Today, with this review, we speak of The Lord of the Rings: Journeys in Middle-earth. It provides the opportunity to play from 1 to 5 players from 14 years (target certainly exaggerated, so that the community of BGG suggests 10 +), in games of extremely variable duration, but that settles in the ninety minutes of average. Authors of the game Nathan I. Hajek and Grace Holdinghaus; unfortunately there are not specified the curators of the graphic part that, as we will see below, is of absolute quality.
I must say that it was a particularly difficult review to do and that, even today, if you ask me "did you like the game?", the answer is "Yes, very", but also "No" at the same time.
MATERIALS
I start from the box, which presages that there will be a lot 'of things inside, although then in practice, is less rich than other similar FFG license plates (at least as far as I've seen and for the few games of the publisher in my house). Inside we find:
twenty-two tiles of the travel map formed by hexagons side by side of different sizes and double face, with different terrain very well designed;
two large, square-shaped battle map tiles;
the miniatures of the six heroes (Bilbo, Elena, Aragorn, Gimli, Legolas, Berevor);
six hero tiles with the characteristics of the characters, which are strength, wisdom, agility, spirit, ingenuity, in addition to the number of damage and fear to which you can resist and a skill proper to the hero and always valid;
five sets of basic skill cards, each with six cards;
six sets of five-card hero skill cards, one for each of the heroes in the game, with specific characteristics for each of them;
Twenty-five enemy miniatures, among which we can recognize Furfanti, Goblin, Orchi and Warg;
twelve enemy banners, with its plastic pedestals;
eighty-three object cards in small format;
fifteen benefit cards in small format;
twenty-eight small-format fear cards;
twenty-eight damage cards in small format;
seventy-two skill cards role in small format;
ten soil cards in small format;
twenty skill cards weakness in small format;
twenty-one skill cards title in small format;
twenty round cardboard counters often search/threaten depending on the side you look at;
thirty square cardboard counters often inspire/explore depending on the side you look at;
eight round counters in personal cardboard;
five dark markers;
three stage markers ground/ditch/mist in cardboard;
four stage markers ground/barrel/table in cardboard;
four scenic markers ground/fire/statue cardboard;
nine stage markers soil/brush/macigno in cardboard;
nine stage markers brook/wall in cardboard;
the compendium of rules.
THE GAME... OR HERE ARE THE RULES
It is rather difficult to summarize in a few lines the rules of the game, which has 16 pages quite thick plus as many compendiums and references to the campaign mode. I'll just describe the flow of the game and mention the rules when necessary.
Each player chooses a character, taking miniature, character card and skill cards, then chooses a role and takes the skill cards of that role, then adds a weakness card and will have formed the deck that will carry the game and with which he will face missions and fighting.
The game is divided into STAGE ACTION - STAGE HOMBER - REORGANIZATION.
At each turn we will have to reveal a certain number of cards (the APP will tell us how many) and choose those to be placed in our hand, which will normally be two cards (maximum of four) and will always contain the basic skill of the hero of the Company.
Each character, in the Action Phase, can perform two actions of your choice between:
- move, the travel action involves moving up to two sections on the map and exploration of the card reached if still unexplored, in which case the APP could make us add map cards, markers or thumbnails on some parts of the map itself;
- interact with the numerous counters (representing objects, people, animals, places, etc..), will be the APP to tell us how to interact by proposing a list of actions to be taken from which to choose or challenges to overcome, to deal with which we will draw from the deck a number of cards equal to the characteristic set by the challenge on the hero card (eg Bilbo will have ingenuity 4 and force 2, while Gimli will have force 4 and ingenuity 2 and if the test requires to use the ingenuity will be drawn from the deck respectively or four or two cards);
- fight against the shadow.
The APP will update us on the purpose to be achieved in the mission, which may vary with the progress of the mission (eg find a certain character and, once found, cure it).
At the end of the action phase of the characters there will be the phase of the shadow, in which the enemies will attack where / when possible the heroes, moving on the map and causing damage and / or fears. At the end of this phase you will increase the threat bar, which is a maximum counter beyond which the company has failed to achieve its goal.
Finally, the reorganization phase that consists, essentially, in regenerating the deck with which you will face the new phase of action.
If you succeed in achieving the mission's purpose before the threat bar reaches its end, the Company will have passed the test.
I'm not going to mention the Campaign and Solitaire modes here, as I feel I've already gone on too long.
MY PARAMETERS
Here are some parameters, objective, to help me (help you?) to evaluate a game.
Scalability
Definitely excellent, from 1 to 5 players, I played it in almost all modes (I miss only in 3) and I must say that I have always found it equally valid, perhaps the only small difficulty in solitaire is the fact of having to manage two characters together (but otherwise, what company would be) and that, at least according to my taste, loses a little of its beauty, but I'm not an expert in games that you can play alone, mode that I do not play too often.
Regiocability
Discreet: among the positive aspects there are the six characters, the six roles and the fact that each role can be assigned indifferently to any character (which perhaps will not optimize it), as well as an APP that draws a modular map; the negative ones are that, in the end, the various highlights of the specific adventure, from defeating a particular enemy to finding a particular object, will always be the same, at least for my experience. Everyone assess if this is a good replayability, even if they are already ready for expansions and, however, participate in the campaign mode occupies a reasonable number of evenings, so for me thumbs certainly up.
It has already been released the first expansion, Hunting the Crown of Brace, which can be played with the base box or provides for the inclusion, if necessary, of three miniatures: I confirm the thumb up and I would say that this gives hope for the continuation of the game and its longevity.
Interaction
Cooperative, where there is a minimum risk that a player can tend to play for everyone, but that, if addressed in the right way, will have an interaction at the highest levels, as it is right that it is for a collaborative game, and then it is nice to feel part of the company: in the adventure I'm playing with my son I was amazed by his involvement and discussions on what is best to do at certain times of the game (considering that children always like to go and beat up orcs!!!).
Originality
I find myself a bit 'in trouble to assess the originality of the game, which in several respects has a noble predecessor in The Houses of Madness, a game that however I have never played and which I have no elements to compare it, after this it does not seem to me that the game makes the originality its strength, indeed ... In the end, it gave me feelings very similar to the dungeon crawler that I played and that I began to know at 16 years.
Depth
The game is by no means trivial and already there can be suggested by the 14+ indicated on the box. It requires both medium-term planning and the ability to adapt to the situations presented to us: a game that is not very complex, but that is still respected.
to be continued in the next part