When Quest for the Dragonlords came out, it was certainly an innovative game, mixing a role-playing experience with a light war game. The pieces were high quality, the game was fun and enjoyable, and I wrote a high recommendation. The expansion, Crystal of Power, added a bit more strategy to the game, as well as some more races. Now, Quest for the DragonLords: the Advanced Game Expansion (Dragonlords, Inc., 2004 - Robert Johannessen) has been produced expanding the game to a new level. I had the opportunity to participate in the play testing of this game, and I saw how the rules were changed and molded from many playings of the game.
Instead of explaining the game in great detail, I’d thought I’d just go over specific parts of the game...
1.) Buildings: Some buildings’ tokens have been added to the game, that each player can pay five gold to build. There is a technology tree when it comes to building these buildings - each of which give the player a unique unit they can build. I liked the buildings and thought that they were a good idea. I did have two problems with them - the buildings had no words on them, making it confusing for beginners to know which building did what, and the flowchart wasn’t immediately obvious, so a lot of reference to the rulebook has to be made.
2.) Rules: The rulebook is fairly well written, as it should be; I saw it go through multiple revisions. But I was extremely disappointed with the quality. The first two rulebooks were really nice productions, while this one looks like it was photocopied. There’s nothing really wrong with it - all thirty-two pages are full of illustrations and examples, but it just doesn’t look or feel like quality. The rules for the expansion are fairly simple to teach, however, as long as the person has already played the basic game. I’m not sure that I would try to teach both at one time.
3.) Miniatures: Several new units have been added to the game, and many pewter miniatures have been included in the box. This has probably been my biggest disappointment with the expansion. I know that there are some who really like painting models and miniatures. There are dozens of pictures at BoardGameGeek that show people’s nice models from this game, War of the Ring, Doom, etc. But there are many people, myself included, who can’t paint or don’t want to paint. The game only includes a few of each type of model, using cardboard tokens for the rest. I would have preferred plastic tokens myself, although I know that miniature gamers like pewter. But I don’t believe that the game is really a miniature type game - so why the pewter? You HAVE to paint the pieces, really - there’s no way around it. Since the pewter pieces are from four different armies, how can you tell them apart on the board unless they are at least the same color as the rest of their army. War of the Ring models can be hard to tell apart, but at least you know which army they are in. I like Quest for the Dragonlords, but I don’t have the time or ability to paint the models, and this affects my enjoyment of the game quite a bit. And last but not least, some of the pewter models have to be glued together. I HATE gluing pewter models together with a passion.
4.) Battles: The biggest change in the Advanced version are the new units, and the way a battle occurs. For this, a battle board was added - not unlike the one in Axis and Allies. Now that more units have been added, the innovative combat system of Dragonlords is fully realized. Each army has different stats for their units - which are noted on the cardboard pieces. Some of the pieces are pretty nifty, like the cannons for the dwarves, or the elf knights. Sadly, new units were not added for the two races from the Crystal of Power expansion, but perhaps that will be added in an upcoming expansion. Extremely detailed battle examples are included in the rules, which is good, since that’s about 90% of the changes in the advanced version. Each unit needs a specific building to be built, not unlike most of your real time strategy games. I really enjoyed the new combat system and think that the amount of effort play testing this system out really shows.
5.) Other changes: Fortifications have been added, detailed descriptions on how to use scroll cards in combat, forced marches, and more are mentioned in the rulebook. All of these add a little to the game, but the biggest change is the combat system.
One does get their money’s worth when buying the expansion; it’s full of pewter models. And I’m sure that there are some people who this will thrill - there are many gamers who thrive on modeling and painting. But I’m not one of them, and combining that with the shoddy rulebook only causes me to feel neutral about this expansion. I like the new combat system; it adds a lot to the game. I enjoy the natural evolution of the game, and how the designer really listens to feedback. But if the game is going the way of miniatures - which it looks like it is, then it’s time for me step back and play games where the plastic figures need no prep-work to play. Some people are going to love this expansion, and some will be disappointed. If you liked Quest for the Dragonlords, the basic game, then you’ll probably like the new version. The deciding factor for many people will probably be the pewter miniatures.
Tom Vasel
“Real men play board games.”
