r/warofthering

I was. So if you're lurking in this subreddit but haven't jumped in, here's my experience.

I am more into TTRPGs than board games, but love Tolkien and felt like War of the Ring was the holy grail of Middle-earth gaming experiences. Having Nepitello as a designer was also a draw since I love The One Ring.

So I pulled the trigger and I bought it for myself as a birthday present knowing my wife wouldn't play it. I unboxed it, read the rulebook, but didn't get it to the table for months. I remember feeling like "this is is such a deep and complex game, it takes hours to learn and play, not sure if I can do this".

The thing that finally got me over the line wasn't reading the rulebook again—it was trying solo first and giving myself permission to play badly.

I played two solo games (not using an AI emulator - literally playing both sides in the fairest way I could for both). I found the Dized app tutorial really useful to learn the flow. I still made plenty of mistakes, but by the end I understood why the rules existed instead of just trying to memorise them.

A couple of months later I taught the game to a friend. We still spent six hours on our first play and looked up loads of rules, but there was a huge difference: we were never confused about what the game was trying to do. The solo games had given me the context to teach, and once our strategies emerged, the game sped up naturally.

My biggest takeaway?

Solo play didn't teach me every rule. It taught me enough confidence to get the game to the table.

If you're on the fence, I'd recommend:

• Play one solo game first.
• Use a tutorial (I used Dized).
• Accept that you'll get rules wrong.
• Focus on understanding the flow, not memorising every exception.

I wrote up both experiences if you're interested:

Part 1: How I finally started War of the Ring
https://www.thedashaction.com/2026/06/how-i-finally-srated.html

Part 2: Was playing solo worth it?
https://www.thedashaction.com/2026/07/war-of-ring-part-2-was-playing-solo.html

Curious how others approached learning this beast. Did you jump straight into multiplayer, or learn it solo first?

So I've done some looking around and haven't found anything anywhere where people have played with the idea of using The One Ring against Sauron in a game variant. Yes, this is folly, surely the ring would betray almost any master aside from Sauron. Even if you beat Sauron, he would eventually return because the ring is still there. The new Wielder would eventually be betrayed anyways as Isildur was or outright become corrupted, using the power for dark purposes...

All the same, I think it could be a fun variation to try creating!

This is a write up of the rules which is just a first pass and will almost certainly need more balancing. I went with the idea that out of the companions present, only a few could actually Wield the One Ring to any real effect: Boromir, Strider (and Aragorn), Gandalf, and Galadriel.

Each gets their own kind of benefits and will have to deal with the risk of corruption going forward. It also means the FP player must reach 6 VP for FPMV rather than 4 (I did this to avoid someone just declaring a wielder to quickly take a second SH and win) or the Wielder must go to Barad Dur and confront Sauron themselves, a challenge with significant risk.

The Wielder must stay with an army at all times so that their actions can be contested by the SP. (I fear an untethered Companion would have too much leeway for any counterplay)

Again all this likely would need some serious balancing, but it was fun putting together a first pass that tries to match the concept. Please give any feedback you'd like!