By Kaysee and Max

Disclosure: bought the game, used the 4E Rulebook, beat all the scenarios

On a recent trip to Belgium, we spontaneously decided to visit a local board game shop. While we thought that most games there would be in French and only one of us can read French, we hoped to find something that’s not language dependent. Imagine our surprise when we saw some copies of the French version of Eternal Decks. This game had been on our radar for a while, even though we thought it would be difficult to get our hands on it. When we returned home, we were very eager to start playing.

The setup and the Rulebook

Eternal Decks is a cooperative card placement game that has some communication limit and stunningly beautiful art. The initial setup for the game is not the most difficult. It doesn’t have plenty of components. It only has a cloth that serves as a player board, different sets of cards, and a few wooden tokens. But the setup isn’t the easiest eiether; we’re not sure if it has something to do with us trying to figure out which deck or set of cards is which or us looking back and forth between the English and the French rulebooks to make sure that we got the correct cards. Understanding the rules, at least for the beginner mode, was easier for us than doing all the setup as it doesn’t have complex mechanics related to the concepts in the game.

The theme and the scenarios

We both really like the theme and the campaign of eleven scenarios in Eternal Decks. It tells the story of a group of explorers travelling through the Eternal Realm to preserve the existence of life in their own world. The art style is very pretty and it has a very minimalist theme with some abstract concepts, which doesn’t mean that the game itself is abstract or not thematic. It just means that while the theme and the art are already there to help with the world building, it still requires the theater of the mind. The non-restrictiveness of the theme allowed us to craft the world based on our own subjective and shared experiences.

As for the scenarios, each of them could be played independently, but we think it’s very much worth it to play through them in order at least once. The story might be told in a minimalistic way, but it’s still a good story and the mechanics do a great job of evoking the appropriate feelings. We really felt like explorers in a strange new world, learning how it works step by step. We also noticed that each scenario teaches the skills required to overcome the challenges of the next.

It’s all about the energy, dude

No matter which scenario, each player gets Energy cards and can play them on the Field rows or the River row on the mat. The Field card on the Field row (imagine it as one of the player’s starting points in the game) provides the information as to which type of Energy card (i.e. the color and the number) is required. But all Field rows share two basic rules: it’s not permitted to play two cards of the same Energy color or the same number next to each other. To us, the Energy cards represent the energy of a specific life form that we need to provide in order to revive an Eternal of our choice. Reviving an Eternal in return provides a set of Energy cards which in turn helps us to revive other Eternals.

As if all of this were not tricky enough to navigate, the Field rows in each scenario have varying Field cards that provide additional restrictions on the cards that can be placed in the row that they affect. Early examples are the Mountain and the Cave. The Mountain requires players to placed Energy cards in ascending order, while the Cave, its mechanical opposite, demands descending order. On the higher difficulty levels some rows have a deck of Field cards so that conditions change every time an Eternal is revived.

The Eternals

Most of the Eternals in the game are based on mythical creatures found in different cultures. They’re complicated. Some may argue they are friends, but some may think of them as foes. In any case, they are essential to preserve the cycle of life in the game. While they provide Energy cards, they also afflict the players with a Curse. Mechanically, this provides additional restrictions in terms of the type of cards that can be played.

Players can choose which Eternal to revive. This choice is very often a deliciously difficult one. There are quite a few factors to take into consideration when choosing. First, it matters who does the reviving, as this is the main way to gain more cards and running out means game over. Second, every Eternal afflicts everyone with a different type of Curse, so choosing the least bad one is essential. For instance, reviving the Skeleton will forbid all twos and eights from being played to the field, which is bad if either or both of the players are very likely to have those cards. Third, especially in the later scenarios it also becomes crucial to take into account which exact cards you gain from the Eternal, as you often need very specific combinations of cards to fulfill your objectives.

But fear not the Curses! They can be lifted if you add some specific combinations of Energy cards to the River for a Jewel, which you provide to the revived Eternal of your choice.

While any Energy card can be played to the River at any time, the River is not infinite. By filling it with Energy, you can gain a River Rare card, which functions like a joker mechanically. However, these are limited and can run out. Throwing too much Energy, a non-physical object, into the River will result in a gameover. Please keep the rivers clean.

Winning and losing

The winning condition in the game is dependent on which scenario it is, even though it always involves unlocking either Stars or Keys by fulfilling various objectives. We never felt frustrated when we lost in any scenario of the game, which is something we’ve felt in other games with similar systems. We wanted to try again and again. The last time we’ve felt this way was when we were playing Slay the Spire (the video game). We experienced losing multiple times in Stage C+, one of the advanced scenarios of the game, where winning sometimes seemed impossible (it took us five times before we were able to beat this stage). What we liked about this stage is it allowed us to improve and assess our strategies, thinking that there must be a way for us to solve the impossible. It could have ended as an eternal cycle of repeated loss.

Communication

When it comes to the communication limit, we think it’s really well implemented. We think that it is almost at the same level of communication limit as Gloomhaven, where open hand and mentioning what cards you have are not allowed. If anything, there is more information that can be communicated in Eternal Decks, as there are some types of cards that can be disclosed to the other players and an ability card where players may show their cards to the others. On top of that, each player has two Communication discs in their color that they can place on spaces where they think they could play some cards. Especially by placing a token on a spot further along a row it can be possible to give significant information about the cards in your hand. This allowed us to coordinate our strategies and work together effectively.

The degree of limitation, both of verbal communication and the use of (emblematic) gestures, is also determined by which scenario it is. Some scenarios do not allow some form of communication that is typically allowed in many scenarios. This also required us to come up with a different strategy and apply some more theory of mind, where we try to observe and understand what the other person is thinking when they perform an action.

Our final thoughts

We’ve never played anything like Eternal Decks. The intriguing world-building, the colorful art and the razor-sharp mechanics combine to create an immersive and stimulating experience for both of us. The later scenarios are very engaging and challenging even if one of them requires essentially perfect play in addition to a decent dose of luck. But what we like the most is how well it plays even if it’s just the two of us.

We also like that there’s a creative mode. We tried creating our own scenario only to realize that it was imbalanced. We’re still working on it and are very excited to try it again. It also made us realize how difficult it must be to design a game for the very first time which made us respect game designers even more.

One thing that we have to say though, is while we’re ok with the structure of the Rulebook, there’s a part in the Stage E setup in the Stage Description book where the placement of the text makes it difficult to interpret whether it is within the scope of a specific set up. We were only able to figure it out by reading the rules for that scenario.

But that one small bit didn’t affect the quality of our gameplay. And we can imagine playing this game multiple times and crafting our own story each time.

Kaysee’s rating: 4.5/5
Max’s rating: 5/5

Combined rating: 5/5

Title: Eternal Decks (2025)
Game Design: Hiroken
Artist: MUJUNSHA
Edition: French
Publishers: Tricktakers Games, Pixie Games

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By Kaysee and Max

We bought Daybreak, which is called e-Mission in German (the copy that we used for this review), a few days after Earth day. We wanted to have a game that we could play on Earth day every year. On top of it being a Kennerspiel des Jahres (a Kennerspiel is in the middle of a family game and an expert game in terms of complexity) in 2024, we learned that it has information about some real life projects and initiatives for addressing the climate crisis. And the game is not just about managing the climate crisis thematically, but mechanically it’s also a crisis management cooperative board game with some survival elements.

The setup is not too complicated. Each player chooses and represents one of the World Powers (Europe, China, the US, and the Majority World). They get the corresponding player board, put some markers on the main and player boards, and shuffle the three decks of cards. For our first session, one of us chose China and the other the US. This combination is considered the standard mode for two players. The most involved bit of setup is adding the correct Emissions markers and Energy type to the player boards, as each World Power has its own specific starting configuration. Increasing the difficulty by adding individual or global challenges shouldn’t affect the speed of setup that much. The whole thing shouldn’t take more than 15 minutes even for beginners.

The game has a maximum of six rounds, which means the playing time is always going to be similar. Each round consists of five stages. The first is the Global stage, where players draw the Crisis cards for the round and two Global Project cards. To begin with the number of Crises is three. As the temperature increases over the course of the game, so does that number. One Crisis starts face-up each round. This allowed us to prepare for or potentially mitigate its effects. After drawing two Global Project cards, players get to choose which one they would potentially activate. Global Projects benefit all World Powers, so our choice was dependent on what starting Local Projects we both have. One of the things that we like about the Global Projects is they encourage interaction between players as some Global Projects allow players to trade with each other and help each other in some other ways.

We find the next stage, the Local Project stage, to be the most exciting stage, during which players draw and use Local Project cards. Each player starts with five Local Projects depending on their chosen World Power. But in subsequent rounds all the World Powers draw from the same Local Project deck. There’s plenty of different Local Project cards in the deck which makes it possible to construct different sets of Local Project cards each session. This where we prepare for the possible crises to come and the Forecast Crisis (the Crisis card faced up).

Unlike Global Projects, active Local Projects only affect the World Power that has them. Players don’t need to take turns to use a Local Project card; they can do it simultaneously and each player’s hand and board are open. They can use the effects of those projects, which generally either have a limited number of uses per round or require another Local Project card in hand to be discarded per use. They can also be used to modify active Local Projects in two ways: they can be played on top to change the effect or under an existing project to add their symbols to it. Later Local Projects often require a specific number of symbols to be used or to gain additional uses. We also made full use of Daybreak’s lack of communication limit at this stage and talked about our strategies extensively. Depending on which Global Project is active, a player can give some of their cards to another player during this stage, so we think that talking about which card to use is crucial.

We tried to ensure that our societies meet their energy demands before we reach the next stage – the Emissions stage. At the Emissions stage, players first check whether they are generating enough energy for their societies’ needs. If they don’t, they will gain some Communities in Crisis markers, which can reduce the number of cards drawn in the project phase or even lead to a game over, if they accumulate too many.

All the Carbon (Emissions and Dirty Energy combined) caused by the World Powers is then added up. Luckily, Trees and Oceans (and potentially Direct Air Capture) absorb as much of the carbon as they can. The more Trees, Oceans and DAC you have, the more Carbon is absorbed. We find that increasing Carbon absorption is quite difficult to do. But being able to sequester all the Carbon, which is called Drawdown, is necessary to win the game.

Any leftover Carbon is then added to the Thermometer. If a number of spaces equal to the number of players, two in our case, on that track is filled, a Temperature Band is added to show that the global temperature has increased by 0.1 degrees Celsius. If the global temperature increases by 2.0 degrees Celsius, the game is lost.

The number of Temperature Bands on the board influences the next stage, which is the Crisis stage. Now, a player has to roll the Planetary Effects die a number of times determined by the temperature level. Based on the results, various markers advance along their respective tracks, causing negative effects when they reach a tipping point. E.g. the acidification of the oceans can limit their ability to absorb Carbon, while melting permafrost can cause increased Carbon. We are not huge fans of this mechanic. We think that if there’s a die roll, there should be significantly different outcomes. In Daybreak, five of the six outcomes are just very similar as they all slightly accelerate the increase of global temperature.

After applying these effects, it’s time to resolve the Crisis cards drawn at the beginning of the round. These can either affect all players or just one player. Most of them have instant effects, but some stick around and cause continuous problems until dealt with. There are ways to flip and reveal a Crisis card during the Local Project stage, but this is dependent on which Local Project card a player gets and it is very rare. We really like this stage, as it’s the most suspenseful stage. Many things may happen during this stage that are beyond our control. It is, for instance, still possible to lose during this stage even if you have achieved a Drawdown, since the effects caused by some Crisis cards can increase the number of Communities in Crisis markers. But it doesn’t mean that our choices didn’t matter. The chances of losing at this stage can be reduced by dealing with emissions or adding initiatives during the Local Project stage.

The final stage, the quickest stage of the round, is the Growth stage. Players simply check whether they have won and, if they haven’t, advance the round marker and increase their societies energy needs. There’s only six rounds, so not winning before or in the 6th round means you lose the game. This stage shows that there is an element of survivability in this game; even if all Carbon is successfully absorbed and Drawdown reached, all World Powers still need to survive the Crises. We really like that there are different ways to achieve that by reducing the Emissions and Dirty Energy, by adding more Carbon absorbers if possible, or by doing both.

After winning in our first playthrough, we realized that Daybreak isn’t as easy as we initially thought. We chose Europe and the Majority World in our second playthrough and added a challenge card to increase the difficulty. We lost. It required more careful planning, making sure that we get to reduce as much Carbon as possible and not get screwed by at least the Forecast Crisis. We tried again and won the second time and it was a rewarding win. The different ways that things could end up makes it more exciting. It would have been nice though if there were more World Powers to choose from and not have all the countries that are not China, the US, and in Europe all grouped as the Majority World.

Our Final Thoughts:
Daybreak gives us the opportunity to play as World Powers and consider what actions we could do to mitigate climate change while also thinking of different ways to survive. The different possible ways to solve the issue and different unpredictable ways things may end up make the game more realistic and also more replayable. Although the excitement and motivation to start playing it again aren’t always there (we have plenty of board games so it’s competing against the others in terms of attention), the excitement has so far never failed to exist during each game session, where the thrill that we get from things beyond our control is in balance with the excitement of performing an action, knowing that our choices still do matter in the game each time. We both agree and think that this game is definitely worthy of the Kennerspiel des Jahres award. And we think it plays well for two players.

Kaysee’s rating: 4/5
Max’s rating: 4/5

Combined rating: 4/5

Title: e-Mission
Game Design: Matt Leacock & Matteo Menapace
Illustration: Mads Berg
Publisher: CMYK, Schmidt Spiele

Photos by Kaysee

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By Kaysee and Max

Disclosure: finished the campaign

Earthborne Rangers was one of the games that had been on our radar for quite a while. Many campaign games are also legacy games, which are often not replayable and happen to have many components that aren’t compostable. The components of EBR are compostable, but it’s also a replayable campaign game. For some time we’d wanted to play GMless RPGs with just the two of us; we tried, but it was difficult and we felt we needed more guidance. It seemed that EBR could scratch that itch, giving us some structure without being so restrictive that we couldn’t create our own narrative. Additionally, the art style is beautiful and captures the ecopunk vibe that we like (and we both love green). So we were very excited when we were able to get our hands on it.

Earthborne Rangers is a deck-building/construction game that relies on cards for the world building. Most of the game consists of cards. While there is a map that shows the location, there’s no board to place your character, and having minis isn’t necessary. It is quite similar to a tabletop RPG. But unlike many TTRPGs, players don’t have to rely on the GM to decide whether an action is permissible. The rules are all set up in the game. While TTRPGs offer more flexibility in terms of what a player can do, in EBR, players get to choose the personality and the aspects or the stats of their character and don’t have to rely on dice to randomly generate the stats.

The prologue got us hooked very quickly. During the prologue each player first chooses a number of personality cards, followed by cards representing their ranger’s background and specialty. One of us chose a Forager-Shaper and the other chose an Artisan-Artificer. While we weren’t able to update them regularly during the game, you can check our character sheets here and here. The resulting ranger deck slowly changes over the course of the campaign, as there are opportunities to engage in some further deck building.

The prologue also walks players through the setup process that repeats at the beginning of each day/session. First, players set up their individual areas and draw a starting hand of six cards. This is followed by shuffling the challenge deck, the function of which we’ll explain later. Next come the location, weather and mission cards. We really like these cards as they really help with the immersion (we’d recommend checking out the soundtrack if you want your game session to be more immersive). These are determined by the current state of the campaign, which is noted down on a campaign tracker. If you’re curious, check out our campaign tracker, but be warned: it contains plenty of spoilers.

Then comes the potentially most consequential part, building the path deck, which contains the flora and fauna, the beings, the people, and some structures/ruins. This will include cards based on the path that was used to arrive at the current location, specific or general cards based on that location and sometimes additional cards related to a mission or the weather. What we like about the path deck is that it makes the world come alive and it gives more variety to the game as who/whatever you encounter when you draw a path card is random even though its construction is determined by the factors mentioned earlier. Finally, there are arrival setup instructions on the back of the location card, which shape the initial conditions the rangers find themselves in.

After setup, rangers take turns until everyone has decided to rest for the round. On their turn, each ranger can either play a card from their hand, perform a test or decide to rest. The test or the card that a ranger can perform or play is dependent on the available energy, the type and the amount of which is determined by the aspect, in their energy pool and the path card that they want to interact with. In the first few sessions we were trying to use all the energy in the energy pool effectively, but it gets tricky as the campaign and the days progress; we asked ourselves (and each other) whether we should use them all before we rest or just rest even if there are some left in the pool. We really like this mechanism since while at the beginning it seems that being efficient with your resources means using most of them before resting, eventually we would have to consider whether not using them all and drawing a ranger card during the refresh stage (the stage after resting) might be the better option. But this also means having to draw another path card, which could bring more risks and might have to be dealt with.

When a ranger performs a test, they have to draw a challenge card, which contains a challenge icon (mountain, crest, or sun). Some path cards, weather cards, mission cards, and location cards contain challenge effects, which are triggered if the challenge card drawn has the corresponding challenge icon. The challenge card also determines if the effort used is deducted, added, or stays the same. We feel that the challenge cards are the ones that create the tension as you don’t know whether it’s going to trigger some negative or postive effects. Depending on the location, weather, path card and the mission cards in play, drawing a challenge card may speed up fatigue. Fatigue is when a ranger sets aside a card facedown from the ranger deck without using it. If the ranger is forced to fatigue a card but they don’t have any cards left in the ranger deck, they need to end the day. We haven’t played all the specialties and backgrounds yet, but we think that Shapers have a huge advantage when it comes to decreasing randomness and mitigating fatigue since they have more options not to perform tests during their turn; they could, instead, play a card, which doesn’t require drawing a challenge card to clear or help clear a path.

Clearing a path card is one of the most important things to do in the game because it unlocks and helps progress some missions. But a ranger doesn’t have to clear every path card in play. How to clear a path card depends on the type of path card and the conditions written on the card to clear it. If the card is a being, a flora, or a fauna, it can either be cleared by harm or progress. We would always try our best to clear using progress if it’s a being. We were talking about the choice of using the term “harm” and what it means in the game. This is the part of the narrative that we wanted to be very much our own. We sometimes just define “harm” as disturbance. Sometimes we say that the fruits were harvested and the plants were disturbed, which what harm means in the context of flora. Sometimes when a companion causes a harm to the prey, it just means that they “shooed” it. We interpret the term depending on which context it was done. The narrative and the system are not too restrictive so that there is some space for us to add our own spin on things.

The results of our choices also didn’t feel punishing mechanically and let us freely choose based on what we think is the right thing to do. Without going into too much detail, there was a mission where we needed some prey. One of the preys happened to be not a living prey. When we read the entry after clearing the mission, we were so relieved that we got it. When we finally cleared the mission, the reward wasn’t something we found valuable, but we enjoyed curating the narrative based on which preys we got. We’re being vague here, but you’ll know once you’ve chosen and completed that mission. What we also find very interesting and really love is that clearing a being with harm may seem to require less resources than clearing it with progress, but every ranger has some Spirit (the aspect that provides energy needed to clear with progress) and is capable of compassion, but not every ranger has the means (cards) to cause harm.

Our Final Thoughts:
Earthborne Rangers is the type of game that we were looking for when we were looking for a more structured GMless RPG. It’s not a TTRPG, but it is also not a typical card game. There were times during the campaign where we hoped to not encounter Quisi (one of the characters of the Valley who is endearingly fatiguing) anymore, but we still enjoyed the journey a lot. The art style, the interaction between the mechanics and the theme, the balance between randomness and choice, and most especially having the space to create a world that is uniquely our own, are the things that make EBR one of the best games we’ve played together.

Kaysee’s rating: 4.5/5
Max’s rating: 4.0/5

Combined rating: 4.5/5

Reference:
Earthborne Rangers[Rulebook].(2023). Earthborne Games.

Title: Earthborne Rangers (2023)
Game Design: Andrew Fischer, Brooks Flugaur-Leavitt, Andrew Navaro, Adam Sadler, Brady Sadler
Illustration: Joe Banner (II), Evan Simonet
Publisher: Earthborne Games

Photos by Kaysee

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By Kaysee and Max

Disclosure: played 6 time, beat the game in legendary

We’re both The Lord of the Rings fans (the extent of which we’ve mentioned in this other LotR game review). When we were looking for games to get at Spiel Essen ‘25 on the Spiel app, we saw that a game called The Lord of the Rings: Fate of the Fellowship was going to be available there. We found out that it’s co-op and by Matt Leacock, so we decided to add it to our list of potential buys. Unfortunately, it was already out of stock when we arrived at the publisher’s area, but the world made us feel better by allowing us to say “Hi” to Matt Leacock and get a signed poster from him.

We finally got ourselves a copy from a friendly local game store earlier this year. We were very excited. The box isn’t too big, but it has plenty of components inside. The first thing we did was to assemble the dice tower. We were thinking about how well-made the cut-outs were. It was beautiful, but when we tested it with three dice, a die got stuck inside. We followed the instructions to a T and made sure that all the parts were in place*. We checked everything, nothing wrong with the assembly, there just happened to be a shelf inside that dice could get stuck on, especially when throwing in more than two dice.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

We also liked the other components, especially the wooden troops; they were so cute. We also liked the wooden standees and the other wooden tokens. After checking out the components, we set up the board and assembled the Nazgûl miniatures. It was a bit frustrating because some of them didn’t fit the stands well. We were thinking about adding glue just so they wouldn’t fall off the stands (but we haven’t yet, so we just have to deal with it occasionally when we play). The game board is big and some of the cards are bigger than regular-sized cards. As such, setting it up needs a lot of space (at least 100 x 125 cm for two players).

During setup, there are two markers that players need to put on the board: the Hope marker and the Threat Rate marker. The Hope marker goes to the Hope track; this determines how much hope the characters have left. If the marker goes down to zero, the game is lost. It’s really nice that they use the term “hope”. If the characters lose hope, the world falls apart. This is a great mechanical representation of the importance of hope in LotR. The Threat marker, on the othre hand, goes to the Threat track, which tells the player how many Shadow cards from the Shadow deck need to be drawn. The more cards you draw, the higher the likelihood that a troop will spawn, a troop will move to conquer havens, and the Nazgûl will search Frodo. Higher Threat speeds up the loss of Hope. We like how the Shadow deck works. Most Shadow cards have two different sections. The section to resolve is determined by whether the top of the deck has a banner or a flag, which we think give more variety to the game and makes it less predictable than the original Pandemic.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

For the intro level, each of us must play two characters. Frodo and Sam (considered to be one character, just like Merry and Pippin) should be played in all games. For the first game, the set of characters is assigned to each player, but for subsequent games, the other three characters are determined by the randomly chosen objectives or are chosen randomly. We’ve never really been fans of not being able to choose a character freely, but we understand that it’s that way to make it more unpredictable for players to know what’s going to happen in a game session, which does increase replayability.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

The number of objectives that need to be completed is based on the level of difficulty chosen. Regardless of difficulty, the ‘Destroy the One Ring’ objective is always the final objective. The other objectives, which must be fulfilled before finishing the final one, are chosen randomly. We really liked the objectives, how thematic they are and how tied the characters are to them. The objective cards made each of our games very different. LotR nerds can easily see how much they want to be loyal to the books (Legolas has brown hair in this game!) while also keeping the game’s mechanisms interesting and balanced.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

On our turn, each of us can only perform five actions in total. One action must be performed by one character and four actions are performed by the other character. We liked this mechanism since it allows us to think more carefully in terms of the allocation of actions. This game doesn’t have a communication limit, so we were able to talk about strategies and help each other decide how to use our actions. There are six standard actions that almost any character can take, and characters can have additional abilities and actions on their character card. After performing their actions for the turn, the player draws two player cards.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

The player card deck contains randomly selected event cards, Skies Darken cards, and region cards. The event cards allow the player to do an event any time in the game, even on another player’s turn. They serve as free actions. The Skies Darken cards increase the Threat level and can, in the wrong circumstances, even decrease the Hope level. The region cards contain symbols, which are required to perform some actions, to re-roll dice, or to remove extra troops after a battle. One interesting symbol is called Resistance, which is represented by a ring symbol. We assume it symbolizes resisting the power of the One Ring.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

We won the introductory game, but lost the standard game the first time. We won again and won the other difficulty levels as well. The first game was quite difficult, but it got a bit easier as we played more, even when we increased the level of difficulty. But in a way we felt that we were just lucky whenever we won because of the dice-rolling mechanism that happens (which is dependent on how low Hope is and how many Nazgûl there are in Mordor, which means that if the Hope meter is full and there are no Nazgûl in Mordor, then no roll is required) once Frodo and Sam reach Mount Doom and Frodo tries to destroy the Ring using five Resistances.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Our Final Thoughts:
Fate of the Fellowship is a really good game. One can see the amount of effort that was put into it. Despite the slightly underwhelming fulfillment we felt whenever we won, all the games that we had were fun. The different possible sets of objectives and events, and the way the Shadow cards work, made us more engaged and excited. Sometimes we would smile, thinking about how different the paths and choices our characters took were from how it happened in the books. It’s like the characters are in alternate worlds but the only thing that is necessary and can never change is the destruction of The One Ring. Even if the final objective is always the same, the variety from the objectives and the choices we made made for a very fun game each time. As they say, it’s sometimes about the journey, not the goal.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Kaysee’s rating: 4/5
Max’s rating: 4/5

Combined rating: 4/5

*It’s not. We flipped one of the pieces, and now it’s fixed. Please see boardgamegeek.com/thread/3542211/anyone-with-problem… for more info in case you experienced something similar for more info in case you experienced something similar.

Reference:
Tolkien, J. R. R.(1991). The Fellowship of the Ring. HarperCollins.

Title: The Lord of the Rings: Fate of the Fellowship
Game Design: Matt Leacock
Illustration: Jared Blando, Cory Godbey
Publisher: Z-Man Games

Photos and non-board game illustrations by Kaysee

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