When 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.
Gameplay Overview:
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:
- Grey cards are skills that give you resources to play other cards
- Blue cards move the ring bearer or the Nazgul
- Red cards let you put armies on the map
- Green cards get you the alliances of the different races of Middle Earth and potential bonuses
- Yellow cards give you coins
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:
- Have a presence in all 7 regions on a map (note, two players’ units can never share a region other than with a Fortress).
- Have the ring make it to Mount Doom, or the Nazgûl catch Frodo.
- Have 6 different green symbols, representing that enough races in Middle Earth support your side.
The first player to do one of those three wins.
Game Experience:
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 shifted to use its Middle Earth theme.
What’s interesting is that victory points are not part of the game at all. In the original, Blue cards simply gave you points, but here, they move your ring tracker. The hunt for the ring is a core part of The Lord of the Rings and I really like how they integrated it. Frodo and Sam are trying to race to Mount Doom before they get caught, but the Nazgûl is always hot on their trial. What’s interesting is how the tracker works: the distance from the fellowship to the Nazgûl never gets farther apart. So once your Ringwraith starts to close that distance, you can’t get that buffer back. It makes the later ages a lot more tense as both get closer to their target.
The abstract military track in the original game has been replaced with a more thematic map of Middle Earth. Here, area control is the name of the game. You’ll be placing units on the board attempting to control regions. Battles are very quick, with each side eliminating one unit until only one side remains. Get a unit in each region and you win. If, by the end of the game, no one has won yet, the player that controls the most regions wins.
Both of those were great ideas however I feel like the green victory is the least thematic. You need to get 6 different cards and you win. It says it represents the races supporting you, but it doesn’t really feel that way. You are collecting abstract symbols which occasionally will give you a bonus. The six races: Elves, Ents, Hobbits, Humans, Dwarves, and Wizards, represent your potential allies, but I have a hard time seeing the Elves or Ents, or most of them really, siding with Sauron.
The game further loses its thematic integration by the lack of titles on any of the cards. While the artwork is fantastic as expected from fan favorite Vincent Dutrait, most of what you are playing doesn’t actually stand for anything and there is a lot of duplicate art. I get why they went this route, it will make localization a lot cheaper to not have to print unique card names for each language. But it also makes already abstract cards feel even more nebulous.
For those wondering how it compares to 7 Wonders Duel with both expansions (Pantheon and Agora), it does incorporate parts of both, but in a more streamlined manner. This is done via Fortresses, which replace the Wonders from the original. Building a Fortress lets you skip drafting a card from the pyramid (ala Pantheon) and the cost increases by 1 coin for each other Fortress you have (ala Agora). So it loosely incorporates mechanics from both expansions, but in a lighter way.
The biggest change is probably with the economy. Yellow cards provide a set number of coins now and don’t have the scaling that the original game had. You also can’t buy resources from your opponent anymore, which thematically makes sense as Frodo is not going to sell Sauron some courage. In general, the economy in Lord of the Rings Duel has been simplified a bit from the original since now you can just replace missing resources at a 1:1 ratio with gold.
Final Thoughts:
I’ve played The Lord of the Rings: Duel for Middle Earth quite a few times since receiving it and think it’s a pretty great game. While it’s not perfect, the designers did a great job of taking their system and dropping it into Middle Earth without this feeling like a cheap cash grab. From the hunt for the ring to the area control of the map, the theme shines through in many areas. It’s a solid adaptation that I think a lot of people are going to enjoy. Just be aware that this game is a lot more confrontational than the original 7 Wonders:
Duel. As long as you are OK with that, this is a solid offshoot of an already great game.
Final Score: 4 Stars – The great gameplay from 7 Wonders: Duel is dropped into Middle Earth with some nice thematic touches.
Hits:
• New goals feel on point with the theme
• Great artwork and solid production values
• Hunt for the Ring is a nice addition
Misses:
• Green cards feel shoehorned in
• Gold cards and economy feel a lot more basic
