Games for Two- Lord of the Rings The Confrontation

Copyright Fantasy Flight Games, Used with permission

Being in that age group of parents with young kids, it is increasingly difficult to get groups together for some gaming. That means outside of X-wing and a monthly RPG group most of my gaming is done with my wife. So I’m always on the look out for good two player board games.

We picked Lord of the Rings: The Confrontation up recently and gave it a whirl. The premise of the game is simple, you play as either the Fellowship or the forces of Sauron. You face off across a board with 16 zones, each representing a different area in Middle Earth. Sauron’s goal is to either kill Frodo or to gain control of the Shire. The Fellowship’s goal is to get Frodo to Mordor.

Each side has nine characters to control. At the start of the game you place your figures secretly in the area on your side of the board. As there are only six spaces, four must be placed in your home territory (The Shire or Mordor).

The game progresses by advancing your forces across the board trying to take out the enemy and reach your goal. Each turn you must move a character forward, you can not go backwards, and each space has a limit to how many characters can be in it at once, usually no more than two. This forces you into conflict with your opponent pretty quickly.

When characters from the two sides meet they enter a combat phase. First, you reveal the two pieces that are fighting. Each character in the game has a different special ability. Legolas, for example, has the ability to instantly kill the Nazgul. If he were to enter combat with the Nazgul, he just wins, end of round. If it’s any of Sauron’s other characters, Legolas would have to fight.

This is done by each player selecting a card from their hand. These cards either will add value to your character’s combat score or they provide some other bonus. For example, one of the cards allows you to ignore the effects of your opponent’s card. Another lets you draw a card from your discard pile. Whichever character ends up with the higher strength value wins. They claim the space and the other character is removed from the game.

There is an interesting balance between the two sides. Sauron’s forces are stronger, having a troll with strength 9 which is far higher than any of the Fellowship characters. Additionally, Sauron also has more strength bonus cards. However, the Fellowship each excel at taking down specific foes. Gimli kills orcs, Merry kills the Witch King, Sam gets stronger if he’s protecting Frodo and Boromir makes a noble sacrifice killing himself and whatever he encounters. Pippin makes a great scout as he can retreat, allowing him to reveal which enemy is in a space. Frodo also can retreat which is important for keeping him alive.

Sauron’s forces are more aggressive. The Black Rider and the Nazgul can advance across the board very rapidly. The Wargs are very dangerous to Frodo as they negate a character’s abilities, preventing Frodo from retreating. On a character per character basis, Sauron has better odds of winning a fight but also does not have any instant trump cards.

We’ve only played it a few times but each game goes pretty quickly. Set up does not take long either. This makes it a nice pick-up strategy game to play.