The Lord of the Rings: Fate of the Fellowship rules refresher

Read the refresher

You win together by completing every objective in play, with Destroy the One Ring always done last, before Frodo runs out of hope. You get there by moving Frodo toward Mount Doom while he gathers the symbols he needs. Meanwhile the rest of the Fellowship fights shadow troops, protects the havens, and draws the Eye of Sauron and the Nazgûl away from him.

For setup, put the threat rate marker and the hope marker on the spaces with a dot on their tracks. Build the shadow deck this way: put the two special shadow cards, the Drums of War and the Wheels of Saruman, into the shadow discard pile, then shuffle the rest together even though they have two different backs. Place friendly troops on the small troop symbols printed on the board: three Dwarven, four Elven, three Rohirrim, and five Gondor. That leaves five of each army in the supply. Put eighteen shadow troops on the red locations as marked. Then draw nine shadow cards one at a time and add one shadow troop to the red location featured on each. Ignore everything else on those cards and discard them. Place the nine Nazgûl: two in Eriador, one in Rhudaur, one in the Misty Mountains, one in Gondor, and four in Mordor. The Eye of Sauron goes on Eriador. Lay out Destroy the One Ring plus three random objectives, and follow any setup text on them. Some objectives require certain characters, so include those when you deal each player two random characters. Figures start on the locations shown on their character cards. Frodo and Sam count as one character, and so do Merry and Pippin. For player cards, set aside the twelve Skies Darken cards. Take a hidden number of events: nine with five players, seven with four, six with two or three. Shuffle those events into the forty eight region cards. Deal two cards each with four or five players, three with three, and four with two. Hands are kept faceup. For the introductory game, split the rest into four stacks; for standard, five. Shuffle one Skies Darken card into each stack and pile them up, with any larger stacks on top. The player whose region card shows the lowest number goes first.

Turns go clockwise, and each turn has three steps. First you do actions. Then you draw two player cards. Then you draw shadow cards equal to the threat rate. For actions, you get up to four with one of your characters and up to one with the other, in either order. You must finish all of one character's actions before starting the other's. If you are ever missing a character, do four actions with the one you have. The six actions are Travel, Fellowship, Prepare, Muster, Attack, and Capture, and you can repeat any of them. Both your characters share one hand and one pool of tokens. Everyone can advise, but the active player decides.

Symbols drive almost everything. The four symbols are friendship, valor, stealth, and resistance. You spend a symbol either by discarding a player card that shows it or by returning a matching token to the supply. You can spend a card anywhere, no matter which region it shows.

Travel moves your character to a connected location along a normal path, a special path, or a battle line. Ignore the arrows on battle lines when you travel. Any friendly troops and other characters in your starting location may come along, but ask before moving someone else's character. Troops never move on their own. A special path costs the symbols printed on it. Whenever Frodo travels, or is brought along, the character doing the Travel must either spend one stealth or roll a search in the destination. This is on top of any special path cost.

To roll a search, roll one black search die for each Nazgûl in Frodo's region and each shadow troop in his location, up to seven dice. If there are none, don't roll. Slip By does nothing. Weary loses one hope. Exposed loses one hope, unless Frodo is in a haven. Recall moves one Nazgûl, if any are present, back to Mordor, but does nothing if Frodo is in Mordor. After rolling, any character in Frodo's location may spend resistance to reroll one die per resistance, and you can keep rerolling. If Frodo puts on the Ring through his ability, he loses one hope, shifts the Eye to his region, and rolls a search that ignores shadow troops but still counts Nazgûl.

Fellowship works when your character shares a location with another player's character and you both agree. You either give them a card matching the region you are in, or take such a card from them. Whoever ends up over seven cards must immediately discard or play an event. Tokens can never be passed. Prepare works only at a haven: discard a region card to take a token of the symbol shown on it, if one is left in the supply. Muster works at a Dwarven, Elven, Rohirrim, or Gondor location, never white or red ones. Spend one friendship to add one troop of that location's color, if any remain in the supply.

Attack needs both friendly and shadow troops in your location. First shift the Eye of Sauron to that region. Then roll one white battle die per friendly troop there, with a minimum of one and a maximum of three; you may choose to roll fewer. Rout removes a shadow troop. Exchange removes one shadow and one friendly troop. Overrun removes a friendly troop, unless the battle is in a haven. Nazgûl removes two friendly troops if Nazgûl are present, and otherwise does nothing. After the roll, characters present may spend resistance to reroll dice, and spend valor to remove one shadow troop each. The current player picks which friendly army takes losses. Whenever a haven ends up with shadow troops and no friendly troops, it falls. Cover it with a shadow stronghold token and lose three hope.

Capture needs a character at a shadow stronghold with at least one friendly troop and no shadow troops. Spend three valor. A printed stronghold gets a haven token, and a fallen haven has its stronghold token removed; either way it now works as a haven. Shift the Eye there and gain two hope. Once Moria, Isengard, Dol Guldur, or Umbar is captured, shadow troops are never added there again.

After actions, draw two player cards together. If the deck can't supply them, lose one hope per missing card. Each Skies Darken card resolves right away in four steps. First, raise the threat rate by one. Second, if the Eye is in Frodo's region, lose two hope; otherwise move the Eye there. Third, add three shadow troops to the location shown, losing one hope for each one the supply can't provide. If friendly troops are there, roll a battle. Fourth, shuffle the shadow discard pile and put it on top of the shadow deck. If you draw two Skies Darken cards, do all four steps, then all four again. Then remove them from the game without replacing them. Only after that do you check the hand limit of seven, discarding or playing events down to seven. Events can be played by anyone at any time, even on another player's turn, and they don't cost an action. You can't play them in the middle of a search, a battle, or another card resolving.

Then draw shadow cards, once per point of threat rate. Flip the top card faceup beside the deck, and look at the back of the new top card. A red flag means you resolve the top half of the flipped card, called Advance. A black banner means the bottom half, called Reinforce. The Drums of War and the Wheels of Saruman instead do what they say. You may look at the top of the shadow deck and both discard piles at any time.

Advance moves every shadow troop on the shown battle line one space toward the haven at its end, frontmost group first. They move even out of locations holding friendly troops. Troops already at the end stay put. Then roll a battle in every location on that line holding both sides, frontmost first. Any battle started by a card rolls one die per shadow troop, up to three, and does not move the Eye.

Reinforce adds one shadow troop to the named location. If the supply is empty, lose one hope instead. Skip the troop if that location has been captured. Roll a battle if friendly troops are there. Then carry out the special order at the bottom. The first order shifts the Eye to Frodo's region, or, if it is already there, rolls a search. The second moves the two Nazgûl closest to Frodo, not counting any in his region, one region closer each. The third deploys three Nazgûl one at a time from Mordor into the Eye's region. If Mordor runs out, take them from the regions with the most Nazgûl, excluding the Eye's region. But if the Eye is in Mordor, recall three Nazgûl there instead, one at a time from the largest group outside. Whenever an order has several possible outcomes, the current player chooses.

The game ends in one of two ways. You all lose the moment hope reaches zero. Hope drops from Weary and Exposed search results, from Skies Darken when the Eye is on Frodo, from fallen havens, and from an empty troop supply or player deck. Hope never rises above the top of its track. Each objective card lists its requirements; when they are met, apply its When Completed text and flip it facedown. Once every other objective is done, Frodo can take the special action at Mount Doom: spend five resistance and make a final search. That search rolls one die per Nazgûl and shadow troop present, plus one die for every hope missing from the track, up to seven dice. If at least one hope remains afterward, everyone wins together.

A turn, played out

Frodo and Sam stand in a location in Eriador. Your other character is at a Gondor location in Gondor, where 2 Gondor troops face 1 shadow troop. Hope sits at 6, threat rate at 2, and the Eye is in Eriador. Your faceup hand holds 3 cards, one showing resistance, but no stealth on any card or token. You start with Frodo. He travels along a normal path into a connected location in Rhudaur, where the green player's character waits beside 1 shadow troop. With no stealth to spend, you roll a search there. Rhudaur holds 1 Nazgûl and the location 1 shadow troop, so 2 black dice. They show Weary and Recall. Frodo and Sam count as one character, so Sam is right there. You discard the resistance card and reroll the Weary. Slip By. The Recall sends Rhudaur's only Nazgûl back to Mordor, and hope stays at 6. Frodo's second action is Fellowship. The green player agrees and hands you a region card showing Rhudaur, with a stealth symbol, because it matches the region you share. You stop Frodo there, short of his 4 actions. Now your other character's single action: Attack in Gondor. The Eye shifts off Eriador to Gondor, away from Frodo. 2 Gondor troops mean 2 white dice: Rout and Overrun. The shadow troop is removed, and since this is not a haven, one Gondor troop goes too. 1 Gondor troop now holds the location alone. You draw 2 player cards: a region card and a Skies Darken. Threat rises to 3. The Eye is in Gondor, not Rhudaur, so no hope is lost, but it moves to Frodo's region. 3 shadow troops land on the red location shown, with no friendly troops there, so no battle. The shadow discard pile is shuffled onto the shadow deck. You hold 4 cards, under 7. Now 3 shadow cards. You flip the first, and the new top card shows a black banner, so you resolve Reinforce. One shadow troop joins the named location, empty of friendly troops, then the order: shift the Eye to Frodo's region. It is already there, so you roll a search. No Nazgûl in Rhudaur, 1 shadow troop, so 1 die: Exposed. Frodo is not in a haven, and hope drops to 5. Two shadow cards remain.