Conquest of Nerath (Board Game)

Straight to the Point:

Great game, loved playing it; just that something stopping me giving it a 10 and I don’t know what it is…

The Story:

“War has come to the Dungeons & Dragonsworld! In the north, the undead legions of the Dark Empire of Karkoth march against the fragile League of Nerath, determined to sweep away the human kingdoms forever. To the south, the infernal Iron Circle launches its own goblin hordes in a campaign of conquest against the elves and corsairs of Vailin. From the snowy expanse of the Winterbole Forest to the sun-warmed coasts of ancient Vailin, four great powers struggle for survival.

Muster armies of footsoldiers, siege engines, monsters, and dragons to attack your enemies. Fight across the waves with fleets of warships and raging elementals. Plunder ancient dungeons with bands of mighty heroes, searching for magical artifacts and awesome treasures that might tip the scales of battle in your favor. The fate of empires is in your hands!”

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/

- From Wizards of the Coast

Stats:

Players: Can have up to 4 players (EMFH or Alliance)
Board Size: Medium
Complexity: Medium
Play time: Anywhere between 2hr and 6 hrs + depending on victory condition.
Cost: £39.00+

Watch on YouTube

Things We like:

Lots of minis -There are 252 plastic figures in this game, ranging from castles and dragons to heroes and wizards….. Even with all of these you end up running out and have to resort to red and grey tokens to depict numbers.

Fast paced- Unlike games such as Axis and Allies who have the same sort of play order and mechanics, Conquest of Nerath seems to flow a lot faster (even though our game took about 5 hours) and gives you the happy medium between the variety in axis and allies and the faster paced play of Risk.

Event, Treasure and Dungeon cards- In most games of this type winning boils down to who is luckiest on the dice and who has the biggest army… But, WotC have given us some game changers; cards that can help you win the game even if, in the face of things, you are losing!

• At the start of each turn you draw an event card and this can be anything from adding extra dice to your attack, giving you extra units or stealing gold from opposing players.
  
• Dungeons are placed around the board at the start of the game and can be entered by your hero and wizard units (the more the better) Once they have been place upon the dungeon card, it is turned face up and you find out what horrible beasty your motley crew of adventurers will be fighting… Word of advice, don’t attempt it with just one hero, you will end up dead! Once you have defeated said beasty, you get a treasure card and these, like the event cards give you extra bonuses, so it is very much in your interest to take these.

Different victory conditions- for all of you out there who don’t have 6 hours to play a conquest game (where you are basically out to take all the other players capitals and or dungeons) then you can just play VP (victory point) games; Treasure cards, areas and capitals are worth VPs, just set the amount at the start and let battle commence!

Niggles

Castles only seem to have one hit point- All units have one hit point in this game bar dragons who have two (being huge beasts and double hard) but you would have thought that Castles , especially you’re capital would have more? They get the attack die of a dragon (D20) but its slightly annoying that technically on a roll of a 6 a foot soldier could take out a castle on his own.. I appreciate that this is maybe to speed the game up but it would have been nice to have the option. I personally like the idea of assaulting a fortified area with huge armies and felt slightly cheated when I was able to conquer it with nominal units. Buuuut I am happy with games that take days and I guesssss some people like faster paced ones.

MORE COW BELL.. I mean DRAGONS- There are a lot of different units to pick from but it seemed to me that everyone ignored the lesser units and just bought dragons and it just turned into a game of the person with the most…which I had ;oD Not a major point but it would have been nice to have certain units that specialise more against other units or some incentive to pick warriors or build more ships.

With all the above said and done, we played an alliance, conquest game and I think that sort of dictated the way the whole game was played.
The Map- I am in two minds about how the map is set out: it’s just a circle, with an island in the middle and I don’t think this really encourages naval warfare but i have only played it a few times and I am guessing I will get used to it eventually!

Wish List:

When it comes to games like this; bigger and better is what I want.. So what it will take 3 weeks to play! More units and factions would be nice: different ship types etc; more event cards; maybe a way to add another section to the board and make it bigger! Or even have a separate board that represents a city or an area, like they have in battle for middle earth or lord of the rings risk.

Conclusion

I have to say I do really like this game a lot… but I am a sucker for Risk esq strategy games! It’s quite easy to pick up and understand; the combat system isn’t overly complicated like a lot of similar games (you hit on a 6) ; The minis are nice, and there are a lot of them; the boards pretty big;replay ability is high, due to the different game types you can have and it’s not that expensive to boot. My only concern is about the board lay out; but I am sure that will come with time and more games…..I reeeeaaaalllllllyyyyyy want there to be expansions!

All and all, Great game! (9GPPs)