First, the players all loved the game. Two people had played Descent, which has some similar mechanics such as shared initiative and action cards. The players though, had so much fun they are ready for more.

The Good:

• Dice: The dice pools were very cool. The game does not use traditional role-playing game dice. Some of the shapes are familiar, but numbers are replaced with symbols. A combination of certain symbols denote success (axes), which are countered by failures/challenges (crossed swords). There are also other effects that can occur when you obtain eagle symbols (called boons) that are countered by skulls (called banes). Chaos stars and Sigmar’s Comet denote a very bad thing or a very good thing, respectively. The players or the GM generate dice pools based on a combination of skills and attributes with added dice for fortune, expertise, misfortune, and whether the character acts recklessly or cautious. We did get a lot of results that did not have any effect with multiple banes or boons that did not seem to matter. However, I can see house rule for certain results easily implemented to give extra dice or effects somewhere.
• Cards: Actions, Talents: The box had enough cards to support three players and a GM. In the first demo we had four players so we shared some of the basic action cards. This did not seem to be a problem, and seemingly, at least for basic actions, one could expand the amount of players for the game. After a brief explanation of how the cards were set up, people got them pretty easily. The nice thing about the cards is that they explain the effects of the actions/talents without having to dive into the book for a list of these things.
   
• Cards: Effects: The wounds system was easy to track and contain provisions for critical wounds, which convey the gritty feel that previous players, role-playing characters in the Old World have grown to love. There were also rules and cards associated with sanity and spell miscasting. Previously, these were tables, and it seems that they have been created into card decks.

  The Demonstration Scenario, “A Day Late and a Shilling Short” had two combat encounters and one social encounter.

• Combat: Combat is abstract, and does not need maps. We all liked the abstract feel of the combat, and the lack of a ‘whiff’ factor seen with WHFRP and Dark Heresy with new characters. The dice pools allowed characters to be more competent from the outset.
  Social: The social mechanic was very cool. Non-fighting characters can potentially shine here.
• Appearance
  • Quality:Beautiful box and bits. FFG puts out a well-printed product.
  • Bits: There are a lot of bits used for tracking and creating the set ups. In the demos they did not seem to be a problem at all.

The Bad:

• There is a lack of an Index in any of the books. Four books come with the set: A Basic Rule Book, A GM’s Book, A Magic book, A Divine book.
• The section on Monsters/Adversaries were not well explained, and one has to jump between books to determine how they act.
• Advancement looked complicated, but this was a problem in the previous incarnation as well.
• While I like the bits, I can see that some people might consider them ‘fiddly’ and there is the potential with so many parts, that these parts could be come lost.

In summary, the game seemed to maintain the grim and funny atmosphere of Warhammer Fantasy RPG, but with a new and dynamic dice mechanic, and a more tactile, immersive feel.

Both Dragon’s Lair Austin and Dragon’s Lair San Antonio are taking pre-orders for this game!