Ares Games has announced the 2013 release of The Battle of Five Armies Board Game, a stand-alone game that is based on the climactic battle in J.R.R. Tolkien’s classic The Hobbit.  With the second portion of Peter Jackson’s Hobbit Trilogy due in 2013 and the final installment slated for the summer of 2014, the timing of the release of The Battle of Five Armies Board Game, which is licensed from Sophisticated Games and should be available sometime in the second half of 2013, could hardly be better.

 

The Battle of Five Armies game is being designed by the same team (Roberto Di Meglio, Marco Maggi, and Francisco Nepitello) responsible for Ares’ War of the Rings Board Game, and The Battle of Five Armies game is based on the rules and mechanics of the War of Rings game, but the gameplay has been modified to function on a tactical level for a single battle rather than the entire war (as in the War of the Rings game).

 

Despite its links to War of the Rings, The Battle of Five Armies is a stand-alone game that will be ready to play right out of the box and will not require ownership of the War of the Rings game.  The Battle of Five Armies puts two players face-to-face as the hosts of the Elvenking, the dwarves of Dain Ironfoot, and the Men of the Lake led by Bard the Bowman confront a horde of Wolves, Goblins, and Bats led by Bolg, Son of Azog.

 

Stay tuned for details on the 2013 release of The Battle of Five Armies Board Game.