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Instructions
GAME SETUP
Multiplayer -> Change Nick... to select something other than Newbie.
Free Peoples -> View FP Hand... to be able to read FP event cards.
Shadow -> View SA Hand... to read SA event cards.
Use the View menu to zoom the board to a better size for your monitor.
See “Multiplayer” below this guide on how to connect to an opponent.
BEGIN THE TURN
F7 to draw FP Character Card
F8 to draw FP Strategy Card
F11 to draw SA Character Card
F12 to draw SA Strategy Card
(Declare the FSP by manually moving the figure on the board and manually returning the
progress marker to zero (0))
(Manually swap out the Guide if you so choose)
Shadow: Press ctrl-E for each Eye you choose to allocate
Shadow: Click on SA Action Dice in side bar, then press ctrl-R to roll the dice
Free: Click on FP Action Dice in side bar, then press ctrl-R to roll the dice
ACTION PHASE BASICS
The player taking the first action double-clicks on an Action Die in the side bar to send it
to the Current Action space (above the War of the Ring title), and then does one of the
following:
Event Card Play
* Double-click the relevant card in your hand to send it to the Current FP Card or Current
SA Card space on the board (above the War of the Ring title)
- Play an Event Card to the table by selecting the card and then right-clicking in a sea
space beneath the War of the Ring title or to the right of the large FP Strongholds
* Draw new Event Cards using the F-keys as noted above in GAME SETUP
Moving the Fellowship
* Press ctrl-M to send the Current FP Action Die to the Hunt Box (this automatically
advances the FSP progress counter - double-check that the FSP is NOT revealed)
Mustering Reinforcements/Factions
* Click on the Force Pool (Reinforcements) and right-click the appropriate unit to the
appropriate settlement on the board
Recruiting Action Die-providing Companions/Minions
* Click on the appropriate Force Pool (Reinforcements), click on an Action Die, and
press Delete (this will make it show up next turn)
- Move a Minion, the Balrog, or Galadriel from the Force Pool to the board
- A dead Gandalf the Grey must be retrieved from FP Casualties
- The Balrog musters along with a Sauron unit, and you will need to manually advance
the Dwarves, Elves and North political counters
- Press ctrl-F when Strider or Gandalf the Grey is selected to upgrade them to Aragorn or
Gandalf the White
Activating and Advancing Nations to War
* Click on the appropriate box of the Political Track
* If more than one nation's token is in the box, click on the relevant token
* Right-click on the next box down on the Political Track
* Instead of the above two steps, you can just double-click the token.
* Press ctrl-F (as in flip) to activate a passive nation after selecting its token as above
Moving Units/Companions
* Click on the region they occupy, then right-click in the region they are moving to. If not
everyone is coming, first select the relevant units in the information box of the side bar,
then right-click the destination region
Attacking
* If initiating an attack, see COMBAT below
* If attacking into a Stronghold region, click on defending force and right click in the
appropriate Stronghold box on left side of the board, then move attacking force into the
Stronghold region
IMPORTANT: When an Action is complete, press ESC to end the round (when
playing a remote opponent this signals to the other player that it is their turn)
THE HUNT
* Roll the relevant number (#) of hunt dice by pressing ctrl-#
* If the Hunt is successful, press ctrl-H to draw a Hunt Tile
- Click on the Guide of the FSP and hit the Delete key to take him as a casualty, then
promote a new Guide from the FSP's remaining cannon fodder
- Or press ctrl-D to choose a random Companion as a casualty
- And/or apply corruption damage manually by moving the Corruption Marker
* To reveal the FSP click on its progress marker and press ctrl-F, right click on step 0 of
the track to reset it, then move the FSP figure on the board to its new location
COMBAT
* Attacker announces they are attacking and whether they are playing a card.
* Defender indicates whether they are playing a card.
(If a siege battle with a siege engine tie, first determine if FP will eliminate a trebuchet to
force siege superiority.)
* Attacker clicks to select a combat card (if any) from their hand and pressed F1 to lock
in that choice.
* Defender does the same (if any).
* If necessary, either player presses F2 to play any chosen cards to the table.
* Roll dice as appropriate using ctrl-# to roll # of dice for attacker combat roll and leader
re-roll, defender combat roll and leader re-roll, and any ancillary event card effects.
* Apply casualties as below.
* If combat continues, press shift-ESC to clear any combat cards while retaining the
current Action Die, then repeat the above steps.
TAKING CASUALTIES
* To eliminate an entire Army simply click on the region it occupies and press Delete.
* Eliminate partial casualties by selecting the relevant force on the board, then clicking in
the information box on the units you wish to eliminate, then pressing Delete.
- To downgrade Elites to Regulars select the relevant Elites and press Insert (or see the
Game menu).
* When an Action Die-providing character dies:
- Click in the appropriate Casualties area
- Click on a used Action Die there
- Right click on the appropriate Reinforcements area
END THE TURN
* Check victory point totals for possible military victory (you can also use FP and SA
control markers on the Fellowship Track to track VPs)
* Press ctrl-9 to return all used Action Dice and any added for special Companions to the
FP Dice Pool in the sidebar
* Press ctrl-0 to return all used Shadow Action Dice and any added for Minions to the SA
Dice Pool it the sidebar
FIDDLY BITS
Special Hunt Tiles
When playing Event Cards that bring special Hunt Tiles into play:
* Click on the Hunt Removed button in the sidebar
* Click on the relevant Hunt Tile
* Right-click on the Hunt Used button
Sméagol
When a Sméagol Tile is first drawn in the Hunt:
* Move the current Guide to the left-hand part of the Fellowship box
* Click on the FP Force Pool
* Click on Sméagol and right-click in the Guide part of the Fellowship box
When Sméagol is eliminated from the FSP:
* Click on the Hunt Pool'
* Click on the remaining Sméagol Tile
* Right-Click on one of the areas for play-to-table cards. This tile now represents "We
Shall Get It"
Mordor
When the FSP declares in Mordor
* Click on the Hunt Used button
* Right-click to DESELECT all but the special tiles and Eye tiles
* Right-click on the Hunt Pool button to dump the special and Eye tiles back in the pool
* Since ctrl-M automatically advances the FSP, when a Shadow special tile takes effect be sure to back up the FSP progress marker one space
* When FSP reaches 5 on the Progress Track, they're at the Cracks of Doom!
Elven Rings
Press ctrl-U to use an Elven ring.
Multiplayer
You can connect to another player running the same program. One person needs to act as a host. They should somehow tell the other person their IP
address beforehand (you can find it by using Multiplayer->Get My IP Address). Then that
person uses Multiplayer->Host Game and waits.
Then, the other player uses Multiplayer->Connect to Host, and enters the host's IP
address. ("Get My IP Address" returns something like computername/73.32.374.26, and
you only want to input the part after the "/".) Both players enter a port number; this is the port on the host computer you are
connecting through. It doesn't really matter what it is as long as it's entered the same on
both ends. Use the default and you'll be fine.
Once you are connected, you can start playing, with one caveat: If one or both of you
have done stuff before connecting, that stuff is not automatically transferred to your
opponent’s program. In this case, your opponent needs to choose Multiplayer
->Synchronize To Opponent in order to have their program be on the same page as yours.
Observing Games
Normally you can only connect to one other player, but the observers feature (new in 2.1)
allows other people to connect to you even if you’re already playing with someone else.
To set this up, one of the players already playing the game must choose Host Observer
from the Observers menu. Then the person who wants to observe chooses Observe Game
from the same menu. It’s very similar to the basic connection method. A player can host
any number of observers, but the observers themselves shouldn’t be connected to anyone
else in any way.
When observers choose Synchronize to Opponent, it synchronizes. It’s not, however,
possible to synchronize to an observer. By default, observers can only talk – they can’t move pieces around. Their host, however,
can enable this ability in the Observers menu.
Viewing Replays
To view a replay, load a log file using Replay->Load Replay File. Then use Play/Pause to
start the replay, or step through at your own pace using Step. When using Play, you can
increase or decrease the speed by using those options however many times you want.
Each one changes the speed by about 20% of its current speed.
Replay->Next Breakpoint moves you ahead instantly to the next breakpoint. (If there isn't
a breakpoint, it takes you to the end of the replay.) A breakpoint is a line in the log file
that starts with "" without the quote marks. Starting with version 2.0, the game
will insert such a breakpoint at every new turn. Should you so desire, you can edit your replays by adding additional breakpoints, so you
can tell other people who view your replay to perhaps note the situation at the first
breakpoint. You can't watch replays through an internet connection. Only the player who loaded the
file will see anything happen.
Viewing Dice Statistics
Choose View->Statistics and you’ll get some information about what has been rolled so
far in the game.
Preferences
A couple settings are stored in the file wotr_preferences. You can safely edit and delete
this file.
Log Files
The game continuously saves your game as you play into an auto-generated log file
named wotr_[current date and time].log. These stay there in case you forget to save, and
they are just like a saved game except with a stupider name. You are also free to rename
or delete any or all of them.
Image Files
All the image files are stored in the images folder. You are free to replace or edit any of
them, and the game will still work (unless you screw up map_mask.png).
Turn Counter
The game automatically keeps track of what turn it is based on rolling and recovering of
dice. However, this counter might get messed up if you do weird stuff. If it does, you can
manually set the turn by typing, for example, "turn 3" into the chat without the quotes.
Custom Zoom Settings
You can change the zoom level of your map. Since this doesn't affect the scale of the
acual unit pictures, using this feature on its own and scaling by a large amount, like to
70% or 200%, will make it look pretty weird. Of course, if you want to use your own
image files, go right ahead. This is another feature that I don't know if anyone will use,
but it seems like a good option to have.
To use the command, type in a percentage like 100 (just try it).
If you choose 100, it will use the basic map, board.jpg. If you use a different number, like
118, it will first look for a file in the images directory called board118.jpg. If it finds one,
I would expect it's because you put it there, having decided on a board image that is 1172
x 808 (which is 118% of the normal board size) that you would like to use. If it doesn't
find one, it scales the map internally. The main reason it has this option is that it's
possible you have an image that is a higher resolution than the default 993 x 685. This
feature makes it possible to use that image. You couldn't do this before because the game
"knows", for example, that Lorien is at 511, 245. When you change the zoom option it
scales this internal knowledge appropriately.
Some final notes:
Scaling you do in an image manipulation program will probably be of better quality than
the Java internal scaling. This is another reason the option to use your own files is useful.
If you are using the default settings for 1024 x 768 resolution, I believe something like
96% zoom will remove the need for vertical scrolling. If you want to eliminate the need
for scrolling altogether you have to go down to 78%. The board starts to get a little
crowded at that point.
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