There has been quite a few Lord of the Rings games in recent years. I think that's a good thing. I hope this brings more people into the boardgame hobby. There are two games in the Lord of the Rings Trick-Taking Game series so far - The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers. I have only played some of the missions in The Fellowship of the Ring. I was told The Two Towers is more challenging. That certainly makes sense.
This is a cooperative trick-taking game. It is for 1 to 4 players, and it plays best with four. Like a book, it has multiple chapters, and every chapter is a mission you try to complete. One game is playing one chapter. The chapter specifies which characters are in play. Some characters are mandatory, i.e. someone must pick them. There are also optional characters. Cards are dealt to all players before they decide which characters they want to play. The character you pick determines the objective that you must fulfil, for example Frodo must win at least 2 Ring cards, and Merry must win either 1 or 2 tricks. To win a game, everyone must fulfil their objective. Based on the cards you get, you can determine which character is easier or harder for you to play. The player who gets the 1 Ring card must play Frodo. Ring is one of the suits in the game. I find it hilarious that you call the value 1 card of the Ring suit the "1 Ring". Sorry, I'm childish. One Ring to rule them all!
Depending on the character you pick, you may be asked to exchange cards with certain other characters. This helps to communicate some information with your teammates. Normally you are not allowed to share information about your cards.
Most of the rules follow standard trick-taking. The Ring suit is your trump suit. They are numbered only 1 to 5, while other suits go up to 8. You can't lead with the trump suit until a trump card has been played in a trick led by another suit.
The ring marker on this grey side means the trump suit has not yet been played yet.
Use these tokens to mark who has completed their missions
One thing special about the 1 Ring is when you play it, you can choose to win the trick, even if by normal rules you would not, for example normally it loses to the 5 Ring. This means Frodo can almost always fulfil his objective.
The gameplay reminds me of The Crew, which is also a cooperative trick-taking game with limited communication. Here, the objectives and characters are all related to the Lord of the Rings story, which is nice. You can't talk about what cards you have. Your communication is through your actions, e.g. which cards you pass, which cards you play, which characters you pick.
What I enjoy about the game is how the story is told through the characters and their objectives. If you like Lord of the Rings and trick-taking, this is a no brainer. I'm not specifically a fan of either. I find the game enjoyable enough that I would always be happy to play with the full four players. For me it is not breaking new grounds, when I compare it to The Crew. However I would say the theme integration is done well. Even a casual fan of Lord of the Rings like me will enjoy the game.
This is a campaign game. When you buy a campaign game, you will feel motivated to complete the campaign. It feels like unfinished business if you don't. If you do complete the campaign, you will have gained many plays of the game to make the purchase very much worthwhile. The tragedy of many games that we hobbyists buy is they don't get played all that many times.
This above is a setup you have to do when you play a 2-player game. I almost played this, but we were able to get two more players to join us for a 4P game. So I have not tried the 2-player game and I don't know how it works. It looks cumbersome to me. The general agreement is the game works best with four.
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