Dungeon Command: Curse of Undeath Review and Some Strategy

Curse of Undeath is yet another installment in the wonderful miniature-skirmish-card game from Wizards of the Coast. Readers of my blog know that I have a lot of love for this game, and it comes as no surprise that I’m doing a review for this. I’d like to change things up a bit though and not just review the product but also talk about some strategy and share some of the experience that I’ve accumulated whilst playing Dungeon Command. November has been a crazy month with various tournaments and conventions so I barely had time to sit down and play with this new box, but what I’ve seen so far pleases me.

All of the boxes we’ve seen have been thematic and I expect this trend to continue. The theme extends into the art, card mechanics and inbuilt strategy all the way to what’s depicted on the tiles. The set oozes undeath and that’s how it should be. One of my friends pointed out earlier on when the game was just released that the ‘undead one’ will definitely feature some sort of a re-animation mechanic and he was spot on – zombies can come back from the figuratively dead. Although if I were honest, I was really wishing for an order card that would let you resurrect any miniature. This sort of card would be very powerful but there can always be drawbacks.

The miniatures are, as usual, lovely. I think in terms of sculpt quality, cool factor and paint job, these are easily the best out of the four sets. The skeletons come carrying axes but otherwise look exactly like the ones from Lords of Madness, which I think is a really cool touch. It’s a model that everyone liked but they’ve added a little variety to it and now your DnD game can feature an army of skeletons with different weapons. And to spruce up that army you also get another skeleton – with four arms and four swords and also a skeletal lancer on a horse. The other minies round out the undead theme with zombies, vampires, spirits and necromancers. Oh and let’s not forget the Dracolich.

The set focuses on Constitution as the main attribute. The undead are hardy and tough to kill – just as they should be. Every monster is iconically represented in the rules – a vampire will sap life, a zombie will come back from the dead, and a spirit will phase through walls. There is enough variety in the box to bring out various strategies and plenty of ideas for unique custom warbands.

Speaking of which, I’d like to talk some strategy. Many have drawn similarities to this game with Magic: the Gathering and I have to agree. Just looking at making custom warbands makes you realise that you probably have to quickly abandon the idea of a ragtag army of various miniatures and if you really want to play this game competitively – invest in some multiples. Whether it’s buying a second (or third, or fourth) box, or just getting singles from eBay, the fact of the matter is – it has to be done. One box is just not enough. Of course, if you’re not planning to play competitively and just want to play this game with some friends on your kitchen table – that’s fine. One box is probably all you need.

I’ve been toying with the idea of some custom warbands and now that Curse of Undeath is out this is what I’ve settled on for my current army. Since I haven’t had a chance to really play this competitively, it’s hard to know what the meta-game is like. Speaking of which, if anyone fancies playing in a Dungeon Command tournament within a reasonable distance of London, let me know and I’d be happy to organize one if there are enough people wanting to play. But I digress – back to strategy. As I’ve said, it’s tough to penetrate the meta-game without first hand experience, but I’ve decided to settle on a CON and STR based warband. Morale is what keeps you alive and removing your opponent’s morale is what wins you games. My warband focuses on those two aspects solely – hitting hard and staying alive. Here’s the list:

Creatures:

• 4 x Dwarven Defender
• 4 x Feral Troll
• 4 x Dragon Knight
• 2 x Vampire Stalker
• 2 x Skeletal Tomb Guardian

Order Cards:

• 4 x Level Up
• 4 x Defensive Advantage
• 4 x Unbreakable
• 2 x Mortal Wound
• 4 x Undaunted Surge
• 3 x Feral Vitality
• 4 x Killing Strike
• 3x Invigorating Smash
• 2x Daring Attack

Commander:

• Rhynseera the Alarphon

This warband is all about the Feral Troll. His regenerative ability plus an insane amount of hitpoints make this guy a powerhouse to be feared and respected. He is also level 5 STR and CON, which means that he can land Killing Strike after Killing Strike for those 100 points of damage all day long. You want to play Level Up on him as soon as possible and surround him with Dwarven Defenders. Don’t underestimate these guys. Whilst Dragon Knight is the only card that innately benefits from their Shield Block ability, there are four Level Ups in the order deck to make anyone an adventurer. I was toying with the idea of swapping the Defenders with Clerics, but clerics can only heal once per turn. Our army size is always going to be small and we are likely to have multiple hits on one target during the same round. The Defenders just shrug more damage.

The Dragon Knight is a good replacement for when you can’t find a Feral Troll. He doesn’t have regen but he hits just a bit harder and is also level 5 STR and CON, meaning he can play any card in our order deck. The rest of the cast are support actors. The Vampire Stalker is a hardy guy who can deal some decent damage and the Skeletal Tomb Guardian is a wonderful response to being swarmed by a lot of guys.

Some cards in the deck are really self explanatory. I went with a three-of of Feral Vitality and Invigorating Smash to counterbalance bad draws. Whilst Invigorating Smash is easily better, only 8 of our 16 creatures can play the card. Feral Vitality is only inaccessible to the Dwarven Defenders. Mortal Wound is a great trick paired with Undaunted Surge. Talking of Undaunted Surge, this is one tricky card. On the one hand, you’ll want to hold on to it, to play it at an appropriate time to maximize on the effect. However, with creatures staying alive for so long, it makes sense to play it early and stack up on those damage bonuses, especially if you can untap your guys with Daring Attack.

The only thing I’m not entirely sure about in the warband is the commander itself. Her ability to cycle through the order deck is very important because you want to find that Level Up as soon as possible. However, the very small creature hand leaves something to be desired. I’m not sure how the warband plays out with another commander but I’ve been lucky with Rhynseera so far. Your ideal starting hand is a single Dwarven Defender and a Dragon Knight or Feral Troll. Play both of them on turn one and let them hang out or collect some treasure. Your enemies won’t be able to reach you just yet. Pair them up and play defensively. You might lose out on some early treasure using this strategy but don’t let it bother you too much. Build up your leadership and then dish out the pain.

Dungeon Command: Tyranny of Goblins review

One of the most exciting gaming products this year got it’s first expansion, and with this review I want to have a look at how the gameplay changes for this faction. If you’re unfamiliar with Dungeon Command, I highly recommend you read my review, or better yet, just go and buy a copy and at the same time convince a buddy to do so as well. Like any miniature game, you need a partner who also owns a warband. You can play a game by just using one box, but it’s hardly fulfilling – it’s a lot more exciting when you have a box each and play the full-on battle.

As with any expandable game, there are different levels of immersion. You can limit your warband (and your opponent’s warband) to a single box, but as you play the game more, you’ll want to expand your army and it’s capabilities. The Tyranny of Goblins faction pack is a great way to add new miniatures to your batallion and introduce some new strategies to your order deck. The great thing about Dungeon Command is it’s unique ability to blend elements from miniature skirmish games and collectible card games without seeming like it strays too much into the territory of one or the other.

But before we get to the gameplay itself, let’s not forget that terrain is a very important part of any skirmish game, and we get four new tiles in the set with some very interesting features. The tiles have great ways to create defensive forts, whilst sneakily unleashing your reinforcements with cards like Into the Fray. The great thing about the tiles is that when you own more than one faction pack, you can mix and match them to create whatever terrain suits your warband.

All these obstacles are there for a reason. Goblins are sneaky, and if you command and army of them, you have to be sneaky too. With very few hitpoints, they might seem like a pushover army at first, and hopefully that’s what your opponent is thinking when you play an order card that changes everything. He or she might be wiser next time, but there are enough tricks to keep your opponent always second-guessing themselves. For example, playing against the Cormyrians I’ve drawn in my opponent’s army close to my starting area and have left quite a few of his soldiers damaged. Because of my commander, I was able to deploy creatures at the start of my turn, and decided to introduce the bugbear into the battlefield who untaps every time a creature dies next to it. So as long as I could keep killing things on the bugbear’s activation, I could untap him and attack again. This way I took down two enemy miniatures with the bugbear, damaged a third one and finished it off with a different unit.

And yes, the goblins ARE cannon fodder. After they’ve done the damage, they are very likely to die. But that’s OK, as you’ve got bigger things coming from the reserves. Your hobgoblin soldiers are only Level 3 but have a whopping 70 hitpoints and can withstand copious amounts of punishment. It takes forever to take them down, and in the meantime you can wilt away the opposition. You’ve still got the best part of your army in the reserves, that being the Troll and the Horned Devil. Your opponent will have to put everything he’s got to take one of them down, and even then it might not be enough. To be fair, in my first game I never even got to play those two as I’ve managed to strike a final blow to my adversary’s morale without having to deploy them. Having said that, if I did need to deploy them I had a potent combination of order cards in my hand to make sure they stayed alive. Mortal Wound is an instant attachment that prevents all damage but kills your unit during the deployment phase, meaning they have one more activation left in them. However, Rally removes all attachments from a friendly unit, so my big guy stays alive and wreaks havoc to puny humans.

The game still features extra cards that let you use your new minis in the Adventure System boardgames, especially Wrath of Ashardalon where these critters might find a new thematic home. The quality of the things inside the box is the same as the previous sets. The paint-job is OK, but as with all pre-painted minis you might want to do some adjustments of your own. The Horned Devil is definitely an exception to that – I wouldn’t want to change anything about him as he looks awesome straight out of the box. The cards are still made out of the same cardstock but that is to be expected. Don’t be fooled by the aesthetics though – this game is all about the gameplay, which at the moment is unique and unrivaled. And I’ve seen singles sales surfacing on ebay which can only mean that there is demand and the game is doing well.

All in all, I would recommend this faction pack to anyone who enjoys playing sneaky tricks and big brutes – it’s tremendous fun and I can’t wait to play it again. And don’t forget, the fourth faction pack – Curse of Undeath – comes out in November introducing even more variety to the game, followed by the fifth one, Blood of Gruumsh in February next year.

Dungeon Command: Tyranny of Goblins Unboxing

I got an early preview copy of Dungeon Command: Tyranny of Goblins, and just like with the previous sets, I hastily decided to make an unboxing video. I say hastily, because the major release is tomorrow, and I really wanted to finally get a proper preview out. I hope I’ll get to play with the set today and can tell you all about it in a follow-up review that is due to be out over the weekend.

I thought I’d add a few pictures of the miniatures as well, although one of them came out slightly blurry, my apologies.

Dungeon Command – The Review

So after this weekend I am happy to say that I’ve played Dungeon Command A LOT, mostly due to the DnD Game Day. I was running demos at my local store and I’ve managed to squeeze in two ten minute breaks, otherwise there were always people wanting to play the game. I am glad it’s getting so much attention because the more attention it receives, the better it will be. This is because the game is built to be very expandable and has a lot of scope, and if more people end up playing it, the game will stay alive for longer, and Wizards of the Coast will publish more and more faction boxes, which is a win-win for everyone.

Do I need to mention the contents? I mean, there’s so much buzz about Dungeon Command – I feel like someone else has already done that job for me. But for the sake of this being a proper review, here goes. Each faction pack contains:

• 12 plastic hand painted miniatures.
• 36 order cards
• 12 creature cards
• 2 large and 2 small cardboard tiles
• various tokens
• alternate monster cards for the adventure system board game.

RRP is £31.99

What I’ll try and do is talk about each ingredient separately and then discuss them as a whole. Naturally the minis come first. They are the meat of this game and they’re pretty good. Most of the minis are reprints with alternate paint, which is a fact I really like. Even if I owned that particular mini before, I now have a different colour version, which lets me do interesting things when using them for DnD. I could use my three drow assassins with their usual purple cloak as troops and the new one from Dungeon Command as the leader. The minis that stand out have to be the Drider, Bronze Dragon and the Umber Hulk, with the latter being my favorite of them all. Every so often I like to throw a big scary iconic monster at my players and the Hulk is just that.

The tiles have great artwork on them, but they’re not something I intend to reuse outside of Dungeon Command. Their interlocking nature means I can’t use them with other Dungeon Tiles. But I think I’d still like them to be interlocking because it provides stability when playing the game. I’ve also noticed that when they do interlock, they still seem to be a bit loose, but I don’t have too much of a problem with that. The sheet with tokens provides the necessities to play the game. The tokens are sturdy and well made.

The cards. Now here I am stumped. The order and creature cards are easily one of the best and worst parts of the game. The numerous order cards make the game a lot more interesting and provide a host of different strategies and ways to play it. The artwork on each card is excellent, and whilst it is sometimes reused from previous DnD products, most of it is new and evocative. The card quality itself is poor however. In the four boxes that I’ve opened the cards have already been bent out of shape, and for people who want to avoid scuffs – I recommend sleeving them instantly. I don’t know if this is simply something that was out of WotC’s hands or if it was a deliberate decision, but it seems especially odd, because the game is customizable, and all the cards can be interchanged to form unique order or creature decks. Meaning that all future sets will have to be printed using the exact same material and printing process. Can I live with this? Yes, but if the game catches on big time (which I hope it does) I think WotC will regret this decision.

One of the big selling points of the game was that the minis can be used in the adventure system board games. The Heart of Cormyr set has a much more innovative way of utilizing the minis. Instead of making them all monsters, it adds a new encounter card that lets a player draw from an ally deck. The cards in the ally deck correspond to the miniatures from the set and the mini you draw becomes a helping hand in defeating whatever monsters hunt you. I can’t wait to try this mechanic!

Ok, so it’s time to discuss the game overall. Some of the regular readers of my blog will know that I’ve done a preview of the playtest rules earlier this year, and the game, whilst staying similar at it’s core, has changed significantly, adding layers of depth and complexity to an already exciting mechanic. The first addition I’ve noticed is the existence of  commanders. This lets you customize the game more by adding an overall theme to your warband. I’ve also been very excited to find out that the game offers so many options in customization. You can shape and mold your warbands and order decks however you want. You can play with three players, four players, two two-player teams, it really doesn’t matter. Talking of order decks – here the game starts to feel like someone took DnD and Magic: the Gathering and squished them both together – in a good way. It takes what works from both games and blends it together to create an interesting ruleset. These decks provide cards that work similar to instants, sorceries and enchantments from M:tG. However, most require you to tap your creature to be played. A big change from the playset is that you untap your guys before and after your turn, effectively being able to do something on your turn and outside of your turn. The objective of the game is to reduce your opponent’s morale to zero. But no matter how low or high your morale is, you always have some minis to choose from to introduce into the battlefield because the creatures you control are based on your leadership score. This creates a game that avoids the ‘runaway winner’ problem. In fact, the first game I played against my wife she was struggling through most of it only to cleverly snatch victory out of my hands at the end of the game by playing a well timed Dragon Knight and striking my Umber Hulk with an order card that dealt a 100 damage (that’s the most damage I’ve seen in the game). It taught me to save my best troops and order cards till the endgame. Knowing when to play the right mini becomes an important strategy.

Overall I have to say I am very impressed with the game. And because every warband and order deck are completely customizable, more sets will mean more options. At the moment, a goblin set is scheduled for a September release and an undead set (featuring a dracolich!) is due out in November. If this keeps up we should have a new set every two months. I really hope this game picks up big time, because the game will simply become better with more content. I also feel like they’ve created a game where there’s a market for booster packs with order cards and alternate creature cards. And whilst some people shy away from anything that has the word ‘booster’ in it, I feel like it would be a welcome addition.

Dungeon Command Sting of Lolth and Heart of Cormyr unboxing

And now, after all the sillyness, let’s get serious and do a real unboxing video. Big thanks to Wizards of the Coast for sending me these lovely preview copies! I’ve already tested the game out and will run demos all day long tomorrow at Chaos City Comics, after which, I should be able to produce a good review.

Dungeon Command: Sting of Lolth Reboxing

A few weeks ago I went to Leisure Games to play some Eclipse, and @agameofseans suggested that board games should have reboxing videos instead of unboxing. Well, I took him up on that.

DnD Skirmishes (soon to be Dungeon Command)

So here’s the dealio. A few days ago WotC Europe have promised me a preview copy of Dungeon Command: Sting of Lolth. After I have picked up my jaw from the floor and rolled my tongue back into my mouth, I decided to check out the playtest rules that were made available last year, September, on the WotC community site (here’s a handy link – you need to have an account with Wizards and sign up for the playtesting group to download the rules). Even this early version feels like a solid product that is close to being finished.

Now, I used to be a fan of the old DnD miniatures game. But I know someone who’s a far bigger fan, and that would be my wife Elaine (hey gorgeous). Naturally, I decided she would be the perfect person to help me assess this. I wanted to familiarize myself with it before I got the final finished product, so this post mostly relates to the playtest rules.

The Rulebook. The actual rules take only four A4 pages of text. The rest of the printout consists of tiles and cards. There are two types of cards in the game, actions and creatures, and they both form their respective decks. Compared to the previous ruleset, it feels ‘lite’. That is not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, Elaine’s final verdict was that she liked the new rules better than the old ones so there you go.  But lets get down to the nitty and gritty. Dice rolls have been altogether eliminated and have been replaced with, what I like to call, the tapping economy, present in many contemporary card games, like the Lord of the Rings and A Game of Thrones LCGs. Basically, every miniature you control (or the card representing it) can be tapped once per turn, but you can tap it to do multiple things. You can issue a simple melee or ranged attack, use a special power on a card or maybe even leave him or her to defend and perform an interrupt or what is effectively an opportunity attack. A lot of strategies revolve around choosing to tap the mini at the right time, and to do the right thing. The movement rules are very similar to DnD 4E, but simplified, with shifting and sliding being present. There is also a glossary that is the same size as the rules themselves, detailing all the special terms and their functions.

I think my favorite part about the new rules is the gold mechanic. Essentially, gold allows you to purchase new units, but it also tracks how well you are doing. Every time you begin a turn, or one of your units die, you move gold from your Vault to your Supply. Running out of gold in your Vault signifies the end of the game approaching, and the players get VPs for every gold left over. You can also get VPs for forcing your opponents to move gold from their Vault when they no longer have any. The reason I think this idea is good is because it eliminates the ‘runaway winner’ problem. By that I mean, it is no longer possible for a player to do really well at the start and then dominate the rest of the game, since if someone loses a unit, they can use the gold they received to buy a new unit. They are still at a slight disadvantage because they run the risk of running out of gold in their vault.

The Gameplay. The actual game was very quick. It took me about 10 minutes to explain the rules to Elaine, and then another 30 minutes to actually play the game. Elaine was playing the drow faction, and I was piloting the Cormyrians. I seemed to have had the early advantage. The drow have no ranged attacks, and my elven archers were just what was needed to halt their advance.  That all changed when Elaine deployed the Drider. Not only did it ignore moving restrictions, but paired with a close area of effect attack and high speed it managed to take out three of my units in one fell swoop. I thought all was lost, but then realized that on my next turn I could deploy the gold dragon. With a whopping sixty five hitpoints, and 20 damage, I was sure to cause some serious trouble. In the end we both had serious losses and were almost out of gold. And then the last turn came and we realized that at the end of it, we would both end up with the same amount of VPs, and there was nothing to be done. The playtest rules didn’t account for what to do in the situation of a draw, but we were happy with the outcome. If nothing else, at least you can’t fault the game for not being balanced.

Overall. I can’t wait for the final version. Now that I’ve played the game, I can honestly say I really enjoyed it, it felt like the game had so much scope for re-playability and expansion. I can see myself reusing old DnD minis maps, or crafting my own new ones out of dungeon tiles. The final version will probably be slightly different from the playtest, for example, I have noticed that action cards are now called orders. The more I find out about this game the more excited I am. Oh, and almost forgot to mention this. As an added bonus, the game will feature stat cards for the adventure system games, so all these new minis can be used in Castle Ravenloft, Wrath of Ashardalon and Legend of Drizz’t!

Note: I should probably mention that the minis I have used for the game probably won’t be the same minis that come with Dungeon Command – they simply seemed appropriate to represent the units in the game.

Note 2: If you live in England and within close proximity of St. Albans, just give me a shout and we can test out the game in my FLGS.