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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 13 ต.ค. 2017
- I get to chat about what what was my favourite board game for about a decade (and is still in the top 3). It's called "War of the Ring", and is an epic recreation of Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings" trilogy. One player plays the fellowship and the forces of good, while the other plays the minions and forces of the shadow.
Royalty-free music has been provided by TH-cam's audio library, by freesound.org, and by my video editing software, Wondershare Filmora.
Find me on Facebook here: / josh-yaks-48. .
Write to me at writetojoshyaks@gmail.com
Thanks so much for stopping by!
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So which is your #1?
@@alike6517 4:13
My wife and I played this for the first time last month. We loved it so much we vowed to play it once a month for the rest of the year. Her Birthday is in April, and we'll be playing it in celebration. So begins our unexpected journey.
WOW - that's amazing!! (My wife and I were both born on the very same day in April - the 24th!) Also, I've kept track of my plays of this game over the years:
www.boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/41944/war-ring-list-keep-track-results-epic-battles-my-w
I purchased the 2nd edition, both expansions and Treebeard a year ago. Been my favourite game ever since. Absolutely mesmerizing to play with the right person.
Yes! That "right person" has been my wife, and I have recorded our games here:
www.boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/41944/war-ring-list-keep-track-results-epic-battles-my-w
That set is just jaw dropping, wow! And those additions of scenery-...I don't think I'd ever stop playing it.
I agree, Max! I wish I never had to stop playing it!
Thank you for pointing out that reading up on specific strategies for a game spoils the fun of it!!! Totally in agreement with you! I have a friend whom after learning the basics of games, goes out and reads up on "the best strategies" and says "this is how you should play X...". It definitely feels like it spoils the game... any game TBH. Either way, glad to know I am not alone in thinking that. Thanks!
The joy of playing a game is in exploring its strategies while others do the same to see whose strategy comes out best! If everyone plays an identical "optimal" strategy, then I guess the game comes down to luck based on who rolls best or draws the best cards, or whatever.
@@joshyaks I will say though, War of the Ring can easily throw off a potential strategy via roll of the dice or play of the card (by either side), which is what I love about it. Every game I have played of it has been neck and neck.
Yeah man I believe the same goes for videogames as well. Specifically games that require exploration and trial and error (talking about you, Dark Souls) Some people just check online where to find the best gear, the best spells etc. That completely destroys the mystery and wonder of finding something awesome by yourself.
Great video! Loved the showcasing of the special edition of the game and your personal additions to the set up. Those outtakes at the end were great, and super pure and relatable. Keep up the awesome reviews (the Yaks!)
Thank you so much!!
Awesome!
Thanks, Erik!
Thanks :)
:)
Do you have anything to reference the custom things that you added to the game? or somewhere we can look at the anniversary paintings done to the figures? I am curious about where you got your strongholds done and the bases for your force pool
Here is an old list of all the things I added to my first War of the Rings game:
boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/38850/war-ring-expansion-definitive-guide-increasing-pla
And here's where I purchased the strongholds from:
boardgamegeek.com/thread/672224/mt-doom-stronghold-miniatures-wotr-anniversary-edi
If you're curious about anything else, let me know!
I have a 1954 hardcover lotr book set, it's survived many finical hard times, and is still with me. I believe it's the first printing of second edition.
War of the ring is one of my favorite games of all times easily. The stronghold sculpts look nice but that's outside of my budget. What limited money I do have for games will go to purchasing a very few new games for my collection rather than cosmetic upgrades on old ones.
Oh wow - that book is certainly a treasure! And I definitely get wanting to put your money toward enjoying other games, too.
Josh Yaks I think the set is worth between 1000$ and 1500$ but it's the set I learned to read with when I was a small child so the monetary value doesn't represent it's value to me.
Shame you had to sell the ultra nice war of the ring, but at least they released that really nice version.
Those custom strongholds are amazing. Just bought this game and the two expansions last month. Still working my way through the rule book!
Yeah, that rule book is a beast!
love the vid! also love how you scored a mint selling the old version of the game just before being able to buy the new upgrade version. lucky... either way i'm super envious... ive been wanting to play this game for a while. cheers.
Thanks, Jason! Yeah, I REALLY lucked out on the timing of all that!
This looks amazing!!!
It IS amazing!! :)
So jealous of the anniversary edition! Planning to paint at least the bases when I get the game (kinda nervous to paint everything). Those fortress minis are fantastic as well!
Painting the bases is a good plan. It sure would have been nice if they'd done each nation in a different coloured plastic at least, since it can be tough to differentiate some of them at a glance! And yes, I LOVE the stronghold minis!
Great review! It’s one of my favorite games. You are a cool person!
Thanks so much, Mike - I appreciate it!
Best BG of all time
There's simply no game like it - it's a work of absolute genius!
What a wonderful and succinct ode to this game! I’ve had it for years (just 2nd edition) but could never get it out. It is now as we speak out on the table for me to explore its rules. LOVE your edition! I hope they put in to make this again. May I ask if it is still #2?
Thank you so much for your kind words! This is still my #2-ranked game of all time after Gloomhaven, though I haven't played it in a few years. I hope you enjoy it as much as I have!
Darnit, I didn't know there was an Anniversary Edition. XD It looks so good!
Now I'm so jelly!
I have the 2nd edition, but I do have a hand-painted mount Doom that I'm a very proud owner of.
Nice! A good Mount Doom model is practically essential for this game! :)
It's a game I soooo rarely play but love a bunch. Here´s your like good man.
Thank you, Guillermo! I'm with you on both loving the game and almost never getting to play it!
@@joshyaks lol
@@joshyaks Hey bro, forgot to tell you. Have you tried the bot to solo this game? Is awesome and it works pretty well. You should try it. boardgamegeek.com/filepage/141333/queller-bot-war-ring-solo-play
@@guillermoyaroslavlverduzco1551 Oh shit, I had no idea such a thing existed! I'm going to download this immediately - thanks so much for the link!!
@@joshyaks Enjoy it bro. It works pretty nice.
Great video, where did you get the curved card holders? Thank you
Thanks! I bought them at a local board game convention. I don't have any info for the guy here in southern Ontario who made these specific ones, but a search on Amazon for "curved wood card holders" brings up similar products.
Nice vid! I also own this amazing anniversary edition. Really like the sculptures of the strongholds. Where did you buy them?
Thanks! The anniversary edition really is fantastic! I obtained the stronghold minis from here:
www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/773232/middle-earth-strongholds-now-available-order
Hello so much envy u got the anniversary edition, can I ask where u got the strongholds minis?
Yeah, I'm really happy I got the anniversary edition! I obtained the stronghold minis from here:
www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/773232/middle-earth-strongholds-now-available-order
tks then i saw those already, i was hopping new ones available
my top thematic game has to be like u by far; War of the Ring no other game make u feel u r living all the adventures from the books, but after a lot of games (50 or more) its start to get harder to replay cuz becomes more like a chess match, no random setup so u know with a few rounds where its gonna end, the expansions give a nice fresh air of replay value
saying all that my top game to replay over and over in semi complex range cuz all the random setup Mage Knight what u think?
I've never actually played Mage Knight, though I have a friend who owns it and has been suggesting I try it, so maybe I'll get to that one of these days!
good question
What you said at the end about why Gloomhaven is the more epic experience from game to game is exactly why I don't want to even try it. I simply don't have time in my life to devote to so many sessions of only one game in order to get the total experience. Which is why WOTR excels in this regard, because you can have the total experience in only 4 or 5 hours. Then do it again next week. Can't do that with Gloomhaven.
...
BTW, it would've been nice for you to show an "up close" of those extra bling items that you mentioned in the beginning.
That's fair. There's enough content in War of the Ring to explore for many years, especially with the expansions! As for my custom components, over the next few weeks I'll be recording videos of my most blinged-out games: Fury of Dracula (Third Edition), Hunt For The Ring, and PitchCar (which I turned into Mario PitchKart).
I adore Gloomhaven, and I am really privileged to have a game group it works really well with. My suggestion however is, if you don't have a group of 4 people (incl. you) you can regularly play with, you shouldn't pick it up. Our disciplined group actually managed to inspire a different group of friends to pick it up, and although they are still very hyped about the game, the have experienced a lot of frustration as well with people dropping out and dropping in and just overall not playing as much as we do.
Thanks for the info at the very end, . . . . it's hard being a youtuber.
:)
I've got the standard base game + the two expansions and I have battle of the 5 armies also. I'll play if for the first time at the club next Wednesday.
I hope you love it, but I'd highly recommend starting with just the base game before throwing in any expansions! I've never played Battle of Five Armies because I feel I have more than enough to keep me busy with War of the Ring, but it does look fun!
@@joshyaks I got the base games cheap and I got the expansions cheap also there's a guy at the club who has the 1st special edition but he never takes it out to play.
Hi Josh, I recently played the Anniversary edition (after couple of years not playing the game), and just recall how complex sometimes is to reference each army. On your video I see you have some cards below each army not in play. What info is contained on those cards? Is it possible for you to share files or pictures?
Hi! Those cards simply have the name of each nation and an illustration, and they can be found here:
www.boardgamegeek.com/filepage/22333/war-ring-enhanced-army-boards-v10pdf
Searching for that file also reminded me that 10 years ago I had made this list of enhancements for the game, though I'm sure that some better things have come along in the past decade:
www.boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/38850/war-ring-expansion-definitive-guide-increasing-pla
Sorry - I just realized that I had put the wrong link in my first reply! I've fixed it above, but here is the correct one:
www.boardgamegeek.com/filepage/22333/war-ring-enhanced-army-boards-v10pdf
It is a fantastic game, I play it once a week :)
Wow, once a week!! Do you use any of the expansions?
@Josh Yaks 90% of the time, it's just base. A popular competitive way to play it is with cities mini expansion, tree beard and 1 or 2 action tokens for free people for maximum balanced game. I like LOME, but I haven't explored WOME much (only played that twice)
Also playtime goes down quite a bit. Most games are down in about 1.5-2 hours not counting setup/teardown
@@andreikoenig5718 Holy heck, that's a quick play time for this game!
@Josh Yaks once you know the cards and played a couple times, turns go super quick. Move army, move Fellowship, roll, safe, play card, put units, move armies. Etc
Where did you get the 3D add one?
If you're referring to the 3D stronghold, there are a couple of users on boardgamegeek.com who make and sell them:
www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/773232/middle-earth-strongholds-now-available-order
www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/672224/mt-doom-stronghold-miniatures-wotr-anniversary-edi
The ones I purchased were those made by user "sickdave".
I am really trying to love this game... but so many of the videos are about game play. This video took me more into why you love it which is really nice to hear. The problem I have is it looks really bland at some points and I am very bad at 1 on 1 games. I may just pick it up just to see what its all about even if its not for me. I think the art is weird because it is bland but at the same time I love how traditional Tolkien it is?
As much as I personally love this game, I wouldn't recommend picking it up just to try it if you're feeling doubtful. This game is an absolute beast to learn and takes hours to play, especially the first couple of times as you're trying to assimilate all the rules. Since it requires so much commitment to get into, it would be most ideal if you could find someone who has it already that could teach it to you and to see if you enjoy it enough to buy it for yourself. But yeah, everything about the Lord of the Rings universe just pops out of this masterpiece!
Josh Yaks Great advice, Thanks!
Have you seen the WOTR review video by Fraser Mackenzie? He spends the entire video discussing WHY it's a great game while hardly even mentioning anything about the actual game play. Sounds like exactly what you're looking for.
Dude you look just like my friend whose name is also Josh (he doesn't have the same hair and beard tho). I know that's random. I miss him....... Thanks for the video!
I was going to say that maybe I AM your friend Josh, and then I remembered that I have no friends... :D
@@joshyaks That sounds like something he would say too.... Maybe you ARE actually him in a parallel universe !? 💫👁
By the way I love your book reviews, they're great and the same kind of genre that I like.
@@U.F.O_0908 😄
@@U.F.O_0908 Awesome! What are a couple of your favourite books/series?
I love very much the LOTR universe but we sold back this one because, as you say, our lives don't allow us to play too many big games.
So we kept CCNapoleonics, TFMars, Eclipse, SWRebellion, BTSun etc and sold back this one, TI4 and other big ones to save our precious lives lol!
To be said: Among our lighter games we kept WOTR THE CARD GAME which is fast so much more playable between our monster's sessions!
Those are some great games to have kept! I did the opposite of you: I sold Star Wars Rebellion because it filled a similar niche to War of the Ring and I enjoy the Lord of the Rings theme more (but Rebellion is definitely a great game!). I'm glad you're finding that the card game allows you to play a much faster game in this world!
Nice looking setup!👌 Especially curious about those cards under each faction army. Where did you get them?
Thanks! Those cards simply have the name of each nation and an illustration, and they can be found here:
www.boardgamegeek.com/filepage/22333/war-ring-enhanced-army-boards-v10pdf
A decade ago I made a list of enhancements for the game, though I'm sure that some better things have come along since then:
www.boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/38850/war-ring-expansion-definitive-guide-increasing-pla
@@joshyaks do you think that could be possible to update the cards of the armies due to the new expansions?
@@RFtheswisslegend Those files aren't mine and weren't designed by me, but it would be pretty cool if someone were to do that!
where did you purchase the additional sculptures for the game?
I obtained the stronghold minis from here:
www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/773232/middle-earth-strongholds-now-available-order
You and I have exactly the same tastes in games. You anywhere close to Northern Ohio? I have the CE edition updated to 2nd edition rules and using MY painted figs from the 1st edition plus some re-painting.
Hi, Jim! I live an hour outside of Toronto, so wrong country, unfortunately. That's great that you have your own painted figures!
Do you know if there is a way to read the stragety guide that is not the abbreviated version? I really want to read the book and see all the charts
Do you mean the full game rulebook? That is available to download here:
www.aresgames.eu/768
@@joshyaksno 4:48 100 paged strategy book
@@tothepanels Oh, that one! I'm not aware of that being available anywhere. (I just looked at the "Downloads" section of the Ares website and the BGG game files and didn't see it there.) As a "next best thing", BGG has nearly 150 strategy articles, and if you sort them by "Top", you can find a lot of great stuff:
boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/115746/war-ring-second-edition/forums/67
We own Gloomhaven, and it sits heavy on our shelf, begging us to play it.
Ooooooh, dang!! It is a BEAST, but if you have an opponent or two who can handle the deep complexity of the game, it's quite an experience!
Where did you get the card holders?
I bought them at a local board game convention. I don't have any info for the guy here in southern Ontario who made these specific ones, but a search on Amazon for "curved wood card holders" brings up similar products.
I really need that were can I find this board game they are out of stock please where do I find one
You could try contacting Ares Games, but I imagine you'd have to look in the secondary market.
@@joshyaks oh Ok thanks
Great video, the music should come *right down* in volume, if you use background music at all, it's made the video hard to get through but the content was really nice.
I'm really thinking about getting War of the Ring and yeah it was nice to hear your comments.
Thank you, and I appreciate the constructive criticism! I definitely caused problems with some of my earlier videos with music levels (I recently deleted one altogether because it was barely watchable), and have mostly eliminated background music from my videos since then. Thanks again for the advice!
I'll definitely watch more of your content, I really like anything that champions The Lord of the Rings and after watching this, I spoke with my brother today about possibly going halves on buying a set (sadly it'll be the cheaper version hahah).
Thanks for responding and keep making the great content!!
I appreciate it! If you can both handle very complex, rules-heavy games and have a lot of time for a game, then you'll more than get your money's worth from this one!
I wish they would reprint the anniversary edition but I highly doubt it. Oh well...
Yeah, I can't see them making money on that giant wooden box anymore, especially with the cost of shipping these days.
Gloomhaven for life!
Or at least for a couple more years! :)
Hum, the books are nice but I would like to just have the larger game board ... check ebay. Nope! That is a ridiculous price. Could make a custom painted terrine board for that find of money (not a bad idea). I am not familiar with the rules of this game. I owned LOTR RISK years ago (a good version of RISK with ways to make it even better if you do some thinkin'). As a big Tolkien fan, I do not know how War of the Ring has escaped me for so long.
Whaddayamean ALMOST? ;)
never understood minis walk ing around on a world map. r they supposed to b 2: miles tall.... silly
This game is definitely not middle earth risk.
What are those feet he is talking about? ^^
Weird hair and mistake ha ha
Tolkien is overrated trash.
My First Fantasy for 13 year olds.
Fair enough. (The Hobbit was actually written to be a kids' book.) What authors do you prefer?
Jorthax
It was the first fantasy! Who do you think invented these archetypes?
What's better?