The Fellowship of the Ring Deck-Building Game

Today's review is of the 2013 release, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring Deck-Building Game (hereafter, Fellowship DBG). For 2-5 players, it takes 30 minutes.

Overview

In the Fellowship DBG, your goal is to have the most victory points. To do so, you must plan wisely, buying powerful cards and ridding your deck of weak and worthless ones. This will enable you to gain enough strength to take down archenemies (the standard game has eight in succession). 

This deck-building game works like most in this genre. You start with a deck of 10 cards, drawing 5 to form your hand. The cards grant power (and sometimes other abilities), enabling you to buy cards from the central row ("the path"): allies, artifacts, locations, maneuvers, even enemies. You will buy card, then replenish the path from the main deck each turn. Cards you buy, plus any in your hand or played to the table that turn, go into your discard pile. Then draw 5 cards to prepare for your next turn, shuffling your discard pile to form a new deck as needed. Play passes clockwise.

You can also use power to fight archenemies. (The game comes with 12 but recommends you play with 8, placed in a stack next to the lineup.) If your power on a given turn equals or exceeds the super-villain on the top of the stack, you defeat them, putting them in your discard pile (yes, this means you can use them on a later turn). Once all super-villains have been defeated, each player tallies their victory points (printed on each card) to determine the victor.

Review

This game is almost exactly like the DC Deck-building Game (not surprising, as it is by the same company). My comments for this are the same as that offering: it is a fun game, easy to learn, with some aspects that were counter-intuitive (like buying enemies to incorporate into your deck). There are mild differences:

- the hero you choose does not have a special ability, but instead a unique card you start with in your deck

- there are 'fortune' cards that are free and can be played immediately

- there is the 'ambush' keyword that is similar to attacks, but affects only the player whose turn it is

Overall, this one seems a touch simpler than its DC counterpart, and that is okay.

Rating: A-