The Lord of the Rings: Journeys in Middle-Earth

Setup: Select a base-game campaign, difficulty and save slot, then heroes, equipment and roles. Under the Rules Reference, a solo player controls 2–4 heroes with separate components. Each initial skill set contains Basic 1–6, hero cards 1–5, role cards 1–3 and a random weakness. Prepare role card 1, shuffle the other fourteen and place the map and tokens as instructed.

Round: Resolve Action, Shadow and Rally phases. The party chooses hero order each round, completing one hero's turn before the next begins. Each normally takes up to two actions and may repeat Travel, Attack or Interact. Advance to Shadow in the app after every hero has acted.

Travel and exploration: A Travel action permits up to two moves to adjacent spaces, with other actions and effects allowed between moves. Entering an unexplored tile immediately explores it through the app without another action. Connected gray borders create adjacency; black borders and battle-map walls block it. Battle maps have no exploration tokens.

Interaction and provoking: Normally share a search, person or threat token's space to interact. App buttons with the interaction icon represent the action; merely inspecting information is free. Before leaving a space with readied enemies or interacting there, provoke each readied group in that space. A provoked attack does not exhaust the group.

Tests: Reveal skill cards equal to the tested stat, with at least one after modifiers. Use their success and fate icons, ignoring revealed card abilities. Each inspiration spent converts one fate to a success. Compare a target, enter cumulative successes or negate damage and fear as instructed; discard revealed cards after the test.

Attacks: Choose a group in your space and attack items; an adjacent group is legal if every chosen item is ranged. Multiple items must share the tested stat. Spend successes on item effects, enter hits and modifiers, then apply them. Each attack ability is usable once per attack. Resolve any legal counterattack prompt, and apply even a zero-hit attack.

Shadow: Follow the app through readied enemy activation, darkness and threat. Threat normally rises by two per hero, one per threat token and one per unexplored tile, triggering threshold events. Ordinary exhausted groups cannot activate, counterattack or be provoked. Exhausted elites can still counterattack, subject to effects such as stun for that attack.

Damage and last stands: Normally reveal and fully resolve damage or fear cards one at a time; explicit facedown suffering skips their text. A negate-test success prevents one damage or fear. After resolving the entire source, reaching a corresponding limit triggers a last stand through the app. Under the FAQ, faceup damage or faceup fear reaching either corresponding limit prevents passing any last stand test. Failure defeats the hero.

Rally and campaign: Shuffle discards into each skill deck, then Scout 2. Prepare up to one revealed card and return the others to top or bottom in any order; keep at most four prepared skills. Complete the final objective to win the adventure. Full threat, objective failure or the next Shadow phase after a hero's defeat can cause a loss. At camp, buy or sell skills using role-specific experience, unlock item upgrades through shared, unspent lore and save progress.