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http://www.examiner.com/rpg-in-national/pax-east-2012-shelly-mazzanoble-discusses-rise-of-the-underdark

Looks like 2012 may be the Year of the Drow.


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from PAX East


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Upcoming Underdark terrain from Gale Force Nine.

Some other products from Wizards:

Menzoberannzan Book

Vaults of the Underdark Map Pack

Urban Underdark Tiles

Underdark Survival Book

Sting of Lolth Dungeon Command Starter Set

Dungeon Command Demo at PAX East:

I have playtested a fair amount of Dungeon Command. The game is a refreshing mix of magic the gathering and star wars epic duels.

It is seriously a game people need to keep their eye on. Great mechanics. You can still go to the WotC site and download the playtest materials even though the playtest period is over with.

They're really milking those sculpts though, huh?

They are. and by their own admission, the first few sets will be nothing but the DDM sculpts and the sculpts found in the adventure systems boardgames (Castle ravenloft, etc.)

But, I can see this being successful enough for some new stuff. I mean, they do want those who bought heavily into DDM to buy into this as well, as well as the roleplayers and those who enjoy the adventure system games (Cards are included for adventure system stats).

So this could be the start of something big for them, or it could be another flash in the pan attempt at a miniature game that WotC will just drop in a couple years.

I mean, they had a great miniature skirmish game in Chainmail only to drop it for prepainted garbage. Then they dropped the fairly popular Heroscape (Crappy rules but fun game) to "Concentrate on their core brands" whatever that is supposed to mean.

So while I find Dungeon Command a compelling game, I still have to keep in mind the fickle nature of WotC precedence.

It is both exciting and worrisome at the same time. Very bittersweet.

I'm looking forward to seeing what other races are available in the Dungeon Explorer's Guide besides Goblin and Kobold. Having played a Kobold for a bit already without it being an official class I do worry that I won't care for the changes, as I have heard that while they are getting Feat support that they are also losing "Shifty" as their racial power, which has been awesome for my Thief.

Also here are some larger pics of the Pax East demo of Dungeon Command:





The tiles are supposed to be double sided and each faction comes with tiles. So two faction boxes will give you quite a few permutations to play with.

I used to play DDM. I was disappointed when the sculpt quality started declining after Unhallowed, right now I wouldn't spend money on any of this.

I do like the idea of it being non-random and play-out-of-the-box. I can guess that I will spend money on this.

I'll probably frown over the miniatures a lot and get extremely torn about it.

If they picked some good sculpts I might do it. But the ones I could see in those pictures were really crappy.

Might be worth getting to proxy in better looking minis though, if the rules are fun. I liked how DDM is so portable, too.

(Can you tell I'm talking myself into this ? )

No way to get the tiles separately? Awww....

Da Boss wrote:I'll probably frown over the miniatures a lot and get extremely torn about it.

If they picked some good sculpts I might do it. But the ones I could see in those pictures were really crappy.

Might be worth getting to proxy in better looking minis though, if the rules are fun. I liked how DDM is so portable, too.

(Can you tell I'm talking myself into this ? )

Tell you what, if you likely have all the models already, then you can just DL the playtest rules.

They are on the WotC website, but I will make it easier for you and just uploaded them to this post.

Now you (and for anyone else who may want them) can decide for yourself if you think the game is good enough to give WotC your dough again.

And here is the Dungeon Command Tiles.

(Sorry HBMC, they are low quality and have a crappy WotC watermark across each one)

This is all open playtest so I am not breaking any NDA or whatever agreement with WotC so no worries.

I wish the tiles were separate. I don't play D&D, but I own multiples of almost every tile set they produce, even the most recent set that came with the three double-sided maps.

I also wish Wizards were better at previewing their tiles on the website. Finding pictures of what you get in each pack is a chore.

Amen Brother. But then again they are not so hot at the Internetz for the most part when promoting products.

I think they rely on RPG sites and Boardgamegeek for promotion.

Hellfury, you're a boss.

HBMC, please see above for my links regarding upcoming Underdark tiles and maps.

Unless I'm missing something a lot of those links are to Amazon pages, which show nothing.

I was just informing you of the existence of the product (you said you wished there were separate tiles); I wasn't trying to defend WotC's gakky non-approach to previewing their products.

I've been looking through the rules, looks pretty decent and fast paced to me. I can't help but notice that Red Box Games could provide me with awesome looking alternatives to a lot of the stuff in the hero deck...

I wonder if Tre would ever do some Drow/Driders ...

Driders are an easy enough conversion, and Reaper have some nice ones available. And I suppose any Elf can be painted as a Drow- I plan on using my Nyss.

I suppose a penny can represent a Drow, too. But I meant more along the lines of something that looks particularly like a Drow.

What features would you consider to be integral to Drow that other elves lack? The segmented armour, scanty dress or spider motif?

I think the spider motif is essential (never cared for Eberron "Drow" at all) and they generally require a high fantasy aesthetic. Nyss, IMO, look way too barbaric.

Fair enough! I can see that. I'm not a forgotten realms fan, so I don't mind some generic in my evil elves.

Really, I just wish WOTC would show some interest in maintaining a quality of sculpt in their miniatures line. They have some quite nice minis, showing that the potential is there, but then they have a lot of blobby stinkers too.

Da Boss wrote:Really, I just wish WOTC would show some interest in maintaining a quality of sculpt in their miniatures line. They have some quite nice minis, showing that the potential is there, but then they have a lot of blobby stinkers too.

I think the blobbiness, for the most part, comes from the paint being applies to the miniature in their prepaints.

I say this with some evidence, as I own nearly everything produced for their metal skirmish game Chainmail and their unpainted Adventure system boardgames.

Many of these same sculpts from the metal line have been transitioned into their plastic line and the unpainted version retain much, if not all, of the crisp detail found in their metal counterparts.

Of course, many of these early models were sculpted by Mike Mcvey and a lot of the sculpts made for DDM were not, so there is the subject of different sculpt quality as well.

What I wish would happen is that WotC recognize not only their core D&D demographic that want non-blindbuy models but the hobby demographic as well by offering more unpainted options.

They would be cheaper for the consumers and cost WotC considerably less to produce.

Why they haven't gone this route is not entirely clear to me as while I do enjoy the instant gratification of prepaints, I also like to paint my own models, so I can see a market for both. In fact, the ONLY reason I bought the adventure system boardgames is for the unpainted models as the games themselves are dreck. But there are a lot of nice useful components inside.

I am glad that Dungeon Command is prepainted though. It is nice to play a miniature wargame straight out of the box instead of a long period of building and painting before you can even play your first game.

Considering what is contained in each faction box, $25ish from an online retailer for each box ($50ish for two players) is not a bad price to pay for a complete game. 12 prepainted models, about 50 cards and all the chits and tiles needed to play... As we are all share the commonality of being GW consumers at one point or another here, we know there are FAR worse deals out there for far worse games.