Game of Thrones Board Game Expansion Dance With Dragons

A Game of Thrones – A Trip the light fantastic toe With Dragons DLC Review

The Game of Thrones board game rocks. The PC accommodation is pretty solid! Merely we already talked nigh all that in our review of the base game. Today nosotros are going to consider the Dance With Dragons DLC, which can exist added to the base of operations game for the price of $4.99. In order to fully assess the DLC though, nosotros are going to take to accept a broader look at the gargantuan franchise, and changes in the board game industry. You thought this was going to be simple? Naught ever is in Westeros.

Beginning let's get the large questions out of the way. The Dance With Dragons DLC mimics the concrete lath game expansion of the aforementioned name. Information technology mostly adds two new mechanics to the game. The start is a set of 42 new leader cards for each of the houses. The 2nd is updated starting positions. The cards and the new start are both based on the subsequently story. Where the base of operations game places the balance of ability like to how it looks at the end of the showtime volume, this new setup makes things look more than like volume iv.

Wield Valyrian Steel

And all of that…is adept! The new cards are very strong. They do an first-class task at capturing the plot and characters and lore of the story and expressing them through game mechanics. I love that sort of thing. Take Doran Martell for example. His card starts out with a very powerful defensive ability. But that is tied to how many other cards the player has in their hand. Equally more cards are played, Doran'due south power shifts from defense to crime. Series fans will get this immediately! Doran is a master planner. As more time passes, he builds towards a powerful assault. That's pretty clever.

The get-go position stuff is cool too. The houses are less balanced than they are in the base game, but this makes positioning more important. The Baratheons tin can field a lot of pieces on the board, but they are spread thin without a great manner to hold territory. The Lannister lands are bountiful, but they are surrounded on all sides by enemies. That is actually elegant design! Fantasy Flight Games (who designed the cardboard tabletop game) are masters at turning story into game rules. Every designer in the world should take some pointers from them.

The original Fantasy Flight Game of Thrones board game was first published in 2003. I know considering I bought it. My cousin and I pooled funds and bought it at a game store in Midtown Manhattan and played information technology a hundred times that summer. When the expansions were released, nosotros bought those too. We especially enjoyed the Storm of Swords expansion, which included a new lath that zoomed in on the Riverlands of Westeros, and had new pieces and mechanics to reflect that office of the conflict.

The Realm of the First Men

By the fourth dimension Fantasy Flying was releasing the second edition of the Game of Thrones board game in 2011, the industry had changed a lot. Instead of a heavy box with an every bit heavy price tag, game expansions became smaller and less expensive. That's the origin of the Dance With Dragons expansion, which was offered for a third of the price of one of the older, heftier expansions. This all makes a lot of sense; there'southward literally less paper, plastic, and cardboard. In that location are fewer new rules. Information technology'southward easy to justify charging less, and if it transforms the game, so much the improve!

Here though, is when it gets into a catchy question of value. Afterward all, the lower price point was a big part of the entreatment of these sorts of expansions! And this is where I can't offer you a definitive respond. I didn't pay for this DLC; I was given a code by the developer to write this review. I like the new cards and the new starting position, just I don't know if I would shell out five bucks for them. This is tricky territory. At that place are other strategy games that might take offered this sort of content equally a complimentary upgrade. Maybe it would experience ameliorate to buy a set up of expansions as a sort of season pass. It's the kind of questions that come up whenever you are dealing with a digital accommodation of a physical particular. A lath game expansion is fun to bear on, to play with the pieces, correct?

I also can't help only think about ways in which the digital game restricts play. My cousin and I loved this lath game so much, nosotros created alternate starts of our ain, to represent different parts of the books or the history of Westeros. That sort of custom play is not possible in the digital version as the setup is automated. I completely empathize that this is two different mediums, but that'south why I'm then perplexed that the developers thought they had to package the DLC similar the lath game expansions. They could take offered a few of these pocket-size packs in 1 package deal, or created multiple start scenarios like I did with my cousin years ago. I become the feeling that they decided to make and sell this DLC because of the physical game expansions, and that reason doesn't really compel me.

The Fe Cost

Such is the subjective nature of games criticism. I've spent $lxx on a triple-A championship that I spent a dozen hours on, and I've spent $10 on an indie championship that I played for thousands of hours. I've likewise bought beautiful, immersive open up earth games, and wished that the developers had edited themselves down to something more manageable. My betoken is, information technology's difficult to determine the advisable amount of bang for your buck and I did non accept to spend whatsoever dollars here.

And so is the Dance With Dragons DLC practiced? Aye, absolutely! Does it reshape the game? Mayhap, arguably, a little bit. Not much. Does it requite you more ways to play an already fun game? Y'all bet! Only is it worth information technology? That I do not know my friend. All I know is that affair virtually winning or dying, and with this new DLC I've won quite a fleck.

*** PC primal provided past the publisher ***

The Good

Slightly updates the base of operations game
Play heady parts of the story
New house cards are well designed

The Bad

Non a lot of new content
No power for customization