On Wednesday 22nd April I ran a game of Dragon Flight at Dad's War Room in Sutton on Hull.
Three players, Lee, Aaron and Dave each took a pre-generated 30GP dragon. I refereed the Gold Rush scenario. We played on a 6x4 table with a game mat supplied by Joe. Dragons, chocolate coin treasures, flying stands, and a lair were all provided by me. The lair, a stone tower was placed in the centre of the table and the coins scattered round it. The players were tasked with stealing treasures, before Skegness the Great Red Dragon returned to her lair. The treasures were at ground level, so a dragon had to either land next to a coin, and take off again next turn. Or make a Swoop and grab, dipping to ground level and rolling 4 or better on their Wings dice.
They could also attempt to steal treasure from each other in flight by making a successful Strike and stealing a coin instead of inflicting damage.
As the treasure was at ground level, most of the action took place at Height Band 2 or less. Also, we determined that the Tower Lair was 2 high, so they had to avoid flying into it.
Lee took the Big Green: Vent Vert
Name: Vent Vert (Large Green)
Attribute Dice Prowess GP: 30
Body: D10 +1 11
Wings: D8 +1 9
Strike: D8 +1 9
Breath: - - -
Defence: - +1 1
Aaron had the Spotted Copper
Name: Spotted Copper (Small Green)
Attribute Dice Prowess GP: 30
Body: D6 +2 9
Wings: D10 +1 11
Strike: D6 +1 7
Breath: - - -
Defence: +2 3
And Dave had the Night Fox, the only one with a breath weapon.
Name: Night Fox
Attribute Dice Prowess GP: 30
Body: D6 +1 7
Wings: D8 +1 9
Strike: D6 +1 7
Breath: D6 - 6
Defence: - +1 1
Once the basic rules, manoeuvres and turn sequence were explained, the game went pretty well. Lee with the Large Green got a head start swooping and taking a couple of treasures, only to be robbed by Aaron's Spotted Copper. Dave with Night Fox avoided the initial skirmish to take a few treasures of his own. Most of the coins were picked up early in the game, then it went into a general scramble as they tried stealing from each other.
Dave lined up a flame blast and managed to hit both, but they saved against the damage and escaped with a bit of soot and a light charring. Aaron went on the attack, harrying the Big Green and causing a couple of wounds. Unfortunately, Aaron lost his treasure to a sneak steal from Dave. Lee made it back to his Lair, losing height and trailing smoke. But he did keep his treasure. We finished the game after this. Lee and Dave had the most treasure, but Aaron got Victory Points for defeating Lee's Dragon.
All players had a good time, the game worked pretty much as intended, and I got a few pointers for improvements and clarifications.
Take Aways from this Play Test.
- Dragon Kite Templates- We should have used the double size Kite templates to match the size of the model Dragon's. Or I need to make some smaller dragons.
- Bases - We used disposable wine glasses. These are about 6cm diameter. We found it easier to plot movement, by leap frogging bases. So long as all fliers are using the same bases this does not break the game, but it does change it. Leapfrogging does give an advantage to smaller dragons as they add their base size to each Manoeuvre. For a d6 body, it effectively doubles their movement. It also doubles their turn radius. Choose between convenience or precision.
- Breath Weapons - As the only dragon with a Breath Weapon, Dave felt they were rather ineffective. Having said that, he was rolling a D6 for Breath. It is an Area Effect weapon, so he managed to catch both rival dragons in one blast, and Breath Weapons let a dragon make a ranged attack without risking a counter strike. Using a flamethrower as an anti aircraft gun is always likely to be problematic, but it is good for ground attack. Still it needs further looking into.
- Manoeuvre Diagrams - I still need to prepare these...
- Prowess - Prowess is undervalued. It should be at least 2GP for +1. As is, it gives too much advantage for its GP cost. Probably Defence too. I will also need to repoint the example dragons to suit.
- The Swoop and Grab rules need writing into the game. We modified the Swoop manoeuvre (2 moves) to allow grabbing an item off the ground by rolling 4+ on Wings to succeed.
- The Stealing rules need writing into the game. A successful Strike attack scoring more than the opponents Counter or Evasion allows the attacker to steal an item (or crew) instead of inflicting damage.
- Crashing into the ground needs further thought. The rules are over complex and ineffective at the low Height Bands they were flying.
- Stoop or Plummet rules need adding to Manoeuvres. If a Dragon descends three or more Height Bands in a single move, then they need to make a Wings Roll scoring more than the number of Height Bands lost. Failure means the flier must descend one more Height Band before recovering control.
