Thursday, September 30, 2010

Castle Ravenloft Board Game

Castle Ravenloft

This Boardgame is crammed to the top with stuff! 41 interlocking dungeon tiles, 92 plastic minis (yes they are the D&D minis, just unpainted), 5 different heroes, an adventure book, 200 cards, 192 tokens, and a D20! Play as a heroic adventurer, explore, overcome hazards, find treasure, and face Lord Strahd! Published by Wizards of the Coast for 1-5 players.

Below is a convention chart showing which prepainted D&D miniature (DDM) is represented in the game which an unpainted game piece. The chart offers the name of the DDM mini, and it's set.

Minis to Painted DDM Minis
Wolf = Warg, Harbringer
Spider =  Death Jump spider, Savage Encounter
Ghoul = Gravetouched Ghoul, Unhallowed
Zombie = Terror Wight, War Drums
Rat Swarm = Rat Swarm, Savage Encounters
Skeleton = Warrior Skeleton, Archfiends
Kobold = Kobold Soldier, Angelfire
Blazing Skeleton = Blazing Skeleton, Against the Giants
Gargoyle = Earth Element Gargoyle, Blood War
Zombie Dragon = Zombie White Dragon, Deathknell
Werewolf = Werewolf, Against the Giants
Kobold Sorcerer = Kobold Sorcerer, Aberrations
Dracolich = Dracolich, Dragonqueen

Also, WotC has now posted a new set of adventures for the game. Click on the adventures link in the previous sentence to check out the 2 new adventures: Zombie Guards of Castle Ravenloft, and Search for the Sunsword.

Monday, September 20, 2010

Magic at the Dragon's Den

Many people have asked us about our events at the Dragon's Den... specifically Magic Events. We post our schedule of events on our web-page: EVENTS

But to answer the question here, so players can know and come play, here is a general break down of our events.

Monday 6:00pm: Standard Constructed FREE
     This event is Standard and follows the rules for Standard constructed events. We hand out prizes to the top players as well as random door prizes. DCI Foil Cards are the prizes for this event, plus other foil promos that are left over.

Monday 6:00pm: Draft $15.00
      This event will include 3 of the most recent booster packs. We hand out prizes to the top players as well as random door prizes. DCI Foil Cards tend to be extra prizes for this event, plus other foil promos that are left over. The main prize for this event is a prize pool of 2 packs per player split between top players.

Tuesday 6:00pm: Casual
     We don't have a set game for this night, but we have players who come in and play alternate formats of Magic. Planechase, Archenemies, and EDH are three of the different formats that get played this night, but other versions could be played as well.

Friday 3:00pm: FNM Draft $15.00
      This event will include 3 of the most recent booster packs. We hand out prizes to the top players as well as random door prizes. DCI Foil Cards and FNM cards are the prizes for this event, plus other foil promos that are left over. The main prize for this event is a prize pool of 2 packs per player split between top players

Friday 3:00pm: FNM Standard FREE

     This event is Standard and follows the rules for Standard constructed events. We hand out prizes to the top players as well as random door prizes. DCI Foil Cards and FNM cards are the prizes for this event, plus other foil promos that are left over.

Friday 6:00pm: FNM Standard FREE

     This event is Standard and follows the rules for Standard constructed events. We hand out prizes to the top players as well as random door prizes. DCI Foil Cards and FNM cards are the prizes for this event, plus other foil promos that are left over.

Friday 6:00pm: FNM Standard $10.00 Event

     This event is Standard and follows the rules for Standard constructed events. We hand out prizes to the top players as well as random door prizes. DCI Foil Cards and FNM cards are the prizes for this event, plus other foil promos that are left over.The main prize for this event is a prize pool of 3 packs per player split among the top players.

Saturday 5:00pm: Extended FREE
      This event is Extended and follows the rules for Extended constructed events. We hand out prizes to the top players as well as random door prizes. DCI Foil Cards are the prizes for this event, plus other foil promos that are left over.

If you have never stopped in for one of our Magic events, they are a treat.  we have many fantastic players who are not only good players, but fun players. We have been averaging 40 or more players at our 6:00pm FNMs, and we get over 60 players for our Prerelease events!

If you are looking to learn to play Magic, stop in and ask; almost every employee in the store now either plays or collects the game. For more information about the game, try the Wizards of the Coast web site.

Friday, September 17, 2010

D&D Essentials Game Day: Sunderpeak Temple

To celebrate the release of D&D Essentials and the new D&D Red Box, Wizards of the Coast (WotC) went old school and really brought some great memories back for an old time RPGer. Here is a break down of some of the interesting RETRO things they did to make this such an interesting event.

1. A Classic look on the cover of the adventure: The fighter taking on the Red Dragon! This is such an iconic image that players who played in the 80s will remember this image and think fondly of Keep on the Borderlands... which interestingly enough is the next Wednesday Night Encounters.
2. The Goldenrod character sheets reminded me of the old school blank character sheets that you could buy to make your PC look official. The images they used for the characters all looked very retro as well.
3. The "hand-drawn" map was classic! I loved the triangles that were not all the way closed at the bottom, it really gave it a feel of being drawn that day for the players. The one thing that would have really made it was if the maps on the inside cover had been printed in blue not black.

Now for how it played out! We ran several sections for this event. Some went better then others! We had one DM who almost TPKed in the first encounter! It was rough, but the players managed to survive... only to die 2 encounters later. They had fun and played it out to the bitter end. Another group made it to the final fight and found out that the Dragon was not as tough as the Orcs and Rage Drakes! The fighters both beat the Dragon on initiative and used their daily... then action pointed!

Just as a reminder, we run many sessions of D&D here at the Den. Come in on a Wednesday night to play D&D Encounters. This week will be the last session for the Dark Sun Encounter: Fury of the Wastewalker. Next week we start the new Encounter Keep on the Borderlands!

Thursday, September 9, 2010

New Boardgames

Recently we got in many new Boardgames. Several of theses games really push the boundaries and will challenge you to a great game. We wanted to post a quick write up about some of these great games and hopefully see some on you in on Thursday nights to try them out! You can even play some of these games solo if you are having a night home alone.


Ascension: Chronicle of the Godslayer:
This is a fast-pasted deckbuilding game set in an epic fantasy world.  The game was created by several Magic Pro-Tour Champions, with art for the cards from Eric Sabee.  Has many of the great features and feel of a CCG but in ONE box! Published by Gary Games for 2-4 players.

Dungeons & Dragons Castle Ravenloft: This Boardgame is crammed to the top with stuff! 41 interlocking dungeon tiles, 92 plastic minis (yes they are the D&D minis, just unpainted), 9 different heroes, an adventure book, 200 cards, 192 tokens, and a D20! Play as a heroic adventurer, explore, overcome hazards, find treasure, and face Lord Strahd! Published by Wizards of the Coast for 1-5 players.

Warlords of Europe:  Reminds me of Conquest of the Empire, but set in a feudal Europe setting. The game offers a variety of plastic units including swordsman, knights, archers, and spearman. Some people might think it is like Risk, but it does offer more diversity in play with cards that can change the course of the game.  They also introduced a mechanic to the game that allows you to roll different dice depending on what terrain you are fighting in(D8, D10, and D12). Published by Conquest Gaming for 2-4 players.

The Eagle and the Lion: Battles of Napoleon: The first game to be released in the Battles of Napoleon series, with everything you need to recreate classic battles between the French and the British. This game was great to demo at Gen Con! fantastic plastic pieces, order cards, event cards, and so much more. The game also has a scenario book to play historic events! Published by Nexus for 2 players.


Dungeonquest: Can you venture into the dragon's lair and steal his treasure? This dungeon delving game includes 6 heroes each with unique abilities. The game includes 50 dungeon tiles, many cards, lots of tokens, and a great game board. On an interesting note, if you are looking for sleeves for the cards in this game, Fantasy Flight yellow is the correct size... you will need 7 packs to sleeve all the cards in the game. Published by Fantasy Flight for 1-4 players.