Lord of the Rings Board Games: cooperative campaign game
Lord of the Rings: Journeys in Middle-earth: How a Round Works
The Lord of the Rings: Journeys in Middle-earth (2019) is a cooperative campaign game for 1 to 5 players. Its free companion app runs the story and the enemies. It’s a good fit for groups looking for a Tolkien adventure that continues from one session to the next.
- 2019
- 1-5 players
- 60-120 minutes
- Ages 14+
- cooperative campaign game
- Fantasy Flight Games
Designers: Grace Holdinghaus, Nathan I. Hajek
Heroes act, the shadow strikes back, and then you rally. Here’s a full round.
Every round follows the same loop: the heroes act, enemies respond, and everyone gets a chance to prepare. The app tells you what to place and when, so the nine steps below focus on player actions. Comparing Tolkien games? The Lord of the Rings board games page lines them up.
Only prepared skill cards have active abilities.
One Round of Journeys in Middle-earth, Step by Step
A round has three phases: action, shadow, and rally. The nine steps below follow them in order, including the two actions each hero takes in the middle.
Moving out of a readied enemy's space triggers an attack.
- Step 1:
Action phase: heroes take turns in any order they choose. That order can change each round.
- Step 2:
Each hero takes two actions on their turn, and they can repeat an action. Choose from travel, attack, and interact.
- Step 3:
Travel: move up to two spaces. Step onto an unexplored tile to explore it and gain one inspiration.
- Step 4:
Attack: choose an item with a stat icon and an enemy group in range. Test that stat, then spend successes on the item’s abilities.
- Step 5:
Interact: use a search, person, or threat token in the hero’s space, then follow the app’s instructions.
- Step 6:
Shadow phase, enemy step: each enemy group moves toward its target and attacks if it gets in range. Heroes may take damage and fear.
- 7Step 7:
Shadow phase, darkness step: heroes in darkness suffer fear, but only when the app calls for this step.
- 8Step 8:
Shadow phase, threat step: threat rises by two per hero, one per threat token, and one per unexplored tile on the map.
- 9Step 9:
Rally phase: each hero shuffles their skill discard pile into their deck, scouts 2 cards, and may prepare one. Then the next round begins.
A round summary can miss what matters in your first session: how the app and cards divide the work, how tests resolve, and what happens when a hero gets hurt. First, we’ll cover setup, the three actions, and the rules highlighted in Learn To Play. The fantasy board games hub has more adventure-driven games.
Journeys in Middle-earth Rules, Explained
Setup
One player downloads the free Journeys in Middle-earth app from the Amazon Appstore, Apple App Store, Google Play, or Steam. Select New Game, then choose a campaign, difficulty, and save slot. Learn To Play recommends the Bones of Arnor campaign on Normal difficulty.
Each player chooses a hero in the app and takes the matching figure and hero card. In a solo game, one player controls two heroes.
The app lists each hero’s starting items. Find the matching item cards by name and tier, then place them near the hero card.
Shuffle the damage, fear, and weakness cards into three separate decks in the middle of the table. Sort the exploration, inspiration, search, threat, person, and enemy banner tokens, plus the three boon card types, into a supply. Set aside the map tiles and enemy figures.
Enter a group name, start the campaign, and watch the opening cutscene. Each player then picks a role in the app. The recommended first roles are Captain for Aragorn, Pathfinder for Beravor, Burglar for Bilbo, Musician for Elena, Guardian for Gimli, and Hunter for Legolas.
Each hero gathers 15 skill cards: Basic 1 to 6, the five cards with their hero’s name, and the three cards with their role. Add one weakness card from the top of the weakness deck. Place the role’s starting skill card faceup below the hero card, then shuffle the rest into a skill deck.
Tap the app’s final start button, then set out the starting map tiles and tokens as shown. Leave space around the map; the app adds tiles as the adventure continues.
Turn by turn
Tests
To test a stat, reveal that many cards from the top of your skill deck. Each success icon gives you one success; ignore the text on the revealed cards. Fate icons have no effect on their own, but you can spend one inspiration to turn a fate icon into a success.
Attack tests
Choose an item and one of the stats on its card, then test that stat. Each item ability shows its success cost, and you can use each ability once per attack. Enter the hits in the app. Hits reduce armor or sorcery first, then health. Enemies that survive may counterattack.
Enemy activation
The app assigns each enemy group a target. The group takes the shortest path toward that hero and attacks once it’s in range. Ranged enemies can attack from an adjacent space. If no hero is reachable, the group skips the entire instruction, movement included, and the app gives it a new one.
Provoking enemies
A readied enemy group in your space is provoked if you move out of that space or interact with a token there. Tap the provoke button, choose the enemy, and it attacks immediately. A provoked group does not become exhausted.
Damage, fear and last stands
For each damage or fear, reveal and resolve a card from the matching deck. Some cards stay faceup and have an ongoing effect. When a hero reaches the damage or fear limit on their hero card, they make a last stand. Fail the test, and the hero is defeated.
Scouting and preparing
During the rally phase, scout by revealing the top cards of your skill deck. You may place one faceup under your hero card to prepare it. Only prepared skill cards have working abilities. Put the rest on the top or bottom of the deck in any order.
End of the game and scoring
There’s no score to chase. The heroes win an adventure by completing the final objective before the threat bar fills. If a hero is defeated, the others keep going, but they lose if they haven’t completed the objective by the start of the next shadow phase. Win or lose, the heroes continue to the campaign’s next adventure.
Key rules
Inspiration
Keep inspiration tokens on your hero card, up to the limit printed there. Spend one during a test to turn a fate icon into a success. You gain inspiration by exploring a tile or through some abilities; the app tracks the rest.
Prepared skill cards
A hero can have no more than four prepared skill cards at once. To prepare a fifth, discard one of the four. Skill abilities work only while a card is prepared, not when it’s revealed for a test.
Threat bar
The bar at the top of the app fills as threat rises. Reaching a threshold triggers a threat event; tap the threshold to see what happens. If the bar fills, the heroes fail the adventure.
Nearby and adjacent
A component is nearby another component if both are in the same space or in adjacent spaces. Gray borders mark the spaces, and spaces sharing a border are adjacent. Ranged attacks and many abilities use the nearby rule.
Elite enemies
Elite enemy groups have a spiked portrait frame and a banner icon. Place the matching red banner token beside their figures. Elites get extra bonuses and can counterattack even when exhausted.
Tips for your first game
- Read the whole Learn To Play before your first session. For questions that come up during the game, check the Rules Reference rather than the Learn To Play.
- Each hero can have only four prepared skill cards, so keep those separate from the other cards in your play area.
- While scouting, put weakness cards and other cards you don’t want to reveal on the bottom of the deck. Put cards with a success icon on top.
- Moving out of a space with a readied enemy provokes it. Plan your attack or retreat before you move.
- Leave extra room on the table beyond the starting tiles. The app keeps adding map tiles.
You can prepare up to four skill cards.
After learning how a round works, you may wonder where the story comes from. Here we cover the game’s designers, how the campaign is built, and which parts of Tolkien’s world appear in the first adventure. We also separate the publisher’s stated details from what it leaves open.
The Game and the Middle-earth Behind It
Fill the threat bar, and you lose the adventure.
The game
Design and release
Fantasy Flight Games published The Lord of the Rings: Journeys in Middle-earth in 2019, designed by Grace Holdinghaus and Nathan Hajek. A companion app sets up adventures, runs the enemies and saves the campaign.
A campaign that changes with each play
Each game is one adventure in a larger campaign. The app draws from a pool of possibilities, so the map, enemies, allies and events can change when you replay the same campaign.
The film or series it covers
The game tells original stories in J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle-earth. Fantasy Flight Games doesn't say if the books or Peter Jackson films are the model. The first campaign, Bones of Arnor, doesn't retell any single chapter or film.
The box has six heroes: Aragorn, Beravor, Bilbo, Elena, Gimli and Legolas. Their roles, items and skills fit their characters. Aragorn is a Captain, Bilbo a Burglar and Gimli a Guardian. Fantasy Flight Games describes Bones of Arnor as an investigation into a rash of thefts across Eriador.
Scenes and story beats in the game
- 1
Bilbo's recommended Burglar role suits a hobbit who can hide and slip past danger.
- 2
Darkness has its own rules: heroes standing in it suffer fear.
- 3
Each of the six hero cards has its own damage and fear limits, so heroes break at different points.
- 4
As the adventure goes on, the threat bar makes it feel like darkness is spreading across the land.
What’s Inside the Journeys in Middle-earth Box
- 6 hero cards and 31 plastic figures (6 heroes and 25 enemies)
- 22 journey map tiles and 2 battle map tiles
- 83 item cards
- Skill cards: 30 basic, 30 hero, 72 role and 20 weakness
- 28 damage cards, 28 fear cards and 15 boon cards
- Exploration, inspiration, search, threat, person and depletion tokens, plus darkness tokens and 12 enemy banners with plastic stands
- A Rules Reference and a Learn To Play booklet
The core box comes with one campaign, and Fantasy Flight Games extended the line with expansions from 2019 to 2022. Below, the Shadowed Paths expansion is described from its own rulebook, and the rest are listed by name. For a very different Middle-earth night, try the War of the Ring strategy game.
Only prepared skill cards have active abilities.
Journeys in Middle-earth expansions
Shadowed Paths 2020
Takes the heroes through Mirkwood and the halls of Moria. Its rulebook describes a branching digital campaign of 13 new adventures with new tiles, terrain, enemies, items, titles and roles. It adds corruption and difficult terrain, and the base game and an updated app are required.
Other expansions 2019
Fantasy Flight Games also released Villains of Eriador (2019), Dwellers in Darkness (2020), The Haunting of Dale (2020), Spreading War (2021) and Scourges of the Wastes (2022). Each is added to the app's collection, and the publisher's material available to us does not detail their contents.
Journeys in Middle-earth FAQ
How do you play The Lord of the Rings: Journeys in Middle-earth?
Each round has an action phase, a shadow phase and a rally phase. Each hero takes two actions. Then the app moves the enemies, and the heroes scout their skill decks and prepare a card.
Do you need the app to play Journeys in Middle-earth?
Yes. One player needs the free app on a compatible device. It sets up the adventure, runs the enemies and saves the campaign.
How many players can play Journeys in Middle-earth?
One to five players, ages 14 and up, in about 60 to 120 minutes. A solo player controls two heroes.
How do you win an adventure in Journeys in Middle-earth?
Complete the final objective before the threat bar fills. If a hero is defeated, the others must finish before the next shadow phase begins.
Which heroes come with Journeys in Middle-earth?
Aragorn, Beravor, Bilbo, Elena, Gimli and Legolas. The base game includes six hero figures and six hero cards.
What does the Shadowed Paths expansion add?
It adds 13 new digital adventures in Mirkwood and Moria, along with corruption and difficult terrain. It requires the base game and an updated app.
Is Journeys in Middle-earth based on the books or the films?
Fantasy Flight Games calls it an adventure in Tolkien's world but doesn't say which story it follows. The campaign is original.
Moving out of a readied enemy's space triggers an attack.
You can prepare up to four skill cards.
Sources
- Fantasy Flight Games: The Lord of the Rings: Journeys in Middle-earth fantasyflightgames.com
- Fantasy Flight Games: Journeys in Middle-earth Learn To Play (PDF) images-cdn.fantasyflightgames.com
- Fantasy Flight Games: Journeys in Middle-earth Rules Reference (PDF) images-cdn.fantasyflightgames.com
- Fantasy Flight Games: Shadowed Paths expansion rulebook (PDF) images-cdn.fantasyflightgames.com