The Inside Scoop on Gaming

Review: DRAGONKIN STARTER ARMY (DISKWARS ARMY PACK)

Publisher: Fantasy Flight Games

ISBN: 1887911-74-X

Designer: Tom Jolly and the Staff of Fantasy Flight Games

SRP: $9.95

Visual: http://www.diskwars.com/images/prodshotdw.gif

Seems to me that I'm a Johnny-come-lately getting a DRAGONKIN Diskwars army pack to review, as it was one of the original releases in a very imaginative, successful, and written-about game system, but a promise being a promise, here we go. First of all, the following paragraphs apply only to those unfortunates recently released from incarceration or who have been locked in an attic room for about two years. If you HAVE heard of Diskwars, skip the next helping of folderol and rejoin me at "The Dragonkin Army..." a few paragraphs down.

Diskwars is a sort of hybrid between a board game, a collectible card game, and a miniatures game. DW was created by the extremely talented (though sadly, not very prolific) Tom Jolly. Since you are reading this; I'll have to assume the worst-- you know, prison or the attic room thing-- so I'll expand on this statement to tell you that Tom Jolly also created the silly and wonderful WIZ WAR as well, which you can still pick up at: http://www.tomjollygames.com. Jonathan Witt wrote a pretty good review of it a couple of years back: http://www.rpg.net/news reviews/reviews/rev_1800.html

Now, our very own Brad Weier wrote an excellent review about the DISKWARS system in general, I can't offer more than what he wrote but to echo his generally positive views on the Diskwars system. You can read Brad's review here: http://www.rpg.net/news reviews/reviews/rev_2021.html (hit the BACK button when you're done, though... I'm still talking!). Just because I sense you might be impatient; I'll give you a thumbnail of the game. Diskwars is played with disks, which are what they seem; cardboard counters that represent armies. Each disk is sold as part of a 'flat' of between 1 really big disk and 10 little disks. Each Army Set, of which there are eight in the first release, with several expansion sets since, contains about five "themed" flats (pertaining to the army type, Elves and Dwarves and Undead and such... I will be reviewing a Dragonkin army pack here). In addition, there are about three random flats, which could contain any or all kind of critter. Disks are rated for Attack, Defense, and Toughness (think similar terms for wargaming, and you get the idea). Disks also have a movement rating (which is fairly ingenious, more on that later), and a purchase point cost. The system itself is fairly open-ended in terms of scenarios; you are given a basic budget to work with and and buy according to point costs. Disks also may have special abilities, such as spell casting and flight. Disks MOVE by... flipping. That's right, you actually set the disks up at opposite ends of a table and FLIP them to move towards an objective (usually this is the one REALLY BIG disk that comes with each game; a terrain location of some sort that becomes an objective to fight over). Obviously, the bigger the disk is, the faster it moves across the table. Spells and Missile Fire are handled cleverly-- the appropriate missile- or magic-wielding disk grabs a bunch of teeny little arrows or spell counters and drops them on a target disk form a aheight of one foot. If the counter lands on the disk, the disk is hit. If it misses, the arrows and or spell misses.

The Dragonkin Army, which I received for review, is a standard army from the original release of eight. I received four "Theme" flats (three critters and a terrain disk). There appears to be some variance even within themes here; a friend of mine has the Dragonkin Army as well and he got an additional REALLY BIG MONSTER disk (the Great Dragon), which was missing in my set. Blast!!!

Here is a list of the disks from the Dragon theme flats:

Name	Count	Att	Def	Tough	Move	Special	Cost
Drallus Worm	2	3	3	6	5	MUST attack any foe w/in. 6"	6
Drake Warriors	4	3	2	3	4	None. Apparently the Grunts of this army.	3
DragonFlight	2	3	3	5	6	Flight	5
Ballisters	2	2	4	3	3	Fireball – some mean dudes!	6

The Ballisters flat came with the following spells: Speed Lvl 1, Forcewave Lvl 2, Vigor Level I and Resurrect Lvl 3. In addition, the standard wounds, arrows, & activation marker flat came with a Fireball Lvl 2 and a Deathball Lvl 3. The Terrain flat was standard for Dragonkin, I'm guessing: an unnamed craggy peak with dragons flying over it. This flat also had spells for Displacement Lvl 3 and Sap Lvl 1.

The non-themed additional flats were an interesting mix but only marginally useful. Since the Dragonkin army is an evil one (I like to think of them as misunderstood), only two disks were immediately useful. The alignment rules state that Evil must mix with evil or neutral, and good must mix with neutral or good only. You can't have good AND evil critters in the same army:

Name	Count	Att	Def	Tough	Move	Special	Cost
Ghastly Bowmen	1	2	2	2	4	Skeletal archers. Handy!	4
Rtt Airglider	1	5	3	4	5	Flight. Automatically eliminated by other flying disks.	3

These NEUTRAL disks should be useful:

Name	Count	Att	Def	Tough	Move	Special	Cost
Golem	1	4	4	8	3	Any spellcaster w/in 6" may not activate to cast a spell.	10(!)
Cenatur of Kunth	1	4	4	4	6	Basically, a really large fast moving creature with decent scores.	7

Lastly, these GOOD disks were useless for an evil themed army, but I swapped a few from another pack of predominately good critters and things balanced out. There's no guarantee of what you'll get; I include these to demonstrate the randomness of distribution of the different flats.

Name	Count	Att	Def	Tough	Move	Special	Cost
Heavy Horse Cavalry (knights)	1	6	3	4	5	Basically, a really large fast moving creature with great scores.	8
Men of the Sword (Acolyte)	1	3	3	3	3	Grunts. They fit very well with my Desert Nomad Army!	4
King Falladir (Unique)	1	6	6	5	3	May not be attacked if a friendly is w/in 6" of the King. UNIQUE	14(!)
Brother Trannyre (Unique)	1	4	4	5	3	Very cool critter! If another spellcaster is w/in 6", may STEAL a random spell from that caster's spellbook.	14(!)

In general, the Dragonkin army I have would benefit from more missile troops. I matched it against my Desert Raiders, and initially the edge the Dragonkins have in flight works to their advantage. As soon as some of the flyers died off, however, it was MY grunts against SOMEONE ELSE'S grunts WITH archers! Missiles and spells are really too variable to make a huge difference but they CAN reach out and touch you from time to time.

IN SUMMARY

Dragonkin is a pretty good investment, but needs strong augmentation with evil specialists (esp. spellcasters and archers), so you may need to horsetrade to make this army optimal. Recommended!

DISKWARS DRAGONKIN ARMY PACK