"D&D Wrath of Ashardalon review part 1" Topic

First part out of two takes a look at the game components of this Wizards of the Coast dungeon crawling game.
One thing that I found to be amazing was the amount of stuff you get for the price of a "regular" boardgame, it is at least 30% cheaper than Descent and Mansions of Madness but seem to include a similar amount of tiles, models and cards. But how is the quality of those components?

Check my blog to read the whole review:

link

Oooh we have just taken stock of that.
We too were very impressed by the amount of stuff you get.

Friend of mine bought it, we've played 4 games and had much fun doing so. The figures are nice enough unpainted, but between us we could replace them with painted versions as they are identical to the D&D pre-paints.

Nice I was interested to see the contents of the box. Especially the miniatures. They actually look better than the prepaints. Thanks for the post.

I just played my first solo game the other night. Works well, though I ran into a few questions not covered by the rules. (For example, what happens when you add a room with a monster behind a closed door? Does the monster move through the door? If so, is the door now open? Also, when a monster causes a tile to be added, and that tile forces an Encounter draw, does a Trap event apply only to the added tile, or to the tile with the monster, or to the tile with the active Hero? Does the trap activate immediately, or only if or when a Hero moves onto the added tile?) It's not hard to come up with house rules for these situations, but they really should have been addressed in the rulebook.

Great game, though, and the figs are nice. But the "dwarf" figure is the largest figure among the Heroes! I decided that she actually wasn't a dwarf.

But the "dwarf" figure is the largest figure among the Heroes

Just like the D&D movie.

These are great games. They are the "go to" games if we don't feel like setting up (or have time) miniatures. The odd thing is that two the players who really enjoy the board game insist that they hate D&D RPG (though they never played it). They sure get excited about leveling up in the board game though. Tried explaining that 4th Edition D&D Essentials is just an extended board game…no dice. They still get all excited about the board game and maintain that the RPG sucks pond water. Oh well.

Yeah, I picked this up for my daughter and we got around to playing it. It's pretty fun if you want to get into a game with little setup time and don't need a DM.

However, my daughter who is going on 10 years old, really likes making up characters on her own the best.

I have this and Castle Ravenloft. As I usually DM the RPG sessions this give me a chance to play. Looking at tweaking to use higher levels and my (extensive) collection of D&D Miniatures (I may paint some of these)

@Parzival

Ah forgot about the doors, we ran into it once but simply resolved it so that the monster and traps moved through the doors. As the movement is abstract enough as it is. But yeah it could have been explained as well.

As for additional tiles being drawn by monster, I don't think you resolve an encounter card for those? Will check the BGG forum for some FAQ before I post part 2 as these points might need to be covered.

Yeah, I ran into the door/encounter problem twice. At first I left the monsters stuck behind the doors, but after I thought about it, I decided that
A.) the point of the game is to have to fight the things.
B.) how would the heroes know there is a monster behind a closed door in the first place?
C.) the monsters live here; they presumably know how to unlock and relock doors, and avoid/reset the various traps…
so I assumed the monsters could freely move through the doors without affecting the door's status with regards to the heroes.

The encounter was trickier. The first trap was a rolling boulder, which called for me to place a rolling boulder marker on the tile. After futilely searching for said non-existent marker (), I then tried to figure out where, exactly, the boulder rolled and when or where it stopped. This was very unclear on the card. I opted for a one time pass that sent the boulder through the hero's location, though the wording seemed to imply the thing would roll around hitting the heroes repeatedly until disabled, like some sort of perpetual-motion guided missile. I suspect the card is a holdover from Castle Ravenloft, given the lack of an appropriate marker and the confusing wording. But I was tired at the time, so maybe I just need to read through it again.

The other trap/event I encountered was a volcanic burst of some sort. That was easier to decipher, as it didn't seem to imply any continuing presence.

I also noticed that the "level up" wording was unclear as to whether all hit points were restored. I decided that it didn't mean this, as it's still an advantage to suddenly have more HP remaining than previously, and "levelling up" isn't meant to be a magical event but a recognition of general improvement at the skills of adventuring. You're still in the dungeon, just having finished a bloody battle— you may have figured out a few tricks that will help you get "one up" on the beasts you've been fighting, but you're still covered in bruises and the nasty gash on your left leg didn't just close up on its own.

What size are the figures? How do they compare to other 28mm figures?

The figures are 30mm and look great (even unpainted).

I just played my first game of Wrath, good time. This is a keeper. I love the ton of figures you get with the game. The figures alone almost make it worth it.

Cheers, Xin