by Marcon
This review will intentionally not go into details on how the game is played. After all, it's been out for a little while now and the rulebook is available online now so you should know what it is about.
Bits, pieces and theme
I am blown away by this game. The first time you unfold the 2 boards, if there is any hint of a Tolkien fan in you at all, you will stare in awe at it. And just when you think you are back to your senses, you will realize the column on which you place Sauron's plots is in fact a gigantic representation of the Barad-Dur tower. And then you will notice that in every single frickin' circle representing a location of Middle-Earth, the artist took the time to draw a different art piece rendering what this part of the world should look like. That's over 50 locations.
And then there are the cards. The plots representing events that may or may not have happened during that long black hole of the trilogy. Again, the art is insanely gorgeous. There are quotes of the books which, despite the facts that they occurred a few years later, fit extremely well, bring back good memories and generally just immerse yourself in the game even more. Even after all those terrific games based on the Tolkien universe have come out, it still dazzles me how well Middle-Earth lends itself to boardgaming, both geographically and storywise.
The gameplay
Alright, so it's pretty. But this isn't a painting, it's a game. Well, it doesn't disappoint in that regard. There are a lot of mechanics so I will highlight the ones I deem of mention.
In most games, heroes will have a unique special power and different stats. In MEQ, they also have a unique deck of cards, complete with what I would call signature cards and a different ratio of a good variety of Ranged and Melee attacks. So despite the fact that there is only 5 heroes in the game, each of them is not just a random bunch of numbers put in a different order.
I also like the innovative 'Your deck is your life total' design twist. It's fun to see new players looking for a pile of wound tokens when their hero suffers damage. And even though the mechanic sometimes feels awkward :
Player : 'I spend my last card to travel here.'
Me : 'Hmmm, well, you're defeated then.'
It all makes sense after a short while and you'll grow used to watching your life pool deplete, counting the cards left in it and happily shuffling everything back together when your hero is healed.
If Corey Konieczka has a problem with dice, I don't mind as long as he comes up with one interesting way to handle combats after another. The fights in MEQ are a breeze to work through and when you have a few games under your belt, it will become Cat-And-Mousey or Rock-Paper-Scissorsey as you will wonder if you should play 2 consecutive ranged attacks at the risk of facing an Aimed Shot. Perhaps an Anticipate is the way to go to get the most out of your Attack of Opportunity? Having seen 2 cards in a row with a Shield icon, is it time to play this Execute you trained for to upset the Witch-King? I must admit there are some obscure interactions here and there that 2 versions of the FAQ didn't cover entirely, especially related to being exhausted and cards being cancelled. But they don't deter from the overall fun and since these situations equally happen to one side or the other, they are easy to rule from an objective perspective.
As for the goal of the game, I love the advancing tokens mechanic, driven by Sauron's plots for the evil player and by the 'Time is on our side' point of view for the good guys. I'm okay with the missions but one of them is overly difficult for each side. As thematic as the Shire one is for Sauron, I have to resort to my best poker face to retain a frown and not let out a 'To the lame tie-breaker we go at best' sigh when I draw it. Same goes for the minions mission for the heroes. With Gothmog able to choose peril at will and the Ringwraiths respawning at every turn but the last, the others pale in comparison.
Oh, right, back to that 'lame tie-breaker' allusion. Even if you've been following this game from afar, you've probably seen countless threads about the thematic-yet-badly implemented fight that takes place if no winner can be proclaimed. And mind you, this is not something along the lines of :
'OMG, we both finished at 142 victory points and both have 46$, get that rules booklet out, let's see what they came up with as a tie-breaker to see who will have bragging rights until our next game.'
What I mean is you will have to resort to the tie-breaker quite a few times in your long aventuring career in Middle-Earth. I'd say 1-in-3, 1-in-4 games? I don't mind the fact that the good players have to name ONE hero to face the Ringwraiths. After all, in Fury of Dracula for example (Another all-against-one game), it often comes down to one Hunter being elected to wait for the Count somewhere or to jump on his known location because he is the one with the best items.
My problem with the tie-breaker is that, as the Ringwraiths, your goal is to exhaust the hero. You'll be looking for shields and you'll be hoping that the hero will run out of strength before he kills you. How anti-climactic can it gets? Even if you're ahead in the tokens race, what do you get? More health and more cards to improve the odds of having more shields at your disposal. It leaves a bad taste in the mouth of the hero players to see their champion play his last card and then that's it. The Ringwraiths are not dead, the hero is not dead, but the game is over nonetheless. I can't help but think that this was a 'Friday-Late-Afternoon' idea or even something that was rushed at the last minute when the game was almost ready to ship. I know there are a lot of variants on these boards and I am grateful for them and I also know that people will sometimes reply 'Heh, just complete your mission and you'll be fine' but it's not always that simple.
Anyways, rant over, now I want you to read my review again from the beginning because this gripe is but a little inconvenience in an otherwise great game.
The replayability
I think I played this game at least 20 times. Though the time to set it up is starting to unnerve me a bit, I am discovering that some aspects of the game 'get better with age' such as the plots requirements. They're something you would just announce to a clueless bunch of players during the first game ('Okay, I play this plot, I need 8 Influence within one space of Mount Gundabad and I have them'). They are now yet another way to bluff your opponents. Put a monster token under Theoden in Helm's Deep and it will smell like 'A Promise of Rings' (Man, how thematic is this?) But what if this is just something to get the attention of a particular hero while you put down something else?
Optimal number of players
This is a 2-4 players game and I played it a few times with every configuration. The 2-player game as written favors the hero a bit since he takes 2 consecutive turns which allows him to attack a minion twice, get all the training, devote his first turn to grab favor and then use the next to run to the nearest plot, etc.
The 3-player game is by far the best. The Sauron player has very tough decisions to make since he has only 2 actions and 3 heart-breaking choices. Downtime is minimal in this configuration. After a few plays, my 2-player games have essentially become 3-player games since my friend and I were able to control 2 heroes quite easily.
The 4th player doesn't add enough to compensate for the additional downtime he will induce. The Sauron player's turn is longer and of course, it will take the heroes more time before they get a chance to act. It can add as much as an hour to a game and will put the duration over the edge for some.
The bottom line
Despite a tie-breaking mechanic that screams to be rewritten, MEQ is a solid game. It has just enough hero-building without being a complete mess of gear and bonuses, enough cooperation without being a 'Boss-Me-Around' kind of game, enough interesting fights without being a dice-fest and of course, more than enough theme. Actually, being a hero in Middle-Earth would probably feel just the same as playing MEQ, without that fuzzy smell accompanying every new board game."
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