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Weighing the Upsides: A LotR: Fate of the Fellowship Review
29 Nov 2025 16:13 #344398
by southernman
Replied by southernman on topic Weighing the Upsides: A LotR: Fate of the Fellowship Review
Finally had a play of this last night - two of us just using the introductory difficulty level with intro characters and quests. We had watched the rules videos and read the rules so knew what we were doing (the rules aren't complicated) and managed to - just - get a win with about two thirds of the player cards gone and Hope on 2. It was fan and you needed a bit of strategy until, at a certain point, you realize just have to sprint to Mt Doom 
.
But I can see this being pretty difficult for four and five player counts - it's like the Legendary Encounter: Alien deck-builder in that the main deck is the timer for the game and so with more players you get fewer and fewer turns. In LE: Alien this means you have less time to build a deck to kill the Queen at the end (and you all usually die), and in FotF it's to get those four quests done - I'm sure it is more possible in the latter with all your interactions (moving each other, more characters to head off enemy raids) but I can just see it coming down to lack of time ... I'll find out in the near future.
.But I can see this being pretty difficult for four and five player counts - it's like the Legendary Encounter: Alien deck-builder in that the main deck is the timer for the game and so with more players you get fewer and fewer turns. In LE: Alien this means you have less time to build a deck to kill the Queen at the end (and you all usually die), and in FotF it's to get those four quests done - I'm sure it is more possible in the latter with all your interactions (moving each other, more characters to head off enemy raids) but I can just see it coming down to lack of time ... I'll find out in the near future.
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02 Dec 2025 11:33 #344409
by Msample
With more players, each player gets fewer turns, but the table as a whole gets the same number of total actions. I've only played it with 4 players ( 2P, but each playing two handed ) . I do wonder how it plays with lower player counts - sure each player has more actions, but with only 4 characters, parts of the map will be harder to wipe out Shadow armies moving towards Strongholds .
Replied by Msample on topic Weighing the Upsides: A LotR: Fate of the Fellowship Review
southernman wrote: Finally had a play of this last night - two of us just using the introductory difficulty level with intro characters and quests. We had watched the rules videos and read the rules so knew what we were doing (the rules aren't complicated) and managed to - just - get a win with about two thirds of the player cards gone and Hope on 2. It was fan and you needed a bit of strategy until, at a certain point, you realize just have to sprint to Mt Doom
But I can see this being pretty difficult for four and five player counts - it's like the Legendary Encounter: Alien deck-builder in that the main deck is the timer for the game and so with more players you get fewer and fewer turns. In LE: Alien this means you have less time to build a deck to kill the Queen at the end (and you all usually die), and in FotF it's to get those four quests done - I'm sure it is more possible in the latter with all your interactions (moving each other, more characters to head off enemy raids) but I can just see it coming down to lack of time ... I'll find out in the near future.
With more players, each player gets fewer turns, but the table as a whole gets the same number of total actions. I've only played it with 4 players ( 2P, but each playing two handed ) . I do wonder how it plays with lower player counts - sure each player has more actions, but with only 4 characters, parts of the map will be harder to wipe out Shadow armies moving towards Strongholds .
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06 Dec 2025 07:43 #344422
by southernman
Replied by southernman on topic Weighing the Upsides: A LotR: Fate of the Fellowship Review
Spoke with a guy at our gaming club who has been playing this for a few months now and he says they manage to win at any player count and on harder modes ... so I guess we just have to get much better .
And to back that up we played our second game (two player again) and lost badly, well badly in that even though we got the three other quests done OK we had no preparations for destroying the ring and did lots of stupid things
. So, they takeaways from that game on what important things that we need to remember are:
- there are only 12 Ring cards in the game so ensure Frodo gets cards/tokens and doesn't spend them
- move Frodo if the Eye arrives in his region
- have battles to both move the Eye away from Frodo and to keep the enemies pile an actual pile (doh to both those from us)
- DON'T move Frodo into Mordor without the required Rings (BIG doh)
.And to back that up we played our second game (two player again) and lost badly, well badly in that even though we got the three other quests done OK we had no preparations for destroying the ring and did lots of stupid things
. So, they takeaways from that game on what important things that we need to remember are:- there are only 12 Ring cards in the game so ensure Frodo gets cards/tokens and doesn't spend them
- move Frodo if the Eye arrives in his region
- have battles to both move the Eye away from Frodo and to keep the enemies pile an actual pile (doh to both those from us)
- DON'T move Frodo into Mordor without the required Rings (BIG doh)
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08 Dec 2025 13:38 - 08 Dec 2025 13:39 #344431
by southernman
Replied by southernman on topic Weighing the Upsides: A LotR: Fate of the Fellowship Review
My list was more of a 'if you forget these you will lose' self-deprecating confession rather than the game is solved - very like other games where if you don't do certain things (protect you home base, gather resources to build units, ...) you will likely lose.
And as Shelley says the three other quests will always change and even if you do get the same ones it is very likely that the initial shadow cards, that will be about half to two thirds the ones you will see in the game, will not be the same so will cause different strategies.
For example in our game two of those quests were getting help from Gondor and Rohan, but a high number of the initial nine Shadow cards drawn were moving to those two regions - so the early strategy needed to be to get down there to complete those quests, taking troops from up north, so we could release the Gondor and Rohan units on those quest cards before Sauron's forces took them out but on another day we could have had to watch out for his units going north while going south.
rather than the game is solved - very like other games where if you don't do certain things (protect you home base, gather resources to build units, ...) you will likely lose.And as Shelley says the three other quests will always change and even if you do get the same ones it is very likely that the initial shadow cards, that will be about half to two thirds the ones you will see in the game, will not be the same so will cause different strategies.
For example in our game two of those quests were getting help from Gondor and Rohan, but a high number of the initial nine Shadow cards drawn were moving to those two regions - so the early strategy needed to be to get down there to complete those quests, taking troops from up north, so we could release the Gondor and Rohan units on those quest cards before Sauron's forces took them out but on another day we could have had to watch out for his units going north while going south.
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