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Games of a unique or existing theme are tricky to implement effectively. It’s wild how hard it must be for a developer to embed every element of a franchise, tv show or video game onto cardboard without losing its charm. Luckily, some choose to focus it on a lore or story within the original. Bloodborne the Board Game for example, or Fallout Shelter! Both excellent games, both based on existing concepts. World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King has you take on the mantle of legendary heroes from the world of Azeroth to drive back the undead Scourge. It’s a cooperative game for 1-5 players that runs a Pandemic based system.
How To Play
World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King is wholeheartedly cooperative and depends on this for players to succeed. Furthermore, it runs a system that players who have played Pandemic will find familiar, however it is important to know there are some mechanical differences which lean into the theme to create a more rounded experience.
Set Up
To set up, players divvy out and shuffle the Scourge and Hero decks, placing them in their allocated spaces. Scourge and Despair tokens are placed in their designated spaces in the first space. Players then choose three rewards (or use the recommended rewards for the introductory game) and place one on each quest space. Then, choose three quests – one of each colour – and place them on their allocated space, on top of the rewards. It would be sensible to look at the associated location to the quest and place the quest token on this space as prompt for players.
Players then deal the initial Scourge locations by drawing three Scourge cards and placing three Ghouls on each. The Lich King is placed in the domain of the first drawn Ghoul placement – they never enter the main board outside the Icecrown Citadel once all quests are complete. Then draw another three and place two Ghouls. Finally, draw another three and place one Ghoul in the first two drawn, and an abomination in the final. Place the remaining Ghouls and Abominations as a pool off the board. It would be sensible at this point for players to choose characters (taking into consideration their starting locations and unique abilities) in order to best tackle the quests and Ghoul situation. All players are then dealt cards respective of the player count: three for 2/3 players, two for 4/5.
Finally, players determine how difficult the game will be by adjusting the number of ‘Stronghold’ and ‘Scourge Rises’ cards are in play. Strongholds are based that players can travel to as an action from anywhere on the board and also give a bonus to rest actions. Scourge Rises cards increase the difficulty of the game by revealing new Scourge infested locations, moving the Lich King to a new domain and shuffling previously drawn locations back to the top of the deck. Choose the number of Scourge Rises cards – and Stronghold cards – and split the remaining Hero deck into X piles, shuffling one Scourge Rises card into each, one Stronghold into each of the largest and then pile these from smallest to largest piles creating the Hero deck.
Pandemic’s Warning…
The beauty of World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King utilising Pandemic’s game system has its benefits and detriments. The set up is very akin, but it’s easy to fall into the trap of following the usual Pandemic systems. World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King does not have the same mechanics when a location exceeds three Ghouls. The Despair track does descend but there is no ‘outbreak’ per se. Instead, the three Ghouls remain and are joined by a newly placed Abomination.
Furthermore, the advancing the Scourge through Scourge Rises cards, the location drawn from the bottom of the deck receives both three Ghouls and an Abomination. This increases the difficulty and intensifies the board in one fell swoop.
Finally, running out of peaceable models, such as Ghouls or Abominations, does not end the game. Instead, the Despair track advances for each impossible placement.
Playing the Game
Players take four actions on a turn before spawning Ghouls and activating Abominations. Players can move, fight, rest or quest (when on a quest marker). Moving involves moving one space along a track from one location to another. Fighting involves engaging enemies on a location shared by yourself, rolling dice and counting successes (fists), removing Ghouls for each. After a fight, remaining enemies attack the character back for one damage per enemy. If the Lich king resides in the same coloured area as the player, the enemy attack adds one damage. This still applies even if you defeated all enemies. Resting allows a player to roll dice and counting successes and restoring hit points equal to them. Resting at a Stronghold adds one to the Rest result.
Questing is the way players progress in World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King. When on a quest location, players can choose to roll dice and count successes to move along the quest track. Players can also choose to show (not discard) a card with a matching symbol to the next quest icon to move it another space. Cooperating players on the same location – or with respective abilities – may also show cards. How you allocate successes and cards is your choice to ensure you can make the most progress. Once finished, the player Questing loses hit points equal to that shown on the Quest card, with an additional one lost if the Lich King is present in that region. Some Quest cards have additional effects to consider also, so ensure the card is read beforehand.
To ensure players can maximise actions on their turn, they may play cards from their hand to give them an edge during an action. The cards explain their effects and impact how well a player fights or defends, and also enables them to take free rest or move actions. Damage taken by a player can always be mitigated by using shields rolled, however shields are not successes and will not progress the game. Players always draw two cards at the end of their turn but can only hold seven cards.
Ghoul placement runs on a Pandemic system with placement draws are determined by how far the Scourge marker has moved. Abomination activations, however, only occur when one is on the board. They move one space towards the closest character and do one damage on contact. Furthermore, they take three successes in a single roll to defeat.
Winning?
Once all three quests are complete, players have access to the Lich King who is then placed in the Icecrown Citadel. Players need to enter this space and complete the quest there to win. Defeating the Lich King before the Despair marker hits the final space is the only way to win. Any conditions that would end the game in a loss from Pandemic (such as expiring the Hero deck or having a character die) does not lose the game but does advance the Despair marker.
How it Feels to Play
World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King is an excellent example of how the Pandemic system can be reimplemented into another game and have its mechanics juiced up. It’s beautifully executed and is superbly fun! Is it my favourite reimplementation of Pandemic? Probably not. Is it a brilliant game disregarding the Pandemic-y-ness? Absolutely. I will try to avoid referencing Pandemic too much throughout this review, but its parallels are heavy.
Taking on the Ghoul-igans
Crowd control is paramount in this game and it heavily emphasises this after your first play. After. In your first game you’ll bask in the lack of losing when Ghouls run out or Abomination pools are depleted. You can go about galavanting and questing to your heart’s desire without much consequence… until you can’t. The Ghouls aren’t a punishing problem when there isn’t a chance of an Abomination spawning, but it’s tricky to rectify a broken board. And near impossible to rush a win!
When breaking into the Lich King’s crib, it’s important to ensure his minions are at bay and the likelihood of the Despair marker moving is minimised. Keep healthy and heal, keep locations empty by culling the Ghoul population and make sure you cooperate. Talk, discuss and use everyone to advance the Lich King’s quest.
Take A Breath, Take it Easy
The easiest difficulty of this beauty (five Scourge Rises cards and three Strongholds) is not a walk in the park by any means… the Strongholds acting as fast travel points and healing boons are godsends at any difficulty, but even at the lowest difficulty it is important to ensure you take your time. Your priorities should always be to progress the quests, but you’ve got to weigh up your options and priorities as the board develops. Taking the easiest difficulty lightly will absolutely humble you.
If you’re getting into this beauty for the first time you absolutely must make use of the introductory suggestions made by the game itself. Use the three introductory quests and three introductory rewards. They’re fair. They’re not easy, but fair. That said, you need to consider how you’ll tackle these and in what order. Personally, I like to avoid the Lich King like the plague and take on quests which don’t share the region with the big bad. Anytime he moved due to a Scourge Rises card, I scuttle on to a new one. As much as one extra damage doesn’t seem like much, the Lich King’s effects stack up quickly and reduce the times you can Quest quickly. Tick damage is still damage.
I Need a Hero!
World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King balances its steep difficulty and monsoon of minions out through unique Hero abilities. These are pretty tricked out and do a superb job of situationally addressing problems that arise (through player negligence).
In example, when you have let the Ghouls run riot across Azeroth, Thrall is superb at managing the masses. He can use his Chain Lightning ability once a turn to strike three locations (including his own) with a single die per location. Whats more is that this is not a Fight and, as such, does not result in retaliation!
Or let’s say you’ve got Abominations knocking on your door. Who you gonna call? Tirion Fordring! Tirion can count shields as fists (fails as successes) when rolling for a Fight action. This means they can ensure a defeat and reduce the likelihood of the Despair marker moving. There aren’t really any Heroes that won’t help in some way or another. However, there’s a good chance that your Hero won’t always be the necessary tool for the job at hand. Sylvanas Windrunner is excellent at attacking one space away or healing when playing cards on her turn… but not so handy when Questing. She’s bog standard, run of the mill, average.
Lower player counts will absolutely suffer for their lack of numbers against the Lich King’s hoards simply on the basis on not being able to mitigate a mechanical obstacle. If you don’t have Thrall, you can’t crowd control across three locations. So you will need to spend more actions removing Ghouls instead of questing. If you don’t have Jaina Proudmoore, you can’t teleport four spaces for the cost of one. So you’ll spend all four actions moving. It seems silly that a lack of players would hamper you so much, but I honestly found myself running two characters in a two player game to bump us to four just so we had a fighting chance.
In a Nutshell
World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King is a hardcore, challenging yet superbly fun cooperative game. It ensures discussion, delegation and deliberation are at the forefront of your gameplay and will test your party’s collective brain cell. Playing with more players does make the game somewhat easier through an increased number of special abilities. However, more players means the progress a single player makes is reduced. Cooperation can mitigate that through contributing to others’ quests when sharing their location, but the game makes you choose priorities at the right times and adds tension beautifully and progressively.
This game may run a Pandemic based system, but the adjustments to the mechanics ensure it feels fresh enough to sit separately to its predecessor. It’s unique, ensure decisions matter and is a delight to play. Great fun!