r/warofthering

I designed a custom playmat for War of the Ring: The Card Game to solve a few things that kept slowing our games down.

The main goal was to make it easier to track battle progress and location control at a glance instead of constantly counting icons. I also added a score track so you don’t have to recount controlled locations and battlegrounds at the end of the game.

It keeps all the important information visible in one place, so we can spend more time thinking about strategy and less time checking the board.

Thought I’d share it in case anyone else finds it useful. Would you personally consider playing with this? Let me know! The playmat also fits inside the box.

I have been playing War of the Ring: The Card Game a lot recently in solo mode with the expansions, but I always came up short of winning—sometimes losing by a pretty large margin.

Today, however, I finally did it! I felt like I was doing well until about round 7, when Mordor reactivated Minas Tirith. Losing it caused a massive 6-point swing (I lost 3 points, and they gained 3). I struggled on, and by the last round, the Lidless Eye was distracted by a shadow battleground where the last remaining Men and Elves—literally my last usable cards—fought against the endless hordes of evil. Meanwhile, on the slopes of Mount Doom, Frodo climbed while being chased by a Nazgûl. A second one appeared, and in an act of desperation, Frodo put on the Ring (allowing me to draw 2 cards). Sam appeared, saving the day and winning the game for me by just 2 points!

It felt incredibly thematic. I have only played the game solo so far, but I really need to try it with others.

Just wanted to share how awesome this game is/was.