Gondor: The Siege of Minas Tirith

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Ziplock bag edition, cover art by Tim Kirk, 1977

Gondor, subtitled "The Siege of Minas Tirith S.R. 1419", is a licensed board wargame published by

J.R.R. Tolkien
.

Description

Gondor is a two-player wargame that deals with the siege of

Return of the King
, the last volume of The Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Components

The game, packaged in a ziplock bag or a folio, comes with

  • 17" x 22" paper
    hex grid
    map of Minas Tirith and the surrounding plains
  • 200 die-cut counters
  • two 4-page rulebooks (one with rules common to both this game and SPI's Sauron, and the other with rules exclusive to this game)
  • two charts

Gameplay

The forces of Sauron attack Minas Tirith, trying to conquer all seven levels of the city. The defenders, led by

Rohan
can arrive.

Victory conditions

The forces of Sauron win by eliminating all Minas Tirith defenders inside the city, as well as defeating all arriving reinforcements. The defenders of the city win by preventing a victory by Sauron.

Publication history

In 1976, SPI was granted a license by the Tolkien Estate to produce wargames based on The Lord of the Rings.

boxed set titled Games of Middle Earth. This proved to be one of SPI's bestsellers, debuting at Number 1 on SPI's Top Ten list four months before publication based on pre-orders alone. Following its release in November 1977, Games of Middle Earth remained SPI's bestselling game for almost two years.[2]

Reception

In Issue 17 of The Space Gamer, David James Ritchie was disappointed in both Gondor and Sauron, writing, "They are adequate, but nothing more. Yet this lack of excellent is a cheat. Those who buy these games will do so because of the familiarity with the Tolkien mythos. They will expect the same impact from these games as was present in the books. They will not find the same degree of experience".[3]

Writing for the Dutch games review site Casus Belli, Frank van den Bergh called both Sauron and Gondor "clearly lesser games" compared to War of the Ring. Although he admitted, "they are fun games that offer many possibilities," van den Bergh concluded, "These games are only recommended for the devoted Tolkien fan."[4]

Other reviews

References

  1. ^ Stevenson, Sean (2013-01-30). "Gaming in the World of J.R.R. Tolkien – An Overview from Middle Earth". armchairgeneral.com. Retrieved 2021-09-05.
  2. ^ "SPI Best Selling Games - 1977". spigames.net. Retrieved 2021-09-05.
  3. Ritchie, David J. (May–June 1978). "Gondor and Sauron". The Space Gamer (17). Metagaming
    : 27–28.
  4. ^ van den Bergh, Frank. "Gondor en Sauron". casusbelli.nl (in Dutch). Retrieved 2021-09-05.
  5. ^ https://strategyandtacticspress.com/library-files/Moves%20Issue32.pdf [bare URL PDF]
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