Finding the Fallen Barbarian in Dice Throne Adventures

Experience a fast-paced and tense boss battle on the meandering path to the Mad King with Dice Throne Adventures.
The fun continues with Dice Throne Adventures! After an interesting time exploring the map and fighting off nonstop minions in the portal crawl, I was faced with a true battle against the first boss. These alternating modes of play seemed intriguing, yet I wasn’t about to do a full analysis until I could actually… Win with some confidence. Ha ha! To the dice!
Game Overview
Game Name: Dice Throne Adventures
Publication Year: 2020
Designers: G. Brown, N. Chatellier, and M. Trembley
Artists: G. Brown, D. Mammoliti, and M. Trembley
Publisher: Roxley
Solo Mode: Included in Dice Throne Adventures
Anywhere from 1-4 characters follow a campaign of exploration and battles. Cards and dice create various opportunities to unleash powerful abilities! Each scenario gets progressively more difficult, but also provides chances for shiny loot. All on the way to a grand victory!
First Play
January 14, 2022
Complexity
2
Latest Play
January 22, 2022
Expansions
5
Setup Time
10 Minutes
Lifetime Plays
9
Play Time
1 Hour
High Score
29
Game Area
36" x 26"
Low Score
-10
The Best Matchup
By sheer coincidence, this first boss battle was just perfect! As the Barbarian, I would face… The Fallen Barbarian. Completely planned ahead of time. Ha ha!
The boss battles mirror the base game multiplayer mode in many ways. Great battles like these form the core of the experience. Excited? Was I ever! So many options.
I wasn’t sure how the boss would handle upgrades, as these are mixed in the deck and can be expensive.
Easily solved! A starting pool of upgrade command points provides some randomness and very little extra setup.
Necessary Survival
Perhaps what makes the Barbarian so useful is his dual abilities in offense and healing. Don’t think it makes him overpowered, though! This often extends battles.
As I mentioned above about upgrades, these can be quite unpredictable for a character. They cost a lot, and some are more situational than others.
The symbols match up with the dice, so it’s often easy to figure out how likely these might turn out to be.
War Cry, part of an upgrade, was quite useful. Although weak, it offered healing plus undefendable damage!
Dangerous Rage
Even at the normal difficulty level, which I believe is the easiest option available, this was quite difficult! The Fallen Barbarian was not some low-level initial boss.
This was a must faster pace than the portal crawl with less upkeep. In fact, managing the boss didn’t require too much thought with a pretty clear set of priorities.
Yet it was a rather embarrassing battle. I whittled his health down… Only to see him heal, just like I could.
Even though I was the Barbarian, the Fallen Barbarian wasn’t a direct copy and had plenty of tricks up his sleeve!
The Truly Fallen
I enjoy my own jokes… Possibly a little too much at times! I like to laugh, and let me just pause once more to giggle over my interpretation of the “Fallen” Barbarian. Ha ha!
Not surprisingly, I lost this first boss battle pretty horribly. However, the adventure didn’t end.
On the contrary, I had a campaign sheet that made things just a little easier for my next attempt. I like this sort of system because it’s still a challenge, but not brutally so.
In other words, losing wasn’t a crushing defeat that I couldn’t find a way to recover from. Time to try again!
Barbarian Celebration
My second attempt was a little more focused. I took less chances with the dice, accepting lower damage rather than risking doing absolutely nothing at all. Much better!
The Fallen Barbarian played a little differently due to the upgrades he started with. That highlighted the variety and unique sorts of challenges present with each play.
It took a lot of clawing, even more healing, and some clever plays with the cards… But victory came about!
With just 11 health remaining, of course. Another round or so and I would have gone down in defeat. But… Success!
Secret Cat Burglar
Alright. Let’s just go ahead and give credit where credit is due. My little Cat Burglar was the secret weapon I used!
This rare loot card was added in during the portal crawl. It gave me a chance to steal 3 command points from the boss, turning the tide of battle a little bit.
With a pool of command points, the boss could activate a card’s ability each turn and cause some rather unpleasant damage. This play stopped that from happening!
Let’s also say that I tried to get a Stealthy Elephant in this photo, but there was excessive toppling. Keep an eye out!
Discovery as a Game Mechanic Beyond a Map
For me, the joy of exploration and discovery has often come from a map in a lot of cases. There are many other games where cards provide a similar experience, but it didn’t hit me until I started drawing random cards as loot. I was even more excited to find new ways to augment my deck, mainly since the world and story weren’t detailed.
That’s not a criticism, though. On the contrary, I think that helped me realize that I was sort of telling my own character’s story. Look at the Cat Burglar, for instance! Drawn randomly, it was a surprise addition amidst a sea of possible cards. Even the cards I didn’t want to keep still had me react with an often audible, “Oh, cool!”
Not every game calls to be played over and over again. Will this one? It’s been something I’ve thought of during play. That sense of seeing a brand new card is quite tempting, though, and I can’t explain the sheer fun of tossing a handful of dice to see the values and icons! It’s hard to pinpoint, but there is most certainly a lot to explore with this one.
Session Overview
Play Number: 2 and 3
Main Expansion: Dice Throne: Season One Rerolled
Other Expansions: Many
Solo Mode: Included in Dice Throne Adventures
Play Details: Scenario 2 at the Normal Difficulty Level
Outcome: -10 Points and 22 Points (1 Win and 1 Loss)
Quite an exciting outcome! I picked up a couple of loot cards that offered some useful abilities. More healing and a quick way to find an upgrade would come in handy! The portal crawl was a lot of fun, but I also enjoyed this fast-paced boss battle. Onward to more adventures!
%
1 Play
Affordability
Price & Value
3
Functionality
Challenges & Mechanics
8
Originality
Design & Theme
8
Quality
Components & Rules
10
Reusability
Achievement & Enjoyment
8
Variability
Distinctness & Randomness
10
+ Pros (Positives)
- The organization system is fantastic for both storage and gameplay, keeping every component in its own area.
- Bosses have a priority system that only requires decisions to be made very rarely, and often in outlier situations.
- Finding ways to utilize cards and manipulate dice to create exciting combinations is fun and still challenging.
- With the variable upgrade part of setup, a boss can act very differently with some abilities in play and others not.
- Loot cards provide an exciting element of surprise, as these can vastly affect a deck and the available options.
- Play time is pretty quick and flows easily with a sequence that becomes intuitive after a couple of plays.
– Cons (Negatives)
- Although both rulebooks include excellent glossaries, there is a lot of terminology to learn or reference a lot.
- Portal crawls and boss battles play extremely differently, and one might be vastly preferred over the other.
- Most dice rolls can turn into something, yet consistent bad luck is difficult to mitigate or come back from.
- Only loot cards may be removed from a deck, meaning that some less-than-useful cards are always discarded.
Victory Conditions
Complete the Scenario
- Overall Goal Progress 100%
Goals and Milestones
Complete the campaign as the Barbarian.
Complete the campaign at the normal difficulty level.
Score at least 150 points for the total campaign score.
Continue the Conversation
What are your thoughts about Dice Throne Adventures? Have you completed the campaign? I still have some work to do in order to make it through the rest of the portal crawls and boss battles. This has been quite enjoyable so far, though! Maybe I’m also still way too excited about the component organization… Ha ha! May the Barbarian never fall again!
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