The epic boardgame inspired by the most famous battle from The Hobbit, The Battle of Five Armies will become available again by September 2021 with a revised edition, including an exclusive variant scenario for the War of the Ring Second Edition board game, The Fate of Erebor, in its first printing. For the most part, Ares Games did a stellar job of putting together the components in The Battle of Five Armies. First off, each players gets a pile of miniatures to use to represent their various forces. From the different humanoid factions to the monstrous races, all are well sculpted and fun to play with. The character minis themselves are especially just begging to be painted. This is where the meat of the game happens. Players roll all of their action dice and then take turns using them. The dice can have 6 possible results: The designers started by reading the source material and studying the battle scene in detail. They wanted to make sure that the game accurately represented the different factions, units, and heroes from the book;

The Battle of Five Armies is a two-players game that allows you to re-create the epic conclusion of The Hobbit, the world-renowned masterpiece by J.R.R. Tolkien. The Shadow player commands the armies of Bolg, the King of the Goblins of Mount Gundabad, while the Free Peoples player is in control of Men, Dwarves, and Elves, led by Gandalf to fend off the goblin army. Finally, I have to say that I absolutely love the hero characters in the game. Each one feels unique and contributes to the game in different ways. As the Shadow player, I’m completely jealous of the Free Peoples pile of characters they get to use when I only have one. Although Bolg is an absolutely monster in combat, you have to balance bringing him with an army vs risking his death (and losing the game). The Free People have that same risk, but they have more characters to part with (Bard always seems to die in our games). The Free People will be using settlements to muster more troops to the game board, while the Shadow Player must take these locations to win. Final Thoughts:Still with me? Good. While not the most complex war game out there by a long shot, The Battle of Five Armies is still quite the involved game. But with that comes the epic feeling that you’d expect with a large clash of armies at the door step of the Lonely Mountain. The Battle of Five Armies was quite the event in The Hobbit and the trio of game designers did an absolutely amazing job of capturing the feel of the battle. But we’ll get to the theme in a minute. Each of the games 9 different heroes have their own special abilities and powers. Battle of the Five Armies is a 1975 board wargame published by LORE / JMJ Enterprises and by TSR later. To achieve these design goals, the designers chose to use a combination of mechanics that would allow for both tactical maneuvering and epic battles. They chose to use a combination of area control, card management, and custom dice rolling to simulate the different aspects of the battle. Units:

Martin Easterbrook reviewed the TSR version of Battle of the Five Armies for White Dwarf #3, giving it an overall rating of 5 out of 10, and stated that "The game's main strength is that it does possess something of the atmosphere of the book. The inexorably slow advancing sea of goblin warriors becomes quite hypnotic after a while and you really do begin bitting your fingernails whilst praying for the arrival of the eagles and Beorn." [3] 2005 Version [ edit ] The Battle of Five Armies was designed by Roberto Di Meglio, Marco Maggi, and Francesco Nepitello, who are well-known in the board game industry for their work on other popular games such as War of the Ring and Age of Conan. The game was published by Ares Games in 2014. Design Goals: Larry Pound reviewed The Battle of the Five Armies in The Space Gamer No. 3. [1] Pound commented that "All in all, the game [is] fair, but the total impression is not enhanced by the colors used for the unit counters or the way the terrain features are drawn." [1]The game also includes a set of event cards, which can be played during the game to provide additional actions, bonuses to combat rolls, or other effects. These event cards add an element of unpredictability to the game, as players must be prepared to adapt to changing circumstances. Design Process: The game is played over a series of turns, with each turn consisting of two phases: the action phase and the event phase. Action Phase: Those are fairly brief explanations of what the dice do. In addition to those results, cards can be played on any die result where the symbol matches the symbol on the card. Overall there are a lot of ways to use your dice on a turn. The Battle of Five Armies – based on the climax of JRR Tolkien's novel The Hobbit – pits the hosts of the Elvenking, the Dwarves of Dain Ironfoot, and the Men of the Lake led by Bard the Bowman against a horde of Wolves, Goblins and Bats led by Bolg, son of Azog. Will Gandalf turn the tide for the Free Peoples? Will the Eagles arrive, or Beorn come to the rescue? Or will Bilbo the Hobbit perish in a last stand on Ravenhill? With Smaug defeated, the dwarves reclaim their treasure, but a battle ensues when another group of dwarves, elves, and men arrive to claim a share of the wealth. The battle of five armies takes place, with the dwarves, men, and elves defeating the goblins and Wargs.

Final Score: 5 Stars – The Battle of Five Armies is an incredibly well designed game that I am really enjoying. This one has a permanent place in my game library. The Battle of Five Armies is a fantasy war game for 2 players published by Ares Games. The game takes about 90-120 minutes to play. Game Overview: Combat: Combat is resolved by rolling custom dice, with each unit type having a different set of symbols on the dice. then began to brainstorm different game mechanics that could simulate the different aspects of the battle and played numerous prototypes of the game, tweaking and refining the mechanics until they found a set that was both fun and balanced. The Battle of Five Armies features a game board representing the Eastern and Southern spurs of the Lonely Mountain and the valley they encircle, and a number of plastic figures representing troops, heroes and monsters.The game ends when one player captures their opponent’s stronghold or eliminates all their units. If neither player has achieved victory by the end of the game, the player with the most units on the board wins. The designers wanted to include as many of the iconic units from the battle scene as possible, so they created a diverse set of units for each army. Each unit has unique strengths and weaknesses that make them useful in different situations. The designers also made sure to include the different leaders and heroes from the book, such as Thorin Oakenshield and Bolg, who provide special abilities and bonuses to their respective armies. Gameplay:

While not as grand of a scale as The War of the Ring, The Battle of Five Armies captures your attention from the first die roll and I guarantee it will keep you glued to the board for the long haul. The game play, production values and the minis help to make The Battle of Five Armies worth every penny of its hefty price tag. If you are a fan of the Lord of the Rings series, or even just fantasy war games in general, then treat yourself to a copy of The Battle of Five Armies. It’s an absolutely stellar and bloody romp through Middle-Earth. The stalwart warriors of the Free Peoples – Elves, Dwarves and Men – formed an uneasy alliance to defend the Lonely Mountain and the treasure of Smaug. Now, they are facing the endless horde of minions of the Necromancer. The Shadow Armies, led by Bolg, son of Azog, are going to sweep the ruins of Dale and the Front Gate with an unstoppable onslaught. The Shadow player commands the armies of Bolg, son of Azog, the King of the Goblins of Mount Gundabad, while the Free Peoples player is in control of Men, Dwarves and Elves, led by Gandalf to fend off the goblin army. Battle of the Five Armies is a game that simulates the Battle of Five Armies. [1] Publication history [ edit ]The Battle of Five Armies is a standalone game based on the rules for War of the Ring, which is from the same designers, but with the rules modified to function on a tactical level as they describe a smaller battle rather than the entire war. Ares Games plans to expand the Battles game system in the future, releasing expansions depicting other battles from the Third Age of Middle-earth narrated in The Lord of the Rings, such as the Siege of Gondor and the assault of Saruman against Rohan. The designers wanted to create a game that was easy to learn, but still had a lot of depth and replayability. They accomplished this by creating a set of simple game mechanics that could be easily understood, but also allowed for a lot of strategic decisions. Once the round ends, a new rounds starts with Phase 1. The game continues in this fashion until one player completes their objective. TheBattle of Five Armiesis a two-players game that allows you to re-create the epic conclusion of The Hobbit, the world-renowned masterpiece by J.R.R. Tolkien.