The Lord of the Rings: Duel for Middle Earth Components Overview and Impressions

7 Wonders and 7 Wonders Duel are two games that I have many fond memories of playing. Not only are they great games, but they are easy to teach as well, so they make great experiences to share with other people. When I first saw Lord of the Rings: Duel for Middle Earth at Asmodee’s Canada Plays event this past year, I couldn’t wait to have the final copy in my hands. That day has arrived!

Almost everything about the production of Duel for Middle Earth is great. Their game comes with soldiers and towers that will be placed out on a central board showcasing certain areas of Middle Earth. These pieces are made of wood and screen printed, and look phenomenal. And appropriately, the Fellowship player has little Gondorian soldiers, while the Saurun player has little orcs. These are placed out on a nicely detailed central board with banners listing the various places around Middle Earth.

Above the board are notches that hold sturdy cardboard pieces. These pieces are in groups of 3 representing the different races of Middle Earth. When you create a pair of matching green cards, or three different green cards, you will get to draw some of these tiles and use them. They don’t get handled a lot, but it was still nice to see high quality and thick cardboard being used. The coins, which you will handle often, are of the same quality, which is great to see.

The card quality here is just OK in my opinion. 7 Wonders as a franchise has become somewhat of a mainstream gaming experience, and creating something that is accessible price wise is pretty important. As has been explained to me by many designers and publishers in the past, upgrading card quality is really expensive, so I understand why the cards are the way they are.

This does highlight a problem, however. Should you choose to sleeve your cards, they will not fit into the insert included in the box, which is a bit of a shame. Further to that, the insert you are given is great in almost all areas, except it doesn’t provide an area for the previously mentioned central board with different areas of Middle Earth on it. That means this board just lays on top, creating that always dreaded box lift. It’s a pretty big shame, because otherwise the box is insert is phenomenal.

There is a ton of art in this game, with each card having unique artwork – I think I spent just as much time playing the game as I did admiring the art, not only on the cards but also on the landmark tiles and central board.

Lately we have been reviewing games that have little gimmicks, and Duel for Middle Earth has it’s own. There are multiple ways to win the game, but one specific way requires either Frodo and Sam to reach Mount Doom, or the Nazgul to reach Frodo and Sam.

To achieve this, there is a central board with a sliding transparent piece that represents Frodo and Sam. Laid on top of this is a transparent plastic Nazgul piece that is “chasing” Frodo and Sam. As the Fellowship player plays Ring cards to his display, they will move the entire tray forward towards Mount Doom; when the Saurun player plays a ring card, they move their separate plastic piece forward towards Frodo and Sam. I wasn’t sure how well it would work, but it ended up being a really cool, and yet gimmicky, mechanic that was interesting to everyone who has played.

Overall, I’m happy with the production quality, although less happy about the box situation. A larger box that could accommodate sleeved cards would have been ideal in my opinion.