The role of Aragorn will be played by Royal Scout during tonight’s performance. Please consult your program for other cast changes.
When I decided to dive, head-first, into the board gaming hobby I did what most people do: I splashed into Board Game Geek and started reading reviews and listening to podcasts looking for games that I needed to add to my budding collection. Now, this was right after the Lord of the Rings trilogy had wrapped up and, being a dork, I wanted to combine 2 of my favorite things: LotR and gaming. It was that Christmas that I received Lord of the Rings: The Confrontation from a designer I knew very little about, Reiner Knizia.
LotR: The Confrontation quickly became a staple between my brother and I, and we played it fairly exclusively until we discovered Arkham Horror, but that’s another story.
Coming for PC/Mac in February, and for iPad shortly thereafter, is Reiner Knizia’s The Confrontation which, an astute reader might notice, sounds just like the board game I mentioned, minus the imagination of J.R.R. Tolkien. You’d be right! The Confrontation is a port of the original game with all the licensed, pricy material removed and with everything now residing in a generic fantasy realm. Considering that most generic fantasy is somewhat derivative of LotR, I don’t think we’re going to mind too much.
More after the break.
The Confrontation is a 2-player only game that’s a bit like Stratego but smaller, tighter, and way more strategic. The board is tilted so that a corner is immediately in front of each player. Across the middle of the board is a mountain range that can be crossed, but gingerly. On each side of the mountain range, each player has 6 regions and 9 characters scattered amongst them. You keep your characters facing you, so your opponent is blind to what pieces you’re moving around the board. Each piece has a special ability and when 2 opposing pieces meet the pieces are revealed and combat is handled via a deck of combat cards.
That maze’s actual title is NotMoria.
In the cardboard version, the Fellowship player wins if Frodo reaches Mordor, whereas Sauron wins if Frodo is killed or The Shire is overrun. How they are going to handle the win conditions without the story of the One Ring remains to be seen, but I don’t think they’ll have to stretch too hard to make it work.
Just talking about The Confrontation is getting me excited. I haven’t played it in years, having sold my copy when 2-player games just didn’t get pulled off the shelf anymore. Getting this on an iPad will be a perfect fit. Oh, and before you worry, yes it will have asynchronous online multiplayer as well as a single-player vs. AI component.
February can’t come soon enough. Check out the trailer below:
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