Ares Games The Battle of Five Armies Board Game

Product Information

According to the designers, their goal with The Battle of Five Armies was to create a game that was both faithful to the source material of J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Hobbit” and also fun and engaging to play. They wanted to create a game that captured the epic scale of the battle scene from the book, while also allowing players to make strategic decisions and experience the thrill of victory or the agony of defeat. Mechanics: The game ends when one player captures their opponent’s stronghold or eliminates all their units. If neither player has achieved victory by the end of the game, the player with the most units on the board wins. Finally, I have to say that I absolutely love the hero characters in the game. Each one feels unique and contributes to the game in different ways. As the Shadow player, I’m completely jealous of the Free Peoples pile of characters they get to use when I only have one. Although Bolg is an absolutely monster in combat, you have to balance bringing him with an army vs risking his death (and losing the game). The Free People have that same risk, but they have more characters to part with (Bard always seems to die in our games). The Free People will be using settlements to muster more troops to the game board, while the Shadow Player must take these locations to win. Final Thoughts: The cards are tiny, and some have print so small you can't read them. The cards are mediocre quality (don't get them wet).

The Battle of Five Armies is a strategic board game designed for two players that simulates the epic battle scene from J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Hobbit.” In this game, players take on the roles of either the armies of dwarves and men or the armies of goblins and Wargs. The objective of the game is to either capture the opponent’s stronghold or eliminate all their units. The game typically takes around an hour to play. Components: The designers wanted to include as many of the iconic units from the battle scene as possible, so they created a diverse set of units for each army. Each unit has unique strengths and weaknesses that make them useful in different situations. The designers also made sure to include the different leaders and heroes from the book, such as Thorin Oakenshield and Bolg, who provide special abilities and bonuses to their respective armies. Gameplay: The game also includes a set of event cards, which can be played during the game to provide additional actions, bonuses to combat rolls, or other effects. These event cards add an element of unpredictability to the game, as players must be prepared to adapt to changing circumstances. Design Process: The game is played over a series of turns, with each turn consisting of two phases: the action phase and the event phase. Action Phase: Combat: Combat is resolved by rolling custom dice, with each unit type having a different set of symbols on the dice.Final Score: 5 Stars – The Battle of Five Armies is an incredibly well designed game that I am really enjoying. This one has a permanent place in my game library. Free People: Fate Marker reaches step 15, Bolg is killed or Beorn enters play and the Shadow Player has less than 6 Victory Points. The designers wanted to create a game that was easy to learn, but still had a lot of depth and replayability. They accomplished this by creating a set of simple game mechanics that could be easily understood, but also allowed for a lot of strategic decisions. Once the round ends, a new rounds starts with Phase 1. The game continues in this fashion until one player completes their objective. The Battle of Five Armies is a two-players game that allows you to re-create the epic conclusion of The Hobbit, the world-renowned masterpiece by J.R.R. Tolkien. The Shadow player commands the armies of Bolg, the King of the Goblins of Mount Gundabad, while the Free Peoples player is in control of Men, Dwarves, and Elves, led by Gandalf to fend off the goblin army.

The stalwart warriors of the Free Peoples – Elves, Dwarves and Men – formed an uneasy alliance to defend the Lonely Mountain and the treasure of Smaug. Now, they are facing the endless horde of minions of the Necromancer. The Shadow Armies, led by Bolg, son of Azog, are going to sweep the ruins of Dale and the Front Gate with an unstoppable onslaught. To achieve these design goals, the designers chose to use a combination of mechanics that would allow for both tactical maneuvering and epic battles. They chose to use a combination of area control, card management, and custom dice rolling to simulate the different aspects of the battle. Units:

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TheBattle of Five Armiesis a two-players game that allows you to re-create the epic conclusion of The Hobbit, the world-renowned masterpiece by J.R.R. Tolkien. Recruitment: Each army has a set number of units, but players can use action tokens to recruit new units during the game. Each army has a different set of units with unique abilities and strengths. Event Phase: The Free People’s player decides how many of their four generals they will be activating during their turn. They can choose as many as 3 of them or as few as none. Each general has a special power that their activation allows the free player to use. For each general they activate, they also get a leadership token to place with an army. However, there are consequences for activating generals… The Battle of Five Armies is a standalone game based on the rules for War of the Ring, which is from the same designers, but with the rules modified to function on a tactical level as they describe a smaller battle rather than the entire war. Ares Games plans to expand the Battles game system in the future, releasing expansions depicting other battles from the Third Age of Middle-earth narrated in The Lord of the Rings, such as the Siege of Gondor and the assault of Saruman against Rohan. The Battle of Five Armies is a fantasy war game for 2 players published by Ares Games. The game takes about 90-120 minutes to play. Game Overview:

then began to brainstorm different game mechanics that could simulate the different aspects of the battle and played numerous prototypes of the game, tweaking and refining the mechanics until they found a set that was both fun and balanced.To accomplish these goals, players will be using the familiar action dice system introduced in The War of the Ring. Each turn, players will be mustering troops, moving around leaders, fighting battles and playing story cards. Be prepared to put for a heroic effort, for leading your troops to victory is no simple task. Game Components: Over a hundred plastic miniatures come with the game, all are well sculpted and a lot of fun to use.