DoomTurtle
United States
Redford
Michigan
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Defenders of the Realm was the second game I bought when I jumped into this hobby, and ended up liking it very much. So when an expansion was announced that included new bosses with ways to mix and match them with the originals, as well as many other customizable options, I was pretty excited.
To date, I have used The Dragon Expansion 7 times. I tend to stick with the original game when introducing new players for their first few games, and will then move on to the more difficult dragons (and they definitely are difficult) after they've gotten some experience.
The Premise:
The Dark Lord continues his assault on the realms around Monarch City, and this time, the Blue Dragon Sapphire is now leading three other dragon generals to the assault.
Each of the dragons has its own minion followers that cause trouble around the land, and it is up to the heroes to defend the realm from these new threats.
The Components:
This expansion comes with three pre-painted dragons that represent the new generals. The green dragon is of the same sculpt as the original blue, and the red and black dragons share a new sculpt. Having them painted is nice, but it doesn't fit in with the rest of the base minis if they are unpainted (like mine are).
More of the same thick, high quality cardboard sheets are used for the new general's stats. There are also sheets that allow you to use each of the new dragons as an agent instead of a general, a sheet that shows all the different minions, and some sheets for other variant rules.
Decks of cards are included that can replace the original hero and darkness spreads deck to jump right into the game with the new generals. Additional quest cards are included that reference the new generals and offer new rewards to combat them and get shuffled in with the original quests.
And finally, there are a bunch of cardboard tokens that are used with the new generals as well as a bunch that go along with the included variant options.
The Gameplay
The gameplay hasn't changed from the base game, so I will just cover what is new or different with this expansion. Any of the options below can be added or removed from the game as needed which makes this expansion extremely customizable.
The main draw of this expansion are the new generals. There are the three new dragon generals as well as new general sheet for the original blue dragon which maker her stronger if the other generals are used. The four generals can be used together, using the new decks provided, or they can be used in combination with the original generals. Each new general shares a color with one of the originals, and can therefore be used in the place of the same colored original. The same minion figures are used, but will have the abilities of the new general's minions. When swapping out generals, the hero and darkness spreads deck must built to include only the cards of the participating generals.
Alternately, each of the three new dragon generals can instead be used as an Agent of the Dark Lord. The game will still have 4 generals, and the chosen dragon will be used as an agent. An agent isn't quite as powerful as a general (and it isn't necessary to kill it to win), but they are much stronger than regular minions, and will cause problems to the heroes throughout the game if not taken care of. Usually there is only one agent if this option is used, but I see no reason why you can't use two or all three if you are looking for a much greater challenge.
Another great new concept are the global effects cards. The expansion includes 5 good effects and 5 bad effects. The standard rule for including these are to randomly draw 3 good and 2 bad effects, and mix them into the darkness spreads deck. These replace the All Is Quiet cards, so they must be removed. Global effects are events that can affect everyone. It will provide either a benefit or hindrance, and remains in place until either another global effect is drawn, or a general moves. When a global effect is drawn, you must still draw another darkness spreads card.
The King's Champion rules have been reworked, and a sheet was included which explains all the way a hero can gain fame throughout the game. Fame tokens have been included, and at the end of the game, players can choose rewards based on the order of most fame between the players. If the players choose to play again using these characters, they can use these rewards as a starting bonus.
Royal Blessings have been included, which are a way to make the game a little bit easier, as well as give some help especially to games that use less than 4 heroes. Depending on the number of players, you get a set amount of Royal Blessings to use during the game. The Royal blessing can be used to remove all taint crystals from a location, to reroll all dice in a battle, or to discard a darkness spreads card without resolving it.
The last addition is the inclusion of scenarios that can be played. The first scenario is the regular game using all the new generals. The other 4 included scenarios are different variants, which often have special rules made up for that scenario, making each one unique, and usually challenging.
Final Thoughts:
There are a couple of things I don't like about this expansion. The main one being the included painted figures. They are really out of place with the rest of my set, and I see it as kind of a lead in to try to sell their painted sets of the previous and new heroes and generals.
I also think that combining some of the old and new generals is a little wonky, especially with the new green general. Because of the way the green dragon's minions work, all the new darkness spreads cards only call for a single green minion to show up at any location. So if you use the original green general with any of the new generals, the green minions will be coming out on the board much less often than normal, which goes against its main ability of populating the board most often of all the minions. And if you are using the green dragon with some of the original generals, than the Orcs Spread cards are useless. There are some work-arounds that you can implement in these situations, but it isn't very elegant.
With that said, the good points of this expansion greatly outweigh the bad. This expansion includes an incredible amount of replayability. Being able to mix and match the generals in many combinations (despite my complaints above) provide a lot of different challenge conditions to work with. And this is further implemented through the different scenarios included in the rules, which can further be altered for more challenges. Set up time increases a bit if the decks have to be constructed for the specific mix of generals, but its a small price to pay for large amount of customization.
I think the global effects cards were a genius addition, and really add to the flavor of the game, as well as always being unsure that any streak of luck (whether good or bad) will continue. And the ability to add good or bad effects in different ratios to increase or decrease the difficulty is also great. On top of that, you can throw in agents or royal blessings to further alter your game to suit the difficulty needs of your group.
The expansion comes with a plethora of options to choose from, which can help keep the game form playing out the same way every time. For any fan of Defenders of the Realm, I highly recommend this expansion which will greatly enhance the game. Following the BGG ratings guidelines, I rate this expansion a 9.
Thanks for reading along. You can find my other reviews at A Year With My Games.
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David Knepper
United States
Huntsville
Alabama
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DoomTurtle wrote: Final Thoughts:
I also think that combining some of the old and new generals is a little wonky, especially with the new green general. Because of the way the green dragon's minions work, all the new darkness spreads cards only call for a single green minion to show up at any location. So if you use the original green general with any of the new generals, the green minions will be coming out on the board much less often than normal, which goes against its main ability of populating the board most often of all the minions. And if you are using the green dragon with some of the original generals, than the Orcs Spread cards are useless. There are some work-arounds that you can implement in these situations, but it isn't very elegant.
Why wouldn't you swap out the appropriate Darkness Spreads cards when you mix generals? If you use Gorgutt, you use the Darkness Spreads cards for Gorgutt from the base game and take out the Hemlock Darkness Spreads cards from the expansion. Or am I missing your point?
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DoomTurtle
United States
Redford
Michigan
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Aging One wrote: DoomTurtle wrote: Final Thoughts:
I also think that combining some of the old and new generals is a little wonky, especially with the new green general. Because of the way the green dragon's minions work, all the new darkness spreads cards only call for a single green minion to show up at any location. So if you use the original green general with any of the new generals, the green minions will be coming out on the board much less often than normal, which goes against its main ability of populating the board most often of all the minions. And if you are using the green dragon with some of the original generals, than the Orcs Spread cards are useless. There are some work-arounds that you can implement in these situations, but it isn't very elegant. Why wouldn't you swap out the appropriate Darkness Spreads cards when you mix generals? If you use Gorgutt, you use the Darkness Spreads cards for Gorgutt from the base game and take out the Hemlock Darkness Spreads cards from the expansion. Or am I missing your point?
I think you missed it, or I wrote it poorly. You would swap in the Gorgutt cards and remove the Hemlock cards. But the other three dragon generals' cards only ever put 1 green minion on a location since they were made with Hemlock's imps in mind. So the Gorgutt cards will only ever be the ones that put 2 green minions on a location. And the three dragon generals don't have Orcs Spread cards, so instead of 6 of them or so, you will only have the one or two that entered the deck with Gorgutt.
In this situation, the orcs go from being the most occurring minion (with the base game generals) to hardly appearing, simply because the new general darkness spreads cards don't account for them.
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Ernest S
United States
Renton
Washington
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DoomTurtle wrote: Final Thoughts:...
I agree with most of your final thoughts: I love the global effects cards; the expansion adds a ton of re-playability; mixing & matching generals is fun; and the senario's are great.
I'd switch my dislikes around from what you dislike. I couldn't care less about the painted dragons. They look cool & I don't think they look out of place next to the unpainted ones IMHO. My biggest complaint is the additional set-up/take-down time needed as you must separate the general cards out in both the Hero deck & the Darkness Spreads deck.
However as you said, the good out weights the bad... by a lot, and we really enjoy this expansion.
Thanks for the review.
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David Knepper
United States
Huntsville
Alabama
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DoomTurtle wrote: I think you missed it, or I wrote it poorly. You would swap in the Gorgutt cards and remove the Hemlock cards. But the other three dragon generals' cards only ever put 1 green minion on a location since they were made with Hemlock's imps in mind. So the Gorgutt cards will only ever be the ones that put 2 green minions on a location. And the three dragon generals don't have Orcs Spread cards, so instead of 6 of them or so, you will only have the one or two that entered the deck with Gorgutt.
In this situation, the orcs go from being the most occurring minion (with the base game generals) to hardly appearing, simply because the new general darkness spreads cards don't account for them.
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Kent Pritchett
Canada
Calgary
Alberta
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First thanks for the review and I agree for the most part.
I have my hero cards and darkness spreads cards separated in the box for each general. The four worded Sapphire cards are in the slot with my special darkness spreads cards as I only pick the two I will use.
I agree that the imps and orcs can get a little messed up but I have some rules to follow and I have never had any issues.
1. If your playing Imps and they come up on the darknesss spreads only add 1 even if it shows two.
2. If your playing orcs and they come up on the darknesss spreads add 2 even if it shows only 1.
3. With Sapphires two worded cards, when using orcs use the two orc cards else use the other two from the dragon expansion. Besides those two orc cards all the other Sapphire cards and purple hero cards from the original set can be placed away somewhere and kept for spares.
4. If using imps and original worded orc cards come up in the darkness spreads with Demon and undead general it acts as a All is Quite besides the general movement part.
I have had no complaints with this expansion and love to mix and match my generals.
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