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Yet another LotR release that's suffused in theme and very easy on the eye, it might not vary that much from similar games we've seen in recent years.
In recent years, trick-takers have gone from being a thing your mom and dad did (bridge) or a thing you played with drunk friends in the Midwest (euchre) to a full-on genre in the boardgaming world (much to Dan Thurot's delight.) It was just a few months ago that I was reviewing yet another one and now I'm back with one riding one of the most famous IPs in the modern gaming era. The Lord of the Rings has had dozens of games created around it or simply had its IP applied to classics like Risk, Monopoly, and Trivial Pursuit, so the fact that The Lord of the Rings Fellowship of the Ring Trick-taking Game is now a thing (and one of the most exhaustive titles of recent times) should be a surprise to no one. In fact, given the kind of dreck that once had the LotR label applied to it, the surprise in my case is still that this game, like War of the Ring, Fate of the Fellowship, The Confrontation, and Middle-Earth Quest, is actually pretty good. Yes, some of those are well beyond "pretty good" but this one may not quite get there, depending on what your answer to the question "Do I need both this and The Crew?" turns out to be.
Since it's a pure co-op, you can play this solo, but my experience leads me to the same conclusion that many on BGG have come to, which is that it's best with 4, much like both versions of The Crew. Unlike either of those games, though, where a "story" is provided as a path to follow as you make progress against increasingly difficult scenarios of whom can win and lose tricks of varying kind and number, this game is immersed in the story that is The Fellowship of the Ring. Immersed as in each of the scenarios uses one of the chapter titles from the book and compiles almost all of them into the experience. (There are 22 in the "novel" (1/3 of the total novel...) The game uses 18.) Also, unlike The Crew where players are nameless members of either a spacefaring or deep sea diving team (except for whoever happens to be the Captain at any point), in the Fellowship Trick-taking game, you take on the role of most of the characters of the story, each of whom functions differently in the context of the game. For example, your initial start to the game offers up the choice of Frodo (who almost always has to be played, as you might expect), Pippin, Bilbo, and Gandalf. In this initial adventure, Bilbo also has to be played (since it's his party...) which the chapter cards will always indicate with a *. But in chapter 2, Sam and Merry are added to the mix and Frodo, Sam, and Merry have to be played, but Gandalf and Pippin are still presented as options. This also comes with the option of playing the game "short" (just getting past each chapter, regardless of character combo) or "long" (completing each chapter with all of the characters listed as options (i.e. playing more than one round of each chapter.))
Like all games of this type, it has regular suits (in this case four: Hills, Mountains, Forests, Shadows, numbered 1-8) and a trump suit (Rings, numbered 1-5.) But unlike other trick-takers, the only trump card in that Rings suit is, of course, the 1 Ring. Rings 2-5 are played like any other suit, but can't be played until someone plays a Rings card into a trick because they can't follow. Also, the 1 of Rings is only trump if the player wants it to be. This is important in many chapters where certain characters have to win or lose a particular number of tricks, in that it gives an out that suits that are automatically trump (like Red in Power Vacuum or rockets in The Crew: Quest for Planet Nine) can't do. That's where this game is a little closer to The Crew: Mission Deep Sea, because each character has a goal in every hand that remains the same. Pippin has to win the fewest tricks, while Bilbo has to win 3 or more tricks in every hand, for example. As the Chapters progress, you'll start adding in things like Threat cards, which change the hand goals of specific characters, or Chapter-specific cards, which alter the number of cards in a specific suit. Each Chapter also adds new characters to play, from well-known names like Legolas and Tom Bombadil to far more obscure people like Farmer Maggot (never "onscreen" in either the book or the film) and Barliman Butterbur. For LotR fans, it's somewhere between a nerdfest and a "Fer reals?" moment. For everyone else, they're just some other dude with a different goal to meet.
Gameplay for this doesn't vary that much from other co-op trick-takers. You can't tell people what's in your hand and you have to stay aware of the goals that everyone else has to fulfill, in addition to your own, which affects how the hand is played. This varies from the simplest (Gandalf has to win 1 or more tricks) to the more specific (Frodo has to win 2 or more Rings cards) to the story-targeted like a laser (Elrond: each character has to win 1 or more Rings, in addition to their own goals.) Those extra hurdles aren't overly different from the tasks assigned in Mission Deep Sea but given that they're assigned to specific characters, rather than randomly drawn or assigned by whichever mission you're playing, it does provide more immersion for the players. "Hey, Glorfindel is with us. That means that we have to alter our play to reflect his need for Shadow cards." and so forth. That doesn't happen if Glorfindel isn't around, rather than that it doesn't happen if Player 2 didn't pull that from the task deck. That said, it's not so different from other co-op trick-takers (like The Crew...) that it's a mind-blowing experience, either. The Chapters after the first couple are a bit more difficult than the first couple dozen or so missions of Quest for Planet Nine, but that's probably because this game has 18, whereas Quest has 50.
And there's no denying that, just like Fate of the Fellowship, the production here is excellent. I wonder if it's become part of the LotR license that whoever releases a game with it basically has to show off when it comes to production values? The cards are simple to understand and all done in a style that mimics that of famed artist John Howe. The rulebook is well laid out and encourages you to simply start playing so that it won't spoil any of the coming chapters. To that point, the game box itself is split into three sections with the base deck and initial four characters in the first, chapters 2-11 in the second, and 12-18 in the third; both of the latter covered by a cardboard cover to hide everything away until you get to it and all three equipped with the equivalent of bookmark ribbons to get the cards from their enclosures, especially if you've sleeved them.
But back to that basic question: Do you need this if you already own The Crew (both versions of it, in my case)? The answer that I've come to is: Why not? Despite basic similarities, the games differ enough that they serve different functions. When I want something quick in this genre, I can turn to Quest or Mission. If I'm with some Tolkien fans who want a longer game that tells a story, I can pull out Fellowship. The bonus factor is that, since they're all just card games, none of them take up much space on the shelf and all of them offer at least a moderately different experience. Again, since they're essentially the same game, there's nothing about Fellowship of the Ring Trick-taking game that really blew me away. But it's definitely a story that I'd like to read again (and one that left me eager to see how it develops in the incoming The Lord of the Rings The Two Towers Trick-taking Game in 2026.)
