War of the Ring is astrategy board game based onThe Lord of the Rings byJ.R.R. Tolkien. The game was made byRoberto Di Meglio,Marco Maggi andFrancesco Nepitello,[1] first produced byNexus Editrice (Italy), and is currently published byAres Games.
Since its first print-run it has been produced in many languages:Fantasy Flight Games published the English edition in2004. An expansion calledBattles of the Third Age was released in2006 and a Collector's Edition in 2010 (with both the base game and expansion materials, hand-painted miniatures, a leather-bound rulebook, and corrected and clarified rules and cards). The Fantasy Flight edition of both the base game and expansion are currently out of print. A new 2nd Edition, published byAres Games, was published in 2011, as well as one expansion entitledLords of Middle Earth and one calledWarriors of Middle Earth, and a new expansion released in 2023 entitledKings of Middle Earth.
War of the Ring is a 2-player game that takes approximately 3 hours, though there are variant rules for 3 or 4 players where one or both sides play as a team. The game concerns theWar of the Ring starting from the Fellowship's forming inRivendell. One player controls the Shadow Armies and tries to conquerMiddle-earth or to corrupt the Fellowship's Ringbearer. The other player controls the Free Peoples and tries to hold back the Shadow long enough to move the Fellowship intoMount Doom and destroy the Ring. A Free Peoples military victory is also possible, but the Shadow's power is overwhelming.[2]
The board depicts northwestern Middle-earth, divided into territories. Some lands form nations while broad swatches sit unclaimed. The Free Peoples are the nations ofGondor andRohan, theElves (Rivendell,Lórien,the Woodland Realm, and the Gray Havens), theDwarves (the settlements inErebor, the Iron Hills and the Blue Mountains) and "The North" (the men ofDale, Carrock, and Bree, and the hobbits of theShire). The Shadow Armies areSauron (Mordor,Moria,Angmar andDol Guldur),Isengard, and the combined Southrons and Easterlings.
War of the Ring has generally been received very positively, for example with an 8.5/10 rating atBoardGameGeek from over 18,000 voters, enough to earn it the eighth-highest spot on the site's list of best board games.[3] It has been described by reviewers as "quite simply a masterpiece"[1] and "a remarkable game".[4]