Dragon Masters - A Mixed Bag

Hi there!

A short post I had been meaning to share for a whle.

With my son having just turned seven, I have been slowly introducing him to board games. One of the few 'gems' that I decided to take with us to Norway was my copy of Dragonmasters by Ian Livingstone (though there are many old Games Workshop/Citadel boxed sets I wish I had kept!). 

For those of you who are unfamiliar, Dragonmasters is a simple beer and pretzels board game that was the sequel to the Mighty Empires set released by Games Workshop in 1991. There is very little of it to find on the internet which is a shame, because my son and I have quite a lot of fun playing!

The release was allegedly met with lukewarm results by the customer base, and I think destined to ignomy because of its simplistic nature. Additionally it physically borrows much from Mighty Empires but dilutes the gameplay down so much that I feel that the 'crunchy' grognards of old were disgusted by it. 

The game centers around various Elven noble princes fighting over some random part of the Old World; marching over land with mass armies, establishing villages and towns and razing them to the ground with hatched dragons. The TLDR of the game is that it is very random, zany and so swingy from turn to turn that it certainly would not appeal to a modern audience. With removing the Event cards and removing the 'Dragon Raid' part of the rules, however, it is a simple to learn and fairly pleasant game to play for kids or adults that do not take it too seriously. 

The game comes in the old standard GW boxes, 12" x 12" x " and features characterful art. Along the interior box are of course advertisements for so many of the original, zany and goofy games that have since become staples of gamer's diet since childhood.

The Fantasy game of Conquest and Adventure...meh

I tried writing to them, but no one responded...

Filled with nostalgia

The Warhammer RPG cover art was also featured in David Pringles' anthology of stories "Red Thirst" I read as a kid.

The board layout

The board itself features beautiful, if recycled from other products, artwork by John Blanche. The map is spread out in odd, juxtaposing tiles for armies to move around the map. The box comes with a number of components - most excitingly the Army banners from the Mighty Empires game, alongside 'Battle Dragons' (smaller dragons, not pictured), Emperor Dragons, village and city pieces and Ships for players to buy to be able to navigate the high seas of...wherever the hell this was supposed to represent. Little sticker flags are also included for each of the 4 players to plant their flags onto their keeps, villages, etc. A bag of assorted plastic coins also represent the currency of the game. 

These plastic pieces still hold up to this day, and would be great to have for any map-based campaign!

The royal mint of Games Workshop. How foreboding!

Players take it in turn setting up their 'keep' on the circles with artwork. This represents the spawning point of their Prince - a Mighty Empires army token with a striped flag. Should a player's Prince fall, they respawn at their keep the following turn.

On each section of the map small cardboard chits are randomly placed face-down to represent the various hazards of exploring an untamed land. There are Land and Sea tokens for the different parts of the map.

A completed, if abbreviated, two-player setup!

Players would normally have a hand of three 'Event' cards to draw from every turn in which to play  to aid their efforts or to hinder their opponents - however, for our purposes, I chose not to have us play with them. Some of them are restricted to Sea but most are for land. 

The art on these just rule. Really bring me back to my early childhood.

Spells can be cast if a player purchases a Wizard.

Some Disaster cards are restricted to be played if an opponent occupies a particular terrain type. 

Rolling on thematic tables is a recurring theme, adding to the swingy and zany nature of the game. 

I love the Heroquest-esque art style of the cards!

Players roll off to see who takes the first turn. A normal turn resolves in the following order to the best of my memory:

1. Muster Armies
2. Collect Gold
3. Build
4. Explore
5. Resolve Attacks
6. (Hatch Dragons)
7. (Play Event Cards)

At the outset, players muster 1 army per each City or Keep that they own. Then they collect gold from any mines that they own by happenstance, 1 gold for every village and 2 gold for every Keep or City. They can then use their funds to build Villages on tiles that they have an army present on, upgrade an existing Village to a City, or buy Ships, Horses or Wizards. Ships are require for an army to venture onto a Sea tile while Horses enable the quicker movement of armies around the map. Wizards obviously allow the player to cast spells from their event cards. 

Mines prove to be a valuable source of income, raidomly gained only from exploring the map!

Next players move their armies across the map one tile at a time. When an army or arm(ies) land on a tile with an exploration token, they then flip it over. If it has an enemy with a 'Strength' value, then that player loses that many armies. Other exploration tokens represent happy or crappy incidents along the way, representing the untamed wilds of this realm. If all of a player's armies vacate a tile, then another exploration token is placed there. 

Everyone always loves getting bags of gold, but NO one likes trolls. They smell!

With our game set up, I let my son take the first turn and begin to explore the map.

We choose to set up relatively close to each other when we play in order to make the game progress quicker. Obviously my son tends to sometimes peek under the exploration tokens to see what is underneath...which I try and gently chide him for. 

The game started out well for me, having discovered a village and gaining a silver mine! The next turn I was faced with disaster as both of my armies discovered a zombie hoard and trolls. Oh no!

A turn-1 village provided me some much-needed income to expand in future turns.

My son's first few turns were met with roaming hordes of goblin wulfboyz and even discovering an earthquake just outside his keep - resulting in the exploring army to be pushed back to its original tile. As a result no armies could explore that specific tile for the rest of the game. 

Future turns brought misery and misfortune to my burgeoning empire as my armies discovered more and more randomly wandering monsters and creatures, while my son expanded westwards - discovering Villages and upgrading them to Cities!

At one point I bought a ship just to go and see what the deal was with all of these Sea exporation tokens...whoops.

When I play with him I tend to randomly explore and slowly build while advising my son on what he should do next - though that is not that often. This is what the board looked like after about 20 minutes of game play:

The state of the game

My son had the odd luck of exploring several ruined temples, catacombs and dungeons - only to discover several Emperor dragons hatched from eggs. I quickly withdrew my armies back to my keep, only to be overwhelmed by his forces.

Blood for the Blood God!

Combat is overly simple. If one side has three armies and their opponent has two, then each army cancels another out - so the side with three armies would be left with one standing. Emperor Dragons count as 5 armies and Battle Dragons count as one. Villages count as one army when defending, and Cities count as two armies - while we use a house rule that our Keeps count as five!

The game technically ends when the 'end game' event card is drawn, if memory serves, but my son and I usually meander around the map until one of us feels strong enough to attack the other's keep (spoiler, my son has always won...).

Overall I find the game charming and simple enough to learn. As mentioned earlier the game components themselves are worth the cost of entry for those looking for pieces to use for their own map-based campaigns in the Old World in Warhammer. It scratches a beer and pretzel itch, though board game enthusiasts may find it dull. To me it'd be a nice game to play with 4 players hanging around the table with no one taking it too seriously. 

Til next time,

Bill