and knights are worth 1-6. This makes you have to plan out how you want to use your resources and where you want to go on the map.

The game feels a whole lot like Yahtzee but it is a little bit more involved. There’s a rule that if you roll 2 gold resources you can exchange them for 1 of any resource. And each knight that you build has a resource next to it that once per game you can change a resource that you rolled for the one next to the knight. This provides just enough thought/risk to game the game fairly entertaining.

The rules say you can play this game with 1-4 players but technically you can play it with as many people as you want. Just give each of them a game board/paper. However, there is absolutely no player interaction in this game at all so I myself will never play this game with anyone else. Think about Yahtzee. It’s technically a multiplayer game but really it’s a solitaire game that you compare scores with your opponents at the end of the game. That’s basically what this is and I’d rather play something with more interaction with more people so I prefer this game solitaire. The big plus here is that the game is so portable you can seriously play this in a car (if you’re not driving of course). So I wouldn’t pick this game up if you want a game for a group of people. I wouldn’t even pick this up for strictly a solitaire game that you would just play during your free time. But if you need a game to play on those long car/plane rides that provides enough thought to make it interesting than this is the game for you. The game is basically the same every time you play but it still works well for a travel game which is really all Catan: The Dice Game tries to be.

Catan: The Dice Game is a very simple, light, dice game that provides enough thought and strategy to keep the game interesting but it wouldn’t be worth picking up if it wasn’t so portable. 

6.5/10

Casey Stump

Review: Battleball

This is a great little game that is unfortunately out of print. However, you can pick it up on ebay for not very much. The game itself is essentially a game of football where you are trying to use your players to tackle your opponents players and score a touchdown. After scoring 2 touchdowns you win the game. It is designed by Craig Van Ness and Stephen Baker.

Each player has a team of football players. There are a few different types of positions that each player plays. You have running backs, wide receivers, linebackers, tackles, etc. Each position uses a different die in the game. There is a 20s, 12s, 10s, 8s, and two 6s. Each die is a different color and that corresponds to the color of one of your football player's base. This makes it really easy to tell which die each of your players roll. 

I won't go into too much detail about how the game is played but it is actually very simple. Players take turns choosing which figure they want to move then roll that figure's corresponding die. After you move him if you're adjacent to a figure from the other team you attempt to tackle him. This is done by each player rolling their figure's die. The lowest number rolled is the winner and the losing figure is taken temporarily out of the game. This means that your fast guys are your bad tacklers and your slow guys are your good tacklers. This seems simple enough but it balances out really well. Play continues with each player trying to move the ball to the endzonewithout being tackled. They can pass and hand the ball off to try to gain big yardage or they can just keep it with one guy and set up some blockers. 

Overall, the game is very luck based. The luck seems to even out because there are so many dice rolls that its difficult for one side to just get all of the luck. However, this makes  it a very light game with a little bit of strategy and risk taking. The game will often come down to a nailbiting finish where one die roll will win you the game. The components are very good and the game looks awesome while it is being played. The figures are very good quality and have good paint jobs. Battleball is a very fun, light game that gamers and non-gamers alike will be able to understand and enjoy. Even younger kids should be able to play this game. I highly recomend it as a fun sports game that doesn't have a bunch of charts that you need to continuously refer to.

7/10

Casey Stump

Review: Heroscape

For my first game review, I am going to review the game Heroscape. Heroscape was originally produced by Hasbro but is now produced by Wizards of the Coast. I guess that technically means that it is still produced by Hasbro because they own Wizards of the Coast. Anyway, the designer of Heroscape is Craig Van Ness.

Heroscape is a non-collectable miniatures game. So far there are 2 master sets (The Rise of the Valkyrie and The Swarm of the Marro) and 8 waves of expansions. There are also terrain expansions and a few large expansions. The game in itself is fairly simple. You start by building a map with the large amount of customizable terrain that comes with the master sets and terrain expansions. The terrain ranges from standard grass, sand, and rock to snow, lava, and swamp terrain. You can add trees and glaciers and castles to spice up your map even more so that when you’re done, you have a gorgeous looking, three dimensional map to do battle on. The terrain is in the shape of hexes that you can interlock and stack on top of each other with ease which makes building the map almost as fun as playing the game.

The game itself is split up into rounds. Each round is composed of 3 turns. This is the base of the activation system that Heroscape uses called order markers. Each player is given four order markers each round. They are marked with a 1, 2, 3, and X. At the beginning of the round, players place each of there order markers on their figure’s cards. This will determine what and when a player activates a particular unit during the course of a round. The markers are made as such so only the player that placed them can see the number on them. So basically you can see what your opponent will activate but you don’t know when. The X is used to deceive your opponents so they don’t know for sure if you will activate something or not. After each player rolls for initiative, play precedes by each player activating their 1. Then each player will activate their 2 etc. I really like this system because you have to really plan ahead and not get caught off guard by what your opponent is doing. If they do something completely unexpected then you can’t react to it. The game has been criticized for that but I think it makes the game a bit more difficult and adds a bit more skill to it.

When you activate a card you move and attack with it. Combat is resolved with dice. One player rolls a certain number of dice and each skull that comes up counts as a hit. The the defender rolls dice and each shield that comes up counts as a block. If there are more skulls than shields, that much damage is inflicted upon the character. The system is very easy and keeps the game moving quickly where other miniature games can have these big long combat systems that take 5 minutes to decide whether or not I hit you. The system is luck based and if you don’t get good rolls you won’t win the game but in my experience it evens out pretty well. Although there can be games where you can win/lose completely on the die rolls. This is where I think a good amount of the skill comes into Heroscape. A good player knows how to minimize the amount luck factors into the game. You can go about this in many different ways and I won’t explain them but when you learn to minimize risk then you will generally perform well.

Army building is also a key aspect to being successful. Basically your army made up of two types of units: either heroes or squads. Heroes are basically one figure that will have stronger powers and will be able to take multiple hits before being destroyed. A squad is anywhere from 2-4 figures that all go with the same card. Each figure in a squad will only have 1 life and normally less powerful abilities than a hero. This is balanced out with the fact that you can move and attack with each figure in your squad. So with a hero, most of the time you will be moving and attacking once where in a squad, you will be moving and attacking with a couple figures. A good army should have a good balance of both.

All of this in mind, what makes Heroscape great in my eyes is the wealth of different characters and synergies. You can have WWII soldiers shooting down a dragon or a big robot battling it out with an honorable knight. It is just fun to watch. I think the core part of the game is the interaction between characters. When your army goes up against someone else’s, it normally comes down to: how do my characters match up against yours, how will my characters work together to bring the other army down, and how do I play my army to best exploit my opponents weaknesses. Whoever does these things the best will normally come out on top.

Final thoughts: Heroscape is a fairly light and extremely fun game that can be played by just about anyone. The fact that the game comes with its own terrain is also a major plus, however, this makes the game very difficult to transport. You’ll find yourself lugging many boxes around if you want to take your stuff over to a friend’s house to play. The game’s theme of bringing together the greatest warriors from all time and space is great too because you end up with match ups you don’t see in normal games. Guns against bows and dragons against alien Marro creatures make the game very enjoyable and makes it appeal to everyone.

My rating: 8/10

Casey Stump