Shape the fate of the One Ring

For me 🌋 Fate of the Fellowship was the one game I just couldn't resist at the UKGE this year - I went full FOMO mode. 😄 (Especially after the person in the shop said they only have 2 copies left - in hindsight that might’ve been a clever marketing ploy. 😂) We have and love almost all versions of Pandemic, and this is the newest entry to the series with a Lord of the Rings 💍 theme. It feels quite different from basic Pandemic though, it’s really more like an epic LotR adventure. 😊

The core structure will feel familiar to Pandemic fans. 🧐 You take some actions, draw 2 cards from the player deck, then draw threat cards that spawn and move foes across the map. The player deck has a few ‘bad’ cards that reshuffle the discard onto the top of the deck, and generally make your life hard. From this point on, there are lots of differences.

First of all, everyone has 2 characters, but controls both with a single hand of cards. This helps fill the map and make it all more epic, and also gives you some flexibility. Every character has a bunch of cool abilities as expected. 👍 You also can't use cards as tickets like in normal Pandemic, instead you walk everywhere - fitting for Lord of the Rings. 😃 To help with movement, characters can bring each other along, which is a central mechanic. 

Cards work a bit differently as well. They come in 4 different suits, and are used to fuel the different actions, and they are needed to complete quests as well. To win the game, you must complete 4 quests, 3 of them randomly chosen and 1 always the same - destroying the One Ring. 💪 There are 24 quest cards to choose from, so you always try to achieve new goals, and these might dictate what the playable characters are.

The board takes a little getting used to - there are lots of colored arrows indicating where enemy troops can move. The Nazgul minis are also a bit fiddly as you can easily knock them over. However the overall presentation is simply superb, and helps sell the game as Lord of the Rings, with all its epicness. ☺️ We are really happy with the game and can’t wait for our next adventure!