The Siege of Minas Tirith

Last updated
The Siege of Minas Tirith
Designers Richard Jordison
Publishers Fact and Fantasy Games
Publication1975;48 years ago (1975)
Genres
Languages
  • English
Players2
Playing time120 minutes
Age range12+

The Siege of Minas Tirith is a 1975 board wargame designed by Richard Jordison and published by Fact and Fantasy Games. [1] It depicts both the Battle of Pelennor Fields and the siege of Minas Tirith from the novel The Return of the King by J.R.R. Tolkien. [2]

Contents

Gameplay

The Siege of Minas Tirith is played on a hex map with locations from The Lord of the Rings novel. One player plays as the attacking army of Mordor, and the other plays as the defending army of Gondor. To win, the attacking player must cross Anduin and wipe out the army of Gondor; the defending player must delay the army of Mordor long enough for the time track to run out and the Ring of Power to be destroyed.

The army of Gondor includes advanced troops on the river, defensive forces behind the Rammas Echor, and a garrison in Minas Tirith. No troops can be moved out of their sector until the army of Mordor has penetrated it. At different times on the time track the Riders of Rohan and Aragorn arrive to assist the Gondor player. The army of Mordor also gets reinforcements, including regular soldiers, two oliphaunt units, and the battering ram Grond. [2]

The game includes an optional rule where the army in control of the Ring of Power gets a significant power advantage. The army of Gondor starts with the Ring and must try to maintain control over it to prevent it from falling under control of the army of Mordor.

Publication history

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)." [3]

Reception

Larry Pound reviewed Siege of Minas Tirith in The Space Gamer No. 3, commenting that "All in all, the Siege of Minas Tirith is a good game and is faithful to the trilogy. The rules allow replication of the events of the trilogy without forcing the outcome." He described the game as "a classic example of a powerful army attempting to overrun a hard-pressed defense before aid arrives." [2]

Reviews

Related Research Articles

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Boromir is a fictional character in J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium. He appears in the first two volumes of The Lord of the Rings, and is mentioned in the last volume, The Return of the King. He was the heir of Denethor II and the elder brother of Faramir. In the course of the story Boromir joined the Fellowship of the Ring.

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References

  1. ↑ Peterson, Jon (2012-07-06). Playing at the world : a history of simulating wars, people and fantastic adventures, from chess to role-playing games. Unreason Press. p. 644. ISBN   9780615642048.
  2. 1 2 3 Pound, Larry (1975). "Game Review: Siege of Minas Tirith". The Space Gamer . Metagaming (3): 19.
  3. ↑ Shannon Appelcline (2014). Designers & Dragons: The '70s. Evil Hat Productions. p. 22. ISBN   978-1-61317-075-5.
  4. ↑ "Panzerfaust and Campaign Article index | Wiki | RPGGeek".


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