Hey all,

I own LotR, plus the Friends and Foes and Sauron expansions.  I love the base game's difficulty and recently tried the F&F expansion.  I thought the expansion made the game easier, especially the Hobbits' other special skills.  I haven't had a go at the game with the Sauron expansion. 

Here are my questions:

1. How do you rate the various expansions?  Do they make the game harder/easier, more fun/less fun, or do they not change anything in your opinions?

2. How good is the Battlefield expansion?  Since I don't own it, I'm not really sure what it adds to the game...

3. Are there combinations of expansions you prefer, or do you like them one at a time?

Thanks!

I actually don't much care for any of the expansions. The base game is fine as-is.

The main problem with the Friends and Foes (in my experience) is that it changes the winning conditions from getting to Mordor to killing off all the foes. I have yet to win a game with Friends/Foes by going to Mordor. All of mine have ended by killing off all of the foes by Isengard or Helm's Deep (one got to the early stages of Shelob's Lair by skipping Helm's Deep).

EDIT: I think that the Friends and Foes expansion makes the game much easier as long as you concentrate on the foes.

The Sauron expansion was okay. But I don't see that it adds anything of importance (other than allowing a 6th person to participate).

EDIT: I haven't played enough games with the Sauron expansion to really comment on whether the game is harder/easier.

I own the Battlefields expansion, but haven't used it yet. So I can't comment.

The Sauron expansion is glorious.  At first the game really had a habit of turning into solitaire, and if you can plan effectively then things will likely unfold in a very similar manner each game, but the Sauron expansion pits a human intelligence against the players which is brilliant.  Now the table talk and planning is dangerous cause the bad-guy can hear you and respond accordingly.  It totally revitalized the game for me.

F+F was fun but didn't really give the game anything that made me love it more than just the original.  The first time that I played we won a military victory but that was because we got the rules wrong.  When you're drawing tiles from the bag, you only add a foe if the first one that you pick is a good tile.  If you get a bad first and then draw a good one later you don't add a new foe.  That made foes show up way too fast and we were able to kill them all by the 2nd or 3rd board I think.  Once we fixed that then a military victory bacame much less easy to achieve.  It's fun, but it's all about having Sauron at the table for me.

Haven't played Battlefields so can't comment on that one.

I own the original and the friends and foes expansion.  I rarely play the expansion since everyone I play with prefers it this way, for some reason...

I'll have to try Sauron.  We do enjoy the base game's difficulty and thought F&F made the game a little too easy.  I'd like to hear from someone that has played Battlefields....anyone? 

I almost want to say "Buehler?  Buehler?" repeatedly....

Petru5 said:

Hmmm.... New Forums. OK. Whatever.

I bought Battlefields the day it came out but then it went into the back of my closet until yesterday when we broke out LoTR for old time's sake. It was interesting and fun, but I don't know how well it mixes with 'Friends & Foes.' The boards from Battlefields all have a square on them where the damage result is 'reveal 2 foes' while some of the rewards for defeating enemies are 'kill 2 foes.' The result is that even more foes come out very quickly and we ended up winning the  game (with 2 hobbits playing) on Isengard because there were no more foes to face. That said, the Battlefields expansion was fun, like a mini-game within the game, and because it focuses on Aragorn, Boromir, Gimili & legolas it felt like we were playing another few chapters of the books - the ones w/out the hobbits. I'm looking forward to playing it again.

Just play with the promo card that is placed as the lowest card in the foe pile.

It says to collect all foes with black symbols and form a new foe pile with them. Only if you run thought that pile as well you achieve a military victory.

kilrah said:

hmmm.... don't have (never heard of) the promo card. When & where was it available?

Sam Gamgee said:

Found it:

http://www.convivium.org.uk/pdfs/LOTR_BG_Eng.pdf

I'll have to play with a printed copy until I can find one somewhere. Was it available in NA?

which is the last expansion that is out?...

Junito said:

Battlefields

In order:

LOTR - Main game

Friends & Foes

Sauron

Battlefields

archbishopdan said:

That happened to us too.  But that card that people mentioned on earlier is called "The Black Gate."

And, it actually comes standard in the Sauron Expansion, so it's not hard to come across.  I also got the promo years back, so I have an extra.  

But, it's really more of a rule on a card than a card in play (it never gets shuffled or anything), so you can always just look at the pdf and then just "do that."  It's not really necessary to own.  

I'll have to go through my Sauron box more throroughly, as I don't remember getting the 'black gate card.' Is it possible you have a 2nd or 3rd printing? I picked up Sauron about 30 seconds after it hit the shelves in Canada.

I don't recall getting that card either, but I've only played a couple of games with the Sauron Expnansion.

I also got mine a good while ago.

 I will vote for the SAURON expansion. 

However, to be honest, the base game is pretty much as fine as I want in a game and is pretty much what we play all the time.

Friends and Foes just irritated me, it seemed to add a lot of detail and not a lot of gameplay. Battlefields came over the same way (although I have only watched it being played, not played it myself I must admit).

Sauron adds a 6th player potentially, allows someone to play 'Evil' and adds a live opponent. This makes the gameplay fundamentally different and so for me adds the most to the game.

Still, we play base game most of the time though. Sauron comes out every now and then when the fancy takes us.

myrm said:

We've hardly ever played Sauron because we so often only have 3 or 4 players. I'd like to play it more often. Has anyone ever tried to play Sauron with fewer than 6 players?