Over our 14 years of doing family board game reviews, we’ve played a bunch of The Lord of the Rings games and reviewed 3 of those we most enjoyed. The most recent, in 2021, was the largest of the LOTR games we reviewed, The Lord of the Rings: Journeys in Middle-earth. That game is packed with miniatures, interlocking board tiles, loads of cards, plenty of rules, and an app-driven story-driven game play.

Well, it’s time to get back to the lighter side of The Lord of the Rings board games with a new game from Kosmos, The Lord of the Rings: Adventure to Mount Doom.

Like a number of LOTR games, this game is a cooperative board game. Players work together to help Frodo and Sam get the ring to Mount Doom. They do so by rolling dice, reacting to cards, fighting Uruk-hai, dodging Nazgul, and overall maneuvering the Fellowship along the treacherous route.

While it’s a simpler LOTR game, we’ve still lost more times than we’ve won. Just begging us to play again.

 

 

How to play The Lord of the Rings: Adventure to Mount Doom

The Lord of the Rings: Adventure to Mount Doom is a straightforward cooperative board game with a simple goal – get the Ring-bearer (Frodo & Sam) to Mount Doom (the final space on the board) without being overrun by Nazgul or running out of courage.

Set up

Players separate the different stage decks of Encounter cards and shuffle each. The first stage is the journey from Rivendell to Lothlorien, so players place 6 of the 7 Lothlorien cards along the bottom of the board in spaces 1 through 6. Those on spaces 1 and 6 are placed face down and the rest are face up. The 7th card is discarded unseen.

They place the 5 Fellowship characters in Rivendell, the Witch-king of Angmar on the space designated near Minas Morgul, and the Uruk-hai chieftain on the space in Isengard with his image.

The starting player randomly draws a Gandalf card and places it face up for future use (by any player). The Boromir card is also placed face up and can be used by any player during the game. Finally the Ring is placed on the indicated starting space on the courage track.

Game Turns

On a players turn, they do a Roll phase and an Action phase.

Roll phase: The player takes the 2 black Encounter dice and chooses 2 colored dice to roll. From that roll, the player chooses 1 of the black dice and places it on the dice board in the top left space. (The left side of the board is called Page 1 and the right is Page 2.)

Then they choose one of the colored dice and place it on the bottom left space. Next, they take the remaining dice not chosen (1 black and 1 colored) and add another colored dice of their choice to the mix. They roll these 3 dice and place the black die in the top right space (top of Page 2) and then choose one of the 2 colored dice to place in the bottom right space.

Action phase: After selecting and placing the dice, the player then takes the actions associated with each die, starting on Page 1 and going top to bottom. So the first black die, then the first colored die, then the other black die followed by the other colored die.

The black dice correspond to the 6 Encounter spaces at the bottom of the game board. So actions from the black dice activate the card in those spaces. If a 1 or 6 is rolled, the player first turns that card face up and then activates it.

Most of the cards are going to be bad things that befall the Fellowship. But some will have a green icon in the corners. When a player activates such a card, they simply remove it from the row and place it face up on the table for future use (by any player). However, most of the red cards will remain in their space.

If a black number is activated and there isn’t a card in that space, the player instead moves the Fellowship character shown 0, 1, or 2 spaces (their choice) or places a Nazgul figure on the board if that’s the icon shown.

After activating the Encounter space from the black die, the player takes the action of the colored die. Each die corresponds to a Fellowship character. The player simply moves that character the number of spaces showing on the die. Some spaces have negative consequences such as losing courage or placing a Nazgul figure on the board.

If a Fellowship character other than the Ring-bearer has the exact die roll to land on the destination space of that stage (Lothlorien, Rohan, Helm’s Deep, Gondor, Minas Morgul), players move the Ring up 1 space on the courage track. If the Ring-bearer has the exact die roll to land on a destination space, the player draws another Gandalf card.

Whether Frodo & Sam land exactly on the destination space or their die roll would move them futher, they still stop at the destination and the stage ends.

To start the next stage, players first remove all the encounter cards. Then they take the next stage deck and set out 6 Encounter cards in spaces 1 through 6 like at the start of the game.

Then play continues with the next player.

The Battles

Along the way, players will battle their adversaries as indicated on many of the Encounter cards. When a battle occurs, the active player must roll the Battle die. This die shows symbols of Fellowship members as well as a Sauron symbol and Gandalf symbol.

When a player rolls this die, only Fellowship characters who “support” the Ring-bearer will result in success. This includes characters who are on the same space as the Ring-bearer and those who are ahead of the Ring-bearer in the same stage. If a character has gone past the next destination space or is behind the Ring-bearer, they can not help.

For example, if the green bow & arrow symbol is rolled, and Legolas is ahead of the Ring-bearer in the same stage of the path, the battle is a success.

If the Sauron symbol is rolled (or any character not supporting the Ring-bearer), the battle is lost and the Ring will fall on the courage track the indicated number of spaces. If the Gandalf symbol is rolled, the players may choose to discard one of their Gandalf cards to win the battle. Otherwise, they lose the battle.

Game End

Once the Ring-bearer reaches Minas Morgul, the game play changes. From here, the Ring-bearer must forge ahead alone. For each Fellowship character that landed on Minas Morgul with an exact die roll, the Ring-bearer moves ahead that many spaces.

Now on their turn, each player only rolls 1 black Encounter die. Then they activate that card as usual. After it’s activated, they move the Ring-bearer one space closer to Mount Doom. Then the next player takes a turn.

If the Ring-bearer moves onto the Mount Doom space, all players win!

However, if the Ring on the courage track goes below the final space or the last Nazgul figure is placed on the board before the Ring-bearer makes it to Mount Doom, all players lose!

 

Can the whole family enjoy The Lord of the Rings: Adventure to Mount Doom?

The Lord of the Rings: Adventure to Mount Doom is a very good introductory LOTR game for families to play together. The rules are very easy to understand and the mechanics are very simple with dice rolls and card play.

Plus, being a cooperative board game means that even younger players can join in the fun with other players helping them make choices on their turns.

We’ve typically been critical of “roll and move” board games. These are games where players don’t have any choice in the matter, but just roll dice and then move that many spaces ahead. However, even though the core mechanic in Adventure to Mount Doom is rolling dice and moving along a prescribed path, there are plenty of choices for players to make that will impact that moving.

Rather than just being at the mercy of the dice rolled and moving that many spaces, players first get to choose which of the dice they want to roll. This dictates which characters may be able to move on that turn. And because where the characters are in relation to Frodo & Sam on the path when a battle occurs, the choices players make on who to move and when will make a big difference in the outcome.

Likewise, players will get a first option on which of the 2 black (aka. “bad”) dice they choose to use. Knowing which cards the black dice will activate gives the players a bit of foresight in what they need to prepare for.

Plus, players will gain good cards along the way (other friend and Gandalf cards) that will also help them mitigate the results of unlucky dice rolls.

That being said, since there are dice involved, there’s still a fair amount of luck in the game. But we find that’s what makes this cooperative game fun. It’s not a puzzle to be solved with one player telling everyone else what to do on their turn. Instead, players consult on which dice they each thing may be best to roll on that turn, but no one can foresee for sure how it will turn out.

Another element that’s helpful in the game is that all good cards can be used on any player’s turn. So while a player may collect a friend card or Gandalf card along the way, players can collectively choose when it’s best to use them. If players want the can to be more difficult, they can choose to limit the use of such cards to just the player who collected them. But we haven’t played that way yet.

The use of these cards on any player’s turn also means the game can be played solo really easily. In fact, my first play of the game was solo. Unfortunately, Frodo & Sam didn’t even make it past Gondor before they ran out of courage and I lost.

 

How does The Lord of the Rings: Adventure to Mount Doom score on our “Let’s Play Again” game meter?

Because of the central dice rolling mechanic, I thought one of my friends wasn’t going to enjoy the game. However, he was the first to say, “let’s play it again” after we lost a game because we were overrun with Nazgul. We finished victorious in our next play!

That proved to me that even players who don’t like as much luck in their games are happy to play The Lord of the Rings: Adventure to Mount Doom multiple times in a row.

The game last about 45 minutes and is easy to reset to play again because you just have to shuffle the separate stage decks and reset the characters on their starting spaces to get rolling again.

If you enjoy The Lord of the Rings and playing cooperative games with your family, we’d recommend playing The Lord of the Rings: Adventure to Mount Doom.

 

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