OUR REVIEW

Orcs, Undead and Demons

Defenders of the Realm

Defend Monarch City together

Richard Launius, known to many for his master piece Arkham Horror has with DEFENDERS OF THE REALM created a new cooperative game for us, settled against a background of a fantasy world peopled by orcs, dragons, undead and demons. What more can you ask! I am a fan of cooperative game and was immediately attracted. I had to try this out immediately. First, take a close look at the rules. Ok, 16 pages of rules, that’s not too bad, especially as there are already German rules available on Boardgamegeek. Then on to the search for the FAQ and, having found them, being truly shocked! They feature 19 pages, which is three pages more than the rules. I am a big fan of FAQs, but I am surprised again and again how many holes are left wide open in today’s rules. Especially as this game is really not too complicated, but then again, why not? How did we do this in the times before the worldwide web?

When reading the rules one immediately has the feeling of déjà vu, somehow the mechanisms seem familiar. Oh, now I know! Somehow all this sounds a little bit like Pandemic, one of the cooperative classics of the last few years. But, enough of this babbling, let’s move on to the game.

When opening the very classy, elegant and stable box we find a big game board showing many locations in four colors, which are connected by lines, three taverns and the capital Monarch City in the middle of the board. This is what we must protect from all evil forces, especially from the four evil generals, who steadily advance towards Monarch City and you send out their minions in the colors of the locations to corrupt the country and to invade them in hordes.

Furthermore, there are a huge number of heroes, complete with playing piece and hero sheet; in each game you need a maximum of four of them, which in turn provides some variety, as the special characteristics of the heroes differ very much from one to the other. On the hero sheet the number of life and actions points is marked, which each hero receives for his turns. Should a hero pass away, which happens very very rarely compared to other fantasy games, the player starts anew with a fresh hero in Monarch City.

All heroes win together, if they manage to destroy all four generals, whereby it gets more and more difficult to destroy the remaining ones when one of them has been destroyed. When this happens, depending on the “war status”, more Darkness Spreads cards are drawn, which introduces more minions into the game and lets the remaining generals advance faster towards Monarch City.

All players lose the game together when a general should manage to reach Monarch City or if 5 minions regardless of their color, are in Monarch City, if the 12th Tainted Crystal comes into play or should you have to place – as in Pandemic – a minion of a certain color onto a location and none of them is left in general stock.

At the start of the game you draw Darkness Spreads cards to place 2 minions each into 6 locations and 1 minion each into 6 additional locations. The 4 generals begin on their start positions and are supported by 3 minions in their own color. Each player is dealt 2 hero cards and 1 quest card. The hero cards feature a location and an eventual special means of travel (horse, eagle, magical gate) and also always one general at a minimum against whom this card can be used. Furthermore, there are strong special cards among the hero cards, which are very powerful in combating Evil, but unfortunately can only be used once. You can use such a card to avoid movement of a general or placement of minions. This could mean the difference between win and lose, as many games end on a very scant margin.

A turn of a player comprises a maximum of actions corresponding to the number of his active life/action markers. The more hits a hero had to take in the previous round the less actions remain for his turn.

In addition to movement along to lines to connected locations – free to the neighbor location, 2 steps when discarding a hero card with horse or 4 steps when discarding a card with an eagle – you can choose from the following actions:

Travel from one magical portal to another already built portal or use a card with portal for the respective location or to any portal on the board.

Construct a new portal by discarding a card, when you are exactly on the location shown on the card.

Heal the land: You must discard a card in the color of the location where the hero is. You must roll a 5 or 6 with two dice to remove one Tainted Crystal from this location.

Heal your hero’s wounds. In Monarch City and the taverns you heal him up to his maximum life points; on any other location without minions you heal 2 life points.

Rumors in the tavern: The player moves onto a tavern spot, names a color and draws to cards from the face-down hero stack. Should the cards be of the color named or be special cards you may keep them. This action is the only one you can only do twice per turn. All other actions you can do in any number up to the maximum possible number.

Fight minions on the location where you are. For this you take the corresponding number of colored dice, roll them all together and defeat, depending on the color of the minions, one of them when you rolled 3+, 4+ or 5+. The very numerous orcs are already eliminated with a 3+, the hardy dragons take a 5+ to be eliminated; all other minions need 4+. It is of importance that at the end of a player’s turn no minions are present at the location of his hero, because otherwise for each minion one life point is deducted, and one more point for any number of black minions. This means: Always keep one action for running away in case the fight should turn ugly.

Fight a general: A prerequisite is that the general’s location is free of minions. Should there be other heroes on the general’s location they can and should join the fight, especially, as a general alone can only be defeated by one hero alone only with a very good hand of cards and a lot of luck in rolling the dice. By jointly playing the corresponding hero cards with the general’s symbol you can take as many dice as are depicted on the hero cards. The generals are hit according to the same pattern as their minions, but all have several lives. The Orc General already takes a hit with 3+. For the Dragon General you need a 5+. Some heroes, though, have advantages when fighting against certain minions or generals. Some special cards, too, can help in fighting the generals. Unfortunately the generals have more special abilities: Each 1^you roll in a fight against a general annuls a hit. All heroes taking part in the fight confront the general one by one. All cards assigned to the fight are lost even if the hero did not get to reroll the dice. Should the general be defeated, the hero who dealt the deadly blow, turns Slaughterer and can now defeat a minion of this general by spending an action. Who has not wanted already at least once to turn slaughterer and eliminate orcs? Should the heroes lose the fight, because they did not inflict enough hits on the general, they are all placed on Monarch city and – depending on the general – lose a certain number of life points and hero cards.

When a player has done all his actions he draws 2 new hero cards. Then – depending on the “war status” 1 to 3 Darkness Spreads cards are drawn. The minions depicted on these cards must be placed from general stock onto the respective locations. Should it happen that thereby a 4^th minion must be placed onto a location, regardless of its color, the location is given a Tainted Crystal and the minion is moved to an adjacent location along a connecting line. In all other adjacent locations, too, a minion of this color is placed. Should this be the 4^th one in another location, a Tainted Crystal is placed there, too. But there is – contrary to Pandemic – no cascade effect, a further spreading of minions than to adjacent locations is not possible.

Furthermore, the movement of a general according to the Darkness Spreads card(s) must be implemented. The respective general moves to the corresponding locations, but only if he is on a directly adjacent locations. Should he reach Monarch City in this way, the heroes instantly lose the game.

A word on the quest cards: These are special intermediate goals for a hero and can be used any time after a quest has been successfully completed. Those quest cards can be extremely strong. Without having completed a quest it will be very difficult for the heroes to win.

Resume: Besides the minor parallels to Pandemic it must be noted that in this game an enormous amount of chance is bundled together. Hero cards, Darkness Spreads cards with locations for new minions and the generals‘ movements, the quest cards and on top of this the dice fights against minions and generals. One bad roll of the dice at the wrong moment can mean losing the game. This can be rather depressing. I am tempted to say that strategy plays a minor role in the game. Of course, it is necessary to plan the order which might be useful to attack the generals and how many hero cards need to be deployed to succeed against a general. We only managed to win one of six games, but this is meant to be or it might get boring. Of course, each lost game also adds a bit to your learning curve. So it is surely important to attack the orcs as early as possible, despite their being easily to defeat; some of the Darkness Spreads cards multiply them rather speedily.

In my opinion the target group for Defenders of the Realm primarily will be young adults with some experience in games, who are fed up with played Descent or Talisman for the umpteenth time, who are looking for something different and might want to try a cooperative game. The only negative effect that could frighten them off the game might be the rather high price of more than 70 Euros.

For very experienced players there is an expansion, the „The Dragon Expansion“, offering several versions. And again, do not forget to get yourself the FAWs on BGG and read them before starting to play. This solves nearly all of the problems.

Review by Gert Stock

Players: 1-4

Age: 10+

Time: 120+

Designer: Richard Laune’s

Artist: Larry Elmore, Sean Brown

Price: ca. 70 Euro

Publisher: Eagle Games 2010

Web: www.eaglegames.net

Genre: Cooperative fantasy adventure

Users: With friends

Special: 1 player

Version: en

Rules: de en

In-game text: yes

Comments:

Classy components * rather expensive * cooperative mechanisms nicely integrated * expansion available

Compares to:

Pandemic for cooperation and end-of-game, otherwise Descent and other similar adventure games

Other editions:

Currently none

My rating: 5

Gert Stock:

A cooperative adventure game with similarities to Pandemic, with well-combined mechanisms and harmonious components, an attractive change from Descent and Co.

Chance (pink): 1

Tactic (turquoise): 3

Strategy (blue): 2

Creativity (dark blue): 0

Knowledge (yellow): 0

Memory (orange): 0

Communication (red): 2

Interaction (brown): 3

Dexterity (green): 0

Action (dark green): 0