Published November 26th 2019

Have you devoured every morsel of J.R.R. Tolkien's 'precious' lore from the novels to the video games? Are you hungry for more? Well, you're in luck, because Fantasy Flight Games have released a cooperative board game for one to five players calledDuring a typical game, a group of plucky heroes embark on perilous adventures and work together to explore and survive this vast and exciting fantasy setting. Throughout these journeys, players will battle fearsome foes, discover lost treasures, uncover 'forgotten' lore and upgrade their equipment over the duration of 14 or so quests as part of an overarching campaign narrative.While it sounds epic and quite intimidating, this game is surprisingly easy to set up and is supported by a free app (available via Amazon Appstore, Apple iOS App Store, Google Play and Steam).The app determines the challenges and content that the players will encounter, from tile and token placement to enemy behaviour, and features a 'save game' option for those looking at completing a campaign throughout several gaming sessions.It is easy to jump right in for your first adventure, too. Simply follow the 16-page step-by-step guide found in the learn to play booklet. The back cover even has a quick reference sheet which is very handy as it summarises the important stuff such as round structure, actions, attack modifiers, keywords, icons, hero stats and items.Creating a party and selecting your heroes is fun. Of course, Aragorn, Gimli, Legolas and Bilbo are playable. So, they're not quite fellowship celebrities but Elena, the musician, and Beravor, the pathfinder, are more than capable to fight the good fight.Once you're settled on who you are playing, you'll need to confirm your role in the party. Are you a burglar or a hunter, a captain or a guardian? The rules stipulate the default roles per hero but it is possible to pick a different profession and even multi-class mid-campaign.Before starting a mission, you will also gather your starting items, following the app's instructions, and sort out your skill cards, along with all of the other pre-game steps.Interestingly, you don't roll dice in this board game. Instead, each player constructs a small deck of cards, comprising basic, hero and role skills as well as one weakness card (it's like a joker in the pack: it doesn't do anything). Some of these cards have 'success' symbols, others have 'inspiration' and some only feature skill text which are only useful if the card is prepared.When playing an adventure, each round has three phases: action, where the heroes move around the map, interact with the world and attack enemies; shadow, where the ruffians and other baddies can move, attack and increase the threat level; and rally, where the heroes prepare for the next round.During the rally phase, players can scout X where X is the number of cards you can draw. This adds a strategic layer to proceedings because this is where you decide whether to prepare a skill card and/or re-order cards to sit at the top or bottom of your deck. Obviously, you want to increase your chances of drawing successes during tests, and you would only keep cards with inspiration handy if you have the inspiration resource to spend (inspiration tokens are awarded to players during the game and can be spent to convert an inspiration symbol into a success).The decisions you make here will affect the remainder of the round. If you draw a bad hand you can feel that dread creep into the remainder of the round. Pluck some awesome cards, a sweet skill and successes for days, however, and you might just get ahead.Some of the skills that you can prepare for your hero include sprint, where you can dash to other tiles a little quicker; guard, which can soak fear and damage; and strike, giving your hero bonus hits when attacking.Interacting with the map is a joy in itself. As your heroes enter new areas, the app will open new areas for exploration, essentially building the world around you by prompting players to place map tiles and explore tokens. The 'flavour text' evokes that high fantasy experience that all Lord of the Rings fans crave. Yes, the setting is described well, even during combat, but during our playthrough, we did notice the odd typo and odd sentence clause here and there. This broke the immersion a little and left us a little disappointed as other Fantasy Flight Games such asandseem to have a slightly better polish when it comes to the quality of the storytelling.For quite a hefty box, the components are top-notch quality. The miniatures are superb (31 plastic figures in total). Aragorn's sword is a tad flimsy but for the most part, these models will look great with a lick of paint. There's various terrain pieces to simulate a battle map, too, for the more intimate encounters with boss-level villains. Sometimes, your heroes will venture off the beaten path, interrogate an inn full of patrons to root out a spy (spoilers).has a fun mix of dialogue-driven intrigue, satisfying combat, looting and trekking as well as epic decision making. Yes, there are branching quests and side quests that can lead to alternative endings.That dilemma of 'use or destroy the ring' featured prominently in a recent game I played. The ring, in this example, was a mirror that could control the dead. I had my 'Boromir moment' where I convinced the other players that siding with the scary spirit man was for our short-term gain but later in the campaign changed my tune when it became clearer what the consequences would be for exploiting the mirror (spoilers). Examples of gameplay like this capture the essence of that a Lord of the Rings game should be.In another playthrough, there was a neat synergy to running Gimli, son of Glóin, alongside Legolas of the Woodland Realm. You see, the dwarf is ready to shrug off the damage and swing his mighty axe in a moment's notice whereas the bow-equipped sniper can rack up the kills, felling multiple targets with one shot, exactly as shown in Peter Jackson's films!If there was one game to rule them all, it's safe to say thatcomes pretty close. Fantasy Flight Games will surely support this title with more content in the years to follow.So, have you played? Share your thoughts in the comments.