The Bones of Arnor Campaign

Three years ago, I reviewed The Lord of the Rings: Journeys in Middle Earth (hereafter, JME). My sons and I recently completed the 14-adventure campaign, called The Bones of Arnor, that comes with the base game. This post is a review of that campaign.

The Bones of Arnor

In this campaign, you and your party are seeking to keep the forces of shadow (led by Atarin) at bay. You will travel through various parts of Middle Earth in the realm of Arnor (northeast of the Shire). You'll explore ruins, forests, inns, and caves. You'll interact with the living- and the dead. And you'll have to overcome enemies in droves- orcs, goblins, wights, and even the occasional troll. Do you have what it takes to prevail?

the intro screen to the campaign

example screenshot from one adventure

Campaign Features

As I've already reviewed the concepts of the game itself, this review will focus what we learned about the game playing through a campaign.

I've never played a campaign (in any game) before. We played one adventure per session. A given session lasted 30-90 minutes. With 2-3 sessions per week, it took us just under two months to get through all 14 adventures in the campaign.

Adventures were generally journey maps (the interlocking map tiles shown in the example screenshot above), but three were on battle maps (example screenshot below). These sessions had the same rules but focused on specific buildings or battlefields. Objects like walls, streams, tables, barrels, trees, fire pits, and statues were placed according to the app directions using cardboard objects included in the game. Each object could be interacted with; some (like streams) had special instructions accessed by clicking on them.

example battle map

Each adventure had one or more objectives as revealed by the app when you proceeded. Each also had a threat meter (shown at the top of the screen) that increased each round. Passing certain values would trigger events (like enemies entering the field). Players had to complete the objective(s) before the threat meter hit its maximum. The team succeeded if they met the objective(s) before this time without anyone in their party dying. The team failed if they did not meet objective(s) in time or had a party member die (when someone died, you had until the end of the round to meet the objective or you failed).

The campaign proceeds to the next adventure whether or not you succeed in the prior (most of the time), but your success or failure dictates what you face down the road. There were a two adventures that would end the campaign prematurely if you failed them- the app tells you this at the start of a given adventure. 

Review

Though I have very little RPG experience, this felt basically like an RPG where the app was the dungeon master. Though elements got repetitive, it was fun and engaging overall- and you have to immerse yourself in the story for full enjoyment. 

I was really impressed with how well the publisher made use of the cardboard representations of objects. From maps to objects to tokens, all things were double-sided and used well. In general, this had the look and feel of an experienced designer behind it.

I own the two subsequent expansions for this game- each of which includes its own campaign- but this base campaign incorporated map tiles, objects, and enemies from these later expansions once I told the app I had them. That was cool.

There is more to be explored in a given adventure than could possibly be. That lends itself to replayability; I'd like to go back and check out the things we couldn't last time.

We played on 'adventure' difficulty- meaning easy mode. We still lost 2-3 adventures along the way and then the finale. The difficulty felt suitable. I don't know how you'd survive in normal or hard modes.

Overall, this was a fun time playing with my sons. I hope to do more quests (or re-do this one) in the future. It would be easier to have a dedicated table for this, but the dining room will do for now.