Lords of Waterdeep Review

I would like to thank Chris C. for continuing to share insightful reviews (such as this one).

Lords of Waterdeep is one of 2012’s breakout hits.  It has impressed hobby gamers and newcomers alike with its combination of simple worker-placement mechanics and a Dungeons and Dragons theme.

Waterdeep is a major city in the Forgotten Realms universe, and in this game each player is a member of the secret group of lords that run the city from the shadows.  Each lord controls several agents that they will send out each turn to buildings around the city to recruit adventurers and gather money.   These resources can be used to complete quests which earn players victory points, more resources, and occasionally special abilities that last for the remainder of the game.

The game adds player interaction via “Intrigue Cards” which can be played by sending an agent to a particular building.  These have a variety of purposes - some provide resources or allow players to steal from each other.  The most interesting Intrigue Cards are “mandatory quests”, low-value quests that players can give to each other and which must be completed before any other quests.

The various lords of Waterdeep

Buildings come in two varieties.  There are nine “basic” buildings printed on the game board that will be available in every game.  There is also a stack of building cards which is shuffled at the beginning of the game.  Three of these cards are available at the “Builder’s Hall” at any time.  Players may send an agent there and pay a building’s cost to put it into play, providing a new action space for everyone.  They get a bonus for this: any time any other player uses the building to receive resources, they receive a smaller number of similar resources.  Since different buildings are available each game, this adds variation and replayability.

Players keep track of how many points they have earned from completing quests on a score track around the outside of the board.  The game ends after 8 rounds, and players receive additional points for remaining resources.  Additionally, each player reveals which lord card they are holding - most lords receive bonus points for completed quests of certain types.  The quests come in five varieties (Arcana, Skullduggery, Commerce, Warfare and Piety) which tend to require different types of resources to complete.  One lord receives bonus points for constructed buildings instead.

So does Lords of Waterdeep live up the hype?  For me, not really.  There’s nothing wrong with this game - everything about it is competently executed and works well.  I rarely turn down a game because it is fun and moves quickly (about 60 minutes with groups who know the rules).  But the game doesn’t offer anything unique or interesting.  Mechanically, it adds nothing new to the worker
placement genre - it’s a stripped down version of games like Agricola.  It doesn’t leave a lot of room for strategic maneuvering.  Your choices are fairly limited, often nearly dictated by the available
quests.  Players are at an advantage if they start with quests of the types that their lord gets bonus points for or if those quests are more frequently available.  And players with quest types that require rarer resources are at the mercy of the building stack.

A typical player setup

More, the game is thematically disappointing.  The “adventurers” recruited by your agents come in four types, Clerics, Warriors, Rogues and Wizards.  But these are represented just by different colors of cubes.  Quests require cubes of certain colors.  Every group I’ve played with has begun asking for “orange cubes” instead of “warriors” within the first round or two.  Even when I’ve tried to get people excited about reading the flavor text on their quests, it rarely lasts more than a turn.  The theme feels entirely “pasted on”; it could be totally different and you wouldn’t notice because it boils down so directly into getting cubes of certain colors to meet the requirements on quest cards.

I don’t want to be too harsh.  The game is executed well and has no glaring mechanical flaws.  The rulebook is clear and the production is fine (though I still wish for more exciting pieces).  It actually makes an excellent introduction to worker placement games, since it’s mechanically so simple.  I do bring it out with groups that aren’t ready for Agricola or don’t have time for a longer game.  There are a few other games in this space - Stone Age is my go-to for simple worker placement mechanics, but I could definitely see picking Waterdeep instead if the group liked the theme better.

Overall, this game is fun.  But it doesn’t bring anything new to the table, doesn’t seem to have a lot of strategic depth, and the theme fails to engage the groups I’ve played it with.  While Lords of Waterdeep doesn’t live up the hype surrounding it, it’s a fine game that would be worth picking up to fill the “simple worker placement” hole in your collection.
7/10

If Lords of Waterdeep looks interesting, you might also check out Kingdom of Solomon, Le Havre, and Discworld: Ankh Morpork. Or, for a second opinion, check out Play Board Games' Lords of Waterdeep Review.

I would like to thank Wizards of the Coast for providing a review copy of Lords of Waterdeep.

Dungeon Command Review

One of the prettiest games that I've had the opportunity to play recently is Dungeon Command.

Dungeon Command is a two-player skirmish game that uses Dungeons and Dragons minis.  Each player builds their army (or uses a faction pack) and attempts to reduce their opponent's morale to zero.  To start the game, each player takes a leader - which gives them a certain number of character cards and order cards in their hand; as well as a starting leadership value, morale, and a special ability.  Using your starting character cards, you will play forces - with a total value up to your leader's leadership value.  Now, you are ready to play.  Each turn, you can activate each of your units once.  This includes moving and attacking, playing an order, or activating an ability.  You can also play any number of "minor" orders on a minion each turn.  When attacking, damage is simply dealt to the targeted creature - there is no die rolling to determine success (and, if you destroy them, then their controller loses morale).  However, the defending character has the option of playing orders from his hand, or he can "cower."  If he chooses to cower, then he loses morale equal to the amount of damage that the minion would have taken (divided by ten - for example, 20 damage loses two morale).  Once you are done activating all of your characters, your leadership value goes up by one and you have the option of playing more forces - again, up to your (new) leadership value.  Play continues until either only one player has troops on the board, or until one player has run out of morale.  The last leader standing is the winner!

My first pro for Dungeon Command has absolutely nothing to do with Dungeon Command.  When Wizards made this game, they decided to make all of the characters valid to use in their Dungeons and Dragons adventure games (like Legend of Drizzt and Castle Ravenloft).  That is absolutely amazing!  Plus, my biggest complaint with the D&D adventure games was that it felt like you were playing the same game each time - there were only so many monsters, and you encountered them repeatedly.  Buying all of the different adventures helped a little bit, but not terribly much.  However, now with Dungeon Command, you have the ability to play those games with a lot of different monsters!  I applaud Wizards of the Coast for doing this - I think that it is a brilliant business model, and it also is something that is great for their customers.  I am also hoping that they decide to make all of the enemies in Drizzt and the other adventure games playable in Dungeon Command, but I haven't heard anything about that yet.

A formidable army

The second pro that I have for Dungeon Command is that I enjoy the combat system that doesn't include dice.  Honestly, I'm not opposed to dice, and the skirmish game that most reminds me of Dungeon Command (Summoner Wars) uses dice.  However, if you play games with me, you will realize something - I am horrible at rolling dice.  I'm inevitably the guy that needs to roll a 3 or higher on 15 dice to win the game, and I will roll straight 1's and 2's.  That may be a bit of an exaggeration, but I do occasionally get frustrated with dice.  Now, just because there are no dice in Dungeon Command doesn't mean that there's no randomness involved.  Between drawing the creature cards and the order cards, there will still be a random factor.  If you draw all low level characters to start the game, for example, then your attack strategy will have to be much different than if you had drawn all dragons and amazing wizards.  Either way, I think that the combat system is actually pretty intuitive because of the lack of dice.  It also helps you plan out your strategy more during your opponent's turn - you can see exactly how much damage you need to deal to a creature to kill it, and you can plan accordingly (and assume that your opponent will not cower - though them cowering can be very good for you).

Speaking of cowering, I think that it is another positive element to Dungeon Command.  I don't know that I've ever played a game where you can just flat-out ignore damage.  Granted, it hurts you considerably to do this, but it is still an option.  If I have a gigantic dragon that is about to unleash a massive attack on my opponent, but he gets attacked for just enough to kill him, I can choose to just take the damage as morale hits and then proceed with my attack.  Now, it is very important to choose wisely about when you want to do this, as you can end up losing far more morale by keeping a unit alive than by letting him die (and so, often isn't worth it with one of your wimpy little guys).  But, if that character is going to be dealing the deathblow to one of your opponent's better minions on the next turn, it might even be worth it to allow him to cower (after all, it's more fitting for little twerps to cower than for your Umber Hulk, but sometimes even the big guys have to live to fight another day).

The minis are definitely pretty

Now, with all of the things that I do like about Dungeon Command, the biggest negative is definitely the price.  A faction pack comes with 12 figures and 36 order cards for an MSRP of $40.  That's somewhat pricey, but not totally out of line for a miniatures game.  However, you really need to have two faction packs to play the "full" game - which means you already have an $80 investment in the game without any customization (yes, I realize that you can buy this on Amazon for a bit cheaper, and I even provided you the link above).  However, another neat element of the game is that you can customize your forces - putting extra copies of some orders and creatures in your deck, and removing others (and, in fact, I think that you'll probably get bored playing with just the basic factions).  But, to do this, you are going to be buying even more faction packs.  So, I think, to really play Dungeon Command and to get the most for your money, you're going to need friends that also enjoy the game enough that you are each providing your own figures.  For example, if I enjoy the Drow, then I may get two copies of the Sting of Lolth set, and expect my friend that I'm going to play against to buy a copy or two of the Heart of Cormyr faction pack.

Overall, I give Dungeon Command an 8.5/10.  If you enjoy the Dungeons and Dragons adventure games (and own them), then you should buy this game!  If you are just looking for a two-player skirmish game, then this is definitely one to consider; essentially, you just have to decide how much you're willing to pay for your skirmish game.

If you want a second opinion, check out Play Board Games' Dungeon Command Review. Or, if you want to read about games similar to Dungeon Command, then you should definitely check out Summoner Wars, Legend of Drizzt, and BattleLore.

I would like to thank Wizards of the Coast for providing me with a review copy of Dungeon Command.

Legend of Drizzt Review

One of my very first reviews (I believe it was actually my second overall review) was of Castle Ravenloft. I enjoyed the game, but felt like it had limited replayability. Now that Wizards of the Coast has made two more Dungeons & Dragons titles, I was willing to try again - this time with Legend of Drizzt.

In Legend of Drizzt (just like in Castle Ravenloft), you are playing Dungeons and Dragons as a board game. This means that the scenarios and monsters are preset, but it gives you the opportunity to play with all of your friends without any of them having to run the game as the GM. Each player takes on the role of a hero and the players collectively attempt to accomplish the goal of the scenario (beat the big dragon, recover the treasure - you know, something heroic). Each turn, the players are able to move twice, or move and attack (or attack and then move). After doing this, if they are adjacent to an unexplored edge of the board, they can reveal a new dungeon tile (and a monster). If they don't explore, then they have an encounter (which never ends well, especially if you are near volcanic vents). Finally, the active player must move all of the monsters that he controls. Play continues like this until one of the heroes has died or until the heroes have accomplished their mission.

The first thing that I like about Legend of Drizzt is the same thing that attracted me initially to Castle Ravenloft - I enjoy that I am able to take part in a nice role-playing adventure without all of the setup time. Compared to a normal campaign of Dungeons and Dragons, you can very quickly start (and play) a game of Drizzt.  And yet, though the game is brief compared to a normal campaign, the scenarios are very well done and I did not feel like the lack of a GM made the game any less enjoyable.

The next thing that I like about Drizzt is that you can customize your character, and that there are several characters to choose from - including some characters that are villains in some scenarios and heroes in others (I thought that this was a nice touch). There are significantly more heroes than players allowed in a game, which means that if you play the game repeatedly, you can use different characters each time. In addition, you are able to customize the attacks and "powers" that your character has each game, which allows you to even play the same character differently and tailor him to the scenario that you are playing.

A third pro that I think is interesting about Legend of Drizzt is how monster control works. On a player's turn, he controls all of the monsters that he has revealed on previous turns. However, so that you don't have to keep track of which instance of a given monster each player revealed, if there are several copies of a monster on the board (such as a Spider Swarm), the player controlling that monster will have to activate each copy of it on the board. So, if you are not paying attention to some of the smaller monsters, you must be careful that you don't allow too many copies of them out on the table, or else they will start activating very quickly! Whereas this is a fairly minor rule, I thought that it was a nice touch to the game.

The final pro that I will mention about Drizzt relates to the replayability issue that I had in Castle Ravenloft - I really like that they have added different kinds of scenarios. Now, instead of each scenario being strictly cooperative, some scenarios are team based, some are cooperative, and some are even competitive! The monsters that are encountered are still the same, but these different scenario types completely change the strategy with which you play the game - thus allowing the playing experience to stay a bit more fresh.

However, with that said, I still felt that the replayability of the game was a bit lacking. My biggest problem with Drizzt was that you are experiencing the same encounters and monsters every time through the game. Yes, there will be some games where you don't encounter one specific type of monster, but in essentially every game that we played, we ran into the same Feral Troll, Spider Swarm, and Hunting Drake. The scenarios are nice, and I do honestly like them, but the problem is that every scenario involves fighting through the same handful of monsters until you either die or get to whatever aspect of the scenario sets it apart from all of the others. Either way, 75% of the game deals with fighting the same grunts as in every other scenario.

The only other real con that I had for Drizzt was the opposite of the first pro that I mentioned. I really like that you can quickly pick up and play a short scenario of Dungeons and Dragons - but the cost in terms of gameplay is that your character will not really develop very much. None of the heroes are able to level up beyond level 2 (and often don't even get that far). This means that you won't have the satisfaction of the character truly becoming "yours." He will still feel like the out of the box character that he was at the beginning of the game.

Overall, I give Legend of Drizzt a 7.0/10. Adding the different kinds of scenarios helped address my largest problem with Ravenloft, and so it helped my score to go up a full point over what I gave to Castle Ravenloft! If you enjoyed the previous games in this series, then I fully believe that you will enjoy Drizzt as well. If you have been curious about the series, then I would recommend that you play them - they are definitely worth playing! I would simply recommend that (if possible) you play them a couple times before deciding whether you want to invest the money into purchasing your own copy.

For a second take, check out this Review of Legend of Drizzt on Play Board Games. And, if Legend of Drizzt sounds interesting, you might also want to check out Talisman Revised 4th Edition, Mage Wars, and Game of Thrones Living Card Game.

I would like to thank Wizards of the Coast for providing me with a review copy of Legend of Drizzt.

Castle Ravenloft Review

This review will be of Dungeons & Dragons: Castle Ravenloft Board Game (I ran out of catchy intro's). I thought this game looked pretty neat and I was excited when I got to play it a couple of times.

Castle Ravenloft is a dungeon crawler that uses the Dungeons & Dragons 4.0 rules and can be played with 1-5 players. The main difference is that the scenario is setup for you so that you don't need a Dungeon Master, and you also don't have to worry about keeping up with stat sheets, etc, as the game takes care of a lot of the paper & pencil part of D&D.

As with any role playing game, in Ravenloft you represent a hero that is trying to save the world, kill the evil bad guy, rescue a princess, get piles of treasure, etc. I don't know what all the scenarios are in Ravenloft as I only played a couple, but I know that there are several that can be played through. Specifically, you have to do all of these things before your character dies off and, true to form, this is the case with Castle Ravenloft. You lose by getting your character killed off (you have a few revives but once you're out, you're out).

When playing Ravenloft, I was very impressed. I thought that the dungeon crawling experience went well, and I enjoyed the cooperative nature of the game. There were traps that we encountered, monsters that we had to kill, and the game was very engaging and challenging. The game was so much fun that we immediately decided that we needed to play again using a different scenario. This leads to the biggest drawback for Castle Ravenloft...

Ravenloft really only needs to be played once. Once you have played the game, you should be happy and put the game back down and move on. Maybe play it again next year. It plays essentially the exact same way the 2nd time through because all of the monsters are the same until you get to whatever the final monster or challenge is (this part does vary based on scenario). In most cooperative games when the players are going up against the board there is an element of change each time through and so you feel like you are playing a different game (though similar). This is not the case in Ravenloft, and it feels more like deja vu than anything else.

With that all said, I have to give Ravenloft an overall score of 6.0/10. If I had played it once, it probably would have gotten in the 8.5-9.0 range, but when a game is only fun to play through once and has an MSRP of $60, it is hard for me to give it a great score. My recommendation to you is find a copy of it that you can try out and play it through - you'll probably like it, but then never play it again.