Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Castle Ravenloft - First Glance


Despite my wallet's better judgement, I picked up the new D&D Boardgame, Castle Ravenloft. Yes, I was once a D&D fanatic. Back in the days when there was such a thing as "THACO". I haven't played in many years, but I have followed the game periodically and even collected some of the minis. What can I say, it brings back some great memories with Owlbears and whatnot. So, imagine my excitement when one of my favorite games of old, was getting a stripped down version. I just had to have it. So I dropped the coin and unboxed it in the wee hours when the wife and kids were asleep. At first glance, I have to admit that I really liked what I saw. Here are my first observations:

1. A bit of a hefty price tag - $65 (but worth it, so far)
2. Big-ass box (not the flimsy, crushable kind)
3. Heavy card stock tiles and character cards (ala Descent)
4. Awesome, well organized storage tray that holds tiles, minis, dice, cards, etc.
5. Minis seem to be made of a sterner plastic than the collectible figs, although there is some reproduction of some of the collectible figs. (unpainted, but no big deal)
6. New board game due out this fall that can be used with Castle Ravenloft
7. Rulebook is less than 15 pages
8. Well illustrated rulebook, (but that's one of the best parts of 4th Edition - the art)
9. 1 - 5 players, which means you can actually play the game solo

I'll post pics of the stuff as soon as I can, I'm going to try and work through the rules and a solo game tonight, but it looks pretty easy.

11 comments:

  1. My copy has shipped but will probably not get here until tomorrow. I got this instead of Isle of Blood since I think I actually have a better chance of actually using it. Never used my Skull Pass set even once. I started playing before THAC0. I think I started playing with my older brother when I was about 7 before Unearthed Arcana came out.

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  3. Jeff, if you need some one to play this with you I'd be glad to try it out ..I picked up Dungeonquest instead and we played it last night before a couple of WFB games..it was a blast.
    Keep in touch!

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  4. John,

    That would be awesome. Club Night's still on Tuesday's pretty much, right? Maybe we can give a try in the next couple of weeks. I'm up for a round of Dungeonquest as well. I'm running through the solo adventure in Ravenloft now. Seems pretty quick and easy with the dungeon generated randomly. So far, so good.

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  5. Hadn't even heard of this before. Interesting...

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  6. I do miss me some D&D. THAC0 was most of the math I did in High School... well, it was the math did most often. I look forward to hearing what you think of this game.

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  7. Mine showed up while I was home for lunch today. Opened it up and looked at the figures. The scaling seems a bit weird and one was misformed so I contacted WOTC customer service. I will see how they compare to GW who I have worked with multiple times.

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  8. Jeff,

    yup most tuesdays something is going on, but I can get together for one off just about any week night with some notice..just email me.

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  9. john,

    sounds good, then I can wait til the wife's home and won't have to deal with a sitter.

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  10. eriochrome - I'm curious to see if wizards supports their product as well as Privateer press.

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  11. They want me to send them a physical letter. A little extra hurdle compared to GW which generally wants you to call when you send an email.

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