Ruling — The Lord of the Rings: Duel for Middle-earth

← The Lord of the Rings: Duel for Middle-earth

You asked

How do I setup the game?

Answered counted as answered

Asked with: The Lord of the Rings: Duel for Middle-earthbg-421006-en-1e

To setup the game, follow these steps: 1. Choose, or randomly determine, who will play as the Fellowship and who will play as Sauron, and place your respective Unit and Fortress pawns in front of you [1]. 2. Place the central board between you and your opponent, next to the central play area [1]. 3. On the central board, place 2 Fellowship Units on Arnor and 2 Sauron Units on Mordor [1]. 4. Assemble the Quest of the Ring track as shown in the diagram and place it below the central board [1]. 5. The Fellowship player takes 3 Coins while the Sauron player takes 2 Coins, then make a reserve with the remaining Coins [1]. 6. Sort the Alliance tokens according to their backs to make one stack per Race, shuffle each stack separately, and place them facedown above the central board in the dedicated notches [1]. 7. Shuffle the Landmark tiles and place 3 faceup on the table, then make a facedown stack with the remaining tiles [1]. 8. Sort the Chapter cards into 3 decks according to the runes on their backs (1), (2) and (3), then shuffle each deck separately [1]. 9. At the start of each chapter (1, 2, then 3), place cards from the corresponding chapter in the central play area following the provided diagram, being careful as certain cards are placed faceup and others facedown [2]. 10. Place the 3 remaining cards from the chapter facedown in the discard [2].

[1] RULEBOOK The Lord of the Rings: Duel for Middle-earth — Rulebook · p.2 · CONTENTS

[2] RULEBOOK The Lord of the Rings: Duel for Middle-earth — Rulebook · p.3 · Preparing a chapter · Turn overview · A. Take a Chapter card · Play the card in front of you · Discard the card · B. Take a Landmark tile · …

🔧 debug — where this ruling came from

outcome: ANSWERED — Answered
corpus profile: live
answerer pin (deploy-frozen, attribution only): gemma4:26b think:false 5571076f3d70
timings: search 231 ms · ask 4833 ms · total 5076 ms
single-flight (PR-5): queued 0 ms · generation 5076 ms
retrieval refs (raw): [{"page": 3, "score": 0.04918, "snippet": "At the start of each chapter (1, 2, then 3), place cards from the corresponding chapter in the central play area , following the diagram below ( reminder on the sides of the box ). Be careful, since certain cards are placed faceup and others facedown. Place the 3 remaining cards, facedown, in the di", "headingPath": "Preparing a chapter · Turn overview · A. Take a Chapter card · Play the card in front of you · Discard the card · B. Take a Landmark tile · …", "sharpsignalDocId": 205}, {"page": 2, "score": 0.032258, "snippet": "Central play area 1 Choose, or randomly determine, who will play as the Fellowship and who will play as Sauron. Place your respective Unit and Fortress pawns in front of you. 2 Place the central board between you and your opponent, next to the central play area. 3 On the central board, place 2 Fello", "headingPath": "CONTENTS", "sharpsignalDocId": 205}, {"page": 7, "score": 0.031746, "snippet": "When you place or move one or more Units, two situations are possible: If no enemy Unit is present: nothing happens. If one or more enemy Units are present: trigger a conflict . Each player removes one of their Units and places it back in front of them. Repeat this until at least one player has no m", "headingPath": "CONQUERING MIDDLE-EARTH", "sharpsignalDocId": 205}, {"page": 4, "score": 0.03125, "snippet": "In order to play them, certain cards have a Coin cost that you must pay to the reserve. In order to play them, tiles and the majority of cards require you to have one or more Skills ( see page 5 ) in your play area. If you do not have the required Skills, you may pay 1 Coin to the reserve per missin", "headingPath": "Coins · Skills · Notes: · Chaining · Example:", "sharpsignalDocId": 205}, {"page": 1, "score": 0.030769, "snippet": "1 Will you play as the Fellowship of the Ring to defend the free races and destroy the One Ring? Or will you play as Sauron and pursue Frodo and Sam while deploying your hordes to the gates of the enemy cities? The destiny of Middle-earth is in your hands! OVERVIEW AND GOAL CONTENTS A game plays ove", "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 205}, {"page": 1, "score": 0.030303, "snippet": "Watch the rules video! Will you play as the Fellowship of the Ring to defend the free races and destroy the One Ring? Or will you play as Sauron and pursue Frodo and Sam while deploying your hordes to the gates of the enemy cities? The destiny of Middle-earth is in your hands! A game plays over 3 su", "headingPath": "OVERVIEW AND GOAL", "sharpsignalDocId": 205}, {"page": 8, "score": 0.029851, "snippet": "There are three immediate victory conditions: For the Fellowship: If Frodo and Sam reach Mount Doom , they destroy the One Ring and you immediately win the game. For Sauron: If the Nazgûl catch Frodo and Sam , they seize the One Ring and you immediately win the game. If you gather 6 different Race s", "headingPath": "END OF THE GAME · Quest of the Ring · Support of the Races · Conquering Middle-earth · CREDITS", "sharpsignalDocId": 205}, {"page": 6, "score": 0.029412, "snippet": "When you advance on the Quest of the Ring track, slide your character ( Frodo and Sam for the Fellowship or the Nazgûl for Sauron) from space to space. When you reach or pass a Bonus space, you may immediately benefit from its effect ( see the Player Aid ). Note: The piece that represents the Nazgûl", "headingPath": "QUEST OF THE RING · RACE ALLIANCES · 2 matching Race symbols · Notes: · 3 different Race symbols", "sharpsignalDocId": 205}]
citations (raw): [{"page": 2, "quote": null, "headingPath": "CONTENTS", "sharpsignalDocId": 205}, {"page": 3, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Preparing a chapter · Turn overview · A. Take a Chapter card · Play the card in front of you · Discard the card · B. Take a Landmark tile · …", "sharpsignalDocId": 205}]
boost provenance — errata + base rulebook (E2/E3): no registered errata card matched this query; base rulebook doc 205 boosted; rulesage.errata.boost-enabled=true, rulesage.errata.supersedence-enabled=true
base rulebook doc 205 boosted
answered-before recall: this ruling was answered, so past rulings were not offered
similarity threshold in force: 0.55 (rulesage.answered-before.similarity-threshold; the exact-question tier is not gated by it)
debug row retained until: Nov 3, 2026 03:59

retrieval — what the search arm returned

score = the fused retrieval score (reciprocal-rank fusion over the search arms) — NOT a cosine similarity. This ruling ran the THREE-ARM fuse (full-text + vector + the doc-priority boost arm, which carried the base rulebook and/or the errata corrections this query matched), whose arithmetic ceiling is 0.04918 — all three arms ranking the same chunk #1 (ceiling = arms/(k+1) at k=60). The measured healthy band 0.016–0.033 was measured on TWO-arm asks and does not bound this one: its high end is the two-arm ceiling, and a third arm has room above it. A chunk only one arm ranked highly lands near 0.016 (that one arm's #1 vote), so 0.03 here is an excellent hit, not a 3% match.

per-arm ranks (the rank each search arm gave a chunk): NOT DISCLOSED by the gateway. Fusion happens gateway-side and only the FUSED score crosses the wire, so rulesage cannot show them without a gateway change. The rank column below is the FUSED rank (position in the returned list), which is real.

token count per chunk: NOT DISCLOSED — chunk token counts are not reported on the ask path. The character counts below are of the bounded snippet/quote rulesage actually received — a real measurement of what we hold, never an estimate of the chunk.

fused rank	document	heading	page	fused RRF score	snippet chars
#1	RULEBOOK The Lord of the Rings: Duel for Middle-earth — Rulebook (corpus doc 205)	Preparing a chapter · Turn overview · A. Take a Chapter card · Play the card in front of you · Discard the card · B. Take a Landmark tile · …	p.3	0.04918 (at the 3-arm ceiling (0.04918) — every arm ranked it #1)	300
#2	RULEBOOK The Lord of the Rings: Duel for Middle-earth — Rulebook (corpus doc 205)	CONTENTS	p.2	0.032258 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#3	RULEBOOK The Lord of the Rings: Duel for Middle-earth — Rulebook (corpus doc 205)	CONQUERING MIDDLE-EARTH	p.7	0.031746 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#4	RULEBOOK The Lord of the Rings: Duel for Middle-earth — Rulebook (corpus doc 205)	Coins · Skills · Notes: · Chaining · Example:	p.4	0.03125 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#5	RULEBOOK The Lord of the Rings: Duel for Middle-earth — Rulebook (corpus doc 205)		p.1	0.030769 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#6	RULEBOOK The Lord of the Rings: Duel for Middle-earth — Rulebook (corpus doc 205)	OVERVIEW AND GOAL	p.1	0.030303 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#7	RULEBOOK The Lord of the Rings: Duel for Middle-earth — Rulebook (corpus doc 205)	END OF THE GAME · Quest of the Ring · Support of the Races · Conquering Middle-earth · CREDITS	p.8	0.029851 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#8	RULEBOOK The Lord of the Rings: Duel for Middle-earth — Rulebook (corpus doc 205)	QUEST OF THE RING · RACE ALLIANCES · 2 matching Race symbols · Notes: · 3 different Race symbols	p.6	0.029412 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300

chosen chunks — what the answer actually cited

#	document	heading	page	quote chars
[1]	RULEBOOK The Lord of the Rings: Duel for Middle-earth — Rulebook (corpus doc 205)	CONTENTS	p.2	no quote on the wire
[2]	RULEBOOK The Lord of the Rings: Duel for Middle-earth — Rulebook (corpus doc 205)	Preparing a chapter · Turn overview · A. Take a Chapter card · Play the card in front of you · Discard the card · B. Take a Landmark tile · …	p.3	no quote on the wire

generation — timing and the path taken

timing split: retrieval 231 ms · first delta 2610 ms · total 5076 ms (retrieval and first-delta both measured from the START of gateway work, so first-delta INCLUDES retrieval — do not subtract)
full breakdown: queued 0 ms · retrieval 231 ms · ask 4833 ms · gateway work 5076 ms · total 5076 ms
tokens in (the prompt the answerer read): 2924
tokens out (what the answerer generated): 332
tok/sec: 137.2 tok/sec — 332 output tokens in 2.419 s of generation
live seat (read from the running child): answering — gemma4:26b think:false · num_ctx 32768 (live-verified 49s ago)
stream path: streamed — the gateway pushed at least one accumulated draft
watchdog: first-token watchdog: 30s per arming window (rulesage.table.first-token-watchdog-seconds), re-armed once by the passages frame — so the worst case before a reader falls back to polling is 60s. Whether it actually fired is a BROWSER-side decision that never reaches the server, so it is not recorded here. The stream path above is the server's half of that story: whether a delta was emitted at all.
num_ctx · think posture: both are the CHILD's settings, not rulesage's, and no ask reply carries them — an answer never states which context window or think posture produced it. The live-seat line above reads them from the running child instead, where the gateway can answer for itself; it describes the child NOW, not this ask.

disposition

outcome: ANSWERED — Answered
abstain rationale (n/a — this ruling answered): answered — no abstain rationale applies

setup-shape — why the checklist band did or didn't render

decision: NO_APPROVED_CHECKLIST — setup-shaped, but no approved setup checklist exists for this game
pattern that matched: SETUP — "setup" / "set up"
matched words (in the normalized question): setup

errata registry — what the gate above had to match against

this game registers NO errata cards (edition 130), so "no registered errata card matched" above could never have matched one

Errata scope: the gate above matched this ruling's own edition only. When an ask also reads an expansion, that expansion's own registered errata cards stay outside the match — a stated phase-1 limitation, not a failed lookup.