War of the Ring: Kings of Middle-earth

War of the Ring: Kings of Middle-earth is the most "light-weighted" of the three expansions. It adds rulers who can be corrupted plus three new (lesser) minions (Dark Chieftains).

The new corruption mechanic is neat and can have a local disadvantage for the Free Peoples when defending strongholds or cities. The corruption mechanic also fixes a special case when the Shadow player rolls a lot of eyes: the Shadow player can at least make use of some of these eyes by attempting to corrupt rulers. What I also like about the corruption mechanic is that the order of actions is important because the Free Peoples player must have at least one unused action die for corruption attempts and corruption attempts remove one eye die from the hunt pool making it easier for the Free Peoples player to move the followship. However, I'm not that thrilled about the new corruption mechanic. It distracts a bit from the Hunt and I do not think that sacrificing a "2" or "3" Hunt tile for corruption is worth it. In the end, it is a trade-off: corrupting rulers makes the Hunt more difficult and war easier for the Shadow player. Maybe that's why it feels like this expansion shifts the game's focus more towards war.

The most fun thing about this expansion is that awakened rulers act as additional companions for the Free People and can fight together with armies. The new Chieftain minions for the Shadow player are also very nice.

The expansion integrates quite well with the base game (like Lords and unlike Warriors of Middle-earth). However, I don't like Ares Games' obsession with adding more special dice with special rules with each new expansion...

I also find the new event cards not so great, especially the ones about the new rulers which seem very situational.

Overall, this expansion feels fresh without adding too much extra rules or game mechanics. However, there are still plenty of new small rules exceptions, so that you will have something to discover even after dozens of plays... This expansion is a "nice to have" for me and I wouldn't insist on adding it to the game, but I wouldn't turn it down either.

Lords of Middle-earth is still the best expansion (even if I find it disastrous rules-wise) and Warriors of Middle-earth is my least favorite. Kings of Middle-earth lies between these two.

K

Even more important characters come to life on the board, which is great. The corruption mechanic is really interesting and fits the theme perfectly, although it can add even more details to think in an already complex game