Kickstarter Unboxing : Dungeon Saga, The Dwarf Kings Quest

(Well, this looks somewhat familiar...)

So, a few weeks ago my copy of Dungeon Saga : The Dwarf Kings quest arrived, and since then I've taken the opportunity to look through the contents and formulate my thoughts on the boxes contents as well as the rules. Sadly I've not played too much of it, having played through only one of the adventures presented in the box, but I think I've got a decent handle on how the game works.

I've been looking forward to this since I Kickstarted it months ago, having cut my geek-teeth on games like Heroquest and Dungeon as well as playing a hell of a lot of Descent, Warhammer Quest and similar games over the years. The question is, I suppose, how does it stack up? Well, let's have a look shall we? We'll start with the box and its contents before moving onto the rules...

What's In The Box? :

I don't know what it says about me, but I really do love this box. It's big, it's hefty, and the fact that it's designed to look like an oversized tome just makes me happy. Additionally the box itself has magnets set into the lip of the lid to keep it closed instead of relying on being kept in the cardboard sleeve (which, I'd like to note, is made of nice thick cardboard) or some sort of locking mechanism. What can I say, I really like magnets in things as my Space Marine army can attest. It's a lovely little touch, one of those random geeky things that Mantic have a habit of doing that I enjoy.

The box contains four A4 softback books and a single A5 softback (all but the last of those being pictured above). Going from left to right we have the rulebook which, as you'd expect, contains the core rules of the game. We've then got the Adventurers Companion which includes the rules for campaigns, progression and creating your own characters as well as rules for a number of monsters and models produced by Mantic. Finally we've got a pair of quest books for two separate campaigns, with the A5 booklet being the Kickstarter Exclusive Dungeon Journal.

The Dungeon Journal contains the rules for the original Dwarf Kings Hold rewritten for this new edition as well as 25 additional adventures including the original Dead Rising and Green Menace expansions. It also includes the rules for Blaine, who as far as I'm aware is a mascot character of Mantic's though frankly I've no idea why he is or where he's supposed to have originated from, he just seems to crop up in all their games.

Next up are a series of quick reference sheets as well as an A4 Art Print, Hero and Boss Monster stat cards, and a set of blank character sheets in addition to the aforementioned Dungeon Journal. I personally would have preferred if the print was larger, perhaps A3 sized, but it's a minor complaint. I should point out that there should actually be more stat cards than this, due to an error the Hero cards for all but the core heroes and Valandor are missing, an issue I will go into more depth over later in this post.

Here we have the dice, cards and counters that ship with the game. I've not got a lot to say about these as the art on them all is pretty good and the materials used are of decent quality, especially the counters which are fairly sizable and chunky enough to survive plenty of use and abuse.

 

Now this takes me back to my Heroquest days. Here we have the 3D Dungeon Furniture, bookshelves, chests, weapon racks, doors, a well, and even a tiny book for the lectern. I really love this stuff, It's completely unnecessary with regards to gameplay but it's a really lovely addition to the set and makes me unreasonably happy. I can see Mantic selling a lot of these for people for use in terrain building, whether they play Dwarf Kings Hold or not.

Lastly with regards to the set's cardboard contents we have the dungeon tiles. Again they're pretty chunky and durable, similar to the tiles in the Descent boxed set, and should last indefinitely so long as you don't have too many drink-based accidents at the games table. The artwork is pretty good with each tile being double sided and the tiles themselves coming in a wide variety of shapes and sizes giving plenty of dungeon  building opportunities.

Now, let's move onto a slightly more contentious section of the box contents, the models...

Firstly the Undead. You see what I mean about the Heroquest comparisons? I mean look at those scythe wielding skeletons, I'm sure it's deliberate. In this little collection of ghouls and ghosties we've got...

• Three Armoured Zombies
• Three Dwarf Revenants
• Three Ghosts
• Three Ghouls
• Three Skeleton Archers
• Three Skeleton Warriors with Scythes
• Three Skeleton Warriors with Swords and Shields
• Three Undead Trolls
• Three Zombies

The bulk of these are fairly good models, with me being especially fond of the Armoured Zombies, Dwarf Revenants and Ghosts. Though not amazing by any means they're fairly crisp and detailed, more than sufficient for a board game. I'm very much a fan of the non-human undead, which are such a rarity amongst most miniature ranges and I'd love to see more in the future from Mantic and other companies. The only models in this particular group that I'm less than pleased with are the iconic skeletons, which are incredibly flimsy as well as lacking detail in comparison to the other models. They genuinely look like they're bootlegs copies of the rest of the range.

Next up are the Abyssals and Greenskins, the former being a collection of demonic entities, the latter a selection of goblins, ogres and orcs. All together we've got...

• One Efreet
• One Hellhound
• Three Lower Abyssals
• One Lower Abyssal Flamebearer
• One Moloch
• One Succubus
• One Tortured Souls
• One Goblin Archer
• Two Goblin Warriors
• One Mawbeast
• One Ogre
• One Orc Archer
• Two Orc Warriors
• One base of Orclings 

I'd just like to point out that I'm extrapolating names from the accompanying Adventurers Companion, if I'm wrong feel free to correct me and I'll make some alterations. These are of a similar quality to the undead, though unlike those said quality is at least consistent. The orcs I admit look a little odd, having long, almost reptilian faces similar to some of Reaper's older miniatures, but that may be as I'm used to GW's more brutal, neanderthal designs. Also I think the Mawbeast is absolutely adorable, I want to scruffle its little fang filled face and feed it kobolds.

Next up we've got the last of the plastic miniatures, the collection of heroes and villains included in the boxed set with the bulk of the heroes being in blue, the villains and three of the heroes in grey. All together we've got...

• Ally McSween the Halfling Thief
• Arianya the Naiad Demon Hunter
• Danor the Human Wizard
• Hrrath Flamespitter the Salamander Fighter
• Ibrahim the Human Paladin
• Kapoka the Gladewalker Druid 
• Logan the Gnome Fighter
• Madriga the Elf Ranger
• Orlaf the Human Barbarian
• Rordin the Dwarf Fighter
• Venetia Beriassor the Human Cleric
• Ba'el the Demon
• Elshara the Banshee
• Grund the Undead Dwarf King
• Hoggar the Zombie Troll Shaman
• Mortibris the Necromancer 
• Blaine
• Hordin the Dwarf Innkeeper and Gnasher the Dog
• Valandor

Now, here is where we come to the models that have...issues. The quality of these models is all over the place, with the assorted heroes (save for Logan) as well as Elshara, Grund, Hoggar, Mortibris, Blaine and Hordin being pretty good. They're of similar quality to the rest of the models in the box, not amazing, not terrible, and worth a bit of care and attention like most of Mantic's miniatures. A few particularly stand out, like Hrrath, Kapoka and Venetia, all of  whom I think are particularly well designed. The rest of them are, well terrible. Ba'el, Valandor and Logan are severely lacking in detail compared to the other models, with Ba'el being quite frankly an absolutely hideous model. He's badly designed, badly sculpted, and looks less like a horrific denizen of the abyss and more like a cheap B-Movie monster. Here's a comparison of the model quality using Grund and Valandor...

I mean come on. The model for Grund is pretty good, though I admit the flash on my phone camera does it no favours. Its well posed, its detailed, its characterful, and it's something that I'm looking forward to painting up and getting some use out of. Valandor on the other hand looks like his model came out of one of those cheap packs of toy soldiers you get for a few pounds at Poundland and Toys R Us. He's lacking in detail, his features are blurred and overly smooth, and I get the impression that they designed him as a smaller model and instead of resculpting him in a larger size they simply increased the size of the model without bothering to work on the overall miniature quality. Much like Ba'el he is a terrible, lazily crafted model even disregarding the bent spear (easily fixed with some warm water and a little patience), especially considering the two of them are the focal characters of the Return of Valandor expansion.

Let's move onto something positive shall we? In addition to the plastic miniatures above the set also came with a handful of resin models. We have...

• Keldan, the Elven Fighter
• Two Bat Swarms
• Three Giant Rats
• Three Giant Spiders

Unlike the models I've already spoken about, these are absolutely lovely. They're crisp, they're detailed, and they're just a joy to look at. Keldan in particular is an excellent model, the miniature giving an impression of grace and delicacy whilst simultaneously not appearing fragile like Mantic's plastic elves do. I think he may end up being turned into a Drow at some point. These models just go to show that when push comes to shove Mantic can make some really good resin miniatures, I just wish they did more of them.

Overall the models are schizophrenic. Some are good, some are awful, most are average. The plastic used for the bulk of them isn't great, but then neither is the plastic used by most board games. Perhaps I'm being harsh and judging them by the standard I'd use for RP or Wargaming miniatures but the point still stands that the quality of these models is all over the place. I don't know if this is an issue with the manufacturers or due to the small scale of Mantic compared to most companies but I hope it's something they're going to address when it comes to future releases.

If anyone at Mantic is reading this, here is a suggestion. Over the years your model and material quality has slowly been improving, which is good, but overall they're still sub par compared to many companies even disregarding "boutique" ranges such as Ax Faction and Kingdom Death. How about releasing a "Fanatic" or "Masterpiece" range? Take a selection of your most popular and sought after models, resculpt them in higher quality, and release them as either hard plastic sprues or in resin. I'm sure plenty of players would love to purchase such miniatures and would be willing to pay higher prices for them, I know I would!

Anyway, that's the box and its contents, lets move on to the game itself shall we?

The Rules :

The rules are, as you would expect, simple. Each game consists of 4 heroes (controlled by one or more players) entering a dungeon and trying to achieve an objective whilst the Overlord (who in most cases is another player, though there is an "Invisible Overlord" deck that I'll go into later) controls the monsters that oppose them. I'm not a fan of the requirement for 4 Heroes, but scaling can be an issue so I'll let that particular criticism slide.

Turn order consists of the Heroes, Overlord and End phases. In the Hero and Overlord phases models take their turns moving and/or making a single action chosen from Fight, Shoot, Cast Spell or Other (which may or may not be available depending on the adventure being played). In the Hero phase the players may choose what order they wish to act in, which can change from round to round giving some tactical importance to when each players wishes to activate their heroes. The Overlord turn is almost identical save that instead of activating every monster on the board they have a set number of Commands available, dictating how many monsters they may use in each turn and how many spells (only available in certain adventures) they may cast. Likewise the Overlord may use a single Overlord Command Card, which I will again address later.

Movement is done by square (there's no Run option though) with the Facing of each model being important as models can only make attacks and cast spells against opponents in their Front Arc (consisting of the five squares to the front and side of the model, extending away as appropriate) and if a Hero or Monster enters the front arc of an enemy model they must immediately halt with Free Attacks being made by models against opponents who move out of their front arcs.

Combat is resolved by the attacking model choosing a target in their front arc, melee attacks may only target adjacent models whilst ranged attacks make use of a measuring marker supplied with the game (split into Short and Long range). Once a valid target has been determined the attacking model rolls a number of D6's equal to their Combat value (with models having separate Melee and Ranged values) with certain modifiers adjusting how many are rolled, likewise the defending model also rolls a number of dice equal to their Combat value, again with their own set of modifiers. Any of the attackers dice that rolled equal to or less than the defenders Armour value (ranging from 1 to 5) are removed, with the rest being paired off from highest to lowest against the defenders dice. Those that are equalled or beaten by the defenders rolls are ignored, those that roll higher than the defenders deal damage which is dealt with differently depending on the nature of the target model. Heroes and Boss monsters only ever lose one wound no matter how much damage is dealt to them by a single attack, whilst minions react to damage differently, either being unharmed, removed from play, or replaced with a Pile of Bones that can later be reanimated by a Necromancer.

Spells are interesting, in each activation a magic using character may cast either 2 Minor spells or one Major spell, with the effects of each being detailed on specific cards. These are more than just reference pieces though, as instead of being able to cast spells at will or having to spend some sort of resource to do so spells instead come with a built in cool down time. This is represented by rotating the card either 90 (for Minor spells) or 180 degrees (for Major spells), with them rotating 90 degrees back towards upright in the end phase of each turn. Essentially minor spells can be cast once per turn, whilst major spells may only be cast every other turn. It's elegant and I like it.

Finally in the End phase of each turn the Overlord draws a Command Card from the draw pile and all spellcasters rotate their used cards 90 degrees back towards upright. Play then continues from the next Hero phase, nice and simple. The aforementioned Command deck is assembled at the start of the game, consisting of a set number of cards depending on the adventure, and with the Overlord drawing a hand of 3 cards when the game first starts. The deck consists of cards that allow the Overlord to activate additional models, transform piles of bones into undead, activate monsters during the heroes turn, and otherwise inconvenience the meddling do gooders. The command deck also determines the length of the game, once the draw pile has been exhausted the game is usually over, though that may not be the case depending on the adventure being played. I really don't like the imposed game length, that being one of my few gripes with the core rules.

With the basics out of the way I'll go into detail on a few other things, namely Character Creation, the Campaign System, and the Invisible Overlord and Uncharted Dungeon decks. Character creation is simple, consisting of choosing a race and class then applying some minor bonuses. I'd like more depth but it's serviceable, it also needs something in the way of clarification too seeing as Heroes apparently don't' get a feat until they've gained a level or so, despite the starting heroes in the book all starting play with a feat. Is this a typo, a misunderstanding on my behalf, or a balance issue? If anyone knows feel free to set me straight. The campaign rules are likewise simple, with the heroes gaining Gold and Glory after each adventure, the former being spent at randomly drawn Locations (in card form) while the latter is used to gain levels in the heroes chosen profession, each level granting the choice of three benefits depending on the heroes race and profession. As I said, it's simple, and I enjoy the fact that there is a side bar noting that there's nothing stopping the players from creating villains, as well as allowing for the Overlord player to level up their own Boss monsters to better match the heroes.

Finally we have the Invisible Overlord and Uncharted Dungeon decks. The Invisible Overlord deck consists of cards that determine how the actions of the Monsters during the Overlord turn. At the start of the Hero turn the top card of this deck is flipped, revealing on each card the Number of monsters that activate, what type of hero is regarded as the greatest Threat, what Order the overlord gives to their minions, and whether or not the card will Interrupt the hero turn or not. There are a number of steps that are then followed which come together to create a surprisingly deep (and at times unpredictable) system of responses to the heroes actions. I'm very pleased with this, it's something that Mantic have already attempted with the A.I deck from Deadzone : Contagion, and I'm glad to see they're continuing to refine such a ruleset.

The Uncharted Dungeon cards are actually split into two decks, the actual Uncharted Dungeon deck, and the Event deck. Each Uncharted Dungeon card details one section of the dungeon, in the form of tile layout and the locations of monsters, treasure chests and dungeon furniture. Each event card decides how many "levels-worth" of monsters are present in each dungeon section, they are also drawn to determine what treasures are present as well as hero victory conditions and other variables. Much like the Invisible Overlord rules they're simple and effective, being fully capable of being used in conjunction with one another for some Warhammer Quest style dungeon crawling. My only issue is that it doesn't seem to scale with regards to campaign play, something that I hope to be addressed either by Mantic or the fans.

Overall the rules are elegant and simple, as I've come to expect from Mantic, whilst simultaneously having enough depth to keep things interesting. That said I'm not a fan of the games reliance on cards for everything, and I'd much rather have a greater number of options in the form of tables and the like (though admittedly that might be the Gygaxian D&D player in me... more tables MORE!). Likewise I don't care for the hard limit for each games duration imposed by the Overlord deck, it's an issue that I had with Descent that ended up getting house-ruled away. It's a fun little system though, and it's really easy for new players to pick up, though I do have issues with the campaign rules and think that an "Advanced" version thereof would be an excellent addition to the Dungeon Saga range, or at the very least an interesting little fan project.

No, I'm not doing it, I've enough on my plate as it is.

My Thoughts :

So, what do I think of the new Dungeon Saga overall? Well... it's a solid product, with the Kickstarter including plenty of extras for the price I paid. I'll admit though that it's not what I was expecting, or what I was hoping for. That's an issue that's entirely my fault as I was essentially hoping for a new version of Warhammer Quest, when Dungeon Saga is far more in line with Descent, Hero Quest and the like, with its overly simplified campaign system and limited number of options. These are issues that I'm sure the fans will address in time, but still....I can't help but wish there had been more to the game.

Don't take away from my review that Dungeon Saga isn't worth purchasing, it very much is. As I said it's a solid game, the rules are competent, the miniatures are (mostly) of a decent quality, and it's something that I'm sure me and my friends will get plenty of play time out of over the years. The problem is that there are plenty of games out there that do the same thing, in many cases better, and it doesn't really do much to stand out from the crowd in any way apart from price. Even if you play Kings of War there isn't a huge amount to draw you in, the Dungeon Saga box containing almost nothing in the way of fluff with regards to their shared world, or anything to draw you into the larger setting. It's just...well... generic I suppose, and whilst I know that's part of the attraction of Mantic's fantasy products it's also starting to become a failing as they become a more established company with their own detailed settings.

I also have a few issues with the kickstarter itself. As I said earlier certain of the models are of especially poor quality, oddly enough models that were kickstarter stretch goals that one would assume Mantic would have taken more time with. Likewise the Adventurers Companion is missing its page references, the Dwarf Kings Quest adventure book lacks the level limitations mentioned in the Adventurers Companion, and a number of items that were meant to be in the box (such as the Hero Cards for all but the core heroes, certain of the dungeon tiles, etc.) are missing from the Kickstarter release. All of these are fairly minor issues, it's just taken together that they start to become a problem. Mantic responded to this by making free PDF versions of the above available to the backers which, frankly, I don't think is good enough. They've also offered free updated copies of the Adventurers Companion to those affected (though you still have to pay shipping) as well as further support for the game in the future. Does these offset the issues? No, though they do go some way towards doing so and I'm pleased that they've at least made these overtures.

I know Mantic are a small company, and that budget gaming is their raison d'être, but still for a Kickstarter project that's meant to encourage the support of their games and community, I just don't think it's good enough. How they've dealt with these issues genuinely makes me question whether or not I should support their Kickstarter projects in the future, and makes me somewhat anxious about my support of Deadzone : Infestation, but  we'll see how that goes. There have been complaints in the community about Mantic using Kickstarter as a pre-order system, something they've addressed themselves, and I've got to say I'm very much behind them. In backing a Kickstarter product you're getting a lot for less than you'd pay for at retail, and with the backers goods being the first wave mistakes are going to happen and errors are going to creep in. I accept that, I do, and yes I received a hell of a lot of stuff for a mere £60 or so, most of which I'm happy with, some I'm impressed by, it's just the few quality issues that have disappointed me.

I'll bring this review to a close. Dungeon Saga is not perfect, no game is, but for the price it's a fun game with plenty of miniatures that I'm sure most groups (especially those with a little Hero Quest nostalgia) will get plenty of play out of. If that's your cup of tea I'd advise getting your hands on it, and although my faith in Mantic has been a little shaken I'm still very much a supporter of that lovely little company. They've got heart, and unlike many they do genuinely listen to and support their community.

Until Next Time
Happy Gaming
Michael