The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth II -- The Rise of the Witch-king [PC]

Less than a year after the release of The Battle for Middle Earth II, Electronic Arts has released an expansion pack. The Return of the Witch-King isn't just about the Witch-King, here represented as the leader of the new Angmar faction. It's also about making improvements to the original game. The War of the Ring campaign mode is finally playable, custom heroes finally fit into the mix, and each faction has been reworked to improve the overall balance.

The new Angmar faction details the fall of Men after the One True Ring was originally lost. This splinter group of humans falls prey to Sauron's influence, enlisting wolves, trolls, slavers, and evil sorcerers to their cause. To its credit, this faction isn't just a reworked version of the Men of the West. They're a totally unique addition, especially in terms of gameplay.

For instance, the thrall masters give you an unparalleled ability to adapt your tactics to your enemy. You train a single thrall master at a time. Later, for an additional cost, he can instantly summon the units of his choice, be they swordsmen, pikemen, cavalry, or archers. This basically lets you train a unit, and delay deciding what that unit will be. Typically, Angmar makes a handful of thrall masters and makes an army on the fly, after making contact with the enemy to see what he's built. There are balance problems with this approach, and it's likely to be nerfed sometime down the line, so enjoy Angmar's early game super-advantage while you can.

The sorcerers are similarly flexible, but a lot harder to use. They give Angmar a smaller version of the Ring powers that can turn the tide of battle. Each sorcerer can learn three spells that don't so much decide a battle and help your other units win it. Think of these guys as support units, offering buffs and debuffs rather than participating directly in the swordplay. They're hard to use, but they pay off if you can master them. In addition to these unique units, Angmar has two types of trolls and wolf cavalry, all of which are fast and hit hard. Speaking of hitting hard, they get a primitive troll-powered catapult for siege duty.

Unlike the other factions, Angmar's Ring powers are almost entirely unique. Some of them seem pretty useless, such as the blight that reduces an enemy's resource income. If you can cast a Ring power on an enemy farm, why not just destroy it instead? A wind can blow around enemy units to temporarily disrupt them, or an ice attack can freeze them, but these don't seem to have much effect. At least Angmar's highest level Ring power, the ghost of a giant werewolf, makes for a pretty cool counterpart to the Balrog as it rampaged through an enemy army, occasionally stopping to much on some poor soldier to heal itself.