The Lord of the Rings: Duel for Middle Earth Review
boardgamequest.comWhen I heard that Repos Prod was making a spin-off of the fantastic 7 Wonders: Duel with a Lord of the Rings theme, I was immediately intrigued. I was curious to see how designers Antoine Bauza and Bruno Cathala would use this theme. Both are excellent at their craft and I in no way expected this to be a pasted-on theme. And then when I got a glimpse of the fantastic Vincent Dutrait art, it moved to the top of my “must try” list.
The Lord of the Rings: Duel for Middle Earth, is a 2-player spin-off of the original 7 Wonders: Duel. This time dropping players into Middle Earth as they battle for the fate of the free people.
While the core mechanics of The Lord of the Rings: Duel for Middle Earth (hereafter referred to as Lord of the Rings: Duel) are fairly similar to 7 Wonders: Duel (review here). One player controls the free people while the other takes on the mantle of Sauron and the forces of darkness. That being said, there is almost no difference in playing either side, short of the color of your army, so pick your favorite.
The main crux of the game is that on your turn, you must choose a card from the display and add one to your tableau. They come in a number of different types:
In the first age, most cards are free to play, however, in later ages, cards will cost different skills and coins to play. If you are lacking a skill icon, you can substitute it with coins.
Alternatively, instead of grabbing a card, you can choose to buy a Fortress card if you have the required skills and money. These give you a permanent presence on a map region. That’s important because there are 3 ways to win:
The first player to do one of those three wins.
Lord of the Rings: Duel reminds me a bit of the Pandemic offshoots: Iberia, Reign of Cthulhu, The Clone Wars, etc… Those are “powered by Pandemic”, but they didn’t just paste a new theme on the game and call it a day. Much is the same here in that you can see the core 7 Wonders Duel mechanics at work, yet the gameplay has also
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