Middle-Earth Quest

[Brel]

Middle-Earth Quest

It is a time of growing darkness and despair. Sauron the Great, the Dark Lord of Mordor, has returned to his ancient fastness of Barad-dûr. From there, his evil and corruption has spread across the lands once more. Alas, in the West, there is little strength left. The Elves have all but abandoned Middle-earth, and the blood of Númenór has run thin; that which remains now dwells in Minas Tirith, or with the lonely rangers that haunt the ruins and wild country of Arnor.

Yet, there is still hope. Gandalf the Grey has learned that the One Ring, the master–ring which Sauron desires and fears above all, is with the hobbit Frodo in the Shire. And there are heroes! Heroes to aid Gandalf in his hunt for the creature Gollum, and in his quest for the lost knowledge of Isildur’s Bane. Heroes, whose strong arms guard the Shire from the enemy. Heroes, who venture into the forests of Ithilien, or even into the Land of Shadow itself, there to disrupt the schemes of Sauron, wherever they may be found.

Middle-earth Quest is set in the seventeen-year period between Bilbo’s birthday party and the Ring’s departure from the Shire, as described in J.R.R. Tolkien’s novel The Lord of the Rings.™

One player takes the role of Sauron, who is attempting to dominate Middle-earth with his nefarious plots and evil minions. Up to three other players take the roles of heroes who must hold the darkness at bay until Gandalf’s plans have matured. To do so, the heroes must embark on dangerous quests and consult with the famous characters of Middle-earth to gain favor and knowledge.

Will you play as Sauron and claim Middle-earth as your own? Or will you play as a hero and stand against the Dark Lord?

The fate of Middle-earth rests in your hands!

Middle-earth Quest contains:

• 1 Rulebook
• 1 Large Game Board (in two parts) 28.25" x 41" when put together
• 5 Plastic Hero Figures
• 5 Plastic Minion Figures
• Over 225 tokens
• More than 470 cards
• 5 Hero Sheets and 8 Plastic Stands

Game design by Corey Koneiczka and Christian T. Petersen.

Source: www.fantasyflightgames.com

[Rolf]

Sounds interesting...I wonder who the heroes are?  I believe Aragorn was mentioned as having assisted Gandalf during the shadow years...possibly Legolas...

On a related note, I wonder when they'll come out with a game in the Silmarillion's setting?

[vladsee]

Oh Wow Another Middle Earth game! I will probably get this one...

Yes, its was mainly Aragorn who was helping Gandalf all those years.  Based on the cards in the picture, FFG may include some non-book characters too. 

[maskmanjoe]

One of the best tweets I got today:

Gone Cardboard: Middle-earth Quest (Fantasy Flight #Games) should be in U.S. stores the week of August 10, 2009.

[maskmanjoe]

I've been reading the rules they posted last week for this and, coming from the pure ameritrash of WoTR, its nice to have diceless combat in Middle-Earth Quest. The card-based combat reminds me of the WoTR action cards, although of course here the cards deal the actual damage, not just augment or affect the results. I still foresee a challenge in deciding which combination of cards to play. It seems like timing is still essential. There's alot of new stuff here, a great 1-vs-many multiplayer which I feel many will enjoy playing as the big Lidless baddie Can't wait!

[Brel]

Was just browsing the rules of this game yesterday.  It looks interesting... but the 40 pages of rules (and font type used) is intimidating.  hmm... That is no match for the 80 pages of rules of Battlelore though.  nyaah   

[maskmanjoe]

Or War of the Ring. Sanayan lang yan

[Adrian (the other one)]

Or War of the Ring. Sanayan lang yan

War of the ring is like 20 pages of font size 4 text on supersized pages!

Seriously, is anyone getting this yet?  I want to try it out first, before committing to getting another huge-ass game.

[maskmanjoe]

Or War of the Ring. Sanayan lang yan

War of the ring is like 20 pages of font size 4 text on supersized pages!

Seriously, is anyone getting this yet?  I want to try it out first, before committing to getting another huge-ass game.

Seriously, I'm getting this

[Brel]

Or War of the Ring. Sanayan lang yan

Yeah, you're probably right sanayan nga lang yan and if there are people willing to play then I'm game.  Like Adrian, I would like to try this out first. 

[dyeyk2000]

Sooo... did anybody did get this game? Haha. How was it?

I want a less masakit sa ulo na Arkham Horror Haha.

[kookoobah]

I like it better than Arkham, but I'm in the very small minority. People say the Sauron player plays an optimization eurogame, but I think it's still fun.

The game is pretty good, especially the heroes. Try it, I think it's an awesomeg ame.

[Gaebril]

I like it better than Arkham too! But that's because I find Arkham to be pretty tedious once the new game smell wears off.   

I think MEQ has an excellent combat/resource system for the heroes, a decent management game for Sauron, and a boring adventure element on top of all of that. The downtime with 4 is pretty bad - I would rather just play this 1-on-1, even if the game isn't really built for it. The endgame is also truly anticlimactic, it's begging to be house-ruled. Overall I wouldn't call it great, but I wouldn't avoid playing it.

[maskmanjoe]

Previously owned it, enjoyed it too while it was still in my library. True to what KKB said, it has an asymmetric gameplay, with the heroes playing a cooperative adventure running across the board while the Sauron player plays both a proactive build-up game and a reactive deal-with-pesky-heroes game at the same time. As you can see, a bigger amount of effort is placed on the Sauron player. The heroes focus entirely on delaying the Sauron player long enough for their plot to succeed (which progresses automatically) whereas the Sauron player has to "fight on two fronts", managing his plot progress and dealing with the heroes.

This kind of gameplay can turn off some players as the owner tends to end up as the Sauron player all the time. I didnt mind as I was used to being Overlord in Descent (which also is an all-the-time role :p). I did pass the Sauron helm to another friend who thoroughly enjoyed throwing monsters and whatnots at the heroes

You'll need to expound on what gave you headaches in AH so we can address your concerns about the game. MEQ is not a simple game either but it provided me with a very different gaming experience than AH.

[dyeyk2000]

You'll need to expound on what gave you headaches in AH so we can address your concerns about the game. MEQ is not a simple game either but it provided me with a very different gaming experience than AH.

Thanks for the query MMJ!

Well. In a nutshell, I found AH to be a game with too much admin. There's always a ton of things that you need to remember. It's not necessarily a complex game, but it was an extremely busy one. I don't mind busyness, but the payoff is minute for the effort that you have to put in.

I also found the mechanics to be poor. Lots of dice rolling, lots of waiting on the other side of the portals while you watch, lots of hoping you get the retainer, etc. Basically very random and luck driven. I would prefer games wherein player skill is the primary mover, not luck or randomness.

Obviously it is a game wherein theme is huge. And while I'm a theme fanatic. I find a game that's all theme very unsatisfying. As Gaebril said, it becomes tedious once the new game wears off.