Every so often, marketing and manufacturing converge and you get a bevy of releases in the same universe. On the heels of Peter Jackson’s War of the Rohirrim, two new, excellent Lord of the Rings games are about to hit your collection. So dust off that One Ring and put on the mithril, because it’s Tolkien time.
A Tolkien Trick-taker
We start with an adventure, a cooperative trick-taking game aptly titled The Fellowship of the Ring: The Trick-taking Game. No subtlety there, but you don’t really need any with a setup like this: each player, up to four, takes on a role depending on the chapter you’re playing (the game recommends playing the chapters in order, but you can also tackle them as standalone adventures). That role has a unique objective, similar to The Crew’s requirements to take certain suits, 
avoid others, or, for Pippen players, engage in shenanigans. The roles aren’t entirely by choice either: if you’re dealt the One Ring, congrats, you’re Frodo!
Try not to, er, turn evil.
One you’re in a chapter, gameplay follows a tried-and-true version of *Hearts—*follow the lead suit, a suit (Rings) that can’t be lead until broken. Every chapter introduces its own wrinkle to the formula, though nothing that’ll require brain-breaking new rules. If you like The Crew, you’ll love this.
What The Fellowship of the Ring: The Trick-taking Game has is that delicious Oreo pairing of smooth gameplay with theme. You can bring this to game night and jump right in, letting your best bud take up Farmer Maggot’s mantle as you try to get the right cards into the right hands. Every chapter races to an end in fifteen to twenty minutes, making this a great game night starter, finisher, or in-betweener while someone else sets up the next big game.
To secure your copy, jump here and drop in a pre-order. You’ll get it just in time to see you and your friends through the rest of winter.
Games Workshop Brings Middle-earth to Vivid Life
If you see ‘Games Workshop’, you’d be forgiven for thinking Warhammer, but the venerable game publisher has, for decades, been refining a series of Lord of the Rings miniatures war games. Their latest set is Middle-earth Strategy Battle Game – The War of the Rohirrim. That mouthful summons forth a war game accessible and stylish, where your favorite Tolkien factions thunder across the plains of Rohan into brutal, tactical combat.
This is a classic Games Workshop title, with elegant miniature sculpts begging to be assembled and painted with care—going into battle gray might be my
hallmark, but it needn’t be yours. This starter set comes with 56 minis, throwing those gnarled hill tribesmen against Rohan riders. You’ll get some sturdy Rohan houses for terrain, and a monstrous hardcover rulebook stuffed with scenarios, including a four scenario mini-campaign culminating in a last stand at Edoras.
All that wouldn’t mean much without gameplay, and with Middle-earth Strategy Battle Game, we’re getting into the good stuff without the fluff. Despite the rulebook’s size—and with Games Workshop’s customary supplements—we get The Lord of the Rings in streamlined fashion. While it borrows a phase-by-phase approach to turns from older siblings, Middle-earth zooms in for unit-by-unit combat, allowing for heroic emphasis as befits a setting with Aragorn, Saruman, and Gandalf.
You won’t be plucking these legends into random forests or fortresses either (though you can, if that’s your desire). Instead, Middle-earth caters to our wishes by throwing scenarios, linked campaigns, and narrative progression at us. Depending on the set(s) you jump into, you’ll be able to recreate famed battles, from the siege of Osgiliath to Pelennor Fields and more. While board game brethren like War of the Ring let you abstract these events, Middle-earth gets you into the gritty. You’ll literally roll to see whether Gimli or Legolas comes out ahead in their kill count, or if Lurtz gets his due and turns those hobbits into mincemeat.
Without the vast array of keywords, counter checks, and stat arrays, Middle-earth doesn’t require hours spent parsing rulebooks to play. You won’t need duplicate rulebook copies (unless and until your army sizes reach gargantuan levels) nor more than a couple of hours to play most scenarios. This is absolutely the case where you can slap the Fellowship on the table in the afternoon and have a few dozen orcs downed by dinner.
How to Get Started With the Middle-earth Strategy Battle Game
As ever, war games like Middle-earth offer many entry points. Still, your best bet is the starter set mentioned above. You’ll get the most up-to-date rules, a strong mix of figures, terrain, dice, and rulers to go along with it. While other starter sets, like Pelennor Fields, exist, they’ll be in and out of stock, so tossing it on the Want List is a good plan while you kick off your Tolkien battles.
After the starter set, expand how you like. You can double down on your Rohirrim forces, creating literal hordes of Rohan or Tribesman. Or add some mythical monsters to the mix with the Great Eagles. Sure, they’ll be fun to watch devouring the enemy on the battlefield, but building and painting these beasties would be fun too.
Adult Legos, my friends.
Battle hosts abound, along with individual heroes, though make sure to check what’s included, as battle host boxes often include heroes available in standalone form. Having Gandalf and his clone army obliterate the orcs might be a blast, but only if you planned for it. Each of these boxes will get you any from one to many figures and supplementary jazz to use them.
For me, though, the most compelling reason to dive into Middle-earth is the narrative. Games Workshop’s realized this, and they’ve produced a great array of scenario books intending to take you on progressive, narrative campaigns through the setting’s biggest moments. Some, like Pelennor Fields, bring you into the battle in stages, with every scenario shifting you around the battlefield and growing in scope until, at the end, you’ll feel like you’ve experienced the whole breadth of the massive conflict. Others, like Defence of the North, explore a war unseen in the films and little mentioned in the books, where dwarves and elves battle the forces of Sauron amid Lothlorien and Erebor.
These expansions all offer compelling directions to travel once you’ve taken the starter set plunge, journeys to explore with a partner or two. For more competitive players, matched play rules give you the option to build custom forces and go at it amid your favorite settings, much like you’d find in Warhammer or Star Wars: Legion. Want Gandalf to duel Sauron with Boromir at his side? Go forth and make it happen.
The Lord of the Rings Board Games Universe
While both The Fellowship of the Ring: The Trick-taking Game and The Middle-earth Strategy Battle Game bring their own unique flavors to Tolkien’s fantasy world, they’re parts of a vast Tolkien buffet best enjoyed in the manner you prefer. Like Cthulhu, Star Wars, and numerous other big universes, you have your pick
of board gaming fun, so if you’re looking to add some Lord of the Rings to your collection, make sure you’re getting what matches your mood.
Want a cooperative, hero-driven adventure? Journeys in Middle-earth is your ticket to dice-chucking tactics with your favorite Fellowship rockstars. Or, if you’d prefer grand battles, the aforementioned War of the Ring is a dense, heavy war game that’ll eat up your weekends with sieges, desperate stands, and sneaky hobbitses. Smaller box titles like The Lord of the Rings: Duel for Middle-earth fit strategy in your carry-on too, meaning your orcish lust for conquest can come with you on the road.
What is refreshing about all of these titles, though, is their general quality. You’re not getting stinkers here, but compelling titles worth investing in. Perhaps that’s because most are developed off of separate games, a ruleset proving itself before getting that Tolkien polish, but we get the benefit either way.
As Gandalf said, definitely in reference to board games: “All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.”
With all these excellent Lord of the Rings games out there, that is a hard decision indeed.
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