Overview
Lord Of The Rings - The Duel is a card game reenactment of the famous fantasy battle between <PERSON> and the <PERSON> atop the Bridge of Khazad-Dum.
Others have mentioned, and it bears repeating, that the pace of the game is drastically different from the pace of the battle as written in The Fellowship Of The Ring. Whereas <PERSON> takes down the <PERSON> in a matter of seconds--and the <PERSON>, <PERSON> in just about as little time--in the book, "The Duel" is a fairly slow-moving game with a lot of back-and-forth.
If a Lord Of The Rings themed game that meshes well with the atmosphere of the books is what you're after, this may not be for you. Nevertheless, the theme suits the game just fine, adds a nice exciting atmosphere to the epic struggle you're playing out, and allows the game to draw upon the wealth of great artwork that has been produced over time based on the books.
Components
Sometimes I include a components section in my reviews and sometimes not. This game, though it has relatively few components, deserves more than a passing nod for the quality of its tactile elements.
There is a very neat 3-d cardboard bridge that you must assemble to keep track of victory points for the players. Since the bridge merely counts from 1 to 5, it could just as easily have another track of boxes drawn on the board (which itself is practically unnecessary) like the "energy" track is, but the aesthetics of the nifty interlocking bridge are wonderful and serve to draw you into the atmosphere and theme of the game.
The two wooden player pawns, representing none other than <PERSON> and the <PERSON>, are of a nice size and heft and have very cool iconic shapes. Again, these could just have been cubes or standard pawns, but the shapely and hefty pawns help to set the mood. Each player also gets a cube to track their "energy" level throughout each duel, as well as a unique deck of cards (the two decks are fairly significantly different).
The artwork is wonderful. I believe the artist is <PERSON>, but I don't know enough about him or his work to say for sure, and I don't remember what the rulebook says about the source of the art. Nevertheless, the entire game is covered in beautiful artwork evocative of the darkness lurking in the depths of Moria. This game could have been an abstract (maybe in the ilk of ), but these touches are beautiful.
Gameplay
The gameplay is rather simple, but contains quite a bit of strategic depth and tactical opportunism. 336
As a bonus, it's quite a bit different from the typical Kosmos 2-player game. It seems like the "building up cards on either side of 4-5 shared columns that can each provide victory points" atmosphere is fairly common in the Kosmos 2-player series, what with games like , , , , and all possessing some reincarnation of this idea.
In "The Duel", however, you won't be battling across multiple fields of conflict at the same time, but focusing all of your attentions on combating your opponent's last move. Aside from a few cards with special rule-breaking powers, the only thing relevant at any given time is the single card your opponent played last turn and the single card you choose to play on your turn. This mechanic has a bit of 's feel, being more like a time-series than a cross-section, if that makes any sense.
To accomplish this, the game uses a pretty nifty dual-purpose card trick. On either side of any given card is a set of four boxes that can either be filled in with an appropriate symbol that represents a strength or left blank to represent a weakness. You attack with the left-hand side of your cards and defend with the right-hand side (the cards have a distinct orientation; they can't be flipped around). The players take turns playing one of their cards so that their attack side (left) is lined up with the opponent's defense (right).
If your opponent's defense has boxes 1 and 2 filled in on the right-hand side of their card, you can counter them effectively with a card of your own that has boxes 1 and 2 filled in on the left-hand side or make a move to strike with a card that has, maybe, boxes 1, 3, and 4 filled in. After every card played, the success of the attack and/or defense is determined and your "energy" is adjusted accordingly. For every box where your opponent has a symbol filled in and you do not, you lose an energy point; both the attacker and defender can score hits. (In my example above of 1-2 vs. 301