Game: Schlacht der Dinosaurier, die

Thread: Re: Die Schlacht der Dinosaurier

reapersaurus — 2007-05-10T21:08:38+00:00

Just to add my example:

I picked this game up years ago from Germany EBay.
The seller spoke good enough English, and went to great lengths to find a way to get it to me in the States, for a very reasonable price!
I wasn't in a hurry, and saw the package arrive at my doorstep one day, in great condition.

I think contacting/knowing someone in Germany would be one of the few ways to get this, otherwise.

Thread: Re: Die Schlacht der Dinosaurier

SouthernMan — 2007-03-22T09:53:46+00:00

Excellent looking game ... just a pity I can't paint. Now my lad has hit the ripe old age of eight I think it's time the game came out with the proper rules so I can STOMP him

Thread: Re: Die Schlacht der Dinosaurier

Roosterfish — 2007-03-19T19:57:57+00:00

I've known Richard Borg for many years and he gave me a copy.
He does things like that, he is one of the nicest guys I've ever met.
Although he wouldn't give me any games he designed, something about wanting to make a profit or something.... kind of narrow minded if you ask me.

Thread: Re: Die Schlacht der Dinosaurier

Zopper-Alf — 2007-03-19T19:18:54+00:00

Maybe by trading *hint*,*hint*

Thread: Re: Die Schlacht der Dinosaurier

P_J_Keller — 2007-03-19T18:55:26+00:00

Where did you get a copy of this game?

Thread: Re: Die Schlacht der Dinosaurier

Roosterfish — 2007-03-19T18:54:04+00:00

WOW, thank you MWChapel.

Thread: Re: Die Schlacht der Dinosaurier

MWChapel — 2007-03-19T18:49:48+00:00

http://files.boardgamegeek.com/viewfile.php3?fileid=1162

Thread: Die Schlacht der Dinosaurier

Roosterfish — 2007-03-19T18:48:50+00:00

I hope this is in the correct catagory.
This has probably been brought up before but I was able to pick up Die Schlacht der Dinosaurier but the rules are in German.
is there a website that translates them to English?
or if someone has helped someone before with this issue could help out I would appreciate it.
my wife wants to play this but other than trying to use an on-line German to English translation guide and guess the context I am at a loss.
thanks for any help provided.

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Zopper-Alf — 2006-09-16T19:52:10+00:00

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Zopper-Alf — 2006-09-16T19:28:00+00:00

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Zopper-Alf — 2006-09-16T19:27:22+00:00

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Zopper-Alf — 2006-09-16T19:24:17+00:00

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Zopper-Alf — 2006-09-16T19:24:07+00:00

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Zopper-Alf — 2006-09-16T18:56:16+00:00

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Zopper-Alf — 2006-09-15T22:24:40+00:00

the components

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Zopper-Alf — 2006-09-15T22:24:27+00:00

Better shot of the front cover graphic

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Zopper-Alf — 2006-09-15T22:09:32+00:00

Better shot of the back box art

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SusanRoz — 2004-06-29T23:47:44+00:00

Look out! It's a T-rex!

Thread: Re:User Review

reapersaurus — 2003-05-09T00:28:31+00:00

Eggo (#4579),
I'd be interested in the alternate movement/combat rules, as well.

Thread: Re:User Review

Cyberchrist — 2003-02-23T23:57:31+00:00

Eggo wrote:
Die Schlacht der Dinosaurier

It would be easy to add a little chrome to this one - we immediately came up with variant combat and movement rules. As it is the game is a little on the light side, but an entertaining enough filler for grown-up kids. If you see this on sale, you might want to try it out!

Moritz Eggert

Im curious to know what rules you implemented.
Please post them here!

Thanks for your good article!

Thread: Session Report

Dan Bosley — 2003-01-30T13:46:42+00:00

To end up the night, we 4 remaining players (Corwin, Rick, Tim and I) finished up with Die Schlacht der Dinosaurier.

This was a recent E-bay acquisition of mine. I knew ahead of time it was a huge luckfest, and I warned everyone not to expect heavy-duty brain-bursting activity. This was going to be a mindless winding-down-at-the-end-of-the-night-game. And going into the game with that knowledge, the game was a lot of fun. It has about the same skill-level as Clash of the Gladiators. Which isn’t much.

But the BEST thing about this game is the BITS. The game comes with HUGE plastic dinosaurs. One of them is the Platosaurus, at a good 4 inches long and 2 inches high, with FOUR plastic men riding him. Then there is the general, standing in a chariot being pulled by a couple of velociraptors. And that’s a good 3 inches long. Then there’s a couple of big tyrannosaurus rexes. And some Triceratops. And Stegosauruses. And Pteranondons. And Velociraptors. And every single dinosaur has one or more men riding it.

When I first handed out the plastic bags containing each player’s dinosaur army, the other 3 all turned into 5-year olds, with ooohs and aaaahs and cooooolllllls. ( I had already been through that when I first opened up the box when I got the game, so I didn’t have to go through it again!)
I must admit though, that the bits are GREAT.

The gameboard is a huge affair with big squares marked off on it. And there is a plastic volcano in the middle of the board, with some lava balls in it.

Each player starts by placing his entire dinosaur army into 12 squares of the 15 squares in one of the corners of the board. And each player is dealt 6 cards.

A player consists of:
A) playing 3 cards (no more, no less)
B) moving or fighting dinosaurs, as the card allow
C) replenishing his hand back to 6 cards.

There are 4 types of cards:
Dinosaur cards, Joker cards, Lava cards, and Extinction cards.

A dinosaur card shows a specific dinosaur pictured on it, with a number. When you play that card, you EITHER move that dinosaur (or any combination of more than one of the same type of dinosaur) the number of spaces on the card, OR you may fight an adjacent dinosaur.

A dinosaur can never move and fight on the same card. You need to first use one card to move it (or them), and then a 2nd card to fight. And the cards must both be the right dinosaur.

Battling other dinosaurs is where the luckfest comes in. The attacker rolls 1 to 4 dice (the type of dinosaur you are fighting with determines how many dice: the big Platosaurus gets to roll 4 dice, the Tyrannosaurus 3 dice, the Velociraptor 1 die, etc.) AND adds the number on the card to his total. The defender then gets to simply roll the dice he is entitled to (he doesn’t get to add a card). Whoever has the higher total wins, and the other dinosaur is eliminated. If it’s a tie, then nothing happens. The dice aren’t your usual 1,2,3,4,5,6 dice. These ones are Zero, 1, 2, 5, 10, 15 dice. So it’s THEORETICALLY possible that a single Velociraptor rolling one die can roll a 15 and a Platosaurus rolling 4 dice can roll less than 15. So in theory, any given dinosaur can beat any other dinosaur. But if you get a bad roll, there’s an extra chance to save your more powerful dinosaur. That extra chance means, in the long run, stronger dinosaurs will usually beat weaker dinosaurs.

And what is that extra chance? Each player has 3 lava balls to start with. Once per battle, if you get a crummy roll, you may drop a lava ball into the volcano in the middle of the board, and you can reroll. But then you’re stuck with that roll. Hopefully, it’s better than the previous roll you made.

And what happens to the lava balls? The volcano you drop the balls into has a plastic “split” in it (sort of like a VERY simplified version of the Wallenstein tower) - if the lava ball bounces one way, it goes into the lava pool. If it bounces the other way, it goes into the bowels of the volcano, never to be seen again.

If you play a LAVA card, you get to take the 1st lava ball out of the lava pool. And each player in turn then also gets to take one. So you hope there’s only 1 lava ball there, so only you get one. Or else that there’s 5 balls, so you get 2 and everyone else only gets one.

The Joker cards allow you to move any dinosaur that many spaces (or fight an adjacent enemy dinosaur, adding that number to your dice roll).

And the Extinction cards require each player to roll a die for each dinosaur he has of the type pictured on the Extinction card. Rolling a ZERO means that that dinosaur dies, and it is removed from the game.

There are a few other minor rules. The only other notable one is that if your general is lost, then you are limited to playing only 2 cards per turn, rather than the usual 3 cards. The game ends as soon as one player has lost all his dinosaurs. Then, whoever has the most surviving dinosaurs wins the game.

The gameboard is not square, but rectangular. As a result, with 4 players, the player directly across from you is a lot closer than the other 2 players to the side. So the game tends to start off with each player attacking his closest neighbour. I attacked Tim, and Tim attacked me. Corwin attacked Rick and Rick attacked Corwin.

The fighting was fast and furious. And I had the worst luck, especially with extinctions. My dinosaurs were dying left and right. I had lost half my force before Rick even lost one dinosaur.

All 4 players lost their Tyrannosaurus Rexes first. The big dinos weren’t so dangerous in this particular playing of the game.

I took out Tim’s Platosaurus with my General. For some reason, he didn’t take kindly to that action, and proceeded shortly thereafter to go after my General. Which also got taken out. So from that point on, both Tim and I could only play 2 cards at a time, while Corwin and Rick still had the 3-card limit.

I thought I was a goner, but Tim passed me, and soon had one dinosaur left. An extinction card was played - and lo and behold, Tim rolled a ZERO - and GAME OVER, MAN!

Rick - 6 dinosaurs left (winner)
Corwin - 5 dinosaurs left
Dan - 2 dinosaurs left
Tim - extinct

The game was a hoot. But you definitely have to be in the “mindless” frame of mind to really enjoy it. Yes, there’s a bit (a LITTLE bit) of strategy and tactics in deciding who to attack and with what - but it all still comes down to how lucky you are at rolling dice in determining who wins and loses.

But those plastic dinosaurs- they are terrific!

Thread: User Review

Eggo — 2002-11-27T20:23:59+00:00

Die Schlacht der Dinosaurier

This game flopped badly when it came out in Germany. It was part of the “Das Schwarze Auge” franchise (then “Schmidt-Spiele”) and was designed with a 10-year old audience in mind. The game material is fantastic: colourful and huge dinosaur figurines of various types mounted by human riders. In the middle of the huge game board is a huge volcano that spews “lava balls”. Lots of eye candy, but is there a game here?
The 20 page-rules booklet is one of the clearest and over-explained rule-books I’ve ever read, full of illustrated examples for the mentally challenged. Basically all the rules would fit on half an A4 page!
Each player (maximum 4) has a huge army of dinosaurs, with which he sets out to kill all other dinosaurs on the board. Movement and combat is governed by the play of action cards, which are linked to certain species of dinos – Stegosauri are slow and ponderous, pteranodons can fly far, but are weak fighters. You can either move or fight when a species is activated, although each single dinosaur can do either of these when activated. There are joker cards which can be used for any species, and also “extinction” cards, that let all dinosaurs of one species on the board roll for death. The rules unnecessarily state that you “shouldn’t do this, when you still own dinosaurs of that particular species”. Doh!
Also, if you lose all dinosaurs of one species, their cards become joker cards as well, which helps weakened players who become increasingly fast through this rule.
Fight is done using dice – each of them numbered zero, 1, 2, 5, 10, 15. The stronger the dino, the more dice he will use. Of course the distribution of numbers make for very variable results – a meek velociraptor is able to kill a Tyrannosaurus Rex for example, if lucky.
The lava balls can be used to reroll combat dice, or to double the function of a card played. After they are used they are thrown into the volcano, where there is a 50% chance that they vanish from the game, otherwise they tumble out and can be brought into play again via “lava cards”. Of course lava supply quickly diminishes –you are using them all the time to fudge the damn dice rolls.
That’s basically it – the game is a huge luck fest with very little tactic, but it succeeds in giving you the impression that your decisions were somehow influential to the outcome. And the dinosaurs are great, some of them are really huge!
It would be easy to add a little chrome to this one - we immediately came up with variant combat and movement rules. As it is the game is a little on the light side, but an entertaining enough filler for grown-up kids. If you see this on sale, you might want to try it out!

Moritz Eggert

Thread: Session Report

wavemotion — 2001-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

Dinosaurier (Dinosaur!) - Clearly my favorite game of the evening - thanks to Dave the "Raptor" for bringing it! The bits are simply out of this world! The little plastic dinosaurs are very detailed and are much bigger than I would have thought (the Plateosaurus was huge - probably 3 inches tall and 4 inches long). Each player has riders of their color that are mounted on various dino-beasts that move around on the board and try to cause as much damage to other tribes and dino-riders as possible! It's a card driven system like Battle Cry and lots of dice to resolve combat - and the winner is the player with the largest tribe of dino-riders still remaining when one tribe goes extinct (due to warfare from other dino-riders and from extinction event cards that can reduce the population). It's a real dice-fest but comes in at just about an hour and is a hoot to play! Lava balls complete the scene (you "spend" these by dropping them into a giant volcano in the center of the board to allow you to re-roll poorly cast
dice). Highly recommended for an hour of mindless fun! Oh and I won, so I guess there is a little skill involved too

Thread: Session Report

DangerMouse — 2001-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

Die Schlacht der Dinosaurier: Jake, Dave R, Dave B and Mark
There's not a lot of strategy involved and it's a dice fest to be sure, but the bits… oh those wonderful, beautiful bits! Big honking dinosaurs in various shapes and sizes, all equiped with their own little caveman riders!

Jake mowed down my dinosaurs like wheat stalks with a couple of his T-Rexs early on. But once I eliminated them I went into a cocoon defense and made him pay through the nose. A late gamble with my general and a 10 wildcard sent Jake's general to the tar pits. At that point Jake simply didn't have any cards that would allow him to bring the fight to me.

Meanwhile Dave and Dave were hammering away at each other with Dave taking the worst of it. That put Dave in a clear position to win as he still had a hoard of his dinos left. At this point the extinction cards started raining down since most of us, besides Dave, had only a dino or two. Dave and I had only 1 dino apiece, and were running around Jake's dinos in hopes he'd protect us from Dave, when Dave decided to play another extinction card. Unluckily for him it killed his last dino giving Dave the game.