Review: Castle Ravenloft

Taking a break from our Dungeon of the Mad Mage campaign, we decided on a boardgame night, but still in-universe. Castle Ravenloft is a D&D themed-boardgame, with the miniatures actually usable in D&D, and many rules instantly recognizable to any D&D-veteran. 

I picked the wizard, and we started with the intro adventure: escape from Strahd's crypt.

The game mechanics were reasonably easy to grasp for such a complex game - still nowhere near D&D proper. We awakened Strahd in no time, and he was chasing us down in the dungeon.

We quickly realized the importance of teamwork when placing new tiles, as well as how the villain "AI" can be exploited to keep him bouncing up and down the corridors. With Strahd busy, our ranger reached the stairway and the scenario was won.

Next up, we randomized the zombie dragon scenario.

Exploration went smoothly, even though we did not manage to place a linear dungeon due to movement constraints.

After not quite but almost the minimum number of required tiles, the zombie dragon appeared. We decided to kill it.

However, we did not want any special encounters after the first couple really hurt us, so we kept exploring in the meantime. Soon, the extra monsters threatened to overrun us.

And so we kept the dragon busy and quickly reached the staircase.

Next, we randomized the hunt for Strahd scenario. This went comically bad. We pulled a spear trap early, and did not manage to disable it after 5-6 rolls. It pretty much killed us, with minimal help from Strahd's bodyguard, the howling hag.

Incensed by the loss, we went at it again. This time, we had a much better time, with barely any random encounters until reaching the miniboss. The kobold sorcerer created a few extra monsters, however I fireball'd all of them (including the freshly awakened Strahd) and things looked snappy.

However, we lost in the long run, by a hair's breadth. Strahd's AC19 was too much, and even though we kept him bouncing around for a while, the extra monsters and encounters ground us down. During the final round, I tried a magic missile, missing for the 5th time in a row. I died, but we decided to pretend I didn't, so the rogue could have one more game winning shot. He just had to roll a 10+. 5. Cool, good thing for that lucky amulet reroll. 1.

At this point it was a little late in the evening and we gave up, but first we laughed out loud at the misfortune and commiserated over our characters' deaths.

All in all, a very fun and tense game. I wouldn't recommend it for beginner boardgamers, but any D&D veteran will feel right at home.

And the miniatures are a huge plus. Go ahead and hone your painting skills on these relatively simple and cheap minis. In fact, I have a bunch of them bought second hand - I just realized where they're from!