2 Fate 2 Fellowship
Pandemic was not the first co-operative game. Arguably the original version of Monopoly may hold that honour. However there is no denying Pandemic’s influence on the board gaming world. Countless imitators popped up and co-operative games became a cornerstone of the hobby. As with all hot titles the luster faded. World events took the appeal out of a game about viruses and their spread. Pandemic lay dormant. But we all know that such things can surge out of nowhere. Lord of the Rings: Fate of the Fellowship (FOTF) appeared out of nowhere, proudly declaring itself ‘A Pandemic Game’Â
What does that mean? The game is set over the whole of the Lord of the Rings story from leaving the Shire to throwing the Ring into Mount Doom. The core mechanisms are similar to that of pandemic. A deck of cards rules the board, making the forces of Sauron ebb and flow. Players will contend with Sauron’s armies, defend their strongholds, and maintain Hope long enough to get to Mount Doom and throw the Ring into the fiery depths. Rather than just having the one role like in Pandemic, each player controls two of the characters from the story. Frodo and Sam are essential to this quest but the rest of the cast is a moveable feast.
Merry and Pippin may stay at home. Eowyn becomes a major player right from the start. Gandalf may not move his ancient bones to help while Gimli takes the lead of the Fellowship. You shape the beginnings of the story with your choice of who participates. Immediately you start to see that this game is asking you not to relive the books/films scene for scene, but to tell the tale of what may have been.
Virus outbreaks are replaced by rampaging hordes of very tiny orc meeples that I found totally adorable. Of course the Nazgul get a look in as well, flying high on plastic standees. With two dangers to contend with the way the core deck works has been changed. Each card can move troops or create troops, move the Nazul around, and shift the ever present Eye of Sauron. As cards are flipped off the deck, the back of the card on top of the deck tells you which of the instructions on the card you just drew to obey. In this way it makes the predictable cycle of virus appearance and outbreaks in pandemic become more chaotic. Even if you know where the threat may come from, you can’t predict exacctly when it may reoccur.
We have our characters, we have our main aim, and we have the threats we will face. Our story is not so straightforward though. The beats of our journey will be shaped by objectives.
Four of these objectives are in play with the final trip to Mount Doom always being in the mix. The other three can be chosen from various suggested setups, or just dealt out randomly. They range from seeking aid from the elves or dwarves to going up against Saruman. We have to fufill all the objectives and Mount Doom is last. These objectives dictate the places we will go, the tapestry of our tale. How do we weave it?
With two characters to use you choose 4 actions with one of them, and 1 with the other. This immediately leads to some interesting choices as you weave your way across the map towards the various goals. You muster troops from the factions across the land, gather resources to help with objectives, battle enemies to rescue their numbers, and draw the attention of the Eye so that Frodo & Sam can move unseen towards Mount Doom. That pandemic core rears its head and has us trying to be as efficient as possible with these choices.
Hope is the only fail condition, when it hits zero you are done. Running out of player cards, which are used to tackle objectives and create resources, and running out of enemies to place around the board, ticks this down faster. Establishing strongholds for the good guys and various abilities on characters can tick it up. Ultimately though the deck is the timer of how long you have to complete your goals.
The production of the game is generally very good. The wooden meeples that show the fellowship are satisfying to move around and the art across the game is phenomenal with a nice departure from the style of the films. It also comes with one of the most unecessary accessories I have ever seen in a game: a giant cardboard dice tower in the shape of Barad-Dur, the tower with Sauron’s eye on top of it in the films. This is incredibly sturdy and looms over the board. Unecessary maybe, but awesome.
There were a couple of production decisions I did have a problem with. The path of the enemy’s armies sprawls web-like across the map and it can be time consuming to track their path making both predicting movement and inacting a little tricky.
For the most part the wooden pieces for the heroes, the tiny adorable orcs, and the flying black Nazgul make the board state easier to parse at a glance. Until you get to the end. With the journey to Mordor being the inevitable conclusion of the game, you are going to end up in Ithilien, just outside the gates of Mordor. This region is thin and spindly on the board. When you arrive there with a bunch of armies, clash with orcs, and have the Nazgul turn up as well it can get really crowded. The map is gorgeous, but a little more accommodation for clarity over accuracy would have made this final sprint for the finish a bit easier to read.Â
I’ve been pretty impressed with FOTF. One of the issues I had with Pandemic, and many of the games that sat in its shadow, was that it could descend into quarterbacking, one player taking control of the situation. That may eventually happen with FOTF but it feels like there is more going on around the table for each player, making it harder for an individual to run the show. What does happen is a lot of conversation above the table about what to do. It feels like you are pouring over the details of a map, planning, strategising, seeking holes in the enemies defences. You feel like the Fellowship plotting how to complete their immense task.
I’ll hold my hands up here and admit that I am yet to win a game of FOTF. It does feel harder to me than base pandemic but is testament to the strength of the journey that I have enjoyed every game. While the core quest is always the same, the flexibility in characters and objectives really gives the feeling of telling a new tale using the building blocks of Tolkien. This time it is Eowyn that takes Orthnac, Faramir who accompanies Frodo & Sam all the way to the gates of Mordor, and Merry & Pippin rally the troops of Gondor. In keeping the frame the same, but allowing us to paint the picture you end up with something uniquely yours.
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