The Lord of the Rings Adventure Book Game | Play and Review | With Mike

0:02 foreign with the One Stop Co-op shop and today I'm showing Lord of the Rings The Adventure book game this is from ravensberger and I think it's a Target exclusive for now and no disclaimer for this one I bought my own copy my family and I recently played through The Princess Bride Adventure book game which was the first in this series this one is the third I believe and we found it quick accessible and fun it's not necessarily the crunchiest game but this one seems to have a bit more going on so I thought this would be at least worth filming the scenarios are very fast there's eight in the game so I'm going to play through two or three and then I'll have like a little mini review at the end and if you like the content on the One Stop Co-op shop consider supporting us through patreon you get early access to our videos and exclusive videos every month you can also watch our separate streaming channel for even more content listen to our weekly podcast or join the conversation on our Discord so the adventure book series has big chunky books this is not a bound book it's like a big like kind of cardboard book so there's one page for scenario so in this case you're gonna have eight and they have the place you're moving around on here you have individual characters from the store as Miniatures or sometimes tokens so here it's a little tough to tell them apart that's my first complaint about the components this red habit with an apple is Pippin this yellow Hobbit with some beer is Mary so Pippin Apple Mary beer Frodo has sting so he's a little bit easier and he's blue and then Samwise

1:34 has nothing and he's green we've also got Gandalf the Gray over here and two Black Riders uh this section on the left over here tells you how to set everything up and the play of the game is controlled through these story cards at the start of each turn you get to move uh up to two spaces you can split that between two characters just move one person up to two and what you're trying to accomplish the core focus of each uh chapter in the game is to complete the challenges often they have to be completed in a linear order although not always and the key idea here is that no player controls any individual character so it's not like I'm Frodo all of the players cooperatively can move them and basically you are setting up the situations of the book so like for this first challenge keep it secret keep it safe it says Frodo and Gandalf must be on the Hearth space in Bag End Samwise must be on the road to the Shire eavesdropping and then we need to spend one card with this indicated icon which is insight and that will complete this challenge it'll give us some kind of bonus and generally speaking for all the chapters the final challenge can't be completed until you've done everything else and then you win the chapter now to accomplish these challenges you have several actions first of all you can discard any card to move a character one that's in addition to the free movement you get at the start of each round and you can also trade cards with other players now I'm playing solo and they have a solo variant where you have kind of a dummy hand of six cards that you can trade with as needed so we'll see how that helps us out at the end of your turn you draw two more cards you have to discard down to six you want to be using them and then you draw a plot card from the plot deck which is going to have a value 1 through 15 and based on which chapter you're in it's going to do

3:05 different things in this scenario it's pretty much just moving the Black Riders now one of the main ways to lose is to run out of time if the plot deck gets empty and you need to draw hard another ongoing way to lose because this is a campaign is whenever you use one of these one ring cards which act as wild and can also be used to perform a special chapter specific effects like in this one move a Black Rider whenever you use that the corruption increases by one whenever it reaches one of these spaces you have to draw one of these eye of Sauron cards and if it gets all the way to 15 then you'll lose the campaign and this is tracked throughout the campaign so if I get two corruption in chapter one I'll start at two for chapter two and then if I get to five for chapter two I'll start at five for chapter three so you do have some considerations of kind of how things grow and build over the entire campaign but that's about it for the basics again I'm going to show you uh two or three chapters they're pretty quick and then I'll get into my review alright so this is chapter one The Adventure begins as I had mentioned the Black Riders are hunting for uh The Hobbit they'll move through those plot cards around these black spaces following this little like kind of Shadow line whereas we can only move along the white lines between spaces if they ever get in the same space or move over a hobbit they're going to go to this little hiding spot space but if we would ever need to put a second Hobbit on a hiding spot place then we immediately lose we got to make sure to keep that clear and not have the Riders Catch us too much and that's about it for special rules like I already said for the first challenge we gotta get Frodo and Gandalf together talking and Sam over here on the road for it comes

4:35 in pints we have to get all of the hobbits in some of these orange Breeze spaces to get drunk and that'll unlock Aragorn and then for we do not stop till Nightfall we have to get pretty much everybody they say we can leave one Hobbit behind I don't know who that is maybe fatty Bulger or something uh we need to get everybody except one Hobbit onto weathertop and then have the Black Riders be next to us and we win I'm assuming this will be a pretty easy one since the first scenario but anything is possible so here's how I'll be presenting the hands during the playthrough to kind of show I've got my stuff here and then the stuff that's kind of turned is the dummy hand so I've got two of the green adventure cards one of the black inside cards and one of the blue Warfare cards which is a pretty solid start because look I need an Insight right away and then I need two adventure and inside when we get to breathe although it'll take a while to move everybody and then a red courage and two Warfare when we get to the final mission and the dummy hand's not gonna be too much use to me I've got these three cards that are useless although I might trade for them to select discard them for extra movements I've got a one ring card I'd prefer not to use if I can help it I do have one courage though and an extra Insight so that's good all right so first turn I can move up to two so let's go ahead and have Frodo go to the Hearth and Gandalf come away from the road so how much movement do I have left one more to get uh Gandalf to the Hearth and two to get Sam to the road to the Shire which means it's not going to happen this turn basically uh the two move next turn will be one less than I need so I could go ahead and do one move now anyway what I think I'll do I'll use my one trade per turn the Warfare I

6:07 don't need until the very last challenge so I'll trade for one of these uh phylogladriel mystery cards and then I'll discard that to move character one space and I'll use it for Frodo to invite Gandalf in there we go and now I'm set up for the two move to get Sam where he needs to be next round all right now I draw two more cards got another adventure and another inside I don't need that much and I finish up by drawing a plot card again the second game goes really quickly oh it's a 15 which has moved both Black Riders two spaces and they always go clockwise so that one's hanging out in Brie and this one's kind of blocking my path but that's not too much of a worry for now and we go running around to Sam go check the road and now we're gonna go and do keep it secret keep it safe so I'm going to spend one of the two insights in my hand and it says reward each player draws one card from the story deck well it's only me and then remove Gandalf from the board because he's uh wandering off to be not useful for a long long time I drew another Insight oh geez and I Mark the chapter completed with that all right so my next goal is to get all four Hobbits of the Prancing Pony um yeah they really have to go where the Black Riders are don't they well in any case I want to do some movement because uh I can only have six cards in my hand at the end of the round and I've got five and I'm about to draw two so let's go and get rid of I don't need more than two of these more than one of these for the next challenge let's get rid of both of these for two movement I definitely do not want to move a hobbit to the hiding spot on my own because three out of the 15 plot cards Force to have it go to the hiding spot which means I would lose immediately so for now let's just

7:37 keep it simple and have Frodo and Sam meet up at the edge of the Shire then I draw two cards uh one ring and another Warfare okay I do need the Warfare I've actually got every card that I need for challenges represented so the one ring is to talk about it again a little bit more every time you discard it you gain one corruption every time you use it as a wild you gain one corruption and you can use it for the One Ring ability which is to move a Black Rider one space but you still get a corruption now interestingly in Solo because we're supposed to kind of like tie up your hand you could just trade them to the uh solo dummy hand and kind of put them out of sight out of mind which is what I might do but I guess in a multiplayer game it would be a lot more interesting to kind of have these filling up your hand and encouraging you to use them now the plot card and 11 move either Black Rider two spaces um let's see if I move this one here it wouldn't be that tough for me to get like Mary or Pippin kind of around and past or do I unblock uh Frodo and Sam well the thing is if I do that then I've really got Brie kind of mostly blocked off today so we'll do this one and all right for my free move let's start with Pippin he's the closest so he's in the hiding spot we're not going to leave him there I'll go in and trade a one ring for a mystery I'll discard that for another move and then I need that but there's another one in the dummy hand I need both of those I need that let's just do the one for now that'll get them past the Black Rider so he'll be in a safe spot I know we got more rings to worry about okay and we got a two for the plot oh which is actually good move any Hobbit to the

9:09 hiding spot it's great when it's not going to lose you the game um one two three three one two so we will save more space okay Frodo just ran ahead to the hiding spot in the tree and now uh he and Pippin should be pretty quick to get to the prancing pony all right so speaking of let's have one two for our move so they just have to be on orange spots they can hang out where the Black Riders could grab them um which maybe I'll just have them do for now oh no that seems unwise I should probably get some of them to the prancing pony that's what am I doing here I have an extra inset I don't need I think again this is a little bit of a weird wrinkle uh to the game with specifically the dummy hand just being able to like kind of foist off all your one rings and not use them we'll see how much of an issue that is I haven't actually played this one yet so let's discard the file for an extra movement and this extra insight for an extra movement and with that we get Frodo on debris and Mary down to Pippin's starting spot so he's closer for a run the black Rider's still blocking up uh Sam here and wow another ring okay yeah as you can see there's a a lot of rings floating around okay and a 13. oh let's move both of them two spaces which is kind of good I mean Sam's got a nice clear shot now although yikes okay so there's only one more that would force me to move both of them so there's a yeah only one car to add left out of 15 that would get these guys but that would immediately lose me the game so I probably don't want to do that oh I didn't even notice that there's like some safe spaces here we can go to all

10:40 right so we got two moves let's yeah let's be safe I guess well I guess I might need to move one of them for now and let's get Sam here maybe I should wait in case I get that automatic hiding spot thing and move and Pippin here and then again running out of space here with all these Rings um good okay so we don't need this extra Warfare we don't really leave this extra Insight so I can discard both of these which will get married here okay and then uh we'll see what happens from there get a 12 move either black ride or two spaces and not that one but now you uh you cannot have them like move into or through each other so if I got another card that forced me to move one of the Black Riders which almost all the cards will um then I would have to move the one that's close to Brie hmm if I want to be safe I can just move everybody to the prancing pony and then nothing back can possibly happen so yeah let's maybe do that so that's one two free moves and then I drew an extra um Adventure a minute ago so we'll do that and then I also have Amanda courage for the end in a second I'm gonna need two adventure and an Insight uh so let's get rid of this extra courage for another move that'll move Sam to there he's super safe though where he is right now and all right should be safe now a one oh perfect move any Hobbit to the hiding spot that was excellent thank you for the free movement so yeah let's uh let's go one two and we're already set up because it doesn't need to be in the r in spaces it comes in binds okay so all four habits must be in RN spaces in Brie okay we need an insight and two

12:12 Adventure so we'll do our trade first get the Insight we've been hanging on to over there yeah you see what I mean about the one Rings we'll have to see how weird this maybe I'll play on the next scenario dual-handed just to get out of the weirdness uh but yes to Adventure one Insight clearing out our hand a lot all right and for this one we place Aragorn at the prancing pony so strider's hanging out with us now and we draw a card from the special deck so this is cool this is a separate deck it gives you a unique cars well not unique I think it's like two copies of each here we've got Elven cloaks do not draw a plot card this turn great and the neat thing about these is not only do they give you cool Powers you can also discard them to move a character by the way or like trade them to the other players uh not only do they give you this cool card but this is a permanent addition to the story deck so another way the campaign kind of grows you'll get more and more of these special cards added to the deck kind of changing up what's available in your plays each time you go here's a question for me I need to get four out of five of these people to weather top which means I kind of want the Black Riders to move so I think I'm going to discard this extra courage I drew and move yeah just have everybody be safe getting drunk together and then I'll hope the Black Riders get the heck out of here although time is pretty much on my side I still have about half the deck to go through but let's see I got a four which means I can move either Black Rider one space I have to pick this one out that's kind of the worst thing um hmm I guess I could say least one person kind of going the long way around here to weathertop and then when that guy moves out of the way we can Rush other people see let's do that we'll start with uh Striders who only can't be

13:43 teleported by the one out of three cards that are left for the hiding spot so he'll go there oh we only lose if more than one Hobbit is in a hiding spot so it won't hurt at all for uh Strider to be an extra person there just to show you what I've drawn tons of warfare I only need two for the final challenge so let's discard one move him to safety here and then there's not much a reason to do anything else we'll just stop there and I'm drawing up okay I got a file of Galadriel another one well that's good they're good for movement come on Black Riders get out of there five let's move either Black Rider one space all right so yeah I think that's definitely the way to go because now I can get some Russian going on so let's get a photo first so one two I've got uh these two extra random files so three and let's get straighter closer four he's still safe there oh and Aragorn doesn't even care about the Black Riders I just realized I should have read the rules better he can move through them and they can move through him so I should already like be yeah I mean how many should I move him one two three four he sure he'd be in weather tap but whatever we'll play my mistake and keep it going all right and our next one is a nine move either Black Rider two spaces now that would be bad so let's move this one all right let's get another Hobbit there uh we'll get Sam this time because we need to have salmon Frodo but we only need one of Mary and Pippen I guess the other one will keep getting drunk and I've got some extra cards I don't need that's two movements so one and now that I know that he's safe two and we're drawing a plot oh three move any Habit to the hiding spot um one two three one two three yeah it doesn't really matter so I'll just uh pip and we like Pippin the least right

15:13 Mary come over here okay then we should be able to win this turn one two I need two more move I'm going to use my don't draw plot card and I'll use this random Adventure card did not use any one ring so again that does make me question how well the solo mode works but then I've got uh two Warfare and a courage for our final challenge let's show you that was two cards to move them and uh yes I've got Aragorn Frodo Samwise and at least one other Hobbit on weathertop oh and at least one Black Rider must be in one of the spaces next to other top yay that worked out and remember I had to do that although the challenge is complete yes they are because I did do that one so boom so we've completed scenario one there you go let's uh jump in and do at least one more and I'm gonna switch to two handing this one because it's not really that different honestly and the fact that I didn't move the ring a single space when I had a six rings floating around in my two hands that seems unrealistic so yeah I'm gonna try out two-handed for the next one and see how it goes alright so here we are with chapter two doesn't take too long to set up this is the fellowship Ford so we're at the Council of L round and this one we've got some more characters we've got Frodo hanging out with l-ron we've got Legolas Gimli and Aragorn is back Boromir is not represented by a miniature because spoiler he ain't around too long and I know what Gandalf's doing in this scenario either I guess he's drinking some Alpha wine or something and in this one you've got these three tokens to represent the anger of the different factions the men The Elves and the dwarves and that goes into each of the main challenges so Aragorn needs to get to the Man anger and spend two Warfare to get rid of it Gimli to get to the dwarf anger and

16:43 spend two insight to get rid of it uh Legolas needs to get to the elf anger and spend to mystery to get rid of it and then Aragorn needs to get to bore Amir to calm him down with two courage and finally every miniature needs to be on the ring space to pledge their uh loyalty to Frodo for you have my sword at the end but a few extra rules in this one no Miniatures can share a space so that's going to make things a little more challenging and additionally no mini issues can move through an anger if it does not match themselves so like for example right now it's impossible for Aragorn to calm down Boromir until Gimli has dealt with the Dwarven anger first and finally uh the plot cards 5 through 15 so slightly more than two-thirds of a time it's going to cause elrond to move one space he goes on this little jaunt around the board here and whenever he reaches the starting spot for a character they have to come back so like if I like put a lot of effort into getting Legolas to the elf anger and then alright's like hey what's up Legolas then uh like lots of a Teleport back my efforts would be wasted and additionally if elron makes it all the way around to here then we lose immediately which means we don't really have 15 turns in this one most likely and the One Ring Power in this one is to push l-ron back one space oops that actually is pretty big okay so uh let's jump in and just share my two hands I'm going to start with like the player on the left being the first player we've got a ton of mystery which is good for the elf anger Quest and two inside which is good for the dwarf anger Quest and I kind of want to do that dwarf one first so that I can start maybe getting air going to Boromir because the Alpha One

18:14 Like I said seems kind of dangerous to go for right away one see actually one two moves L Ron probably moves here three four five moves oh so actually with only a single extra move we could take care of Legolas and then we wouldn't care if elrond comes over although if we wait till elrond passes him then not only will he be able to solve the elf anger but he'll also be just one away from The Ring space Oh by the way no one can enter this until all the other challenges are complete so again they are going to be kind of like getting in each other's way and stuff so yeah let's try let's try Gimli first one two and he's not there yet but here we'll go ahead and trade for the once for return thing like that so now the other players set up to solve that Quest we don't need to move Gimli any X-rays I think we're just gonna stop there and then see yeah this seems like it's gonna be way more interesting actually having the Rings kind of taunting you to use them here and the plot card anything one through four does not move L round okay that was cool and then five through 15 does move him one all right so now it's this player's turn let's get Gimli to his anger spot what are we waiting for okay give me on the dwarf anger counter uh rewards that we spend two inside he's got it remove the dwarf anger counter from the board and draw one card from the story deck good Gimli got one courage although we still don't have any of the two Warfare we need for ever going to get rid of the men thing and I guess we'll stop there is that much reason to move until we see how things are going gosh darn it stop giving me Mysteries I got enough although I did get one of the two adventure oh no I only need one Adventure at the end so that's literally the only one I'll need the whole game and okay does move one now

19:44 okay so what should I try to do now um I mean Legolas is the next one I can get to but again he's like so one two three four five one two three four five yeah the fastest you can do is five so pretty much no way I'll get there before we all around just calls him back which means I should probably start moving Aragorn toward Boromir yeah because I don't have the swords I need for the other one so let's uh move Aragorn twice this time and I guess um we don't need inside anymore so let's discard an insight and a mystery let's move Gimli out of Aragorn's way and that'll be pretty easy for Aragorn to get to Boromir on the next player's turn all right and there we go we got one of the two Warfare for the men's anger another dead Insight Card and 15. our round is moving again he's showing it up with elves now it does say when he enters a space with a character they teleport backs I think we could freely move uh Legolas now and it wouldn't hurt at all but let's go and do the obvious thing and do two like that now I guess I'll use the ring I don't have uh the two courage I only have one and I don't want to wait too long so sure all right here we go our first corruption once we've used our first three corruption we'll have to draw one of these eye of Sauron cards oh whoopsie I'm not even there yet uh let's use one of these mystery we have so much of them that'll move him here and then we're doing the uh the two courage for that so it says Ergo must be in board with me or space draw one card from the special deck there we go what do we got Elven we're getting a lot of these do not draw a plot card this turn that'll actually be pretty darn useful in this scenario another ring okay so we're not going to

21:16 use it yet okay and nine now we're on moves again which means he's about to suck Gimli back um all right we've definitely got the Elven stuff so let's start moving elves so we'll have legolasco one two oh and actually it'll be helpful when gimbal gets sucked back because then it wants to be able to go through here because remember you can't go through the Man anger space although hmm he's got too many cards I don't need this anymore and I only need two of the Mysteries and I can trade one to the other player next turn so let's go and do two moves so we can draw up to six um an Airborne move here is good because now he's one way from where he needs to be although he actually has to get to the anger and then legolasco in here so now he's within two of there assuming L round moves we're hoping he does and yes okay good we're happy about that so Gimli is back um and I'm gonna keep on going so we'll start with Legolas double moving and then okay we need to trade let's give them one of these Feats we both have one and then span the two mystery okay so the elf anger is gone only one more left and remove the alpha and then we draw one card from the story Deck cool oh gosh I just remembered Frodo has to get all the way over here okay um so let's uh before we finish this turn let's discard this courage we don't need anymore to uh move Legos out of the way so Aragorn can run in that kind of worked out perfectly because look this person's got two Warfare saved up so those are just free moves good we're gonna need a lot to get Frodo there oh elran doesn't move that's okay that's

22:47 actually good for me maybe we can try to win before Ergo never gets sucked back so we'll go over here and uh have this player play two Warfare to get rid of men anger which gets us two story cards cool and so now we can actually go in here and Legolas and Aragorn are very quick to do with all the Ergo Market sucked back later we'll probably use that card that lets us not move plot um so this character has at least two useless cards so let's go and just start moving Frodo the long path around no the Lord look what I drew oh good though Elven cloaks that'll help out a ton but yeah this is a lot uh hold on oh Iran does not move again are you kidding me game thank you that's a gift right there it's like all of them right one through four doesn't move him one two or two yeah so there's a single one left four but pretty much every other card will move him but not for a while if I got these cloaks to help me all right so let's go ahead and get Legolas out of the way so Gimli can go that's our free move and let's play Alvin cloaks to not to draw a plot card this turn and they've got three non-ring cards because you don't use the Rings if we can help it um it's gonna get Aragorn in here well I guess we'll save him for the end because he's the one who could still get sucked back so we'll get I don't know Lake loss here all right we're getting good good those are not rings I like that and uh all right we don't draw a plot cards that's great so now it's the other players turn we'll move Gimli up Frodo over one let's use this faster one two three four one two three four five it is and then we need to get air going out of the way so this player will play an Elven Chloe hope to not have to draw a

24:17 plot card and then oh my gosh here they'll trade this player for like a real card oh we do need a green to finish but I think we're pretty safe so let's discard two of them so they will get air going and all right cool I think we can win next turn and then okay yay real cards and we don't draw a plot card so yeah this should be it um trade them they're gonna discard this for a move and use this for the challenge I'll show you on the board in a second because yeah we get two free move the discarded card for that and then the challenge that's all they need you complete this chapter get out of here L Ron you were far too kind now you know I think we got time let's go to Moria right you want to see that one and here we go scenario three the last one we're gonna play today this is the minds of Moria we've got uh Frodo and all the fighters here the other habits are just I guess tailing along and it Gandalf the Gray starts one space in front of us and this time you've got a special track representing the bridge of kazadum the balrog looks like it's going to be moving along about half the time with the plot deck and we lose if he makes the this spot so not even the leftmost spot but just this spot then we've got these goblins they'll be popping out here a Frodo cannot enter a space with a goblin one of the fighters has to and when you do you'll flip them over and they'll have one of the icons you have to spend a matching story card to defeat them they're at the cave troll we have to get two of the fighters uh on adjacent spaces next to one of these tokens and then play a Warfare card to cover it up and I think one of the quest is to kill the troll completely with that and as for the bridge once Gandalf is here we can spend the indicated uh

25:47 icons to move him along the bridge and he once the uh balrog and get enough meet each other it's kind of like a tug of war so like if they're here then if Gandalf spends two uh mystery he'll push the Bell rug if the balrog advances from the plot deck he'll push Gandalf uh anyway I think we just have to keep them kind of fighting on the bridge until we get to the end and just double check make sure I have all these right okay so speak front and enter Gandalf and Frodo must be on the doors of Duren it's pretty easy play any two matching story cards okay then clear a path the first challenge must be completed well duh there must be at least four goblins on the defeated Goblin tracks we gotta kill at least four of them and then oh we have to have all four wounds on the cave troll and uh two of the plot cards will heal the cave troll so hopefully we don't get those at the wrong time and then once we've done that again off of the battle we're gonna be on the same space that'll be pretty easy Frodo airgorn leg loss and Ghibli must be on the exit space everything else has to be completed and then we gotta play those Okay cool so this uh seems pretty uh straightforward although definitely more interesting than the last ones destroy my hands are we surprised that Mike got a ton of mystery I'm a mysterious guy so yeah uh mystering it up but that works out well since we need some kind of pair for speak friend and enter so for our free movement let's get Gandalf on the doors and also Frodo one away from them then I'm gonna spend one mystery to get Frodo with Gandalf and the other two I'm just gonna cleared out this turn at speak front and enter boom all right let's get two cards in the story deck nice one ring travel and then I'll do my regular draw at the end of the turn good Warfare for the uh the cave troll another Insight which I guess might be needed for a goblin and what we get a

27:18 two which is nothing happens I wish it had been a six or a seven because I would have gotten rid of one of the potential heals for the cave troll for no effect but you'll see the balrog moves on everything eight and above twice we'll add more goblins that'll just kind of uh fill up the Escape Route and make it tougher for fro to get it through there and uh twice the cave troll will try to heal but if he's already dead by then that won't matter I'm coming around to player two's turn um at some point I want to get Gandalf up there and we do have the cards to start him off on the track but I'd rather start finding out what I need to do for Goblin so let's uh let's move Aragorn up first all the fighters are kind of the same and then I would say there's no hurry so let's just stop there and see what we draw okay we got a ton of whoa we got so much Warfare to kill the uh troll that's good come on give me like a six or seven darn it balrog moves one definitely if you get Gandalf up there to oppose him at some point all right so I go again so um only Aragorn Lego lesson gameplay can enter space for the goblin when they do turn it over all right so this is one move okay this is good the player has one of those and then let's start getting another fighter over to start doing the cave troll Gimli seems like a good guy and I'll go ahead and kill the Goblin on Aragorn space and these do not come back out there's only two cards that'll spawn the extra so there's a six goblins total there's only two cards that'll spawn the extra ones and we had to kill how many four goblins okay so we're a quarter of the way there and again I think it's okay to save up right I'm sure we'll need that for a goblin oh but probably not two of them and nothing happens again okay well again I'm kind of hating that nothing happens when I want to know if I'm going to need to kill the troll

28:50 twice okay so I move Gimli up right now let's not do that because I want to see what we need all right so second move we'll move Aragorn up and it's a courage which the other player has oh but Doug I can just trade and here you know I might get Gandalf onto the track next turn so let's give hamsar over here give him the uh mystery give him the couragement he'll discard it to kill the goblin Goblin's got no chance so that's two out of four okay and I've still got too many cards I'm a little bit low to use the warfares because I know I'll need them for the troll so okay I'm sure we'll draw another one of these at some point when we need it we'll discard that and I guess move Gimli no let's move let's move again well yeah let's get Gimli up and ready to fight the troll with Aragorn this again hope we don't get one of the healing cards right away because now we can try to like sort of rush the killing of the troll if we want to and we got a bunch more courage not sure if we'll need it uh 13 the balrog moves again slow your roll there Bell Rock all right so now we get uh two moves so let's get Gandalf here so he's ready to jump on the bridge and maybe start working Legolas over sure this play is gonna do um an insight and a mystery so again else now on the bridge although he's actually stopping the bow Rock we need to like start pushing that way by the way the One Ring effect in this one is to just move Gandalf one space potentially pushing the balrog with him so we might need that if things get dire and I'm going to go and take a chance it might get wasted but I'm going to uh wound the cave troll because now if we can get like Legolas over here for example we can do a bunch more we'll stop there another one ring oh and our

30:21 Elven cloaks but can't play it right now nine balrog moves okay definitely play that Elven cloak soon though all right um so two moves so that's Frodo I'm gonna go one two with Legolas discard one of this player's extra courage is for a third move okay we don't have a uh a foot to defeat that guy right now okay then this guy's gonna do a Warfare to uh wound the troll again oh and now if I can just get one two okay um yeah this is good this is good okay I'm going to just to make sure I kill the troll I'm gonna do my one trade like that I'm gonna play Elven cloaks and not draw a card this turn and then with the movement I'll be able to give them another Warfare and finish off the troll as you'll see in a second oh although I just got more Warfare and courage anyway so not drawing a card and here's the key part so I'm gonna do um what do I need I guess like one two foot I don't necessarily need to kill that Goblin because some more might spawn over here but I definitely probably want to kill that one but here we go spread out the ring love so I'm going to trade them for their Warfare and then boom boom double Warfare for that and that so they have a cave troll um reward draw one card from the special Deck cool get out of here I guess we don't need to worry about these anymore let's see Great Eagle move each character up to one space each that is a great card I love that so what we got to do now is get Gandalf far enough to meet the bowrog and then we still need to kill that Goblin at least one more if they spawn and then get everybody the exit Okay but for now we'll slow down oh

31:51 good that's two inside that we need that to move Gandalf to the next spot yes and that's the kill uh a goblin that's great and come on don't move the Bell rug darn it it was a bell rock okay there's a little bit dire here people uh it's the next card is a battle Rod card we might lose here but we okay could use a lot of rings so the thing is if you lose a scenario you just have to replay it I mean what are my chance is here I just checked four cards have come out for the balrog and only two non-balrog cards what is that eight to Fifteen is eight cards so half of the balrog cards and then so there are five uh non-bal Rod cards and four barrel cards left so we have a slightly better chance of the Bell Rock will move this turn slightly all right so I just gotta believe in miracles I believe in miracles um let's give them a horn I don't know discard this to kill the Goblin on Legolas oh wait I didn't get two free moves let's move uh Frodo and air going on okay so then we'll do that so we need to kill one more Goblin and not have spawned here yet okay and I'm gonna stop there pray to God okay that's good we can kill the last uh Goblin with that okay that we don't really need please don't be don't be high yes yes okay uh what is this place a goblin on the Escape Route that works fine so anywhere along here um let me guess I'll just put it here right so we can easily get leg loss onto it okay now we get two moves so let's have Legolas find out what we need for him a horn we got a ton of those and we'll move uh them one okay we know I gotta try to push the balrog or something okay so I am gonna probably

33:22 take some corruption here okay I'll play the horn um so that gets us our fourth Goblin oh we got a car from the special deck give me something good wisdom of elrond choose a player to draw two cards from the story deck okay so all we gotta do is get everyone to the exit get them to the same spot well to that end let's start out with two Insight then one thing I'm gonna have myself draw two cards maybe I'll get lucky and get some mystery uh I got one but not boost I'm definitely gonna need to use at least oh man am I going to take two corruption this turn that's okay let's go and play The Great Eagle so that moves everybody one space uh we're never not there yet and then I kind of hate to do this but I'm going to take two corruption to go one two only way I can make sure the balrog won't lose us the game immediately oh crud I guess that's our first IFL run each player discards one story card if able okay and that's removed from the game so we'll never draw that one again even if it's got pushed backwards which apparently some effects can do you won't resolve the the one you've already done before all right so for the final thing we need what is it a green a red and a blue so we don't need the mystery well yeah the next spot with Gandalf is two mystery but that seems unlikely to matter and then for them green red blue we got a lot of blue let's discard that all right now let's see uh gosh oh Lord okay um Rings Galore and yep the balrog's moving one so he's taking Gandalf with him we are one more from disaster we have no Insight I should have been paying more attention to that okay but we have to move twice so let's see Frodo's the only one who can be uh like

34:53 annoyed by goblins so let's get him to the exit first that way after the last goblin pops out we won't care yeah I think uh second player's gonna have to use a ring to push back again um there we go and it was so uncorrupt and now it's all coming back okay and then gosh we need all three of these cards the only one we don't need is the ring itself so I guess we'll just finish the turn there there's the insight and there's a mystery I need two of any of those things okay come on someone there we go nothing happens all right can you guys please run and like jump along falling pillars and stuff a little faster okay Frodo is safe so Goblin spawn won't matter oh we haven't got either of the heel the troll cards where are those to help me out and this player's got an extra horn there we go so a couple more turns couple more turns come on good just give me not Rings that's ooh now we can actually yes good now we can move Gandalf with the double Insight if the bow rug moves six cave 12 recovers yay okay fabulous fabulous we are almost there we need uh what six more moves all right ooh but wait I want both those to move again enough but he hasn't the bower hasn't moved him yet to make it necessary I need the okay I don't need this so definitely do an extra move with that and then we don't both need courage so I'll do a courage I just want to be able to draw two cards uh Boop okay I took some corruption but I think we're gonna make it uh okay those are useless and go ahead and move Balor I'll just give me something to do with my insight yep all right so balrog and Gandalf move there

36:24 oh that's right we get to okay so we just need to move twice but first let's give them that so they have everything we need for the final challenge they've got two Insight boom and yeah now we'll be 100 safe we'll stop there and should be the last plot card of four place a goblin okay there they are and final two free moves gets Legolas there and then what is it Adventure courage Warfare boom done it okay and uh we all win but not without costs we got five more chapters to go through people and we are yeah almost a third of the way to our own destruction there you go those were the first three scenarios if you want to see the rest next we have the fellowship splitting bore me are getting killed then we have uh the ants attacking eisenguard putting out fires and stuff Battle of Helms Deep was held here there in the book it's definitely based on the movies like the pictures are kind of rt'd up versions of famous movie Stills and stuff but yeah we got the Battle of Helms Deep then she loves a lair with Gollum Frodo and Sam and finally the battle of the pelnor fields and the black gate and destroying the ring all combined into one big scenario this one looks more complicated but let's get into my thoughts on this one so first talking about the uh storybook series overall again I played this one in The Princess Bride I think the core mechanics are wonderfully accessible I've played it with my 10 year old my seven-year-old my wife they've all enjoyed it the Simplicity of looking at icons uh using them of just flipping

37:55 these plot cards you know as you have one player who knows how to do the setup or knows how to run the chapters you should be good although I will note my son with The Princess Bride one woke up one morning early and set up the entire game for the fire swamp himself and played it so clearly it's uh not even that I mean he's a good reader for a 10 year old but uh yeah I think the game is very accessible very easy to get into the scenarios do have some necessary saminess because the mechanics are so simplistic but I think in this one especially maybe even better than The Princess Bride they have some nice like kind of thematic and mechanical differences like you know having the Black Riders block up your movement here this one was very much a movement optimization puzzle with people not being able to be in the same space whereas this one was a little bit more interesting with kind of like management of your icons defeating Orcs and moving Gandalf so they all have pretty cool things going on again it's not a heavy game don't go into this as like a you know your main game for your heavy gamer group for the night they're probably not going to be satisfied yeah I think the core mechanics are cool and I gotta say I love this was not in The Princess Bride and I doubt it's in The Wizard of Oz one the second entry in this series either I love these rings and the mechanics there because basically you can make sure you win any scenario you want to if you just Spam rings but uh thematically and mechanically that's going to make you lose the campaign because you'll turn to the dark side so I think that's great I like how they kind of muck up your uh hand and force you to think about using them now of course that and other elements in the game like how the plot cards come out can lead to some swinginess and uh luck but each chapter takes like 20 minutes

39:26 to play so if you lose one have to play it again or just goes terribly you know whatever just set it up again good game and uh roll with it I also like how the secret cards kind of go into your deck and give you kind of campaign growth in a way it's pretty minor but it does feel cool and it does give a bit more replay because honestly there isn't a ton of Replay like you are going to do sort of similar things in each scenario but these give a little bit more replay because you'll have like different uh options like having a ton of Elven cloaks in this campaign might be different if I get like a ton of character movement in the next one now some quibble if any I personally did not like I don't think The Princess Bride one had the official solo variant where you have a dummy hand of six but with the ring mechanic I definitely do not like it here I I certainly enjoyed scenario two and three with two-handed play which as you saw is super super easy I much enjoyed that as opposed to the dummy hand play in the first scenario because otherwise it just becomes too easy to kind of like stack up all the Rings in one hand and I think it's more interesting to have to deal with them also if I'm looking for things to nitpick the card quality is pretty poor um if we're gonna play this enough especially with my kids I might sleeve the cards because yeah they are like they are thin they feel like they'll get damaged easily and they are not easy to like handle and Shuffle and then again just one minor gripe if I'm looking for one um in the uh Princess Bride one they had like their names printed on the characters but for some reason these ones don't so it's like a little Annoying to remember that Sam is the green one holding nothing Pippin's the red one holding an apple and marries the yellow one holding B year I just wish

40:56 they had made that a little bit more obvious now so far it hasn't mattered too much but later on like with the ants and the pelnor fields and stuff I think well actually I guess there won't matter too much either right because probably Mary and Pippin are doing their thing and Frodo and Sam are doing theirs but yeah it's just a minor gripe component wise but yeah this one is great I think it's definitely a bit more crunchy Than The Princess Bride one that I played a bit more of a gamer version but still very accessible uh Princess Bride won it would be more of a mixed recommendation this one I think is really fun so if you want like a lightweight accessible family game if you're a fan of The Lord of the Rings movies or the book series I think it's one is pretty much a winner so thanks for watching everybody good gaming and I'll see you at the next stop