Attending PAX East and want to know who is exhibiting at what tables? We’ve been given the list of exhibitors in the tabletop hall, which currently do not show up in the Guidebook app, the only version of the program and show’s floorplan available.

The tabletop booths will be along the right (north) edge of the space, near the skybridge. From the main Queue Room entrance on up to the Lenovo Legion PC Room, the following companies will have a presence in the tabletop hall:

• Gamewright, Q-Workshop, Asmodee NA
• Compleat Strategist (local game store), Steve Jackson Games
• Battleground Games & Hobbies (local game store), Level Up Dice, Fun to 11, Tectonic Craft Studios
• CMON, Wyrmwood Gaming
• Burning Wheel, Japanime/Global Games Distribution, Greenbriar Games
• Modern Myths NY (“local” game store), Armor Class 10 Shirts
• Pandemonium Games (local game store), Crit Success, Dragoon/Lay Waste Games
• Atlas Games, United States Professional Mahjong League
• Drinking Quest, Aviary Games, SFR
• AdMagic
• Greater Than Games
• Foam Brain Games (“local” game store)

Although the PAX 2017 program book that appears in the Guidebook app doesn’t break down the tabletop hall, PAX’s Tabletop Manager has said that this year a detailed map of the tabletop area will appear in the program.

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SFR will be re-releasing the Undead army for Dragon Dice in 2017. While the dice will be the same the packaging is getting a Facelift to fit with their other new releases. There’s no set date yet, but SFR has recently placed the order with their manufacturer. They sent some mockups of the new packaging. It’s subject to change, of course, but this should give you a pretty good idea of what the box will look like.

Another new item on the horizon is SFR’s Water-themed Dragon Dice play mat. It’s looking great, and should be available soon. While I’m still partial to their Air design, this one comes in a close second for me.

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I always love visiting SFR‘s booth at PAX, as Dragon Dice is one of my favorite games. This year it was great seeing so many demos being played by people using the new two player starter set I reviewed earlier this year. Unfortunately there wasn’t anything new to see in the area of dice.

There was, however, a paper play mat hiding under one of their premium play mats. A paper mat that had a brand new design on it.

The new mat should go into production soon, and will be the 3rd design available to purchase.

After staying and talking for a bit, I found out that the 3.0 Dragon Dice rules are currently in the works, and we may be seeing an all black terrain die in the future, possibly with a reprint of the Undead.

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Back in September I did a review on Dragon Dice, specifically the new Starter Set. The set I had wasn’t the final product, just some dice from what the new set would include. I’ve now got a production copy the set in my hands, and can offer some more insight on what you’re actually getting for your $39.95.

This is the largest Starter Set SFR has released yet. Inside you’ll get: 28 six-sided unit dice, 4 ten-sided monster dice; 4 eight-sided terrain dice; 4 twelve-sided dragon dice, 2 paper playing mats, and an updated rulebook. The amount of dice you get is enough to field two 30 point armies, which is substantial in the world of Dragon Dice. While having the extra dice is great, where Starter Set really shines is the player mats and updated rulebook (which you can check out here.)

The new rulebook is both written well and laid out well. It makes the game much easier to jump into for new players. The player mats, pretty much a necessity when playing Dragon Dice, are also a great help when getting started. These two items make the Starter Set really feel like a good jumping off point for those interested in learning to play the game, and really add value to the set.

SFR is also selling fabric player mats with a rubber backing for $20 if you’re looking to upgrade from paper.

I couldn’t recommend the 2-player Starter more. You can snag one here for $39.95.

A copy of the Dragon Dice 2-player Starter was provided free for review.

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Having gotten an early release copy of the new Dragon Dice Firewalker/Treefolk Starter at PAX East this year, I was very eager to dig back into a game I haven’t played since 1995. The pre-release of this set has finally hit SFR’s online store, so you can actually snag the dice now if you’re interested.

Not having a solid rulebook with the bag of dice I brought home, I used a combination of the official rulebook, this YouTube video by That’s How We Roll, and these great reference sheets from user Herrigold on BoardGameGeek. While Dragon Dice is actually fairly easy to play, years of releases, promo dice, etc… have caused the official rulebook to swell to a considerable size. The video and reference sheets were a huge help to my son and I when we were ready to jump in and play.

The goal in Dragon Dice is to obliterate your opponents army, or two capture 2 of the 3 terrains in play. The game is a very abstract war game where the number on each 8 sided terrain die is how close your army is to capturing that terrain. Each side of the terrain dice also let you know what types of attacks can be made at that distance: magic, missile, or melee. Each player builds an army out of their dice using an agreed upon point amount. When building an army small dice are worth 1 point, medium are 2 points, large are 3 points, and the 10 sided monster dice are worth 4 points. Armies are split into 3 forces between the terrain dice.

Each turn a player will have 2 opportunities to maneuver a terrain die (move it up or down a number), and attack. There’s also a phase for Dragon actions if a dragon has been summoned using magic (These buggers wreak havoc on anyone at the terrain their summoned at. It’s both terrible, and awesome.) Units can also be pulled into reserve so they can move between terrains as needed. I won’t do much more in depth with the mechanics. Just check out the video above for a better overview on how to play.

All that being said, how does it play? First off let me say that back in the day I totally didn’t play Dragon Dice correctly. Now that I know how to play, I’m a bit addicted. The dice are wonderful, and I love the army building aspect of the game. There’s also just something very satisfying about rolling handfuls of dice and raining destruction upon your foes. The magic system adds a huge amount of depth the game, and the sheer amount of dice and expansion dice available has me wishing I could go out and snag it all. There’s a reason Dragon Dice is still around after all these years, and I give SFR a huge amount of credit for keeping the game alive and kicking.

I should also mention that extra dice for the game are solid in the form of Kickers. These are basically booster packs that come with 8 dice. You always know you’re going to get a monster, 4 common dice, 2 uncommon dice, and 1 rare die, but you don’t know what unit each of those dice are going to be. You can also buy more terrains, dragons, and even a few expansion sets that add more to the game. I’m hoping to snag some of these extras soon.

So far this may be one of my favorite games I’ve played this year, and I have a feeling it’s one I’ll be playing it for a long time.

An early release copy of the Firewalker/Treefolk starter was provided free for review by SFR, INC. A kicker for each army was also purchased.

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I made sure to see what SFR was up to this year, as I was excited to find out last year that Dragon Dice was still in production. This year they had 2 new products to show. The first was a new Daemon type for Daemon Dice, Fester. The dice are yellow with red ink, and allow you to mix things up a bit more in the game. I actually have some bagged, early-release Fester dice from last year, but now they’re boxed and ready to hit shelves. There’s 13 dice per Fester Booster, and they retail for $12.95.

On the Dragon Dice side, there’s now a new Amazons Kicker pack. This set contains the never-before-see Nightmare die, and each Kicker pack contains: 7 6-sided dice: 4 16mm commons, 2 18mm uncommons, and 1 20mm rare. They also include 1 random 22mm 10-sided monster die and a rules sheet. Retails is $9.95.

While I was at the booth I was also able to snag a Firewalker/Treefolk starter to get back into the game and start posting some reviews.

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High Heavens

Ryan Lesser, known in the video-game world for Guitar Hero, Rock Band. Beatles:Rock Band, and Dance Central, was demoing High Heavens at a small booth tucked away in the corner of the tabletop space. His wife, and game’s artist, Jennifer, started the game’s demo with me until Ryan was able to run the rest of it to completion. The game is a tactical one where you take control of a set of mythological gods and battle it out, trying to destroy the other gods’ home base. In this demo I played the Norse gods, while Ryan played the Greek Gods. Each turn players take 3 actions. This can be summoning a god, moving a god, attacking another god/base, or playing cards that effect the board of miniatures on the board. The coolest mechanic of this game are the stackable rings that each god sits upon. These rings signify health, armor, extra attack power, poison, stun, etc… The more health an armor you have, the higher your character sits on the board. Rings like armor can be dropped when a god is downed, and then picked up by another god who passes next to them.

High Heavens is super simple to learn, and offers a great bit of strategy when it comes to managing your gods, powers, and protecting your base. I’m hoping to get a more in-depth review of this one once it’s out. While I saw a bit of this game at Connecticon, PAX East is where it was officially previewed.

SFR, Inc

SFR surprised me a bit, because they’ve been putting out a product I thought was long-since dead. Dragon Dice. I haven’t played Dragon Dice since I was in middle school, and just looking at all the stuff that’s come out since then got me drooling a bit. So many cool dice! TSR originally had published the game 1995, only to be bought out by Wizards of the Coast. Wizards put the game on the back burner after a while, and SFR bought the rights in 2000 and has continued to keep the game alive ever since. Several new army packs were available to check out at the show, as well as an entire new dice game. Demon Dice.

While each die represents units in Dragon Dice, each set of dice in Demon Dice represents one demon. Each die is a part of the body. Players take turns rolling against their opponent’s previous roll to try and damage the other player, and eventually knock out all their dice from play. It seemed a little complicated at first, but once you get the hang of it you realize it’s really not. I’ve got a starter set on hand, along with an extra set of dice, to review and report back here in a bit.

Attack the Darkness

The name of the game brings back memories of the Dead Alewives “Dungeons and Dragons” bit from a long time ago. An impressively large and hefty box filled to the brim with cards and tokens is what initially caught my eye. Attack the Darkness is a dungeon crawl game with RPG elements and deck building/drafting mechanics. The cards make up the random dungeons, characters, and pretty much everything in between. It plays up to 1-8 players, and can be played with or without a game master. While I didn’t get a chance to play it, it should be on the way to my doorstep very soon. I really liked what I saw, and can’t wait to dig in.

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