Here's another half-dozen spinoff games for more of what you like

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By Kaysee and Max

Disclosure: played more than 20 times, completed all the chapters and beat the game in endless mode

We’re both fans of The Lord of the Rings. Kaysee has seen the movies twice, has read the trilogy, and tried to learn the Elven language and their writing system. Max has seen the extended edition countless of times and has read the books even more, so it’s not surprising that we got very excited when we found out that there’s a cooperative trick-taking game based on The Fellowship of the Ring.

The box is really eye-catching. We really like its stained-glass look. It’s just so pretty that you wouldn’t hesitate to display it in your living room. And, like many other trick-taking games, it is compact (4 cm x 10.4 cm x 21.9 cm). It has three compartments inside, each has a ribbon to keep track of the chapters that you’ve finished. The components are as beautiful as the box. It only has cards, including the chapter cards, the main deck cards, the character cards, and the reference cards, and five wooden tokens.

The first setup was easy. Players only need the first chapter card, four character cards, two star tokens, the main deck, and the One Ring token. The chapter cards contain flavor texts related to the story and the chapter-specific rules players need to follow. The character cards contain character specific objectives that players need to fulfill, some chapters can modify or add objectives. There are short chapters and long chapters. Short chapters last one round, while long chapters take multiple rounds to complete. The star tokens are initially used to help players identify which characters are necessary in order to finish the chapter. For two players, three characters are selected. The deck should then be distributed as if there were three players. The hand of the “ghost player” should then be arranged in a pyramid form.

The player who gets the one ring card gets Frodo, the ring token and gets to choose and control the character for the pyramid. The second player chooses another card, but all starred characters must be chosen. It is not allowed for the second player to mention which character they would want to choose before the first player has chosen their second character(s). Talking about what suits you have is not allowed, but the advantage of having a pyramid character is that both players can partially see its hand. We like this mechanism, but we can imagine a scenario being impossible to complete if a specific character is the pyramid.

Frodo is the one who leads the first trick. To lead a trick means to choose any card to play, but the ring cards cannot be chosen to lead in the beginning. The next character, the one on Frodo’s left should match the suit played. If they don’t have any matching suit, they can play any card, even a ring card. After a ring card is played in this manner, the One Ring token gets flipped to its other side, indicating that ring cards may now lead tricks. Whoever plays the highest matching suit takes the trick unless the one ring card is played. The One Ring is the most powerful card in the game, as whoever plays it gets to choose whether to take the trick or not. Taking into consideration who takes the trick is crucial most of the time to complete the objectives and the chapter. We would suggest having three 6-sided dice to keep track of the number of tricks won. If neither of the players have D6s, a paper and pen would do. Take note that not all characters need to win a trick (as in the case of Pippin).

Every chapter and character has a different set of rules and objectives. Some chapters may take longer to finish than others. This is really good, as the different varieties make the game more exciting. That said, Kaysee finds the later chapters to be less exciting than the earlier and middle ones since there was tension that builds up in the middle chapters due to how the difficulty increases, but as one reaches the later chapters, there seems to be a drop in difficulty that can affect the excitement formed by the anticipation for something much more difficult.

Another thing that we both like is how the mechanics are connected to the theme. But there were a few times where some characters that could reasonably be expected to be available based on the story are in fact not. We assume it has something to do with the balancing of the game, so it’s not a huge deal for us. We also like the endless mode where the objectives may vary for each game.

The game is optimized for more than two players. To allow for a two-player game, the pyramid character was added. It works really well, but one player controlling two characters is something that we’ve both found mentally taxing at times as the decision making for the pyramid character is not shared.

Our Final Thoughts:
The Fellowship of the Ring is a beautiful co-op trick-taking game. The narrative and the theme were well integrated in the mechanics, and that’s really fun for those who like trick-taking games and The Lord of the Rings. People who aren’t fans of LotR may still like it due to the interesting changes of the mechanics in every chapter, but maybe not as much.

Although the decision making process is not equally shared for two players, we would still recommend it to two players who just want to play something less heavy and have some more relaxed evenings, especially if they are LotR fans and want to complain about how blond Legolas is in the movies and in this game.

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

Combined rating: 4/5

Reference:
Tolkien, J. R. R.(1991). The Fellowship of the Ring. HarperCollins.
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring – Trick Taking Game[Rulebook]. (2025). Office Dog.

Title: The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring – Trick-Taking Game
Game Design: Bryan Bornmueller
Illustration: Elain Ryan, Samuel Shimota
Publisher: Office Dog

Photos and non-board game illustrations by Kaysee

The post A 2-Player Trick-Taking Journey to Middle-earth appeared first on Schmeeples.

The Trickster or Loki as he is also known heads up an evil team with The Enchantress and they mess with the minds of the Heroes. This gives a fight that the Heroes are fighting inside their minds as well as other with other heroes while not knowing who or what they can trust. from the graphic novels he was known as Loki Laufeyson and he was the Trickster God of Mischief, Evil, and Lies, a member of the monstrous Frost Giants of Jotunheim that was adopted and raised among the Asgardians, a group of humanoid beings from the pocket dimension of Asgard, the Realm Eternal. Born smaller than the rest of his race and rejected by his father Laufey, he was adopted by the All-Father; Odin following the war. He was taken back to Asgard to be raised alongside his adopted brother Thor. He was worshiped by the humans known as Vikings and became part of Norse Mythology. Loki grew jealous of his brother after learning his true origin and schemed against him and Asgard. His later cosmic meddling led to the formation of the Avengers, “Earth’s Mightiest Heroes”. He has the ability to call his wolf Fenris to him amongst many other of his baddies.  The Enchantress is a being from Thors realm and in fact she has the hots for Thor and is usually wound up by Loki into attacking Thor. 

So how do these work in the game.  First of all you have to take on the Enchantress, wh will hit you with a hypnotic gaze.  There are five different hypnotic gaze cards each with a different enchantment on the opposite side, get too many charm counters and the card gets flipped to its unique “trance” side and gives you the Enthralled trait which has an immediate effect and also causes you to take a forced action.  For example you might be confused or take damage and also forced to draw a card and play it.  Also being enthralled will make side schemes nastier to deal with.

Then you have to deal with Loki, but things are never simple with Loki and you have to first deal with his Avator’s who are spread out.  This is where you get to play the new “Epic Mupltiplayer Mode”  as each player group has to deal with their own batch of the four avators facing off against a randomly-chosen avator that gets swapped out for another each time one is defeated.  Each time you defeat one, you Shatter the Illusion that allows you to actually damage the real Loki.  But of course Loki is going to just sit there and take damage, once he gets down to half heath, his focus intensifys and his avators get powered up making it even more difficult.

However, there are also some Enthralled Minions, who if you manage to knock back to their senses then they will actually team up with you to help take down the villains, which could well swing the battle back in your favour.  

These scenarios are a lot of fun and you can order this pack at: https://www.bgextras.co.uk/marvel-champions/marvel-champions-scenario-packs/marvel-champions-the-card-game-trickster-takeover-scenario-pack