Ares Games The Battle of Five Armies Board Game

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The Free People’s player decides how many of their four generals they will be activating during their turn. They can choose as many as 3 of them or as few as none. Each general has a special power that their activation allows the free player to use. For each general they activate, they also get a leadership token to place with an army. However, there are consequences for activating generals… Once the round ends, a new rounds starts with Phase 1. The game continues in this fashion until one player completes their objective. Combat: Combat is resolved by rolling custom dice, with each unit type having a different set of symbols on the dice. 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. Movement: Each unit has a set movement range, which is represented by a number on the unit’s base. Units can move up to their full movement range or any lesser distance. Players must carefully position their units to gain tactical advantages.

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: 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: According to Shannon Appelcline, in 1975 TSR "started distributing other publishers' games — a pretty common tactic at the time, as the hobbyist industry was pretty fractured. They advertised their first distributed items in The Strategic Review #3 (Autumn 1975): a set of three fantasy board games. To be precise, they were three fantasy board games based on the writings of J.R.R. Tolkien: Fact and Fantasy's The Battle of Helm's Deep (1974), Fact and Fantasy's The Siege of Minas Tirith (1975), and LORE's Battle of the Five Armies (1975)." [2] :22 Reception [ edit ] Shadow Player: Control 10 Victory Points worth of Settlements For the most part, combat works well. The damage counters can get a little unwieldy, but expect combat to be fierce and frequent. Game Experience: To accomplish these goals, players will be using the familiar action dice system introduced in The War of the Ring. Each turn, players will be mustering troops, moving around leaders, fighting battles and playing story cards. Be prepared to put for a heroic effort, for leading your troops to victory is no simple task. Game Components: Over a hundred plastic miniatures come with the game, all are well sculpted and a lot of fun to use.

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Recruitment: Each army has a set number of units, but players can use action tokens to recruit new units during the game. Each army has a different set of units with unique abilities and strengths. Event Phase:

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: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. 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.