Descent - Journeys in the Dark

Having been brought up on Heroquest and Warhammer Quest, this product had a lot to live up to.

This game is in the best tradition of those games, with plenty of variety in terms of quests and monsters. The box is briming full of goodies (does make it heavy to carry if you don't drive to you club of course!) and the production quality is great.

It also plays very well and it seems to have playtested throughtly. The fact it is based on Doom (and seems to deal with the flaws from that game) does help.

My only niggle is this: the campaign system feels rather false. At the end of the adventure you lose all the kit and skills you had accumulated and apart from a bit more gold you are a starting player. This removes the need to absudly over-engineer scenarios to compensate and ensures balance, but you lose the sense you are developing a character rather than playing one-off games.

Overall a great game and very good value.

Descent is great fun, it really reminds all of us fantasy rpg veterans of the old school dungeon crawl adventures.

With a lot of variation possible regarding scenarios and map, characters, skills and gear, this game can be played for a long time before getting old. Luckily expansions are also available.

One player plays the Evil overlord, while the rest play the heroes. A lot depends on being in agreement of the playing style. If this fails, the game is less enjoyable IMHO.
If the Overlord is really out to get you in the shortest possible time, and knows what he's doing, maxing all attacks, and the heroes want to play a lax style, just for fun, things won't work out that well. But if the Overlord is too nice, and the heroes are played in perfect tactical coordination, the game is a cakewalk. Of course, since there are dice involved, a lot rests of the whims of lady luck.

I enjoy this game, it's fun. And since it's a board game, it does what it's supposed to, and what else you put into it with regards to actuallu roleplaying your character, just adds to the fun.

As someone fairly new to the genre, this is an excellent game. The rules are a little complicated on the first couple of plays but then you're flying. The sheer range of scenarios, characters, monsters and weapons makes it a new challenge every time.

Some of the expansions do get a bit hard though, and some missions are better than others. You also need a massive table!!