Image taken from https://boardgamegeek.com/image/9316638/dragons-of-etchinstone

Designer: Joe Klipfel
Publisher: Chip Theory Games
Artists: Bree Lindsoe, Federico Pompili

Before I begin, I won’t be going over any rules, gameplay, game flow, etc., so you may want to brush up on the basics before continuing.

Here are some examples of the mental and emotional stages I experienced once I acquired this game. First, “OMG I’m so excited to play this, it looks like a crunchier version of Palm Island in an equally portable box”. Next, “why are there so many pages in this rulebook? What am I even reading?” Then, “oh, okay, I get it; this is clever. This is so fun. This plays so quickly. Wait, I can totally watch football and play this at the same time. I love this!” Once I was comfortable with the base game, I tried the expansions, Northvale first. My first read of this rulebook: “um, okay, I’m sorry, what now? This symbol means what? I have to determine the opposite color of one of the cards and carry out some action based on another value on the card? And the highlighted cards and the dotted cards on the top of this don’t mean the same thing? This is too much.” Next came Siege with something along the lines of “well, the iconography here is at least a little easier, but wait, what the heck is happening on these structure cards? Wait, what??” Then, I circled back to Northvale (and then later Siege) and forced myself to comprehend everything and give it all another try, resulting in enjoyable, fun play experiences…eventually.

Well, that basically sums it up. The base game in and of itself is absolutely wonderful, expeditious, fits in hand, crunchy, and is enjoyable overall, but it was a lot to take in initially. Physically, the rulebook is small, but it is quite thick and dense and took me a few reads to feel ready to even try. Once I gave it a go, though, I was honestly blown away. It’s an incredible design! Not only is the gameplay fun and engaging, but there’s also an interesting layer of strategy, tactical decision making, and optimization that’s a blast to puzzle out. While it can be played 100% in hand, I did use some table space to make it easier and more organized, but that was still very minimal as you can imagine. My one major complaint about the game design is that there is quite a bit of luck involved in terms of what cards you draw in what order, and the number of occurrences and strength(s) of the monsters and journey challenges you face. Thankfully, for me, this really wasn’t a massive issue, though, because the game plays so quickly and it’s quite tactical, so you just do your best to adjust during the game; worst case scenario, you get crushed, spend 5-15 minutes on the game, and can try again! It’s very easy to play multiple games in row. Along these lines, I do think there is quite a good bit of variability from game to game with the varying bosses, the cards you draw, the order of the other monsters and challenges, etc. The artwork is also incredibly awesome!

The Northvale expansion took a little while for me to fully understand and was initially rather overwhelming, but I’m glad I persevered. I really enjoy the added bosses at the very least, meaning I would use some of the added bosses even without some of the other additional features like the unique characters (called Mages). In my opinion, a few of the abilities and keywords associated with both the bosses/monsters/journey challenges and the unique character cards feel a little too unnecessarily complicated. My joke in the first paragraph about opposing colors is legitimate! One new Journey Peril requires the player to identify the element opposite of the Journey Card, then add Armor to the Journey based on that Region Card’s number, but if the Armor matches your Enhanced Move, reduce your Move Value instead of Attack Value. Like I said, that’s truly far more complicated than it needs to be.

The Siege expansion follows in a similar vein. It took me some time to understand most of the rules because, once again, some of them are a little too convoluted, especially when it comes to the Siege Cards and keeping track of their strength and actions and things along with everything else. The other aspect of Siege I don’t care for as much is the serious increase in difficulty it brings. The base game itself can be (depending on your luck) pretty difficult to begin with, but this expansion seems to really up the challenge level, which I don’t feel I need quite yet. Maybe in a few years, or maybe never. 😂 With the expansions, it does also get more cumbersome to hold and keep track of all the cards in hand. I do greatly appreciate that both expansions fit in the base game box, though, and have useful dividers!

Overall, the base game for me is a serious winner, and it’s definitely the version of the game I’ll play the most. I may throw in Northvale every once in a while, for some added complexity and difficulty, but it’ll most often be just including the new, additional bosses and skipping the Mages, unless I’m really feeling adventurous. I can rarely see myself adding in Siege, at least for the near future. If I get a lot of plays in and want that added challenge level, I may revisit it again once I feel I’ve truly conquered the base game and Northvale. I do appreciate the incredible variety both expansions offer, though, and that you can pick and choose and mix and match what you want to use from which expansions and skip some aspects you don’t. Modularity in a game like this is crucial, and they did a great job with that.

For the record, Felines of Fetchin’ Bone is exactly the same game, but it’s branded with cats and dogs instead of dragons and heroes/warriors, respectively. Now I love me some dragons, but I do also like the feline and canine version. I can see myself using the feline version when I only want the base game, as it’s a smaller box and only contains the base game. If I want to dabble with the expansions, then I can just use the core box and create the game I want from there. I’m glad I have both, if not for the options, then for the art!