Board Game Review: Dragon Farkle

GAME SUMMARY

For nearly a century, the land of Yon has operated basically in peace (despite the occasional uncontested goblin raid or two).

Gather your courage!

The long-enjoyed peace of Yon has been disrupted by a ferocious and mean-spirited dragon — he's terrorizing the locals and eating their livestock without their permission! Fortunately, a few wannabe heroes (that's you!) have risen to the challenge of slaying the beast. Get yourself a brave companion, gather a powerful army, and enter the Dragon's Keep for cheese and country in Dragon Farkle!

Defeat the Dragon, Become the Hero, Profit!

A new twist on an old classic, Dragon Farkle is a fast-paced card and dice game for 2-5 “wannabe heroes” in a race to rally enough soldiers to defeat the dragon (or at least prevent the others from succeeding).

To play, you gather an army of loyal soldiers or steal them from your opponents, hire suspicious-looking companions and gain allegedly useful items (most of which aren't even cursed), then fight that dragon you've heard so much about — or don't, if you hate winning...

For a great tutorial video, watch this Wil Wheaton’s TableTop show where he teaches you how to play Dragon Farkle with Brandon Routh, Derek Mio, and Neil Grayston! (Yes, the actor Wil Wheaton) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a50BqykSvZE

MY REVIEW

Dragon Farkle is incredibly fun! It gets our kids off their screens and to the table for some great family fun. If you want to spice up the game, play in character (add an accent), act like you’re in medieval times and put on your helmets. We got helmets for under $10 that we wear.

It’s basically a game of how far you want to push your luck game without a lot of rules. Just roll the dice, roll again… and again, and try to decide when you want to end your turn before you lose the recruited troops. That’s pretty much it, a basic concept with great game design.

Each player starts with 0 troops in their army, a Companion (each companion has different powers) and a magical item. Each player has the option of three different actions on their turn – recruit troops, brawl to steel other player troops or try to defeat the dragon. To attempt to defeat the dragon you need 5000 troops in your army unless you have a magical item that says you only need 4500. Brawling with another army creates some good player interaction because you’re in a battle with them to minimize their army by stealing their troops to build your army. The Magic Item cards also give you a chance to take advantage of certain tactical positions to make an unexpected play. Finally, the game also has the potential with a more climactic ending as you are not simply playing to a target score, but rather you have to also be able to succeed against the Dragon on your final turn.

The new version of the game is definitely more interesting than the base game. I would think that most experienced gamers would prefer this version. Early in the game, it seems to make sense to mostly just recruit to build up your own army; but once they armies on the board get larger, it may make more sense to Brawl in order to try to increase your own army at the expense of one of your opponents. This causes a fair amount of interaction between players, and any interaction is better than the base game where there is nothing else to do but watch your opponent when it’s their turn.

Yet, this head-to-head attack can also prolong the game. In our first few games, when someone was getting close to 5,000 armies; the other players in the game would then all try to attack him to bring him under the target number. This might then cause someone else to go over the limit; and then the focus of the attacks would shift to that person. At least the target number in Dragon Farkle is only 5,000. To win a game of regular Farkle, a player needs 10,000 points.

The Event die is a nice addition to the game. It adds yet another element of luck to the dice roll, but it also spices up play a bit. There are times when you do have to make difficult decisions about whether or not to double up scores with a Rally event or to give up those extra armies and take an Event card instead. The one thing that I do not like about the Event die is that it has different functions based on what type of turn you are taking. In my opinion, for a game that already includes 31 dice, I would have preferred the game to also include a second custom die for the Final Battle with different icons for one hit and two hits on the Dragon.

Overall, the artwork for the game is well done. I especially like the crisp clean art on the Companion cards. The dice are of good quality, and it’s nice to have enough included for each player to have their own set – you possibly could have only needed 12 or 13 dice, but they include 31 in the box so that you only have to pass around the Event die. My only quibble with the components is that there doesn’t seem to be enough counters in the smaller denominations. We’re constantly coloring up so that people can make change or take small gains from the bank after the midpoint of the game.

The length of our games vary, though in all three of my plays so far, the game has felt like it has slightly overstayed its welcome by the time the end finally comes. I’d prefer this to be more in the 15-20 minute range as opposed to the 30-45 minute time frame. Some of the game length comes from my group’s tendency to continually pounce upon anyone who might have a chance to attack the Dragon. The first person who reaches 5,000 likely has up to three consecutive Brawls coming his way as the other players try to reduce him below this threshold. This tactic often succeeds, and it takes awhile to get high enough above the target to make it through the attacks. But other than that, it’s a fairly light game that is a filler-type game though a bit long for that slot. I’ll still probably always play this over regular Farkle because there is more of a game here for the same amount of time/effort..

GAME DETAILS

Dragon Farkle by Z-MAN Games

https://www.zmangames.com/en/products/dragon-farkle/

# of Players: 2 – 5

Est. Time: 30 mins

Age: 13 years+ (I don’t agree as my kids have been playing this since they were 9 years old)

Designer: Robert J. Hudecek

Artist: Denis Martynets

Publisher: Cube Factory of Ideas, Z-Man Games, Inc.

Download PDF of game rules here: http://bit.ly/2VrFSsX

Thanks for reading!

Tiberius Stark

Elder Geek of the Geek Clan