So, what is the Pandemic System? All games with this system are cooperative board games, where the players together struggle to hold back a growing threat. After every player move, some enemy cards are revealed that make bad things happen. If players aren't efficient enough to fight the threats faster than they appear, things go downhill quickly. As a special twist, at some points in the game the already played enemy cards are shuffled and put back on the top of the enemy deck. Which means that some enemy cards you'll see repeatedly, concentrating the threat locally, and others not at all.

Fate adds a new twist to this system: The enemy (shadow) cards now have two different backs. When you turn over the top shadow card, the back of the next card tells you whether to apply the effect on the top or the bottom. Bottom effects put shadow troops (think orcs) into play, bottom effects move those troops in the direction of some haven. This makes the new system slightly more varied than the standard Pandemic System, and Fate just might be the best Pandemic game just from a pure game mechanics point of view.

But the reason I would really recommend Fate as a board game is the theme. Which means that my recommendation is addressed to anybody who has at least a decent knowledge of The Lord of the Rings, either by having read the books, or by having seen the films, or ideally both. We played Fate once with a guy who had no clue who Gandalf was, and he still had fun, but there is a huge amount of additional fun to have if you are somewhat knowledgeable of Tolkien's work. On the one side, the growing threat produced by the improved Pandemic System is a perfect fit for the growing threat of Sauron in The Lord of the Rings. Also the group being split up all over the map of Middle Earth is an obvious fit to the story. On the other side of things, the game cleverly references the memorable scenes of the books / movies by turning them into quests. On my first game, I was playing Gandalf the Grey, and I had to go to Moria, confront the Balrog, and come back as Gandalf the White. There is a good selection of different quests for different characters, only Frodo having to throw the One Ring into Mount Doom is always the final quest to win the game. Playing Fate feels a lot like The Lord of the Rings, the theme is extremely well integrated into gameplay, and if you like the theme, it adds a lot to the fun of the game.

The Lord of the Rings: Fate of the Fellowship costs about $80, or slightly cheaper at €65 in Europe. That makes it a lot cheaper than many of the crowdfunded games I own, but still relatively expensive compared to other retail games. My main point of criticism of the game is that it includes a cardboard dice tower; that adds a lot to table presence, but it is somewhat fiddly to put together, and you have to partially disassemble it to put it back into the box. As you often only throw 3 dice or less, it seems like an unnecessary cost element to me, although some other people absolutely love that thing. I like that the characters are screen printed on wooden pieces instead of being plastic miniatures. The allied and shadow troops are a bit on the small side. But kudos to Asmodee, who without fuzz agreed to send me a replacement for a damaged dwarven troop in my copy of the game.

Personally I like the cooperative nature of Fate, and its variability. But there being no hidden information opens the game up to the risk of one alpha gamer trying to boss around everybody else at the table to do what he says. Fate needs cooperation, but one needs to balance that with the need for player agency. I guess it depends very much on your gaming group. A group that is working very well together can potentially play Fate at a higher player count of 4 or 5; for most groups 2 or 3 players is probably safer. Also a matter of personal preference is your acceptance of luck in a game. Random characters having to do random quests means that different games can be very different in difficulty; the random nature of the shadow cards can also produce spikes of difficulty, or just ruin your plans by a bad luck draw. On the positive side, this keeps Fate very interesting, you aren't going to get to a situation where you feel you have already won only half way through the game.