THE HUNT FOR THE RING

While the Fellowship covertly seeks to reach Mount Doom, Sauron is searching tirelessly for the Ring-bearers and their Companions. The Dark Lord gathers rumors and sends out spies, hoping to finally reclaim his long-lost treasure. These efforts are represented in War of the Ring by the Hunt for the Ring.

THE HUNT POOL

The Hunt Pool is a set of cardboard tiles representing the effects of a successful Hunt. These tiles should be placed in an opaque container at the beginning of the game (such as a cup or similar container), as one tile must be drawn randomly each time the Hunt is successful.

If, at any time, all the tiles in the Hunt Pool have been used, return all Standard tiles (beige) to the pool, but do not return to the pool any special tiles (blue/red), or any tile who has been “permanently removed” from the game due to an Event card effect.

STANDARD HUNT TILES

Most of the standard Hunt tiles (which have a beige background) show a numerical value, ranging from 0 to 3. This value represents the effectiveness of the successful Hunt and is called Hunt damage.

Some Hunt tiles have the special icons described below:

— The Eye icon , which represents a variable numerical value.

— The Reveal icon , which represents the Fellowship being revealed to Sauron.

HUNT TILES

The background color indicates the type of tile: beige=standard, blue=Fellowship, red=Shadow

1 Reveal Icon (if present)

2 Hunt Damage

3 Stop Icon (if present)

SPECIAL HUNT TILES

The special Hunt tiles (which have either a blue background, for the Fellowship special Hunt tiles, or a red background, for the Shadow special Hunt tiles) are set aside at the beginning of the game and enter play only by the use of Event cards.

When these Event cards are played, the special Hunt tile in question is set aside until the Fellowship enters Mordor. When the Fellowship enters Mordor, any such special Hunt tiles are added to the Hunt Pool.

If the Fellowship is already on the Mordor Track when a special tile enters play, simply add the tile immediately to the Hunt Pool.

Some of the special Hunt tiles show a negative value or a random value, described as follows:

— A negative value (–2 or –1) means that there is no Hunt damage and instead the indicated number is actually subtracted from the current Corruption of the Ring-bearers on the Fellowship Track (to a minimum of zero).

— A Die icon means that the Hunt damage is equal to the subsequent roll of a die (roll after the tile has been revealed). Such a Hunt tile is considered to be a numbered tile for all Event card effects.

— All Shadow special tiles show a small Stop icon in the lower right corner.