Descent : The Ultimate Dungeon Crawl
"I... cannot... must not... remember the horrors I saw that day...." Sir Valadir the Paladin.
Descent: Journeys in the Dark is part of Fantasy Flight Games's Big Box series. It comes in a hefty box (slightly bigger than the TI3 box) and weighs around 20 kgs (with the Well of Darkness expansion).
The game is choke full of miniatures (60 mythical baddies and 16 heroes in the base set, the expansion adds in another 27 monsters and 6 heroes) and filled to the brim with almost a thousand pieces of tokens, counters, character sheets, dungeon tiles, doors, etc. Everything in Descent spells big, even the name is a mouthful. The dragon model has a wingspan of at least 6 inches and a height of around 4 inches. Yes, the miniatures in Descent are that big!
The game centers around a bunch of heroes walking around in the dungeon in pitch darkness (hence the name Descent: Journeys in the Dark). A typical game session will see a hero being thrown into a pit, while another being chased by a giant boulder (Indiana Jones style), and the rest battling the big bad dragon and his buddy the Stone Golem while trying to avoid being sliced into half by the rotating blades on the dungeon walls. Along the way, the heroes will encounter kobolds, undead skeleton archers, evil sorcerers, giant spiders and even a Naga (a giant snake with a human head). There are more than 20 different types of monsters to be found and ..ahem .. slaughter in this game.
The game ending conditions are simple, heroes will win if they defeat the big boss of that scenario and lose if they run out of conquest points. Along the way, the heroes will gain (and lose) conquest points. One player will act as the Overlord (aka Dungeon Master), of which traditionally a short bald guy with funny robes will take that role. And the rest are the adventurers (or heroes) and take the roles of Rangers, Mages and Warriors.
Descent is very similar to Dungeon & Dragons as it is a dungeon crawl with lots of traps and very nasty monsters (Word of Advice : Hell Hound's bite is worse than its bark). But, the heroes can acquire magical items to aid them in their seemly impossible quest (there are 3 treasure decks from which heroes will draw from if they open a treasure chest; namely the Gold, Silver and Bronze decks). There are also a few very rare and powerful magical items (2 in the base set and 5 in the expansion) which are so 'bah-roken' that they will probably never see the light of day.
Combat is very similar to Doom : The Boardgame, where certain weapons will require you to roll certain colored dice. The range, amount of damage and number of surges are printed on each side of the dice. There is also a big 'X' on one of the side. When the 'X' side is rolled, the attack automatically misses. Surges, which are unique to Descent, are used to power up certain powerful abilities of a weapon, armour or item (eg. three surges = knockback target monster).
All in all, Descent is one of the better dungeon game out there. If you love AD&D but need help to visualise the dungeon, Descent is the game for you. But if you hate AD&D or any type of medieval-fantasy-dungeon-crawl type of games, avoid this at all cost! You have been warned.
"Is it hot in here or is it just me??" Tethery's Last Words, Slayed by a Dragon.
Happy Gaming! And have a great 2007!!