Game Name: Dragon Dice 2-player Starter

Note:
For this review I want to address the SFR 2-player starters as a game in itself. While I would much rather play a full game with 36 health (more on that later), 4-5 players, and tons of dice to choose from, I realize most players will experience the game only it's most basic form, that's why this is my take on the 2-player Starter.

Time: 20 min

Weight: 2.0 (3.0 full game)

Personal Rating: 7.0 (8.5 three-player game, two starters and three kickers) (10.0 full game)

Contents:
(For the total newbie, d10 refers to 10-sided die, d6=six sided die, etc). With the 2-player starter you get two races in a random assortment: 10 dice of each race with (1) d10 monster, (1) d6 rare, (3) d6 uncommon medium sized and (5) d6 commons. The rare, uncommon, and common units are distinguishable by size the rares are huge d6's while the commons are your typical Monopoly sized dice. In addition to the races you get, two d12 dragons of random color (one is almost always ivory), and four large d8 terrain dice of fixed color and random 8th face location (see picture below).



Various d6 sizes, you get 5 smaller, 3 medium, and 1 large



d10 monsters, you get 1



d12 dragons, you get 2



d8 terrain, you get 4 (1 of each color with random 8th face)





Rules:
The "Starter" Rules are actually more like the Advanced Rules. The booklet that comes with every 2-player starter is 146 pages describing every single die in the game from magical items in the Magestorm! expansion to the Promo King's Die from some convention in 1995 (actually almost every die is available directly from SFR http://www.dragondice.com or from the CEO Chuck Pint http://www.chuckpint.com/frame.html). This seems like a complete waste of paper to me but I guess it is nice that everyone has the same reference to live by.

The goal of the game is to annihilate your opponent OR capture 2 out of the 3 terrains by maneuvering them to the 8th face. I really like this part of the game because the paths to victory can be quite different. Maybe your army is melee heavy but your opponent is good at maneuvers, watch out because they can steal a terrain from you before you can pound them.

I'd recommend that someone starting out the game to download the Setup and turn sequence summary sheet and the summary sheet for the races you'll be playing. I created a bunch here http://www.boardgamegeek.com/browser.php?itemtype=file&gamei....

The Setup is really quick and almost non-existent compared with other overproduced games of the fantasy genre. There are 7 basic steps.
1. Determine force size. this is done for you in the 2-player starter the force will be 18-health points. You are given 1 monster = 4-health, 1 rare = 3-health, 3 uncommon = 3x2-health = 6-health, and 5 commons = 5-health, for a total of 4 + 3 + 6 + 5 = 18 health points. In the full game, you pick your own force from your full pool of dice. The main reason I weighted the 2-player game light medium and the full game medium is this step. Having the force determined for you causes the game to be a great deal lighter and luck based.
2. Assemble Armies. This step each player decides their starting position for their whole force creating three armies, one home, one horde (to attack the other guy's home base), and one campaign (to attack in the frontier).
3. Set the Battlefield. Here each player picks two of the fatty d8 terrain dice, one for the home and one for the "proposed" frontier. You want to match colors here with your race colors because of the way magic works and there are racial abilities for some races like doubling saves at highland terrain and such.
4. Determine order of play. Roll your horde army and the most maneuver results goes first OR picks the frontier terrain from the proposed.
5. Place Armies. Just the follow up to step 2.
6. Determine Starting Distances. Roll those d8 terrains to see where they start. 7's are turned down to 6 and 8's are re-rolled. The distances represent how close the armies are to capturing the terrain.
7. Play the game.



Turn Sequence takes the form of two marches and a reinforce/reserve phase. The first march you pick an army and decide whether you want to attempt a maneuver AND/OR an action at the terrain.

Attempting a maneuver is to move the terrain die up or down OR you may choose to leave it be. If you want to maneuver and your opponent is at that terrain AND wants to stop you, you roll off. If you succeed move it up or down, if not it stays as is. Many times if the die is low, like a 3, your opponent will just let it go because he's trying to capture it too. When it gets to 7 they're going to try to stop you and maneuver their next turn to capture.

Attempting an action is to make war on an opponent, the terrain die dictates what you can do, Magic, Missile, Melee, or if on the 8th face, you can choose. Magic actions are played out with the army rolling for magic points and then spending those points to buy spells of the color/element. The Missile action is where the army rolls for missile icons to attack the opposing army at the same terrain or at the adjacent terrain. If successful hits are rendered the opponent rolls for saves but doesn't battle back. Finally, Melee works just like Missile but the opponent after rolling for saves battles back in melee and you roll for saves.

The second march follows the same form as the first only you must choose a different army.

Then there's the reinforcement phase where you can bring out reserves to any terrain. And finally, the reserve phase to take units out of the battle to bring back in the next turn. This mechanic makes for a difficult decision. Do I pull out my units that can't get back into the battle until the end of my next turn? There are only a few exceptions where units can move directly from one terrain to another, otherwise you are forced to make the move to reserves then wait a full turn to get those reserves out to the terrain you want them at.

Turn sequence continues like that until one player is victorious by annihilation or capturing two 8th faces.

Game Play:
What I really like about the game play is the tactical decision making. Do I maneuver up when it's possible I could get wiped out at this terrain OR do I maneuver down to make it a longer road for my opponent and then withdraw to focus elsewhere? The first couple of plays it will feel like you're just rolling dice but as you come to the third and fourth game you will see that certain strategies are effective.

Tactical withdrawals from a terrain where you summon a dragon or massing an army at one terrain and casting a "transmute rock to mud" spell on your opponent while casting a "path" spell to send one your units in for the capturing of the 8th face can be exciting events indeed.

Sure there's the luck of the die rolls, but it's not like one unit can take down an army of ten. The most damage a common unit could do is two hits and that's if the opponent didn't roll any saves. Also, the ID face is a wild and counts for whatever roll you are attempting, so there's never a situation where a unit cannot get the desired result.

Magic is somewhat muted in the 2-player starter. It's difficult to bring in a dragon unless you mass a big army. This is another reason it's a shorter lighter game. Magic takes up the most amount of time. I read on the Dragon Dice forums that a non-magic game takes about 1/4th of the time on a full game.

Drawbacks:
Not much to complain about. People that don't like dice are probably not going to like this game even with the mitigating influence of the ID and the action mechanics that disallow Risk like situations where an army of two can defeat an army of ten.

The terrain capturing is fairly abstract and you really have to stretch your imagination to see the armies getting closer and closer to capturing the terrain. It's not a map based conflict following the pieces around as you see the narrative unfold as in a game like Battlelore or a Lord of the Rings game. The bonus trade-off here is that there's no setup time.

For the 2-player starter, the draw back and the beauty is you're stuck with what you got. One force may be stuck without good magic units and other has a strong advantage or one force could be super powerful in melee. But, the beauty of the 2-player starter is that it's a light game and you could play both sides in a two game cycle and track the most total kills for a tiebreaker. Also, if you know the armies strengths and weaknesses you can do things that cater to their strengths, for example a strong maneuver and save force that's weak in melee can attempt maneuvers and pass on melee actions.

The collectable nature is also a big hurdle, especially with the BGG crowd. If you can come to terms with the fact that you're buying a single starter for the purposes of having a light dice filler, the price can't be beat at around $15 bucks. For a decent full game of 2 starters and 3 kickers you can still do it for under $40. When you get the bug and really want to go all out and make this game your hobby you're still better off than with Magic or Heroclix. Dragon Dice only has 458 different dice (compared to thousands with the other two) and even the promo dice can be picked up for around $4 bucks. If you steer clear of the Scalders and Frostwings, all the other dice can be found pretty cheaply. You can get the entire set of Firewalkers 10 of each common, 5 of each uncommon, 2 of each rare, and 1 of each monster for $35 at Chuck Pint's website. http://www.chuckpint.com/frame.html Believe me that's one HUGE sack of dice. Try that with most collectible games out there.

Also note, that championships have been won on all commons. And, I don't think an army with ultra-rares has a real advantage.

Conclusion:
Dragon Dice delivers both a decent light filler and deep strategy game. The 2-player starter is a great entry point for someone looking for a elegant dice filler and for the hobbist/collector looking for a satisfying game with both aesthetic and game play value.