The road goes ever on. And so do the board game adaptation of The Lord of the Rings. And why not? It’s only the greatest and most influential fantasy series of the 20th century (no, I will not debate that). Plus board gamers are the exact kind of nerds who go nuts for Tolkien whether it be as a TTRPG, a story game, a mini escape room, or, in this case, a trick taking card game. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring Trick Taking Game is both a mouthful to say and an upcoming title from Asmodee’s newest subsidiary Office Dog Games, who also have done Word Traveler, River of Gold, and Crafting The Cosmos. Designed by their own Development Manage Bryan Bornmueller with art by Elaine Ryan and Samuel R. Shimota, the title is set for launch early next year. Luckily, Office Dog heard what a huge Tolkien fan I am and sent me along a copy to check out early.
What’s In The Box?
- Rulebook
- 144 cards (1 Chapter One card, 4 Starting Character cards, 37 main deck cards,6 reference cards, 96 chapter cards (split across two sections)
- 4 wooden star Tokens
- 1 wooden Ring token
The first thing that’s going to catch your eye about this game is the look. I think I can confidently say we’ve moved past the need to ape the Jackson LOTR trilogy and let titles based on the books have their own look. Fellow Asmodee game Duel For Middle Earth and Ravensburger’s Adventure To Mount Doom both eschewed the darker and more realistic vibe for a retro fantasy feel in favor of something more old school and in the style of artists like the Brothers Hildebrandt or John Howe. The Lord of the Rings The Fellowship of the Ring Trick Taking Game follows that same philosophy but adds in a cool aesthetic twist in having all the art evoke stained glass windows. Rather than limiting the expression this instead enhances the legendary feeling of the subject while still feeling very comforting and familiar. Images of Frodo or Strider in colorful glass would have no doubt made a lot of sense for the very Catholic Tolkien.
How’s It Play?
The Lord of the Rings The Fellowship of the Ring Trick Taking Game (ok, I’m exhausted having to write that out each time I’m just going to use Fellowship from here on) is the latest example of the trick-taking craze that took over board games in the pandemic. Thanks to the ease of play and production, these titles all take classic trick-taking games like Euchre and add strategy and cooperation to the mix. Think of The Crew series from KOSMOS. Fellowship is a refinement of that blueprint in that it takes the ramping difficulty and applies it to a cohesive story…you know…the one from The Fellowship of the Ring. You play each of the 18 chapters cooperatively or solo, only able to move to the next one once you’ve successfully beaten the current one.
If you’ve played one of the classic trick-takers then this one is a simple pickup. One player leads with a card and the next person either follows suit (playing the same suit as the first card) or playing off suit (any other card in hand). Play goes around until all have played their card. If you follow suit and play a higher card than the one before you, you’re winning the trick. Whoever has the higher card on suit at the end of the trick wins. The winner then leads the next trick. In most games of this genre the players are, at most, teamed up with one other person. In Fellowship, you’re working with everyone to win the right way to advance your goals. Players are thus encouraged to talk strategy and share character goals as long as that info is public, as in laid out on the table. Anything hidden like the contents of your hand or what tricks you have IS meant to be secret. You need to be able to read your fellow player’s intentions and follow their lead in order to get the best outcomes.
For one there’s the Ring suit, which has fewer cards and can only be lead with once someone has played a card of that suit into a different trick. In that suit there is the One of Rings (get it?) which replaces general trump cards by being THE trump card in the game. You play it into a trick and you win that trick, no matter what. You can play it as a normal card too, if you want, and there’s plenty of strategy involved deciding when and when not to just auto win. Each character in a Chapter has a goal their player has to accomplish to beat the chapter, with some chapters requiring ALL characters winning to proceed (Long chapters) and other only needing some characters to do so (Short chapters).
As you play you’ll run into characters from the whole story, each on with separate goals and often with abilities you can use to help win. You’ll also run into threats like the Black Riders, which often add a new goal on top of your character that MUST be defeated in order to move to the next chapter. There’s also events and gifts (such as in the Gifts of Galadriel pack) that give you more advantages to use on your journey through the story.
The Verdict?
Listen, this is a Lord of the Rings game. It would have to do some REALLY bad things for me to dislike it. Luckily, The Lord of the Rings The Fellowship of the Ring Trick Taking Game does more than just use an easy gimmick to lure in suckers like yours truly. Instead it takes a formula that’s incredibly successful and in many ways perfects it. Many previous trick-takers, in my view, are exercises in challenge and strategy. You’re as much supposed to ooh and aah and how clever the designer is as you are supposed to be enjoying yourself. Fellowship, on the other hand, wants to weave a much more coherent whole. The basic trick-taking is added to and enhanced by plenty of little options and abilities, with the shifting goals making sense in-story as Frodo’s story progresses. You aren’t moving ahead just to see what the next challenge is, you’re moving ahead because you want to get to Weathertop, or Rivendell, or Lorien. It’s a fantastic direction for a game genre that could have easily gone stale years ago and it’s a format I’m dying to see more of from Office Dog as they hopefully adapt the other books in the Legendarium.
You can pre-order The Lord of the Rings The Fellowship of the Ring Trick Taking Game at the Office Dog webstore, with the game set to ship early next year.
Images and review copy via Office Dog Games
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