The Battle of Five Armies

Today's review is of the 2014 release, The Battle of Five Armies. For 2 players, it takes 90-240 minutes.

Overview

Based on the climactic battle in The Hobbit, The Battle of Five Armies pits the Free Peoples (elves, men, and dwarves) against the Shadow Forces (orcs, wargs, and goblins). Each side may have one or more generals to aid in the fight, as well as powerful animal friends (eagles and bats). The Shadow's numbers are overwhelming, yet hope remains, and if fate is on their side, the Free Peoples just might prevail. . . 

- The Free Peoples win if 1) the Fate track marker reaches 15, 2) Bolg (the lone enemy general) is killed, or 3) Beorn enters play and the Shadow has fewer than 6 Victory Points.

- The Shadow wins if 1) at the end of a turn if they have 10+ Victory Points or 2) immediately if they have 10+ Victory Points and control the front gate.

After an extensive setup (see below picture), play begins.

A grossly simplified turn consists of six phases:

1. Recovery: each player recovers his Action Dice and draws two cards (one from the Event deck and one from the appropriate Story deck)
2. Generals' Activation: The Free Peoples player chooses 1-3 Generals in play and places one Activation token on each. They then place the same amount of leadership tokens on the game board.
3. Fate: The Shadow player draws fate tiles (one at a time, up to the number of Generals with activation tokens), stopping when they choose to apply the most recent tile and advance the fate marker.
4. Shadow Leadership: The Shadow player places leadership tokens + great bats = number of Shadow pool dice (generally 6-7).
5. Action Round: Both players roll Action Dice then alternate using them (choosing one to activate one of its abilities). The Action Dice sides and their possibile abilities:
• Army: move armies, attack, or play an Army event/story card
• Muster: recruit armies, rally (heal), or play a Muster event/story card
• Character: move armies, attack, move characters, or play a Character event/story card
• Event: draw cards or play an event/story card of any type
• Lidless Eye (Shadow only): recruit goblins, attack with goblins, or move with goblins
• Will of the West (Free Peoples only): wild (use as any other Action die)
6. End of Turn: Check victory conditions arne remove leadership tokens, eagles, and great bats from the board.

If a player chooses to attack (during the Action Round), combat consists of several steps, which I will not cover here. See the official rules and player aid for more.

my game in progress

Turns continue until one side meets a victory condition.

Review

This is one of the more complex games I own, and I don't get to play things like this often due time and energy constraints (the game took us 3.5 hours). That said, this game is done well. 

- The components and rules are many, but the rulebook is concise and mostly helpful (I did need to leverage AI for some questions). 

- The game flows well enough once you get a few turns in; you'll spend almost all your time in phase 5 resolving Action Dice and performing combat. 

- Combat is somewhat complex but also interesting; I enjoyed the damage placement/removal and card selection aspects of that step. 

- There are plenty of meaningful decisions.

- The dice rolls and fate/story/event cards add good chance elements.

- The game has natural tension built in with the fate track; it is a race (albeit a slow one).

- They do a good job representing the famous battle.

The Action Dice can lock you into certain courses of action; some turns I was quite limited. This is somewhat offset by the options you have with each die face. And the combat dice, like any game of this nature, can be infuriatingly against you (I had flashbacks to Risk).

Overall, I enjoyed this one and look forward to playing it again. It won't see our table often due to the time required, but it is a keeper.

Rating: A-