Lord of the Rings: Sauron Review

This review expects that the reader is familiar with the play of the basic game, and knows a little about the Friends and Foes expansion – please read my reviews of those products for more information if you need a refresher.

The Lord of the Rings Sauron Expansion is the second addition to the Knizia game, and one that adds a whole new dimension (and a whole new level of difficulty for the hobbits) to an already excellent experience.

What you get in the box is a lovely Black Rider figure, Sauron cards, Nazgûl cards, more Gandalf cards, yet more Fellowship cards, the One Ring card, the Watchful Peace card, new resource cards (along with some resource chips), some new (and evil) tiles to add to your tile stacks, and a cloth bag that you can use to draw your tiles out of.

In terms of bits alone, this is worth the price you pay. The additions to actual gameplay make this a must-have for any fans of the original game.

The main addition to the game allows one player to take on the role of Sauron, and actively try and stop the Fellowship from destroying the Ring by placing obstacles and foes in the way. The dice from the base game is no longer used, and the black square symbol on the boards and cards now activate the Sauron player. The Sauron player also gets the chance to act at the start of each player’s turn. The Sauron player is evil, and horrible, and all other players will come to hate and fear that player…

The nasty and terrible things that Sauron can do to the Fellowship change slightly depending on how he is activated. If activated in lieu of a die roll, Sauron can select and play a card from his hand, or refresh his hand back to six cards. The cards that Sauron can play all have horrible things on them that the active player must somehow ‘fulfil’. For example, a card might have a black circle and two white squares, meaning that the active player must move one step on the corruption track, and discard two cards (or reveal two foes if using the Friends and Foes expansion – and why would you not be using that expansion, you fool?).

But the Sauron cards are not all bad … I tell a lie, they are all bad – they just vary in their badness…! The ‘nicest’ one I can find is a black circle – one hobbit gets corrupted by one point.

At the start of each player’s turn, the Sauron player has more options. He can play a basic Sauron card, as above, except that it is weaker, and the active player gets to choose a single consequence of the card (in the above example, the player could choose to become corrupted by one point, or lose one card/gain one foe). The Sauron could draw a single card from the deck to replenish his hand. Or he can haul out the big guns and send a Nazgûl after the Fellowship. There are only nine Nazgûl available to the Sauron player for the whole of the game, and each can only be used once. They are pretty nasty, though… They have two effects; first, they have a symbol, much like a Sauron card (e.g. move Sauron one space on the corruption track, active hobbit is corrupted by one, etc.), and they have some special effect or text that usually effects the whole Fellowship. For example: Each player discards one joker, or activates Sauron (as above). Or: One player must discard 5 fighting cards, or Sauron move two spaces on the corruption track. These are nasty, nasty cards!

Another nasty surprise for the Fellowship in this expansion is the Black Rider. He starts on the corruption track on the 15 space (alongside his buddy Sauron), and moves as a consequence of the Sauron and Nazgûl cards. There is a new symbol – a black horse’s head with a number in, showing how far along the corruption track the rider moves. When the Black Rider meets the Ring-Bearer on the corruption track, all kinds of horrible things happen; the Sauron player gets to play a Nazgûl card, and is activated as though a black square symbol was landed on. And the Black Rider turns round and prepares to head back to Mordor. If the Black Rider can make it back to Mordor with the whereabouts of the Ring-Bearer, the Fellowship encounters the Big Eye and the game ends with a win for the bad guys…! (The Black Rider is re-set at the beginning of each scenario.)

However, things are not all bad for our struggling hobbits…

There are now extra resources along the ‘lesser’ Activity lines on the scenario boards. These chits are selected at random, and placed so that everyone can see them, and provide extra support to the hobbit that manages to land on them, for healing, extra cards, shields and special cards similar to Feature cards that you can get from Rivendell or Lothlorien.

Each Hobbit also gets an extra special ability card – a one-shot deal similar to those found in the Friends and Foes expansion. The cards in this expansion tend to be globally helpful, rather than helpful for the Hobbit with the ability. For example, Pippin can use his card to allow the active player to play any three white or grey cards on his turn, rather than just one white and one grey.

There are three new Gandalf cards available, to cover the new systems (for example, to prevent the play of a Nazgûl card).

These new ‘good’ cards and resources scarcely make up for there now being a sentient Sauron, however…

The final additions to this expansion are the bag, the dark events tiles, and the two new cards.

These three elements are purely optional, although I wonder why anybody would play without them. The bag is an aesthetic addition, allowing you to put your event tiles in to draw from, rather than drawing them from stacks around the board. The bag is black cloth, with an Eye of Sauron in a slightly different black – very stylish.

The dark events are a whole bunch of new tiles that are added to the mix. They are all nasty ones, and bring new effects in to play. However, with the addition of the new tiles comes a new rule; when a player draws a tile, he is able to ignore the first tile drawn and draw a second one, which must be acted upon. This provides some really delicious and excruciating decision points in the game. Do you keep the possible event and try to counter it before it occurs, or draw again, and risk getting an unavoidable event? Allow the ring-bearer to become corrupted or draw again and hope for an activity symbol? These choices almost hurt with their evilness!

The extra cards are the One Ring and the Watchful Peace, both of which can be used exactly once during the whole game. The One Ring card allows the Ring-bearer to pass the ring to any other player. The Watchful Peace is used to push Sauron back three steps on the corruption track. The kicker with this card is that if Watchful Peace is not used in the game, it is worth an extra ten points at the end of the game.

The expansion is excellent, adding a whole new level of terror and difficulty for our beleaguered Fellowship. The Sauron player has an almost easy time of it, sending wave after wave of evil events and foes to harass the hobbits. In the games we’ve played, the Sauron player has won every time, making this the hardest expansion yet.

But even without the addition of the Sauron player (which we only do if we’re feeling really brave!), the expansion adds to the game in many ways – the bag and new tile drawing rules add tension and fear to the tile drawing phase of every turn. The two new cards add a little bit of respite for the hobbits, but even this comes at a price (albeit a not very enticing ten points loss if the card is used).

We have taken to using the extra resources even when playing without the Sauron player – making the minor activity tracks that bit more tempting. This seems to work well – we are still only just making or losing the game even with the added benefits of the new resources.

The bulk of the expansion is the addition of Sauron however, and this is the strength and the weakness of this expansion. The game take son new levels of fear and tension with the Sauron player, and ups the ante in many ways. But after several plays and still no sign of a win for the Fellowship, I have to wonder if the balance is seriously out of whack for this one. Having played the Sauron role myself, I found that I was going easy on the Fellowship a lot, almost playing a Gamemaster role than an active competitor. I was in a winning position many times during the game, and let the hobbits off easily for fear of souring the game for my players.

Maybe with more plays and experience under our belts (although how much more is difficult to say, as we have played a lot now, and I feel that we have a good handle on the game), we will be better equipped to take on Sauron, but right now? I use the bag, the extra tiles and cards (and resources), but still wait for the day that Sauron falls under our advance…

Presentation: The same good artwork and layout that we have experienced throughout the game’s lineage. John Howe steps upo once again to give us superb art,a nd the cloth bag is sublime and wonderful! 9.2/10

Clarity of Rules: Anyone who can play the base game will be able to easily add the new rules and extra bits to their game. The rules aren’t quite as impenetrable as the base game, but still suffer a little from bad layout. 7.4/10

Game Length: Increases the length of the base game, with the Sauron player taking a turn att he beginning of every other player’s turn. Sauron’s goes are generally pretty short, though, and keep everyone on the edge of their seats. Will possibly drag for the Sauron player if he is finding things a bit too easy. 7.7/10

Value: For the price, you can add another player to the game, increase the enjoyment and ‘fear factor’, and get a lovely new cloth bag. I think this is a pretty decently-priced expansion. 8.5/10

Overall: While adding Sauron may make this an almost impossible game to actually win for the Fellowship, it hasn’t stopped us trying again and again and again. And even when we don’t play with Sauron, the additions are still worth getting the expansion for. If you like the base game you should definitely add this to your collection! 9.4/10 (not an average)

Review by David Plank