Middle Earth Pre-Con

The Middle Earth Pre-Con is seperate from WBC and requires its own registration fee. Click the Pre-Con icon for pricing information. Tribune level members may attend any and all Pre-Cons AND WBC free of charge.

Retell Tolkien's epic tale again at the WBC ...

The story of the One Ring will be retold once again at the WBC! Will you prove your mettle with the SP or the FP? Who will prevail in the battle for Middle Earth this year?

In War of the Ring, one player takes control of the Free Peoples (FP) and the other controls the Shadow Peoples (SP). The theme and mechanics are highly meshed producing a game which captures the overwhelming numbers of the Shadow and the glimmer of hope from the Fellowship's quest. Two paths to victory exist for each side. For the FP they can win by destroying the One Ring in the Crack of Doom or militarily by capturing four VPs of Shadow strongholds/cities. The SP can win by corrupting Frodo to succumb to wielding the One Ring or militarily by capturing 10 VPs of Free People strongholds/cities. All the main parts of the books are involved in the game via miniatures, events, and/or combat cards.

From BoardGameGeek http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/9609 : "Each game turn revolves around the roll of Action Dice: each die corresponds to an action that a player can do during a turn. Depending on the face rolled on each die, different actions are possible (moving armies, characters, recruiting troops, advancing a Political Track). Action dice can also be used to draw or play Event Cards. Event Cards are played to represent specific events from the story (or events which could possibly have happened) which cannot be portrayed through normal game play. Each Event Card can also create an unexpected turn in the game, allowing special actions or altering the course of battle."

The tournament is an Advanced class and all games will use the Twilight of the Third Age additions unless the two players both want
to just play the base game. The GM will provide handouts for rules summaries and expansion differences for anyone who needs a refresher. No demo will be run and anyone wishing to play in the tournament should have played War of the Ring previously so you are familiar with how the game mechanics function. One GM and two assistant GMs will be available to answer any unique rules questions as they occur.

The bidding rules will remain the same as last year, namely the use of Dwarven Rings. The full rules can be downloaded at:
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/file/info/28563 In a nutshell, you are bidding an amount of start of the turn action dice re-rolls. Allowing a bid amount of mulligan rolls, based on the rules in the link, can temper bad action dice luck for the side which people figure is at a disadvantage to start.

The tournament will be a Single Elimination format with Mulligan round. See the event days/times above for the specifics.

Tournament Guidelines
15 minutes before scheduled start time: sign in and setup games. There will be a 4.5 hour time limit for each game to complete. A warning will be given when 90 minutes remain and another when 45 minutes remain. Please keep the games moving and avoid analysis paralysis. In the event of an adjudicated game, the GM will take into account action dice rolled, possible draw ahead hunt tiles, board position and cards in hand to determine a winner.

A game owner for sake of these guidelines relates to anyone bringing a copy of the game to the event room.

Tournament Format
The Mulligan round will be randomly assigned from the players present. The Single Elimination format will be a bracket with the previous year's winner and runner-up at opposite ends of the brackets. Other individuals will be randomly seeded, taking into account team and family member status and splitting them as best as possible between the brackets.

During the single elimination, players will continue to play as their opponents win and become available. Mutually decided upon food breaks between the players is acceptable, but should last no more than 30-60 minutes so we do not slow down the tournament. So be aware that your next round may start sooner than 5 hours after the
previous round started due to the continuous format.

Rules Clarifications:
All rules clarifications and combat card initiative numbers established in the Collectors Edition will be in use for the
tournament. http://www.boardgamegeek.com/filepage/56514/war-of-the-ring-collectors-edition-faq

Odd number of participants (byes): Since we all come to play War of the Ring and not to sit and watch it played, here are the
bye rules in the event of an unavoidable odd number of players at the start of any round.
No person gets more than one bye.
A bye equals a win vs an 0-1 player of the same side as any of your actual wins
Players may choose to receive a bye in the following hierarchy
1. Previous year's WBC winner, followed by each previous WBC year winner
2. Random selection from any other players willing to take a bye
3. GM sits out the game, if not previously given a bye
4. Random selection from all non-game owner players not previously given a bye
5. Random

If it happens that an eliminator is needed, the GM will play that role if already knocked out of the single elimination. Else it will fall
to an assistant GM. If all those are unavailable, then a willing player who already had lost could be designated.

Final Clarifications

Any final clarifications or updates through July can be found at: http://home.roadrunner.com/~kwojtasz/WoTR/WBCWaroftheRing.html A print out of that web page will be posted on the kiosk and reviewed at the start of the tournament.

 A spielbox promotional gollum figure to the winner.