Castle Ravenloft (Boardgame)

Where the big figurine isn't the boss.

After completing the Legend of Drizzt, my group have finally reached the game that started this D&D board game system with modular, interlocking dungeon tiles to begin with: Castle Ravenloft. The components are good, but given this is the first in the series the dungeon tiles have less mechanism to them than the future games. Not that I mind, since it is a vampire's castle after all.

Well, that *almost* happened.

What this game does well is in the theme. Strahd personally showing up regularly to mess with the players via non combat cameo encounter cards throughout the campaign is awesome because by the time you get to actually fighting him you really, really hate the guy.

By then he's probably randomly bitten one of you, tossed a fireball or two from the shadows, teleported you into a room of monsters, or forced one of you to attack another. Comparatively, the future games main bosses are quite "absent".

Because of that investment in making Strahd present the whole time, and because it's an awesome game - I give it five wooden stakes out of five!

Score after re-review: Four wooden stakes out of five.

Today I Smiled: Neverwinter Birthday!

The Fourth Protector's Jubilee, which is the annual in-game celebration of Neverwinter Online's birthday, has come and gone - leaving those who attended and participated in the optional events with a lot of free goodies. While I missed out on the last one, I still recall there was speculation if it would ever reach year IV. I'm happy to report that the game is going stronger than ever!

It wasn't only Neverwinter's birthday recently, but also mine, which meant I got even more free stuff in game courtesy of my brother, Dragonlord, who gifted me with a Celeste and lesser bonding runes among other things, and a random stranger named EdwinaVC of the Blackcloaks (alliance) who gave me a Hell Emblazon Worg mount! Thank you very much!

As a PSA for those who play NWO: get the Wanderer's Fortune mount boon if you don't have it already. It's a fantastic source of refinement points, so much so that bag space is again an issue for me.

Wish I could put these thrones as static statues.

While on the topic of Dungeons and Dragons I'm also happy to report that my group has finished the Legend of Drizzt boardgame, and have now moved on to Castle Ravenloft to face the ever present Strahd. It's pretty cool so far - I'll have a review up on that after we play it a bit more. Nice to know the next module, the Tomb of Annihilation, has a board game slated for simultaneous release.

More blog posts coming up shortly, here are some interesting clips for you to watch: a very impressive coin magician and a kid who solves the Rubix cube in his head. Might look like he's doing nothing, but just wait till that blind fold goes on. What's worse - this is a tournament - so there must be others doing the same thing. :O

Have a great day everyone!

The Legend of Drizzt (Boardgame)

Because the Underdark is... dark and full of terrors?

After completing Temple of Elemental Evil and Wrath of Ashardalon (in that order), my game group has moved on to the next of the D&D adventure system games - the Legend of Drizzt (which I'll abbreviate to LoD from here on out). I know we're sort of going backwards(?) but the general consensus is that the miniatures are getting better - which is interesting.

LoD uses the same tile and monster mechanics as the others, but now comes with twisting cavernous zones, some of which are -really- tight, and "dead end" tiles which I'm guessing are quite frequent in the Underdark: the main location of this campaign.

The tiles are more claustrophobic!

There are some strong bad guys here too but nowhere near as strong as the numerous player characters on offer - which is partly why we're still sticking with our initial Temple group. :)

There are a few variations of quests to the seek and destroy or seek and escape which is nice, but the inclusion of competitive adventures (player vs player) actually lessens the value for me. Also, since the campaign tries to follow Drizzt's adventures there are many gaps in the story where he isn't in the Underdark. For those reasons, this one only gets 4 driders out of 5. 

Score after re-review: 3 driders out of 5.