Battles of the Third Age

As a Tolkien fan who has read The Silmarillion multiple times, I was eagerly anticipating my (library) copy of The Fall of Gondolin. The story of Tuor and the Gondolin battle is only narrated very briefly in a short chapter of The Silmarillion, so I was looking forward to digging into the details.

In that spirit of anticipation, I pulled out a boardgame that I hadn’t played in eight years, Battles of the Third Age. I’m referring, not to the Twilight Expansion of War of the Ring, but the standalone scenarios focusing on Rohan and Gondor. I’ve only played the easier and shorter Rohan scenario, but after eight years I couldn’t remember the rules and had to relearn them.

In the Rohan scenario, the Shadow player commands the armies of Isengard, the Dunlendings and Mordor orcs. Their goal is to overrun the settlements and strongholds of Rohan before the Ents are sufficiently roused to lay waste to Isengard. The Free Peoples player marshals the defence of Rohan. In the beginning of the game, Theodred is stationed with forces at Deeping Coomb. Will he try to hold the fords of Isen against the forces of Shadow? Or will he retreat behind the dike into the Hornburg (Helm’s Deep)? One of the enjoyable aspects of these boardgames is being able to replay the tape with different strategies and outcomes. Below you can see Theodred’s army staying put as the armies of Isengard approach.

At some point the Ents show up to attack the orcs. Treebeard leads a small sortie to harry the rearguard of the Shadow forces. They succeed in destroying one army in the rear but are too late to play much of a role when the Hornburg is assailed.

The Shadow player achieves victory either by capturing a number of Rohan settlements or eliminating all key leaders of the Free Peoples armies. The Free Peoples wins if the Shadow player makes little headway when a rejuvenated king Theoden shows up midway through the game, or if Fate takes its course – the Ents are sufficiently roused to destroy Isengard before the Shadow player’s objective is achieved. The Fate Track is an innovative key feature in Battles of the Third Age. In the Rohan scenario, it is 18 “timeline steps” long. Along the way the Free Peoples can activate new characters and reinforcements. Treebeard may show up on step 3, Eomer on step 5, Aragorn on step 6, and Gandalf on Step 8. Below you can see that Aragorn is ready to enter the game to boost the leadership of the Free Peoples armies. Once Gandalf enters, he may free Theoden from Wormtongue’s influence.

If you’ve played War of the Ring, the gameplay in Battles of the Third Ageis similar. Action dice determine the types of moves each player can make. There are interesting thematic cards that each player uses to influence events during the game. There’s also plenty of dice-rolling as armies clash and troops attempt to rally. Different army units have special abilities that are activated by tactics tokens. But through it all, Fate moves along at an uncertain pace. The picture below shows a later stage of the game where the Hornburg has fallen to Shadow, but Gandalf, Eomer and Aragorn are holding a line of forces to protect Edoras and the eastern plains. A new group of Ents is attempting to disrupt the Shadow forces.

I was able to play four games over the past month. Two were Shadow victories and two were Free Peoples victories. The Fate Track is particularly interesting because how quickly it moves is determined by both a random draw and by how aggressively the Shadow player exerts leadership. Some turns the Fate tile may just move one step; other turns it might move three steps with new Ents added to the Entmoot. This variable balance, along with the cardplay, keeps the game interesting and replayable even though the objectives remain the same. Strategies adapt to the shifting winds of Fate.

This past week I finally got to enjoy reading The Fall of Gondolin. For some reason, it made me feel like watching the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit trilogy movies again! I also hope to play the Gondor scenario (siege of Minas Tirith) sometime.