Now that is what I call a big dragon! Now I have to explore a creepy dungeon find the beast and then f**k it up. I think I have got this, if not I shall die trying anyway, that or run away, lets just run away! In this dungeon tile exploring game we will complete different stories and progress to fighting the infamous Ashardalon who is a giant dragon. You pick the character you want to play, the spells yo wish to use and off you go! Let us get the usual boring bit out of the way;
Players: 1 - 5 Age: 12+
Time: 60 minutes
That's a big box, what's in it?
You get quite a bit for your money here and even though the models are not the greatest I have seen there is still a lot of them. The punchouts are high quality and none of them ripped while taking them out. My only issue is the box inlay, it is so bad for putting it away after you have played, it is a little annoying, that could do with a redesign! In the box you will get the following;
42 plastic miniatures
5 hero figures
30 monster figures
7 villain figures
41 dungeon tiles
9 illustrated Hero and Villain tiles
Rulebook
Adventure book
50 power cards
53 encounter cards
30 monster cards
33 treasure cards
6 boon cards
192 markers and tokens
20-sided die You do get your moneys worth from this game, especially if you got it on sale like I did for £36! I did have this link on my website and if you missed tis offer then you suck! I did talk about it on my Instagram!
Aim of the game?
Just like Gloomhaven this is different depending on the story you are trying to complete, the first one we played the goal was to slay so many monsters in the dungeon without dying.
How to set the game up?
Once again this is hard to cover because depending on the story will depend on how you set the game up. You will need to read the scenario booklet and rulebook on how to set the game up.
I am going to try and cover some of the basics you would do on all the games. First step is to pick your character, once you have picked them take all the items belonging to them, you will need the figure, the character sheet (tile) and their cards. On the character sheet it tells you their basic stats and it also tells you what card they have plus then it asks you to pick so many of each of the other types of cards. In the rulebook I believe it does tell you which ones you should use for your first games using that character to make your life easier. You could be like me and just pick what you want and go for it! Place the long start tile (this is not always the case though) in the middle of the table and place your figure on a square around the stairs in the middle. Next to this place 2 healing surge tokens, you will need these if a party member dies in the dungeon. If you want the game to be harder remove 1 or both, to make it easier add 1 or 2. Shuffle the monster deck and place it down for people to reach, shuffle the item deck and give each player 1 item and place that down near the monster deck. Finally shuffle the encounter deck and put that near them too, these should all be face down.
Usually you are going to use some of the tokens in the games so I tend to separate them and put them all off to one side in case we do need to grab some while playing. The monster figures will also be used, I tend to keep these in the box and grab them as I need them, you could line them all up neatly also and make your life easier then my carnage method.
The dungeon tiles will need to be shuffled and placed face down also, you will not need any of the special ones unless it tells you otherwise so shuffle the basic tiles. That just about covers what you can do to set up the game, the rest will depend on the story you are playing this turn but that does give you a good idea of what to do.
How to play!
On your turn you can have 3 phases you must complete in order and we shall look at them now! Hero Phase This is the first phase and this is where you move and attack the monsters in the dungeon. You can either;
Attack and move Move and attack
Move and move again This means if you move twice you can not attack this turn, keep that in mind. Moving Each character will have a speed value and this is how far they can move in the dungeon, movement is moving from one square to the next, you can also move diagonally along the squares and that classes as one movement, none of this left, right, up, or down only s**t here. Move, move If you pick the move, move, this means you move your speed once and then you move it again, if you have a speed of 6 you can move 12 basically. Attack
Now depending on the character and the attacks they have (you picked these) you might not need to move to attack or you might need to be next to the monster! It will all depend. Attacking is easy though all you do is look at the attacks power, roll the D20 and add that to the power, so if you have a attack with the power of 7 and roll a 5 this is an attack power total for 12. Next you look at the monsters AC value and if it is the same or higher you hit the monster.
If you miss nothing happens, if you have hit you then look at the damage you cause and knock that amount off the monsters HP. If you kill the monster the owner takes the card and adds it to their XP pile (cover this soon) and you claim a treasure card, take the top card and add it to your character. Experience pile
When we look at the next phase we will talk about monster control, I just want to add here that when anyone kills a monster you control you add it to your experience pile and you use these to stop encounters or level up. Leveling up
If at any time you roll a 20 on the D20 and you have 5 XP in your experience pile you can level up your character, flip it over and gain the new stats and any new cards you are allowed. Collecting items
At some point you might have treasure tiles on the board, you do not need to stop to pick these up you just need to move over them and you collect them. This means you do not need to end your turn on that square. NOTES
You can not move through walls (solid black squares) You can not move through a space with a monster on You can move through a square with another hero but not end on that same square Tiles refer to the full tile and space means the squares, this is important as some attacks say tile which means a full tile not 1 square! That covers the first phase now we need to look at the next one! Exploration phase
In this phase we are going to discover new tiles, spawn monsters and possibly have an encounter (these suck, even the good ones suck). If you ended your turn with your figure on the edge of a tile without a wall because walls are not an edge but an obstruction. This would mean you explore a new tile! If this is not the case you skip this section and go to the villain phase! Okay, you ended the turn on a edge and now you need to explore, this is easy.
Take the top tile from the dungeon tile deck and place it on the edge you have explored! On the tile there will be a arrow, this arrow needs to point to the edge of the tile your character is on, once it is locked the arrow should be facing you figure. If not then you have done this wrong and need to do it again, fool. Now if the arrow is white you then need to place a monster or spawn the monster on the scorch mark that is on the tile (round circle that looks like a burn mark in one of the spaces). Now draw the top monster card and place it above your character, this monster is your enemy but you control them. Find the matching monster figure (names are under the bases) and place that monster on the scorch mark. If you already have this monster under your control then you need to discard the card and draw a new one. If the tile you pulled was a hallway you need to draw another tile and put it on the end with the arrow pointing towards you, once again place a monster on the scorch mark. If you got a tile with a black arrow then you do the above but also draw a encounter card and action that. These can be really nasty to nasty a little so be prepared for these! If you would rather not do the encounter then you can spin around 6 times and sing a song or spend 5 experience points from monsters from your experience pile and skip the encounter. That is all there is to that phase, hopefully you are still with me and understanding this! Villain phase If you did not place a tile in the last phase for some reason (maybe you ended your turn in the middle of a room like a bi**h) then you now need to do an encounter like above. Action this encounter or pay the 5 experience points to skip it. If there is a villain in play you activate that now and follow the card for that villain and complete all the instructions, sometimes there will be more then one, other times just the one and like on your first game none, if there are none you do nothing for this little part. Now you need to activate each monster and trap in the game, make sure you do them in order so you do not miss any. When you activate them you read the actions on the card starting at the top and see if any of the conditions are met, if they are met you then action them. This can be anything from more monsters spawning, maybe they charge you, maybe they are close enough to attack. Just make sure you perform actions for them all if they are able to do so. Once you are done the turn passes to the player on your left and they repeat all the steps above, that covers the basics but there are some other sections I want to cover! 1: There are conditions such as dazed, when you are affected by these place the token near you because it contains the conditions for that condition and makes it easy to follow them. 2: Your attacks have some one use attacks, once they are used you flip them over, there are certain items that can bring them back, however you might not get them so use these when you really need to use them! 3: I prefer other players rolling for monsters when they attack me as it feels as if I am actually fighting some one else and not myself. That's it! That is the game covered, hope you enjoyed all of this, I should add that there is advanced rules you can use for the game to spice it up but first play a few games and get to grips with it!
Final thoughts!
If you could mix this with Gloomhaven I honestly think you would have a perfect game, I have played a lot of Warhammer over the years and love the in depth stories that give me a purpose to why I am fighting. If I had the elements from Gloomhaven and this game I think it would be perfect.
Now this game is good but it is not great, the system works it can just be a little hard at times, I am already dreading harder missions. The stories are okay but I would not say they are in depth to the level I would want them to be!
The figures are a little cheap but they get the job done so I can not complain there, and for the price I paid well it is perfect for that price point.
You do get a lot for your money with this game, It is a good game, the mechanics behind it all make sense and it flows nicely. I just wish there was more to it, I do not know why but it felt like something was missing, but I am unsure what.
I did feel more connected to this world then I did with Gloomhaven but I preferred how Gloomhaven played with the initiative order and so on. The pieces apart from the figures in this game are better then Gloomhaven for quality but Gloomhaven looks fantastic compared to this game.
It is a mixed bag, I liked how the attacks worked in this game, I liked the aiming system, how easy it was to pick who you could hit, the attack system is easy to perform, then again it all felt a little blah, I did not have any excitement behind my attacks.
I honestly think the Warhammer world may have destroyed my ability to love these games like I want to!
7/10
