Rosenkönig Playthrough & Review Video

I made a mistake in this video. The orientation of the power cards should be the same for both players. 

Here is a picture from the rules with the board layout, including the proper orientation of the power cards.

Game: Rosenkönig
Publisher: KOSMOS Games
Year: 1997
Number of Players: 2
Suggested Ages: 10 and up

Dungeon Roll Picture Play Through

Dungeon Roll is a dice rolling, dungeon crawl game that can be played solo or with up to 4 players. A game of Dungeon Roll involves each player delving into the dungeon 3 times, trying to go as deep into the dungeon as they can. This is a play-by-play with pictures through a solo game for one delve.

Click here to view an overview of all the components and a review of Dungeon Roll.

Game Setup

To setup the game, put all the treasure tokens into the treasure chest (the game box) and set aside the experience tokens.

 

Next, choose which hero you want to play with from the eight available heroes. For this delve I chose Occultist. Her specialty is that Clerics may be used as Mages and Mages may be used as Clerics. This card can also be tapped to Animate Dead which transforms 1 Skeleton into a Fighter.

Next I roll the 7 Party Dice to determine the characters that I will use for my delve. I get a Thief, 2 Fighters, 2 Champions, a Cleric and a Scroll.

Level 1. I set the Dungeon Die to 1 to start my delve.

I roll 1 Dungeon Die and get a Treasure Chest. I can choose to use a Party Die to open the chest and take a treasure token, but I choose not to since I want to save my Party Dice so I can go deeper.

Level 2. I will roll 2 Dungeon Dice and I get a Treasure Chest and a Potion. This is another fortunate dice roll! I will once again choose not to take either of these dice and continue onto Level 3.

Level 3. I roll 3 Dungeon Dice and this time I get my first monsters, 1 Goblin and 2 Oozes. I will use my Cleric to handle both of the Oozes and 1 of my 2 Fighters to handle the Goblin.

My remaining party after Level 3 includes a Thief, a Fighter, 2 Champions and a Scroll.

Level 4. I roll 4 dice and get a Dragon (which is set aside), an Ooze and 2 Potions. 

I use a Champion to take care of the Ooze and my last Fighter to take the 2 Potions, which will allow me to revive 2 Party Dice. I chose to recover a Mage and a Fighter. 

This is my party going into Level 5. I am feeling pretty good about this delve at this point! I have 4 separate party members, which is good since I will need 3 different party members to fight a dragon, and I still have a Scroll.

Level 5. This time I roll 5 dice and I get a Dragon (set aside for a total of 2), 2 Potions and 2 Oozes. 

I use the Mage to take down the Oozes and the Fighter to take the 2 Potions. Then I choose to revive a Mage and a Fighter.

Going into Level 6 I still have a great party with a Thief, Mage, Champion, Fighter and a Scroll.

Level 6. I only roll 6 dice since that is all that is left (since I have 2 set aside with Dragons) and I get a Skeleton, 2 Oozes and 2 Potions. Another fortunate roll!

I use my Hero's Ultimate Ability which allows me to transform 1 Skeleton into a Fighter.

I then use the Skeleton to take the 2 Potions and the Mage to kill the 2 Oozes. From the 2 Potions I recover a Mage and a Cleric. 

Going into Level 7 I am feeling real good about my chances! I have a Thief, a Mage, a Cleric, a Fighter, a Champion and a Potion. 

Level 7. I have been very lucky so far, let's see if it continues. I roll 5 dice again and this time I get a 3rd Dragon, 1 Skeleton, 1 Potion and 2 Chests. 

I must defeat the Skeleton to get to the Treasure Chests, the Potion and the Dragon. I use the Cleric to defeat the Skeleton. I use the Thief to open both Treasure Chests; only the Thief can open more than one Treasure Chest. I leave the Potion alone and I use the Fighter, Champion and Mage to slay the Dragon. 

For the 2 Treasure Chests I drew 2 Treasure Tokens from the box and I get a Vorpal Sword, which is a Fighter, and a 2XP Town Portal. I could have used the Vorpal Sword as a Fighter to help defeat the Dragon and saved my Fighter dice.

For defeating the Dragon I gain 1 XP token and a Treasure Token. I drew a Ring of Invisibility, which allows you to sneak past the Dragon instead of fighting him. When you use the Ring of Invisibility to sneak past a Dragon you do not get credit for slaying the Dragon, but the dice are reset and you don't have to spend your Party Dice to go deeper in your delve. I also have a Scroll Party Dice left. 

At this point if I decide to continue onto level 8 I would only have a Vorpal Sword and a Scroll, but I would be rolling all 7 dice. It would take an absolute miracle to get past 8 and to move onto 9. I choose not to continue and I will return to town.

Since I reached level 7 of the dungeon I will receive 7 XP; since I have the 2XP Town Portal that doubles and I gain 14 XP. Along with the 1 XP I earned for slaying the dragon I end my first delve with 15 XP. That is a great first delve! I would return the remaining Treasure Tokens back to the box. I can also flip over my Hero Card to the leveled up side, which would be the Necromancer. 

I will not cover the rest of the game play for my next 2 delves, but the next 2 delves did not go as well as the first and I ended up with 24 XP total, which means I only earned another 10 XP on the next 2 delves combined.

Click here to view an overview of all the components and a review of Dungeon Roll.

Game: Dungeon Roll
Publisher: Tasty Minstrel Games
Year: 2013
Number of Players: 1 to 4
Suggested Ages: 8 and up

Dungeon Roll Overview & Review

Overview

Dungeon Roll is a dice rolling dungeon crawl where you try to delve as far into the dungeon as possible. In the box/treasure chest you get.....

1 Rule Book

1 Book of Heroes

24 Experience Tokens
These come in denominations of 1, 3, 5 and 10 and you will receive them based on how far you delve into the dungeon and for defeating a dragon.

36 Treasure Tokens
You will receive treasure tokens for opening treasure chests during your delve and for defeating a dragon.

Token explanations:

• Top row, left to right
• Town Portal: Collect experience equal to current Dungeon Level and escape the Dungeon. So if you are at level 7 of the dungeon and you left without this token you would gain 7 experience, with this token you would gain 14 experience.
• Dragon Bait: Transform all remaining monsters into Dragon Faces. This would allow you to fight the dragon, you would not want to do this unless you had 3 separate party members.
• Dragon Scale: Each pair of Dragon Scales is worth two additional experience at the end of the game. These are useless in the actual delve, but good for gaining experience.
• Potion: Revive 1 Party Die from the Graveyard and choose its face. Potions are your best friend in delves allow you to revive a used Party Die as any character you want.
• Ring of Invisibility: Clear all dice from the Dragon's Lair. This does not count as defeating the Dragon. You would want to use this if you have to fight a dragon and you are incapable of defeating the dragon; you do not gain experience or treasure by using the ring to sneak past the dragon.
• Scroll: Can be used as a Scroll. Scrolls allow you to re-roll any number of Party and/or Dungeon Dice.
• Bottom row, left to right
• These can all be used as party members and kill monsters and dragons, open chests and use potions.
• Scepter of Power: Can be used as a Mage. 
• Vorpal Sword: Can be used as a Fighter.
• Talisman: Can be used as a Cleric.
• Thieves' Tools: Can be used as a Thief.

7 Party Dice
There are seven dice with 6 different icons.

• From left to right
• Champion (shown twice)
• Cleric
• Fighter
• Mage
• Thief
• Scroll

All these are used as party members, except the scroll, which can be used at anytime to re-roll any number of Party or Dungeon Dice.

7 Dungeon Dice
There are seven dice with 6 different icons.

• Middle row, from left to right
• Dragon (also top row)
• Goblin
• Skeleton
• Ooze
• Bottom row, from left to right
• Potion
• Treasure Chest

10-sided Die
This die is used to track which level of the dungeon you are currently at; the dragon symbol is level 10.

8 Base Set Hero Cards
In the base set you can choose from one of eight heroes, each with their own unique abilities. These images are for the front of the hero cards. Once you gain at least 5 experience points you can flip your hero card to the other side.

These are the back side of the hero cards which show the leveled up hero.

4 Player Aids
The game comes with four 2-sided cards with explanations of the treasure tokens and abilities of different party dice symbols.

My 2 Cents

I really, really like this game. Here are the reasons I like it!

• Simple and easy to learn
• You can teach this game to people very quickly, within just a few minutes, or by having them play as the dungeon master on the first delve
• Kids can play it
• My 7 year old was able to play this game easily
• Quick to play
• You can pull this game out and play solo in 10-15 minutes
• Solo
• Great for those time when there is no one else to play a game with or when traveling by yourself
• Small footprint
• The box is 4.1" wide and doesn't take up much space; I love games, but they start to take up a lot of space over time
• Travel friendly
• Because it comes in a small box it travels easily
• Replay ability
• When I purchased this game I did not expect that it could be replayed over and over but I was wrong; having multiple heroes and a press your luck style to it gives it good replay ability.

I will give Dungeon Roll 7.5 out of 10 bears.

Game: Dungeon Roll
Publisher: Tasty Minstrel Games
Year: 2013
Number of Players: 1 to 4
Suggested Ages: 8 and up

Hit the Beach - Play Review

For an overview of the game and it's components, view the original post here.

Hit the Beach is a very easy to learn and play game that kids and adults can enjoy. The game is played cooperatively since all players are storming the beach that is controlled by the Japanese. Since the goal of the game is to be the first to reach the Japanese headquarters, players can choose to place destroyed Japanese troops in the path of their fellow players.

Each player chooses a color and receives 6 playing pieces - 2 Marine Divisions, 2 Army Infantry Divisions, 1 ship (naval landing support) and 1 airplane (air support). All 6 of each player's pieces should be on the matching color starting spot.

All yellow Japanese defender pieces should be placed on the yellow and brown circles with yellow burst marks in them.

For a turn you roll the die and move either a Marine or Army division that many spaces on either white or brown spaces. Here the red player had already moved one of his Marine divisions into the beach landing zone and just moved his support aircraft into the beach landing as well since he rolled a 6. When a 6 is rolled either or the support pieces (ship or airplane) can be moved to a landing zone or division pieces can be moved 6 spaces.

On his next turn, the red player rolls a 6 and moves the support ship into the red beach landing zone. Now on his next turn he can move one of his two red division pieces over the yellow Japanese defender to defeat that unit.

At this point both the red player has taken the first Japanese defender and the blue player is poised to take the other Japanese unit on his next turn.

After storming both beaches of their color, both the red and blue players have landed on the main island and are trying to reach the Japanese HQ. You can notice from the picture that after Japanese defenders have been defeated, the players have chosen to place them in the paths of the other players. After a Japanese defender is defeated, it can be placed on any brown circle on the board, that could be in the way of a fellow player or somewhere else on the board that may be out of play.

Both players are on the verge of taking the Japanese HQ; to win you must reach the red circle in the middle of the board and must roll the exact amount needed to reach the red circle; the red player rolls must roll a 2 or a 1 twice on his next two turns.

The blue player is the first one to reach the Japanese HQ and wins!

Overall I think this game is OK and I would give it a 5.5 out of 10 bears. 

It has way more luck than I like in a game, but with some house rules or tweaks it could be much better. I love the theme and the design of the board and the pieces. It is easy enough for young kids to play, I play this with my 6 year old and he loves it.

Rules for Hit the Beach are available at the Hasbro website.

Game: Hit the Beach
Publisher: Milton Bradley
Series: American Heritage Command Decision Strategy Games
Year: 1965
Number of Players: 2-4 Players
Suggested Ages: 9 and up

Star Wars: Epic Duels - Overview

Star Wars: Epic Duels is a highly sought after board game that allows players to replay classic duels or to create new duels between Star Wars characters. Yoda & Clones vs. Vader & Stormtroopers, Luke & Leia vs. Count Dooku & Super Battle Droids,  or even Han & Chewy vs. Obi Wan & Clones!

The Components

The miniatures are nice and decent quality, but the rest of the components are really not that impressive, at all. The game boards are small and flimsy; I really think that better and larger game boards would have really made this game top notch. The character life cards are good quality and a nice design.

• 2 double-sided game boards
  
• Geonosis
• Emperor's Throne Room
• Carbon-Freezing Room
• Landing platform
• 1 six-sided die
• 31 miniatures (listed by teams)
• Light Side Characters
• Luke Skywalker & Leia Organa
• Han Sol & Chewie
• Obi Wan Kenobi & 2 Clones
• Yoda & 2 Clones
• Mace Windu & 2 Clones
• Anakin Skywalker & Padme Amidala
• Dark Side Character
• Jengo Fett & Zam Wesell
• Boba Fett & Greedo
• Count Dooku & 2 Super Battle Droids
• Emperor & 2 Royal Guards
• Darth Maul & 2 Battle Droids
• Darth Vader & 2 Storm Troopers
• 12 character group cards
• 378 action cards (31 per character group)
• wound markers
• rules

Yoda & 2 Clones

Mace Windu & 2 Clones

Obi Wan Kenobi & 2 Clones

Anakin Skywalker & Padme Amidala

Luke Skywalker & Leia Organa

Han Solo & Chewbacca

Emperor & 2 Royal Guards

Darth Vader & 2 Storm Troopers

Count Dooku & 2 Super Battle Droids

Darth Maul & 2 Battle Droids

Boba Fett & Greedo

The Design

The artwork is, well it's Star Wars, so it has to be good.The artwork is nice, but not super high quality. It is something you would expect from Milton Bradley. The painted miniatures are roughly 1.5" each and are a nice touch and really put the game above where it would be with just tokens or card board stand-ups. The design and detail on the 4 battle board maps is very nice, the only issue I have with the battle boards is that they are too small. I think this game was be much better with larger battle boards; probably double the size of these.

Wound Markers, Quick Guide Cards & Dice

Match-Up: Boba Fett & Greedo vs. Obi Wan & 2 Clones

Dark Side Character Cards

Light Side Character Cards

Character Action Cards

Battle Boards - Emperor's Throne Room & Landing Platform

Battle Boards - Carbon-Freezing Chamber & Geonosis

Game: Star Wars: Epic Duels
Publisher: Milton Bradley
Year: 2002
Number of Players: 2-6 Players
Suggested Ages: 10 and up