[Board/Tactical Game]: Lord of the Rings: Sauron, reviewed by ShannonA (4/5)

http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/11/11955.phtml

Shannon Appelcline's Summary:

\"It's the All-Hearing Ear of Sauron!\" Invite the Dark Lord of Middle Earth to sit down at your table and try to destroy your Fellowship, in this second supplement for Reiner Knizia's Lord of the Rings board game.

Go to the full review for more information.

[Mikey Boy]

Hi,

Thanks for the review - it was informative both in terms of describing how the expansion works and in giving an impression of how it might affect the play experience.

One question - you mention that using it with the Friends & Foes expansion would make for a "really nasty game". In my experience, the F&F expansion actually makes the game much easier, as the new victory condition it adds is much easier to achieve than the original condition. Is this the case if F&F and Sauron are used together?

Mike

[ShannonA]

I haven't used the two together myself, but friends who have comment that they start Sauron at 15 rather than 12 when they do.

However, I generally recommend either ignoring the military victory for F&F or else using the special new Foes card that increases the count by 8 by recycling some of the tougher foes. I talked about it in my review of Friends & Foes last week.

http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/11/11935.phtml

[Seth Ben-Ezra]

Sauron on the other hand disturbs the cohesive feeling of community that the original Lord of the Rings engenders, because there's a thoughtful evil sitting at your table, taking in everything you say ... and perhaps that's exactly as it should be.

And this is exactly why I like the Sauron expansion. The base game does a really good job of encouraging the "Fellowship" aspect of LotR. The Sauron expansion adds the constant paranoia that is also present in the books: the Enemy's spies are everywhere. Now, the tabletalk must be more cautious and, as a result, the hobbit players must trust each other more. Often I find that hobbit players end up telling each other, "I've got it figured out. You're going to have to trust me...." while looking shifty-eyed at the Sauron player.

It's great fun.