Thunderstone: Dragonspire Review

Thunderstone: Dragonspire box

I bought Thunderstone: Dragonspire (TD) after playing Dominion and loving it. It seems you can't Google Dominion without also finding comparisons between it and Thunderstone. Some say that Thunderstone is a Dominion clone in different clothing, but I think Thunderstone offers a gameplay that feels like you are actually building up warriors and gathering supplies to take into the dungeon to defeat hordes of monsters. Everyone knows I love Dominion-so many choices right out of the box.

Before I go off on a tangent about how great Dominion is, I'll just save what I have to say for my Dominion review blog. 

So, back to Dragonspire:

I've played this game more times solo than with another player. Solo play is different for that fact that the monsters in the dungeon keep moving up through the ranks, eventually stepping out of the dungeon and forming a pile whose victory points will be counted up at the end of the game and compared to my victory points. Solo play feels very "rushed" because a turn in the dungeon, as well as the village and rest, ends with the monsters moving up the ranks. I felt as if I had to always buy strong heroes to take out the monsters before they could advance out of rank 1 and into the "monster pile." Whereas, when playing with another player, the monsters in the dungeon do not advance if you visit the village to recruit heroes and buy more supplies. For me, I like playing with another player a bit more, which is why I resort to the original Thunderstone on Facebook. If you haven't tried Thunderstone online, I think you're missing out on something great. 

Things I loved: (Starting with all the hero cards included in the game)

  

The art on the hero cards has a dramatic-feel. They look like actual heroes--brave, fierce, and powerful. I love the experience point tokens shaped like miniature thunderstones. This is the first Thunderstone I've played and owned, so I've only read about the switch from experience point cards to tokens, but I will say that it is very easy to keep track of experience points with these tokens. I love that there is an option to "rest" to rid your hand of disease cards (or any other cards you'd like to trash). In Dominion, you can only trash a card if you have an action telling you that you can (but both cards must be in your hand at one time to trash the unwanted card...which is a drawback, in my opinion).

Things that irked me:

The artwork on the militia, iron rations, dagger, and torch cards are different from the original Thunderstone. I actually prefer the original artwork to the new artwork. The Dragonspire artwork feels a little too "dark" and simplified versus the original art which just jumped right off the card with brilliant colors and edgy design. I'm a sucker for great artwork on cards, so I was a little less impressed by the change. I also didn't like the "suggested" cards for first-time players.  I'll have to fish out the manual to reference which cards they were, but I found myself choosing a whole new set of cards for the next game.

Things I hated:

I wish there were more heroes and weapons available, and even more monsters. The giants, the dark enchanted monsters, and the hydra-dragons are HARD TO BEAT...especially when they are all played at the same time. I'll show you why:





I didn't appreciate this during my 2nd solo mode attempt. Not only were my heroes simple militias, but a turn in the village ended with a monster worth 6 or more victory points to jump into the monster pile...this happened time and again. Out of frustration, I abandoned that game...reset it to my original hand of 6 militias, 2 torches, 2 iron rations, and 2 daggers...and chose 3 different monster categories and reshuffled. If any of you have suggestions for expansions that have the best hero, weapon, and monster choices, I would appreciate a big push in that direction. I also hate the randomness of the monster difficulty when starting a solo game (i.e. rank 1 has a monster that requires 5 or more heroes present with 7 hit points)...Yeahhhh, there is NO way I will beat him on my first turn--"Oh, just jump into the monster pile already." See what I mean?

At the end of the day, I would have still bought Thunderstone, although, it may have been the base game instead of Dragonspire. I'm hearing a lot of people say that Thunderstone: Dragonspire is great because of the board that comes with it and the dividers for storing the cards. These are both very nice upgrades, but I would have preferred to buy a game with better variety.

If I had to do it all again, I would have purchased the original Thunderstone...and THEN bought Dragonspire. I am itching to get all the expansions, too. For me, Thunderstone as an overall game is wonderful.