Year: 2025 | Players: 1-4 | Min: 20 | Ages: 10+
This The Fellowship of the Ring: Trick-Taking Game review was made after playing the game about 20 times. The publisher sent us a copy of this game in exchange for an honest review.
What is The Fellowship of the Ring?
The Fellowship of the Ring: Trick-Taking Game is a cooperative card game in which you play through the events from the first The Lord of the Rings novel.
The game was designed by Bryan Bornmueller and published by Office Dog.
Rules Overview
The Fellowship of the Ring is a cooperative trick-taking game where you’ll play as characters from Tolkien’s story. Across 18 chapters, you’ll play through unique scenarios and work to complete each character’s goal. Each chapter introduces new content, like characters and rules.
How the Game Plays
At the start of a chapter, you’ll get your hand of cards before selecting characters, giving you some information to work with. Some characters allow you to exchange cards during this step, letting you pass and receive cards based on specific conditions. The characters have unique goals, like winning a certain number of tricks or specific types of cards.
After selecting characters and completing any exchanges, the game unfolds in a series of tricks:
- Leading a Trick
The first player starts by playing a card. This sets the lead suit for the trick. - Following Suit
In turn order, you’ll play a card, matching the lead suit if you can. If you can’t, you can play a card from another suit. - Winning the Trick
The highest card in the lead suit wins the trick, unless someone plays the One Ring card and chooses to claim the trick automatically. The winner collects the cards and leads the next trick.
This process continues until everyone has played all the cards in their hand.
Completing a Chapter
Once the round ends, you check if every character’s goal was achieved. You win if everyone succeeds. If even one goal is missed, you’ll lose and must replay the chapter.
The Short chapters end after a single round, while Long chapters require multiple rounds to complete all of the characters’ goals. For Long chapters, you’ll shuffle the deck and set up again for the next round.
Playing with Two Players
In a two-player game, a third “player” is represented by a card pyramid. This pyramid acts as an open hand, with some cards face-up and others face-down. You’ll control the pyramid by choosing a character for it and playing its cards during tricks, but only uncovered cards can be played.
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Pros and Cons
Pros
- The variety of goals and the tweaks made as you move through the chapters in The Fellowship of the Ring is just awesome. There was an extra bit of excitement going into each chapter since we didn’t know which characters would be available to us and there were some other cool surprises mixed in, as well.
- Choosing your characters based on the hands you’re dealt is a nice twist on the classic trick-taking opening. It feels like a mini puzzle right from the start.
- The “Exchange” part of the game works extremely well. It gives you some information from other players without making the game too easy.
- It’s really cool that the 18 chapters let you go through that first The Lord of the Rings story. Seeing the characters show up where you remember them showing up in the story adds to the whole experience.
- It’s awesome that they included a legit way to keep playing the game after you’ve played through the 18 chapters. You get to mix in random characters, and their goals make each game play out at least slightly differently.
- This game is very easy to teach and learn. The first few games are very straightforward, and then a little bit more is added in as you play through the chapters.
- I’m a big fan of the artwork on the cards. The stained glass style just works.
Cons
- Some of the later chapters felt a little too challenging, almost like we needed to get lucky with our card draws to have any chance of winning. It’s hard to say for sure since we were “failing forward” to see all the content for this review, but a couple of those chapters were more frustrating than fun.
- The two-player rules work and are a clever way to make the game play at that player count, but the experience doesn’t feel as complete as it does with three or four players since you can see cards that aren’t in your hand. So, I guess the “con” here is that I feel like part of the game is missing while playing two-player.
Final Thoughts
I’ve had a lot of fun playing The Fellowship of the Ring: Trick-Taking Game. Figuring out how to complete different sets of character goals feels unique, and I’m very impressed with how well the game ties into the story. I think it shines the most as a four-player game because you get more characters involved, but three-player is also solid.
I said in my The Crew review that I was starting to believe that co-op trick-taking just didn’t work for me because I’m such a huge fan of competitive classics like Spades. But The Fellowship of the Ring does work for me. Maybe it’s because you get to play as characters, or maybe it’s the theme, but I find this game more enjoyable. I still think co-op trick-taking games lack the tension of the popular competitive trick-takers, but this one is a lot of fun.
If you’re a fan of trick-taking games and co-ops, The Fellowship of the Ring is a must-try. That’s especially true if you plan on playing it as a three-player or four-player game.
The Fellowship of the Ring Links
BGG | Miniature Market
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