The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth II - The Rise of the Witch-King

Elven bows sing, dwarven hammers ring - your brotherhood is desperately fighting a horde swarming with orcs and goblins. Giant eagles and fierce dragons collide in the air. Outside the walls of your city, cave trolls trade deadly blows with ancient speaking trees. Even though the situation looks grim, you can't help smiling as you launch your next attack, a group of hobbits throwing stones. They probably won't live long, but they're still hobbits!

BFME 2 is a real-time strategy game set in the setting of the cult fantasy universe "The Lord of the Rings". This time, EA decided to go back in time and give players a chance to participate in the battles that led to the fall of the human kingdom and the rise of the greatest Captain Mordor. The Rise of the Witch-king expansion brings a new set of story missions, an additional faction and several units for those already present. We also improved some aspects of the gameplay, such as the War of the Ring mod and Create-a-Hero. The add-on adds enough new content and long-awaited fixes to please any BFME 2 fan.

New Campaign in The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth II - The Rise of the Witch-King

Campaign scripts range from good to great. Carn Dum is not that interesting compared to the previous game. Even the final mission takes place on the same map, only dressed in new textures. It plays almost exactly the same, only the AI ​​has become better.

Of the interesting scenarios, Dark Lord's Eye can be distinguished; Amon Sul is tricky enough, but the design of the walls around the fort and the response from opponents were not perfect. The final mission in the epilogue is unfortunately anticlimatic. But in general, the plot is capable of giving pleasure.

Features of the new faction The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth II - The Rise of the Witch-King

The emerging faction, Angmar, has several interesting gameplay features. The two types of units in the right hands can be particularly problematic for an opponent. The problem is that using them requires constant micromanagement.

Thrall Master is the most interesting of them all. He can summon one of four types of units at any time: ax throwers, spearmen, warriors or wolf riders. You won't be able to change the choice later, but unit variability is very useful. You can, for example, lure the enemy cavalry into their group and summon the spearmen. Or bump into archers and unleash wolf riders on them.

The sorcerers are even more confusing. They have very useful spells, but they get their mana from the apprentices who surround them. If you run out of students, you run out of mana. The problem is that they die too easily, and the radius of most spells is so small that sometimes it's hard to cast something. In addition, Sorcerers specialize in one of three types of magic, which opens up access to another very useful spell. They can be distinguished by the color of the staff they carry, but try it in the midst of a fight.

You can try to assign different Sorcerers to different control groups. It can help, but it's quite problematic to keep track of it in an already complex game. In general, you need to be patient, but it will certainly pay off - the Angmar faction is quite strong at any stage of the game. Especially with their Snow Trolls: they work like cavalry, do great with cavalry and destroy buildings pretty well.

Other changes

Other factions also received new fighters. They all have different styles and degrees of utility, but overall, they plug the holes in each race's defenses. For example, the Haradrim Spearmen are the cheap cavalry Mordor needs. All factions received attention, although Mordor was given three new units, and the dwarves only one.

A new type of units has appeared in the game - group units. They can be created in limited quantities, but each of them is an unpleasant surprise for the enemy. The Elven Warriors of the Noldor can switch between swords and bows, and they do good damage to both. Dwarven Zealots are immune to the fear of the Dark Riders of Mordor.

In addition to group units, some factions have received new heroes. Greatly improved the War of the Ring mode. In BFME2, many good features were added there, but problems still remained - not dying heroes, mismatching maps, lack of a good frontline. In this add-on, all of the above has been fixed. The maps were made more accurate and added new regions (Gondor, Mordor, Rune), which give bonuses when all territories included in them are conquered. Heroes can now be removed from the game by surrounding them on the strategic map and defeating them in battle, which opens up scope for new tactics.