This is historically peculiar for two reasons: At the time, Hasbro seemed content on the mainstream non-role playing gamer market. Also, in less than a decade, Hasbro would have purchased WOTC, which had purchased TSR a few years prior -- if Hasbro had waited a few years, they would have had their own collectable dice game instead of creating the great marketing flop that was Yahtzee Wars: Dark Legacy.
Yahtzee Wars: Dark Legacy was on the market for a period of months. The marketing for the game was nearly nonexistent. The game sat on the shelves, moved to the remainder shelves, then was presumably ground into mulch. I don't know. All I know is I've only seen one of the two sets printed, the Dark Legacy box. I'm not certain if the "good" set (Heroic Alliance) was even printed -- low sales on Dark Legacy may have prompted Hasbro to discontinue the game before Heroic Alliance was ever put into production.
History aside, the review begins.
Yahtzee Wars: Dark Legacy is a dice rolling game, very much like traditional Yahtzee. In fact, it's Yahtzee with the words "Wars: Dark Legacy" added to it. In the box, you get a black plastic dice rolling cup with the Yahtzee Wars logo embossed on the side in gold (the "Cup of Doom"), five large black six-sided dice with yellow pips, four miniature golf pencils (black), score pads, and a flyer advertising the Heroic Alliance box ("Coming Soon!").
The premise is you're a general and you're summoning your forces for battle. This being the Dark Legacy set, the creatures you're summoning are typical fantasy beasts: Zombies, Orcs, Goblins, Sorcerers, Dragons. Unfortunately, the dice are simple average everyday six-siders. Well, black d6s, but still. The thought is one player would have the Dark Legacy box and the other player would have the Heroic Alliance box. You'd wage fantasy battles of good versus evil.
(The Heroic Alliance box featured Knights and Elves and a good Dragon in your army list, according to the flyer. As I haven't seen the contents of this box, I don't know exactly what is on that army's list. It also had a light blue cup and white dice with what looks like blue pips.)
As mentioned above, the game is Yahtzee. If you get four threes, you can either score them as four threes (Orc Tribes) in your standing army section, or as a four-of-a-kind (Dark Sorcerer) in your special troops section. If you have over 65 points in your standard army section, you have a "Might Bonus", instead of Yahtzee's traditional "Bonus" bonus. When you've finished rolling (marking down on your score pads which troop types you've managed to summon and which ones you haven't), you and the other players send your armies against each other. Whoever has the most powerful army wins. That's right -- you just add up what you've rolled like in traditional Yahtzee, then compare the totals. High scorer wins.
Because it's Yahtzee with a fresh coat of spray paint, it still is a stupid game. As there's no interactivity involved except for comparing the final total, you just might as well roll your dice at home and phone in your results.
The Pros: Um... The Yahtzee Wars logo was kind of neat.
The Cons: It's just Yahtzee. All you have to do is add some flavor text to your Yahtzee score pad and you've got Yahtzee Wars. Even the box artwork was hideous, as early 90's fantasy art goes.
