Players: 2
Playing Time: 45-90 minutes
Difficulty: 4 (of 10)
The Components
Paladins & Dragons comes with a large set of alternative tokens for the Dungeon Twister game:
- 8 rooms
- 2 starting lines
- many markers
- 28 tokens
- 16 cardboard figures
- 1 rulebook
Maps & Startng Lines: These are printed just the same as in the original game. There are 8 glossy, full-color map tiles and 2 starting lines, all printed on heavy cardboard.
The map tiles are entirely new. They feature new layouts and a few new elements (mist, rifts, falling rocks, Fountains of Youth, and the Pentacle Room). These new maps are printed in about the same colors as the originals, but are numbered 5-8, so that you can clearly make out the pairs. The artwork is again evocative and appealing, as the original was.
The starting lines are unnecessary since you'll have the starting lines from the original game. I'm pretty sure they were only included to avoid making a new die cut. However, the designers took the time to redesign these new starting lines to show the "Paladins & Dragons" logo, which is nice.
Many Markers: There are more portcullis markers, as with the original game, and also a set of six broken wall markers, for use with the golems.
Tokens: The game also features 8 new characters and 6 new items. Thus each player gets a complete set of 14 new tokens. These all continue to be printed on medium-weight cardboard with appealing fantasy art. It's the same art as on the standup figures, so more on that in a second.
Cardboard Figures: The cardboard standup figures were my only disappointment with the original game because they were printed on flimsy cardstock. Not so in this expansion.
These new figures have wider plastic stands which allow for the use of sturdier (though light) cardboard. Each standup figure again features the character's main stats as well as some icons to remind you of character usage.
As with the original game, I find the use of ability icons a little erratic. A few of the characters have some nice, standardized icons to remind you of what they do, but a lot of characters don't feature any such reminder, which was a disappointment. However even on my first game I didn't have any problems remembering who did what, so I guess the issue is fairly minimal.
It looks like there may be a new artist on the character pictures, because the style looks slightly different. The quality is comparable though, and many of the character pictures are quite attractive.
Rulebook: An 8-page full-color rulebook. It has rules for all the new game elements, as well as a few different methods for actually using the supplement.
As might be obvious from the above, this new supplement contains alternative pieces for almost all of the elements in the original game. This in fact could have been a standalone game if it included just a few additional elements (cards, quick reference sheets, action chits, and a full-length rulebook).
I actually missed not having a screen that showed what all the characters & items did; I wish this supplement would have included a Paladin & Dragons specific one. But, as more of these supplements come out and you have more characters & items to choose from, they'll probably become less useful, so I can understand Asmodee not printing a new one.
When I look at the Style of components, I do always try and consider the price of a product at least somewhat. Expansions are usually more expensive than their original games, on a per-component basis; they don't have as good of economies of scale because they sell fewer copies, so they have to give you more for less. Thus I wouldn't have been surprised if this first expansion, which contains almost all of the elements of the main game, was about the same price. Instead it's about 30% cheaper, which is entirely fair given what you receive, and an extremely good price in the supplement market.
The art, layout, and general graphic design sense of Dungeon Twister continues to be its greatest stylistic strength. Pair that with good quality components, a somewhat average utility, and a very good price point, and Paladins & Dragons still earns a "5" for Style, just like the original game.
The Gameplay
As with the original game, the object of Paladins & Dragons is to get your characters out of a dungeon and/or kill your opponents. However you now have an entirely new set of characters, items, and rooms to play with.
Using the Supplement: There are four ways you can play the Dungeon Twister supplement:
- Use the 8 new characters, 6 new items, and 8 new maps instead of the same from the original game.
- Let each player secretly select 8 characters and 6 items from all those available here and in the original game (and in any other supplements). Players each select 4 of the 16 maps to use, in two paired sets.
- Players alternate choosing 1 character each, then 1 item each from all the sets, until each has an identical set of 8 characters and 6 items. Players also alternate selecting the 8 maps from the 16 total, again in pairs.
- Players take specific characters and items and described in a scenario. Disappointingly, there aren't any scenarios in this supplement. There are href="http://www.dungeontwister.com/us/telechargements/index.html">some scenarios on the web, but no P&D ones in English yet, as of this writing.
New Characters: There's a totally new set of 8 characters for each player:
- Red Dragon. Breathes fire for 1 AP, killing someone in line-of-sight, but worth 2 AP if killed. Also can't move.
- Elf Scount. Very fast. Moves over pit traps.
Ghost. Undead. Moves through terrain. - Golem. Very slow. Breaks up to 3 walls for 1 AP each.
- Illusionist. Can cast rubble and pit trap illusions for 1 AP.
- Weapon Master. Gets to see opponent's card first in combat.
- Paladin. Carries (and may use) 2 objects.
- Pickpocket. Fast. May steal an object from an adjacent character for 1 AP.
New Items: This new set includes a rope, and further defines the rope and the new key as "common" items, meaning you may include as many as you want with your team. Besides the rope there are 5 new objects:
- Teleportation Ring. Costs 1 AP to teleport to an adjacent room. One use.
- Fire Shield. Protects against fireball wand and red dragon's fire breath.
- Key. Open or close a portculis for 1 AP.
- Charm Scroll. Take control of a character in your room for 3 actions. One use.
- Dragon Slayer Sword. +4 in combat vs. dragons.
New Maps: Finally, Paladins & Dragons also includes 8 new rooms. To start off with, they're laid out differently than the original rooms, allowing for some new dynamics. In addition they have a few brand new features.
- Rift. This is just like a pit, except you have several squares of rift together, making it harder to forge your way across because ropes only allow crossing a single space at a time.
- Mist. A new terrain that blocks line-of-sight and other non-adjacent targeting.
- Falling Rocks. A trap that kills anyone entering, except a shield can be used to protect a character.
- Fountain of Youth. A "3D obstacle" that allows an adjacent, wounded character to spend 1 AP to heal himself.
- Pentacle. A goal. As long as you have a character on one of the 4 pentacle spaces and no opponent does, you earn 1 VP.
Winning the Game: Paladins & Dragons functions just like the original game. You're going for 5 VPs and get 1 per character that escapes and 1 per character you kill. In addition this supplement gives +1 VP for killing the dragon and +1 VP for staying on the Pentacle.
Relationships to Other Games
Paladins & Dragons is the first supplement for Dungeon Twister. It introduces a totally new set of characters, items, and maps. It looks like this is going to be a common model for Dungeon Twister supplements, as two of the upcoming ones, Fire and Water and Forces of Darkness will do the same thing.
The Game Design
Dungeon Twister was already a strong game--one of my favorite releases of 2005. Paladins & Dragons just builds on those strengths, replacing nearly every component in the game in order to create a totally different play experience.As you'd guess this dramatically increases the variability of the game, and thus its replayability (not that I think the game had any issues there, with its modular boards and different starting conditions every time through).
In addition, it allows a level of meta-strategy. If you use some of the alternate forms of character selection you can try and create good matches of characters before you even get into the game, making it sort of like CCG deck building, and creating a truly customizable board game.
Some of the characters can swing the games in very different ways. The red dragon in particular can be an awesome force of destruction, but also a deficit if you make him too vulnerable and get him killed. The golem meanwhile is very slow, but if placed strategically can open up new paths for your other characters. The very fast characters of the elf scout and the pickpocket can offer increased tactics because of their ability to fly across the board, and I suspect the pickpocket in particular can be used in some interesting combos (such as running up to someone and stealing their fire shield so that your red dragon can torch them). Overall, the new characters are not just retreads of those in the original set, and thus they'll create some very different games.
I do have some concerns about the overall balance of the characters. I suspect that in any game where the players get to select, the red dragon will make very frequent appearances, while I'm not convinced that the slow moving, poorly combative ghost will make any appearances at all. However, one or two slightly out-of-whack characters aren't going to make a big difference in games where players either have similar forces or else are making their own selections.
On the whole, Paladins & Dragons is a great expansion for Dungeon Twister, and I'm very pleased to see that there will be more in this same mold. I give it a full "5" out of "5" for Substance.
Conclusion
If you like Dungeon Twister, Paladins & Dragons is a must-buy, because it adds a huge amount of variety and a lot of different sorts of strategy & tactics to the game system. If you haven't tried Dungeon Twister, this supplement won't do you any good, but I suggest looking at the original game, because I think it was one of the top releases of 2005.
