Half an Exciting Battle: Dungeons & Dragons Dungeon Command Reviewed

Game Name: Dungeons & Dragons Dungeon Command

Publisher: Wizards of the Coast

Designers: Kevin Tatroe, Peter Lee, and Rodney Thompson

Year: 2012

Genre: Light fantasy miniatures skirmish game

Players: Two or more players

Ages: 12+

Playing Time: 60 – 90 Minutes

MSRP: $39.95 for each faction pack: Heart of Cormyr, Sting of Lolth, and Tyranny of Goblins

 

Folks know I love my miniatures and say there’s really no other gaming genre that can beat the sheer visual and tactile appeal miniature games can have for a lot of people. As far as systems go I can appreciate a quick playing rules light system just as well as one which is rules heavy with multiple supplements. So I obviously was looking forward to getting my hands on the revamping of Wizards of the Coast’s Dungeons & Dragons miniatures with their new system, Dungeon Command.

Each faction box (and there are currently three available: Heart of Cormyr, Sting of Lolth, and Tyranny of Goblins with two more on the horizon) contains twelve pre-painted miniatures (one large, 10 medium, and one small), two commander cards, 36 Order cards, twelve creature cards representing each miniature, four interlocking double sided jigsaw battlefield cards, and a rulebook. WotC suggests each player possess their own faction box so two boxes are really required for a two player game – not simply to field enough minis for an interesting skirmish but also because each player should have their own complete deck of order cards.

One one hand there’s a nice added bonus in which the miniatures can also be used with any of the D&D Adventure games – ala Legend of Drizzt, Castle Ravenloft, and Wrath of Ashardalon – as each has their own additional card compatible with those titles while, on the other hand, as the sculpts themselves are fairly well done for the most part the paint jobs of some leave a lot to be desired. In fact my copy of the Copper Dragon from Heart of Cormyr is missing large patches of paint. This is an issue with many of the pre-painted miniatures but, with an MSRP of $39.95 and getting a dozen figures, even if all you found in the box was the minis they still break down to a very affordable $3.33 per miniature so that’s a plus.

Dungeon Command is a very light skirmish level game. Each player will field their warband, led by a command figure, and maneuver them into tactically sound positions of attack and defense while playing Order cards in order to boost the abilities or powers of their own units and avoiding taking damage at the same time. Each side has a commander who is rated for Morale (the breakpoint of your forces) and Leadership (maximum level of creatures allowed in play) while possessing special abilities of their own. The Commander card also indicates the starting number of creatures to begin the battle with as well as the size of the Order card hand allowed. You’ll want to keep in mind the commander isn’t represented on the table top as you would find in many other games.

The sequence of play is straight forward with four phases comprising each turn: Refresh, Activate, Deploy, and Clean Up.

Refresh – Creatures are untapped so they’re ready for action this turn and you draw one order card.

Activate – Each creature (in any order) may perform an action. The  creature may move, attack, use a power on its card, take an action indicated on an Order card which is played, or trigger an effect from some single source. Creatures can move and attack although attacking will tap the creature and some powers and abilities require the creature card to be tapped also. Once a creature is tapped it may not perform any other actions until is is once again untapped.

Deploy – Bring any creatures from your creature hand onto the start area as long as the total level of creatures doesn’t exceed the current Leadership value.

Clean Up – End of turn effects are resolved, you draw back up to you maximum creature hand size, and untap your creatures once again to respond to your enemy’s upcoming actions.

Plenty of simply rules cover such areas such as special movement, line of sight, ranged attacks, terrain, treasure and so forth. None of these rules are especially difficult to grasp nor are the abilities and powers on the creature cards hard to implement either. Order cards, on the other hand, can be a bit of a problem as there were a couple which led to a bit of debate and some discussion was had to try to effectively implement the Order.

Attacking is straight forward and I’m sure many people will be surprised there are no dice in the game. What?!?!?! No Dice in a D&D game for resolution? If adjacent to an enemy (and still in an untapped state) a creature may make a melee attack or ranged attack if within range and line of sight. Damage is automatic and can be modified by the play of order cards thus possibly increasing damage, or even reducing damage or eliminating it altogether if on the defense. Each creature has a set number of hit points and once that number is reached or exceeded the creature in question is destroyed. The miniature is removed from the battlefield and the commander loses Morale points equaling the creature’s level. Each player has the ability for a creature to Cower as opposed to taking damage from an attack. A commander can spend one Morale point to offset ten points of damage and, while those Morale points are critical currency, sometimes keeping a powerful creature on the table for another turn can mean the difference between victory and defeat.

The game continues until one side is reduced to zero Morale or has no creatures on the board. Or, in other words, it’s all about the last man or monster standing.

I have to say early on the battles can be a lot of fun as you’re positioning your creatures to best effect and utilizing powers and Order cards to boost movement, deal killing blows, deflect damage and so on. The problem lies at the turning point of the battle when each player finds they have no Order cards left they can play. Keep in mind you only draw one Order card each turn and you can very easily burn through what you have in hand during a particularly hairy Activation phase. When this happens the options available to each side become rather limited. Add to this the fact some of the Order cards don’t seem to make sense and are open to a lot of interpretation.

As each creature is specifically capable of dealing so much damage each turn, or using an ability or power, the randomness and fun begins to drain as you begin to feel like you’re just slogging through each turn as you easily predict what your opponent will do while they assuredly figure out what you’ll plan to dish out. This is where the diceless combat and Order cards come back to bite the system. Sure, you’ll get that one Order card each turn but the reality is there many times you’ll play an attack card and your opponent follows with a defense card. If you find you have a defense card in hand and your opponent levels a standard attack you just sit back and take the damage because you know you’ll want to hold onto that valuable defense for the next attack card leveled at your forces. Also you find you’re drawing Order cards that can’t be used with the forces you have on the board as those creatures have been knocked out of the game.

What began as an interesting game of tactics and positioning soon degenerates into a back and forth of repetitive and predictable combat results. This is a real shame because the system of maneuvering and tactical positioning is solid as you face the challenge of getting the right troops into the right spots to best use their powers and benefit from your Order cards in hand. Once the two sides have entered close quarters everything begins to change as order cards are used up faster than they’re replaced and the game becomes a bit of a bore – especially once your opponent and you are sitting there hoping for a good Order card to be drawn each turn since neither of you have any in hand which are usable.

At the end of the day I have to say the new Dungeon Command is overall pretty mediocre. As I mentioned early on, the minis aren’t horrible but the paint jobs for most are nothing more than functional although the sculpts are nice. I understand not everyone has the budget, patience, or skill level to paint miniatures so even a nominal paint job is better than simply bare plastic for most people. Where the bloom comes off the rose rather early is in how quickly Dungeon Command games shift from interesting chess matches of maneuver to rather boring preordained attack damage and exchanges of attack and defense cards; you play a bonus attack card and I follow suit with a card negating the damage.

This doesn’t mean there isn’t promise in the system and, as Elliott likes to do, I’ll make a few suggestions how the game experience can easily be improved with just a couple of changes:

Each side has a deck of thirty six Order cards and, truth be told, there could be more variety found in the decks to make more cards more useful. The player has to select a minimum of thirty cards to create their deck for each battle. If the number of cards included were to be increased to say fifty, with more variety and a handful of other useful effects, this would allow more of a deck building element to enter play as you could tune your deck to your style of play. Possibly including cards which provide two benefits in which you can choose one would go a long way as well. If you want to go for a more attack oriented deck you could, or focus more on added movement, or defense, of special powers. This would really help toward avoiding what begins to appear as a rather deck as far as your Order cards seem as the battle progresses and you have no Order cards or ones which are useless.

Also due to the fact most players will find their available selection of orders in hand will dwindle to nothing rather quickly, we incorporated our own optional rule where a player could spend one morale point during the Refresh phase to draw another Order card. Sure, this might not seem like much – and those Morale points are all that’s keeping your warband in the fight – but having the chance to get another Order card into your hand at a critical time helps alleviate some of that tedium that seemingly never fails to rear its head in the endgame.

My finally thoughts are if you’re a fan of D&D, and want to get your hands on some very affordable miniatures, by all means head out and get yourself some copies of the Dungeon Command faction boxes. However, if you’re looking for a solid fantasy skirmish game which feels fresh each and every time you play you might want to steer clear of the system until the designers at Wizards of the Coast implement some wholesale changes.