Dice Conquest: A Cooperative Adventure of Heroes and Dice

Band together to defeat a fearsome dragon and the monsters that stand in your way, using dice, magical weapons, and heroic abilities.

Published by WizKids, Dice Conquest is a cooperative, 30-minute dice game for 1-4 players. So, how does the adventure play?

Gameplay

Each player chooses a hero card and takes a health tracker. The amount of health each player starts the game with varies based on player count. The deck of creature cards is shuffled and the dragon Kalterstorm card is placed at the bottom of the deck. Three creature cards are drawn and placed face-up in a row.

At the start of each round, all the dice are rolled and placed in the available dice pool. Players take turns. On your turn, you may choose one die in the available dice pool. You may choose to keep the number currently on it or you may choose to reroll that die one time and keep the new result. You then assign the die to one monster, placing it on one of the creature cards. The combined value of all dice on a creature card is how much damage has been dealt to it so far. Each creature card shows how much damage it needs before it is defeated. You must meet or exceed that number.

When you defeat a creature card, you place it in the discard pile. Some creature cards have magical artifacts — instead of discarding it you give it to one of the players. That player can discard it at a future time to use the artifact’s special ability. After a creature is defeated, all dice on it are placed in the spent dice area. Some creatures have special rules, such as only accepting odd-numbered dice or requiring the exact damage value played on their card to defeat it.

Each hero has a special ability that is usable when he attacks, such as the wizard, who can reroll a die twice instead of only once, or the sorceress, who increases the values of other dice on a creature when she places a new die on the card. Each hero also has a critical hit ability. These trigger when you place a die on a creature card whose value is the same number shown on the hero’s card.

The round ends once there are no more dice in the available dice area or any hero chooses to pass. You then check all the creature cards still in the display and count up how much damage they each deal and spread it out as evenly as possible across all players. Next, players may choose whether to keep any dice still in place on undefeated creature cards or to remove them in hopes of rolling higher values. You then draw three new creature cards to add to the display, reroll any dice not on creature cards and place them back in the available dice pool, and a new round begins.

Play continues until any one hero reaches zero health, in which case everyone loses, or you work your way through the entire deck of creature cards and defeat Kalterstorm at the end.

Review

Dice Conquest combines minimal rules and fast turns with challenging gameplay. It’s not a game that you’re going to win right away. Rather, it will take several attempts, trying out different strategies and different heroes. Sometimes luck of the draw and dice will just be against you. But it’s quite satisfying to get closer and closer to the end until you mange to finally defeat the dragon.

Different creatures will work off of each other in different ways, with their abilities sometimes making painful combinations that can lead to a difficulty spike. This means players have to plan carefully which monsters to attack first.

Each die you select is also an interesting choice. You have to consider what number is already on there, whether you want to reroll it and your odds of getting a better number, as well as what number will trigger your hero’s ability. The turns are quite quick but still engaging.

The production value on the game is nice. The artwork is rich and detailed, and the cards are large and easy to read. There are even additional trap cards that you can shuffle into the deck when you’re ready to increase the game’s difficulty. The only strange choice was to include a d10% die (a ten-sided die where each side shows two digits), as you only use it as a standard d10 ten-sided die, always ignoring the second digit. It needlessly complicates the dice.

If you enjoy cooperative, lightweight dice games, Dice Conquest is a tough but thoroughly enjoyable entry into the genre. With lots of dice chucking and interesting choices, it feels great when you manage a great turn or finally reach the end.

Pros: Fast turns, artwork and production value, easy to teach, variety from creature combinations to different hero abilities

Cons: Luck can make the game quite difficult, unnecessary inclusion of a d10% die

Disclosure: we received a complimentary review copy of this game.