Journey to Mordor

Today's game review is of the 2015 release, The Lord of the Rings: Journey to Mordor.  For 2-4 players, it plays in 20 minutes.

Overview
You are a hobbit with a quest: get the ring to Mordor.  Your fellow hobbits are also traveling, each of you hoping to advance your progress through Middle Earth.  But beware: Nazgul and Orcs are on your tail, so you'll need Gandalf and the Fellowship to help.  If the Nazgul complete their journey before you do, it's game over . . . can you prevail?

Simplified Gameplay
On your turn, roll all 5 dice (shown below).  You can keep as many as you want (with a few restrictions- you cannot keep more than 1 of any one symbol, and you must keep a Nazgul if you roll it), and re-roll the rest.  Repeat that twice, and resolve the dice you have.  Play passes clockwise.

the dice; image from boardgamegeek

In a nutshell, here are the symbols:
- ring: mark off one spot on your fellowship track (the circles)
- nazgul: mark off one spot on the nazgul track (the squares)
- gandalf: chop one nazgul square in half (meaning 2 nazgul symbols are needed to fill that square, effectively making their journey longer)
- fellowship: cancels one orc
- orc: cancels all rings rolled if not cancelled by a fellowship
- white tree: ends your turn immediately (no more re-rolling); you can choose the order you resolve the dice, and can place some undesirable rolls after the tree, meaning you don't have to resolve them (but can resolve the good ones)

the map, showing the two tracks; image from boardgamegeek

Note: each player is a color (see top of map above).  Let's say you're Frodo (yellow).  If you roll a nazgul on the blue die (Merry) on your turn, both you and Merry mark off one spot on the nazgul track.  Thus, you can affect other players on your turn.

The first hobbit to mark off all spots on his fellowship track is the winner!


Review
This is a simple, fast-playing dice chucker.  There are a few decisions, but not many, and it's mainly a way to pass the time while waiting for another (longer) game to start.  A few twists make this interesting for me, and my kids enjoy it.  It's a decent experience overall, for what it is- not an epic replaying of the saga, but a lightning fast dice-throwing game.

Rating: C