War of the Ring CHAMPIONSHIP - WSBG 2024

[@NigelIncubatorJones]

1:43:00 I heard him say he was using a character die for that, so there wasn't a second army to move.

[@NigelIncubatorJones]

Great job on the commentary, guys. Thanks for doing this.

[@PodfatherGaming]

Thank you, man! Appreciated!

[@BoardGamecomments]

Good to see Ira commentate for the first time in 5 months. Buonocore did well, he should play some ranked matches. Amazing game. 7 tokens bid on side selection blew my mind. But SlickRick has a 635 rating as shadow, a 467 rating as free people. RompSteel has a 754 rating as shadow and a 674 rating as free people.

[@PodfatherGaming]

Buonocore would not be able to compete effectively against these peeps! -- "I am Stephen Buonocore, and I approve this message" :)

[@PodfatherGaming]

Oh, and I actually did play some games in the preliminary rounds of WotR at the WSBG. I did win ONE of them, but that was not enough to move to the semi-finals. Such a great game win or lose!

[@skippen]

@@PodfatherGaming you are better than you give yourself credit I am sure. Anyone who has played 50 games of any game is better than the average person.

[@PodfatherGaming]

@@skippen Well, I know the game well. I’ve probably played closer to 70 times, and many of those games have been over the past 4 years since I retired. Retirement = MORE WAR OF THE RING!

[@stefanpetrovic5721]

Brother, give discord link, I would like to join the community.

[@Betterthanskooma]

Love watching this with the commentary! Thanks for the great video!

[@PodfatherGaming]

THANK YOU for watching and the compliments!

[@bibleboardgames]

A few years ago I picked WOTR for the Epic game in my collection and it keeps proving it is Epic! This was a treat to watch with all the narration by Stephen and Ira. Thank you! Interesting to see even the best miss an occasional rule and make mistakes so I won't feel bad just trying to play and enjoy!

[@lawngoat933]

Scouts is honestly one of the best cards in this game, a free movement action is so killer!

[@PMMagro]

What a bid! I like this game and played it recently, we had a bid of two and it did affect our game... This is a spectacular game with great commentary :)

[@1HourRebellion]

Congrats to a very well played game by both sides. Amazing work and fun to see live. Sorry Romp! I was feeling for ya. Great commentary by kzbin.info

[@Visitingwombat]

Feels very unsurprising to see a wild Wombat appear

[@Vayze22]

Amazing game guys, well played. Congrats again Erick. I so wish I would've made it to the final!

[@PodfatherGaming]

Thanks for being there and competing!

[@NigelIncubatorJones]

Commentator said eye tiles do damage based on the number of dice in the box, but that's only true when the Fellowship is on the Mordor track. Outside Mordor, eyes do damage based on the number of hits rolled.

[@PodfatherGaming]

Yup, true. Sorry for the mistake. :(

[@bbirda1287]

Boromir is redeemed! What a game! Now I gotta watch death of Boromir from the movie again.

[@michaelvaldivia2262]

Congrats! Great video! Ira as usual being a great champ. Hope we can see more of this re-casts. PD; Who's Bob on the Discord?

[@BoardGamecomments]

RompSteel. You may have seen him on KZbin if you watch WotR content.

[@michaelvaldivia2262]

@BoardGamecomments Romp!! Venting lord haha good to see him!

[@forestfilms7914]

Excellent showdown, always good to hear Ira's commentary

[@MjrLeegInfidel]

This was unbelievable!

[@kael12345678]

Can someone give a short summary of the significance of the bidding number at the start? What can the Free people player use the tokens for?

[@jefflanzilotta2057]

Is that Camela we can hear in the background talking? Sure sounds like her. Great Game ! Best I have seen.

[@PodfatherGaming]

That is Camila! She was doing an interview of one of the Ring winners (I believe) at a table nearby, so the mics of this Final Table picked her up. Go Mila!

[@GGdeTOURS37]

We bought it twice and sold it twice > it sadly didn't work with us! Now we are back to SWRebellion, Eclipse, TI4, BTSun, Dune and so many other beauties!

[@amagrude]

Good luck!

[@JamesWatsonV]

Loved learning that WOTR is @PodfatherGaming's top game also

[@PodfatherGaming]

It must certainly is! It’s been my #1 game for… forever, basically! Nothing touches it for me. I literally believe it is a pinnacle of game design, melded with thematic perfection.

[@nin_4_me58]

SlickRick’s big think was definitely about using the 1C and 1W to separate Gandalf to get Gandalf the White. At least that’s what I thought watching the video.

[@PodfatherGaming]

Good points!

[@buondiavolo5244]

I LIked it one of the best games i see

[@nin_4_me58]

Great game guys!

[@nin_4_me58]

FPMV is the way to become champion!

[@PodfatherGaming]

It blew my mind. So well played. This game was worthy of a Championship game!

[@danjones5835]

Brilliant! ❤

[@chinabeach8558]

i would of thought that with the extra move he had early on rick would reinforce hd or move the elite up to ettenmoors early to threaten angmar when bob wouldnt have been interested in defending it. Rick missed an early win option moving companions to lorien instead of taking moria imo. Boromir being ready to retake dale was also a factor, might have made sense to move the reg from erebor into dale instead of the units from umbar. There were too many moves up north from bob that were inefficient early on and that mt gunda army at the end was wasted musters that could have been in baraddur.

[@marzelp4480]

Wonderful game! Like more of that!

[@benisbenieuwd]

Can someone explain how those action tokens work? Is this rule only used in tournaments?

[@PodfatherGaming]

In short, since the first player/bidder wants to play a given side (Shadow usually) over the other side (FP), that player bids a number of action tokens to play that side. The second player can either accept that bid (and play the other side, FP in this example), or they can overbid the first player to play the side the first player wanted (Shadow). Eric bid “Shadow 6”, and Bob then bid “Shadow 7”, and Eric accepted that bid. That is a VERY HIGH bid. Yes, this is only done in a tournament setting so that it’s not just a “random dice roll” or selection. The Meta in WotR is that it is easier to win with Shadow, so the bid always starts with “Shadow X”. Shadow 6 was very high. Shadow 7 was WILDLY high! It is possible that getting those 7 tokens for Eric won him the game… ? Possibly! :)

[@natedavis6689]

@@PodfatherGaming Thanks for explaining. And how do they work exactly? Does it give one side a huge action advantage? what can they do with them?

[@PodfatherGaming]

@@natedavis6689 They give extra actions. I forgot what types of actions, but as I recall, some provide Muster actions. The purpose is that when you have a tournament game, you have to figure a way to give the players one side or the other (FPP vs SP). The “meta-game” in WotR, particularly with higher level players, is that it’s easier to win as the SP. So, you have one person make a bid like “3 for SP”. The other player can accept or bid higher… and it continues from there.

[@skippen]

Thanks for this.

[@PodfatherGaming]

You’re welcome! We really enjoyed doing this. 2.5 hours went so fast!

[@skippen]

@@PodfatherGaming it was great.

[@andrewmountianou2697]

It's important to note that Eric also won the War of the Ring the Card game tournament in Gencon on 2023 legend.

[@PodfatherGaming]

He’s amazing!

[@indimarien9699]

Are there more gameplays like this on youtube?

[@WarOfTheRingChamp]

I have a bunch of games on my channel @WarOfTheRingChamp

[@WarOfTheRingChamp]

kzbin.info

[@ganAlexander]

Its tough to see what’s happening on the board

[@PodfatherGaming]

When we get on ESPN, we'll have some additional technology... :) :) :)

[@michaelsecen4881]

Great game! Why are they rerolling 1's though?

[@nin_4_me58]

Good commentary Ira!

[@PodfatherGaming]

And that Podfather guy was not bad either… :(

[@nin_4_me58]

@ Agreed! Good play by play. Sorry. Ira has created a lot of WOTR commentary with hidden gems of strategy. I wanted to give him a special shout-out for his analysis of these two excellent players

[@PodfatherGaming]

@@nin_4_me58 Thanks for watching and the feedback!

[@nin_4_me58]

@ thanks for posting

[@WarOfTheRingChamp]

@@PodfatherGaming That Podfather guy was great! :)

[@stjepansimic7534]

Tf are those tokens I dont get it?

[@zxql_]

Since Shadow faction has a higher win rate due to game balance (in WoTR with no expansions), players bid tokens to be able and pick the Shadow faction, thus giving some bonus back to the Free People. A token can then be used to either draw a card or muster a faction closer towards war (not unit recruitment), and pass the turn over to the Shadow player. Only one token can be used per round.

[@mirko_casnedi]

@@zxql_ thanks for the explanation! But just out of curiosity, is there a (non)official rule written somewhere about these tokens? Can you please share a link if any?

[@zxql_]

@@mirko_casnedi Yes, google for "Hunt for The Ring rulebook", it's a game from the same studio that can tie and lead into a game of War of The Ring. Check page 37 where such a scenario is described. Based on the outcome of that game, War of The Ring match would start with these action tokens (either free people or the shadow player would have some). WoTR community use these tokens to "barter" for a faction that they want to play.

[@Oreonis]

Do wargs give leadership? I kept hearing that, but aren't wargs elite units?

[@victor2374]

Looking at all the videos, SP wins far too often. FP wins if they abandon the fellowship and go for a military victory. I don't think that this is what the game designers intended. The ring simply moves too slow. Change the fellowship movement to 1.5 regions per point on the fellowship track (round down if declared or revealed) and the game changes entirely. No eyes for SP, fellowship could easily declare in Lorien or further on turn 2. Minas Tirith on turn 2 or 3. This forces eyes from SP, slows up SP blitz greatly and brings the back to what it was intended for, getting Frodo to Mount Doom. Many SP players won't like this. It's just too much fun rolling over the FP.

[@Oreonis]

the track wins on the discord and the SP is actually favored in winrate. You can also see that in how high each of them were willing to bid get to play SP

[@henrikwakman7776]

Hi Stephen, you mentioned this is your favourite game. What do you think of Star Wars: Rebellion, as it has a quite similar feel? I slightly prefer it.

[@PodfatherGaming]

I recently (over the summer) got to finally play SW:R. It was great! Certainly has a similar feel, but mechanically quite different. The game that is truly similar to WotR is, of course, Dune: War for Arrakis. And I LOVE D:WfA! I did a video on how amazing that game is. It is like a much more tactical and shorter version of WotR.

[@henrikwakman7776]

@@PodfatherGaming I know, it's really good, too. Waiting for Desert War expansion:)

[@PodfatherGaming]

@@henrikwakman7776 I have not tried the first two expansions yet, but I’ll own all of them for this game.

[@1HourRebellion]

WOTR is great, but I love me some Rebellion!

[@NigelIncubatorJones]

The free-range rolling is painful to watch. Use a dice glass, you barbarians!

[@PodfatherGaming]

I too am a barbarian in my dice rolls… :)

[@NigelIncubatorJones]

@@PodfatherGaming That problem is easily fixed. Get a dice glass. Or a dice tower, but a glass is superior.

[@Jidarious]

@@NigelIncubatorJones what the heck is a dice glass

[@NigelIncubatorJones]

@@Jidarious Any sturdy glass will do. Something of reasonable size for the dice involved. Drop the dice in the glass, and they bounce around really nicely, and it helps prevent knocking pieces off the board like you might get from free-range rolling.

[@tyrussleightholme7261]

So you don’t roll dice… the most satisfying tactile action in gaming. You put your dice in a glass cup shake a cup and roll them like a grandma? Gotcha 👍 also why use glass and not plastic lol