Quarriors!
Players take on the roles of Quarriors —mighty mystical warriors—who have the power to capture dangerous quarry from the untamed Wilds! They must conjure the mysterious powers of Quiddity, cast powerful spells, and summon their creatures to battle if they hope to overcome rivals and earn their rightful place as the Champion!
The game features 130 custom molded dice, 53 creature and spell cards and everything needed to play for 2 to 4 players.
In this game of "Uber Strategic Hexahedron Monster Combat Mayhem," players compete to capture the most powerful Spells and Creatures (in the form of dice!) from the Wilds and add them to their collection. Players then roll their powerful cubes and summon them into play to battle each of their opponent's forces. Strategy is key in assembling a force that you can roll to victory!
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I purchased Quarriors less than a month ago and I’ve logged around 25 plays in that short time. I normally give a game longer to sink in before writing a review, but I’m so obsessed with this one that my opinions have become fully-formed pretty quickly:
Observed Set-Up and Play Time
Being a first-of-its-kind game, you’re pretty strapped to the instruction manual to walk you through set-up… but a prior understanding of deck-builders really greases the wheels. The game took little time to unbox (this only involves taking cards out of cellophane and dice out of baggies). The rule book is concise and well written, and even includes some humor to keep you from getting too grumpy. All told, my first game was starting around 30 minutes after opening the box, and lasted another 30 minutes. Once comfortable, set-up takes 5 minutes and games run between 10 and 45 minutes (the top end for a 4-player game only).
My Learning Curve and Teach Time
Quarriors can be taught to a deck-builder player in 10 minutes, and I have taught someone who has never played a deck-builder in 25 minutes. Both kinds of players were completely competent on the game mechanics during their first play-through. In a nutshell, this is very easy to pick up. Learning curve is a little trickier; by game 2 or 3 I had a rock-solid strategy down pat (note that this strategy – readily available in the “Tips” section of this page – may be the game’s ONLY rock-solid strategy, which will surely turn off some), but I’ve played around 10 games with another really smart gamer (although not a deck-builder player) who hasn’t seemed to figure it out yet. He obviously isn’t checking this website too often!
Group Sizes and Dynamics
I have played numerous 2-, 3- and 4-player games… all were equally enjoyable (note that this page lists number of players at 1 to 4 – there are no included solitaire rules, and I’m not sure how you would do it, so I’m guessing this is a typo). I have a few deck-builder-averse friends who happily jumped into Quarriors and enjoyed it. Another only really likes co-op games, and Quarriors has become her favorite competitive game. Perhaps the easiest target audience I can find for this game is fans of King of Tokyo. They can immediately identify with the attack-your-friends-through-dice theme and don’t notice that you’ve got them playing a “builder” type game (they also may to be easier to beat, because culling may be a foreign concept to them).
Objectionable Material
Like many great games, violence is the driver of Quarriors’ conflict. But also like many greats, nothing is implicit and there are no graphic images. However, there are still somewhat scary images for very young players and a need to read the benefits of particular dice that make reading comprehension a prerequisite to playing the game. This is a game that can be introduced to an 8-year-old… much younger than the publisher’s stated age.
Comparable Titles
While Quarriors is currently a one-of-a-kind game (that won’t last long… I recall reading that the publisher is slapping a Star Trek skin on it and releasing it as a different game), it has a completely “been there, done that” theme… any game that places the player as a wizard-type conjuring entities to battle other players is telling the exact same story. For instance, recent games like Seasons and Summoner Wars deploy drastically different game mechanics to reach the same ends. While the custom dice and unique mechanics are novel, we have the same novelty with Seasons and King of Tokyo. Overall, Quarriors feels like a comfortably familiar, radically different game. Somehow.
I thoroughly enjoy deck builders, and the exchange of cards for dice seems quite logical to me. While I have a love/hate relationship with dice, Quarriors falls strongly on the “love” side. Anything with dice is subject to some randomness, and Quarriors does a noble job of reining in that randomness. It is possible that a good strategy can come up fruitless, but it won’t happen often. Another compliment for Quarriors: 25 games is typically when I start getting the itch to grab an expansion if I like the game… not so here. I am completely excited for my next game, even though I fully understand the 10 creatures (with 3 variants of each) that may be involved in it.
Imagine a world where your box games awoke in the middle of the night while you are sound asleep. They run around your house like little gnomes. Dominion is coming out of the bathroom pulling up his zipper. Random dice are walking into the kitchen to cook up some waffles. Their eyes meet and its love at first sight. After a trip to Vegas they are officially wed and nine months later… Quarriors!!!!
Break This Bad Boy Out:
The game set up can take a bit of time as you will have to take the die out of their little baggies or separate them if you have simply dumped them into the pot. Its not so much the time it takes, its more getting the die out of these tiny bags that I find annoying, but necessary.
One great thing about Quarriors is the cards the show what the die represent. Although there are only one set of die, there are multiple cards representing those die. What this offers is more replay ability as you can have different versions of a die via what is shown on the card. Each time you play, the different cards power the same die, resulting in the die interact with each other a bit differently each game.
Once you have your cards and die set up, you are ready to start playing the game.
Let’s Get It On:
Quarriors is a dice building game where you are buying different warriors to fight against one another to score glory points. You capture these warriors by rolling the die in your bag to produce the currency for the game call quiddity. You spend quiddity to both capture and to activate the Quarriors you have captured.
Much like Dominion you have a starting pile of die with a few worthless pieces mixed in. Your turn you get six die to roll for your hand essentially. If you have creatures you have collected to fight you will most likely activate them and put them into your ready area.
Creatures in your ready area fight as a team against each of your opponent’s individual die. So if you have two creatures with an attack of 2 each, 4 total, the attack your opponent with a defense of 3. That die is killed off and put into your opponent’s used pile. If you get your creature to survive one whole round and get back to you then you score glory points and that creature is put back into your used pile.
This continues until a player reaches the necessary glory to win the game.
What Rocks:
• Its nice that the different cards are used to add replayability to the game. You can each card also has its own setting: normal, strong, and mighty. So you can make a game with just the weaker cards for new people or go big and play all mighty!
• The game plays pretty quick, in about 20-30 min. Makes it a nice filler or something to squeeze in at the end of a night.
• The game is very each to teach, especially if people have played Dominion.
Meh:
• Of course the game is luck based, that’s a give when 99% of the game is dice, but it does not offer much strategy. Basically, when you roll quiddity, purchase the largest thing that you can. There is not much thought in it, just buy the most expensive thing that you can. It lacks depth
• There are a few things that are a little shaky in the rules. They have since then come out with a few expansions that have addressed these things, but I have not taken the time to dig them up. But as you play through you can see some of the holes.
• It can only be played with four players. And you can’t stretch the rules because you don’t have the die to make it happen.
Overall:
I believe that this is going to be one of those games that makes a big splash when it comes out, but I don’t think it will last the set of time. There just is not enough depth to keep bringing people back for more. The combat is nice, and when the game is close you may be on the edge of your seat, but with most dice games, and roll will make you or break you. My fiancé really enjoys this game, but it’s not one that I care too much for, I’d rather invest my time in a game that will make me think a bit more.
Quarriors! is on its face an innovative first attempt at creating a compelling dice-building game. And if you like rolling dice and playing deck-building games, you will want to love this game. But after the newness wears off, players will begin to ask themselves things like “Does strategy even matter?” and “Who are these Quarriors?”
How It Plays
In Quarriors!, two to four players start with a pool of 12 basic dice that provide Quiddity (the game’s currency) and a low-level creature. A number of randomly selected cards in “The Wilds” representing creatures and spells tell you which dice to include in the total game pool, and provide special effects for the rolled dice.
Each turn, players roll 6 dice and use the results to summon creatures, cast spells, or buy more dice from the Wilds. Your creatures attack all the players around the table, and if your creature survives the whole round, you get to score it for Glory. The first player to reach a specific glory level (varies by number of players) wins.
The creatures and spells (and therefore dice) are randomly selected for each game, so you can play many games without encountering the same combination of cards/dice.
How It Works
If this sounds like fun, it is – at first. Building your pool, culling out weaker dice, rolling handfuls of colored dice… But after a few plays, you begin to feel like your best purchase is always obvious and your success depends primarily on luck rather than skill.
The advanced rules explained in the expansions are supposed to add additional decision-making, but really just feel like they drag out the game. And part of what makes Quarriors! fun is that it ends before you realize how little strategic depth there is to the game.
How It Looks and Feels
When Quarriors! was first released, a number of people complained about the quality of the printing on the dice. And yes, there are a few dice where the numbers are sometimes difficult to read. But given that the faces are printed on the related card, it’s not something that has bothered me, especially given the huge number of dice you receive in the game.
The original storage container required a lot of modifying to fit the game in a convenient way, but if you get the Quarmaggedon Expansion, it provides a fantastic storage case that holds all the dice in neat rows.
The Quarriors! themeing could use a little strengthening. After playing with my wife a few times, her comment was “This game is fun enough, but who is the Defender of the Pale? What is the Pale? Why is he defending it?” And it’s true – the Quarriors! universe could use a little bit of flavor, even just a line or two of flavor text on the cards. As is, you don’t really have a strong sense of what it is you are actually doing in the game beyond calling forth one-dimensional creatures that tease at something more interesting.
I actually re-themed the game with Harry Potter characters and spells, and it brought new life to the game for us and our gaming circle. It’s much more interesting to summon Lucius Malfoy than the Warrior of the Quay. I can only hope that perhaps one day WizKids can find a way to expand the Harry Potter licenses to include an improved version of the dice-building genre. Or that their upcoming Lord of the Rings Dice-Building game will be the one to take the step forward.
Conclusion
This is a fun game for Casual, Social or Family gamers, or Avid gamers looking for a light game to pass the time. But Power and Strategy gamers expecting “Dominion with Dice” will be left wanting.
There are so many things that I love about this game that trying to pick and choose among them is harder than you might think. Where to begin? Well, let’s start with the beginning, shall we?
The first thing I love about this game is the design of the box/tin itself. The box itself is a die, representing one of the most powerful monsters in the game. You could literally roll the tin as a die itself, except that it isn’t EXACTLY like a die. The bottom is indented to provide a base, and there is some edging around the opening of the tin. But the tin isn’t truly meant to be rolled itself, so moving on, yes?
The game tin in itself is elegant, in that it can contain the entirety of the game in one neat package, and is arranged in a way so that you can put everything back into the tin easily once you pull everything out. The game comes with everything you need to keep all the dice inside separated, which is a huge bonus. Oh, did I mention this was a dice game? Oh, is this ever a dice game.
The best way to describe Quarriors (as I’ve heard it described so many times before) is a deck-building game using dice instead of cards. I guess in that respect you could call it a dice pool building game instead, but the game DOES use cards. The difference is that it uses cards to represent what the dice actually are, in terms of monsters, spells and the game’s resident currency, Quiddity. Quiddity is used both to buy and summon monsters; you can’t do anything without Quiddity.
What I appreciate most is how the game designers came up with a way of making the dice represent different things. Since you can’t change what the dice are (the faces are carved in, so one type of die will always have the same symbols), you change what the dice represent by the use of the cards. Each monster and spell has several different variants that can be selected during the start of the game, and they all have special abilities that can come into play, either naturally or by rolling a burst (represented by a * or ** symbol on the die and card). This lends a lot of replayability to the game, so that you don’t get used to one die being the same all the time.
The combat system is simple, but fair. If you roll a monster symbol and enough quiddity to summon it, you can summon it to the field. It then attacks all the monsters on the field. Not the player itself, but the monsters. And it attacks all monsters at once. If the attack beats the defense of a defending monster, it goes away. There is only attack damage; there is no defensive damage returned. Every player’s monsters are attacked at once, so there is no favortism, and if you summon a monster, you HAVE to attack. This is important because you earn victory points by having your monsters survive a single turn, and if they’re still on your field of play when your turn comes around again, you score the monster for its glory (victory point) value, and it goes away. Monsters are not permanent in this game, which forces you to live in the moment rather than planning long-term.
Something else to note about monsters in this game; they have level! Yep, that’s right, your monsters can be comparatively weak or strong depending upon what you roll. Monsters can range from level 1 to level 3, depending upon what you roll, and can have varying attack and defense values for each level. The catch is that the strong a monster you roll, the more quiddity you need to pay to summon it, which means you have less left to buy monsters and spells. So sometimes you have to decide whether you want to score points, or prepare a stronger arsenal.
Quarriors is a quick game; you can get through a two-player game in a good half-hour to 45 minutes, and three and four-player games can end just as quickly. This means you can get in several games, which is good if you play people that like to play two out of three sets. There’s a lot of random luck in this game due to die rolling, but it doesn’t really feel that way as you play, as the choices you make in what monsters and spells to buy with your quiddity can make a world of difference.
Where this game really shines, however, is in its potential for expansions. There are already a few expansions out on the market, and the creators have taken the trouble to make them easy to integrate into the base game. Couple that with a game that is already easy to carry with you anywhere you go, and you can literally have a pick-up game of Quarriors just about anywhere.
The only detraction of the game I have is that sometimes, the die faces are carved in such a way that it can be difficult to make out little differences, like the difference between a 1 and 2. This can cause a little squinting of the eyes, but it’s not a detraction of the gameplay itself, so it can be forgiven. Hey, sometimes mistakes happen, right?
If you love dice games and have a penchant for deck builders then this may very well be one of your favorite things, because Quarriors is both of these. Designed by Mike Elliot & Eric Lang and released by Wizkids back in 2011 the base set comes with a brain boggling 130 custom dice, now that’s a lot of dice.
Aside from the bucketful of dice you also get a set of 53 power cards that work in tandem with those dice, and mix up the proceedings so each game will be a little different.
And the game itself is a pretty simple affair it essentially see’s you battling your opponents by gathering lots of creatures into you pool of dice readying them each turn and any that survive through to the start of your next round can be scored for glory dependent on the corresponding card. First player to hit the requisite glory score wins. Its really as simple as that. The rule book does its best to explain all of this but to begin with mainly befuddles and confuses as its a bit of a wordy mess, it works and does its job but it could have been made a tad more user friendly.
Each game is set up the same way by assigning the powers each dice has by pulling from the deck of cards, you get 3 spells by dealing from the deck the first 3 unmatched cards any duplicates are discarded and you keep going until you have 3 unique types. There are multiple cards for each the different types some stronger than others or with some special burst abilities so this adds a nice haphazard randomness to proceedings. You do exactly the same process for 7 creatures cards. So this is all cool, it means the set up process is quick and easy, the biggest pain can be matching the dice to the cards as each will have 5 of the corresponding dice put on them. There are also 3 basic cards that go out and are available in every game one of these refers to Quiddity which is the currency of the game. You then grab your starting pool of 12 dice that you pop into your dice bag these are 8 Quiddity and 4 assistants which are basic low level creatures. And then off you roll.
The game plays by you pulling 6 dice from your bag and rolling them, now to start these are either going to give you a Quiddity value your cash and probably a couple of the assistant’s.
every turn plays out in 5 stages
1: score creatures – any beastie active in your ready area from a previous turn can be scored for the value of glory on its corresponding card. Scoring also allows you to cull a dice if you want to streamline your pool, very handy later on to start to thin out your dice.
2: pull your dice out the bag and roll.
3:Attack, Attack!!
4:capture a die (basically buy an extra dice for your pool from the ones available)
5:Clean up, move everything you’ve finished with into your used pile.
You are going to be buying lots of creatures and spending quiddity to ready them to attack your opponents, the attacking is pretty straight forward its your creatures accumulated attack value against whatever creatures your opponent has ready. They defend in turn using the defend value on each dice and are chipped away at until either you run out of victims or attack.
And so on and so fourth, basically your using your turn to get rid of any creatures from your opponent so that he can’t score them for the glory at the start of his next turn and he’s doing the same to you, and that’s pretty much how it works. It has to be said this does all become a bit meh! And especially if all your pulling is quiddity dice and then getting ******* by yours rolls when your monsters are hitting the quiddity faces and not the fighting sides. This is when you need to learn to start thinning out your pool of dice, the white quiddity dice just clutter up your bag after awhile and its a good idea to start ditching them after you have a good fistful of the more powerful dice in your bag.
The cards are the clever touch with the differing power levels and separate effects will mean that each game has some variety and you will have to play to the strengths of what has come out of the deck, and its not just the the power of the dice effected some of the creatures come with burst effects represented by an asterix in the bottom right of the dice, these can be anything from giving you more glory to wiping out creatures from your opponents pool.
And that really is it, as you may have guessed due to the modular nature of the game it was ripe for expansions and indeed there have been 5 already, so if you enjoy this there is certainly a lot more fun out there to be had.
I picked this up because I love dice rolling games, and wanted something I could play with the kids. There is a ton of luck in this, and the old problem of the leader running away with the game, but really its pretty light and simple and the base game while fun can get a tad samey after awhile. I heartily recommend picking up the Quartifacts expansion which really gives the game some legs and fixes some of the issues of it all getting a bit repetitive and adds a much needed depth to your options each round.
So should you get this? Well yes and no, I have a couple of caveats, if you do buy it I’d suggest snatching up the Quartifacts expansion alongside because it is really needed to add a bit more zing to proceedings, and the other issue that we have is The Marvel Dice Masters game is due to hit in April and I suspect at that point Quarriors will be seeing less and less table time. The Marvel game is from the same designers and looks to be Quarriors 2.0 with a rather spiffy Marvel theme. I want to recommend Quarriors as it looks so cool and there are all those dice, it just the base game isn’t quite as great a game as it really should be.
First off, I want to say that if you just HATE Dominion-esque deck building games, I really don’t anticipate you will get much enjoyment out of Quarriors. It is different, but not enough to mask the core deck-building premise. You are still building a deck. Instead of shuffling, you are putting the dice in a bag and shaking them up, but that part of the game is still prevalent. With this comes increased randomness as the dice you have purchased each have 6 sides that do different things.
Components
Still with me? Ok. Let me try and give you an overview of what you get with Quarriors. The box is made of metal and is rather small and portable, say 6 and a half inches cubed. So in package it doesn’t take up a lot of space. Open it up and you have about 55 or so cards and 130 dice. Nothing in the box including the box itself seems overly cheap.
Setup & Gameplay
Setup isn’t too laborious. You put out the three basic cards, Basic Quiddity, Assistant and Portal and the dice that go with them. You then choose three random spell cards and 7 random creature cards and put those out as well. Each color spell and creature die has about three spell cards that it use it, so if you pull one that is already using that color die you need to put it back and redraw. Every card with the exception of the Assistant and Basic Quiddty have 5 dice associated with it available for purchase. This area of the table is now called “The Wilds”
Each player gets 8 Basic Quiddity Dice and 4 Assistant dice, for a total of 12, that they put into their dice bag. The first player rolls six random dice from the bag. The basic Quiddity dice have values of 1 or 2, and the Assistant has three sides with one quiddity, two with a creature and one side that allows you to re-roll that die with another of your choice. The creature side of the dice have three numbers. Upper left is their level, upper right its attack value and lower right its defense. With the quiddity you now have at your disposal you can either purchase dice from the wilds (one per turn) and/or summon creatures you may have rolled. The costs for the creature is its level. When you summon creatures, each of them automatically attacks any creatures the other players had summoned their last turn. The total amount of damage must be absorbed one creature at a time. If you do enough damage to kill one of their creatures, they get discarded and they move on to the next creature they have until all the damage is mitigated. Then the next player in line does it all over again.
Should your creature survive to your next turn, you discard it and score points, glory in this case, on the glory track. Each creature is worth an amount of glory indicated on its card. The winner is the first to the number of glory points you decided to play to at the beginning of the game. When scoring a creature, you also have the opportunity to cull one die from your stock that you no longer want as well, thinning out the available dice you have to draw from.
Spells you purchase can do things such as increase the power or defense of all summoned units that turn, increase the amount of glory they are worth, make it harder for other people to summon creatures, buy more than one thing a turn, etc. Creatures often have special powers as well, and depending which side of that creature die was rolled, those powers may be different for the same creature. Portal dice may allow you to draw additional dice from the bag and roll them. The creature cards available are usually 3 types of the same creature, say Warriors of the Quay, Strong Warriors of the Quay and Mighty Warriors of the Quay, but despite the lazy naming conventions, they powers and abilities they possess are often different enough that it isn’t a big deal. The stronger the creature, the more it will cost to purchase it, often leading to a decision between purchasing this creature this turn or summoning something, meaning you may not get any points this round. Most games should come in around the 30 – 45 minute mark.
Summary and Thoughts
Any deck building game has a certain amount of randomness included due to the fact that when you shuffle the deck, you never know which cards are going to come up. This game increases that aspect greatly. You drew a powerful creature die, great! Then you roll it and get a side giving you a quiddity to spend instead of a creature to summon. Or, you draw a fist full of creatures and roll no quiddity to summon them with, so you get to do nothing at all this round.
The one other hangup some might have with the game is depending on what creatures you pull at the beginning, the game can go really fast or really slow. Say you pull a Strong Defender of the Pale with no high attack creatures. Nothing is going to kill that creature when it comes out, so every time it comes out it is going to score. On the other hand, if you have a lot of little creatures or lots of high attack creatures, scoring can be few and far between. It is nothing that someone well versed in a deck building game hasn’t had to deal with in some form, and no doubt you will develop your own house rules to deal with these issues as you encounter them, but it bears mentioning.
I have a few potential negatives that I mention here, but I just want to make sure everyone knows what they are getting into. Dropping $50 bucks on a game is one thing. Hating it is another. If my experience means anything, I personally love this game, and I have not run into a person I have played with that didn’t like it.
Dominion with dice. That’s what I kept hearing Quarriors! described as. If you’re referring to Dominion as a deck building game, then the comparison holds. It starts to fall apart if you’re looking for a game with similar strategy and balance.
Oh, the dice part? Yes, the game has that covered: five each of ten different creature types, five each of five different spells, and three types of dice used in every game. 130 dice, in 18 different colors, the game is rather striking to see setup.
All players (2-4) start with the same bag of dice, 12 total. Eight are “quiddity” dice, which is the currency of the game, the other four are Assistant dice, which “help” get you going. Throughout the game, you will be gaining “glory”, the victory points of the game, primarily by summoning creatures and having them survive until the beginning of your next turn.
You’ll use seven different creature types and three different spell types each game, represented by cards which are randomly drawn. To add to the variability, there are three different versions of each creature, and four of each spell. The dice for a given creature may be the same, but some of the powers will change from game to game based on the type drawn. There are no worries of playing exactly the same game twice.
On your turn, you get six phases:
1) Score (gain glory for) any creatures you still have alive
2) Draw and roll dice (six per turn)
3) Cast spells / summon creatures (pay their cost/level)
4) ATTACK EVERYONE!
5) Buy ONE new die
6) Cleanup
For creatures, their attack and defense will be shown on the die. This assumes you roll a creature face on the die. Just buying a creature die does not guarantee you’ll be able to summon a creature when you draw its die. You may only get money (or some other ability). Once you roll a creature face, you pay an amount equal to its level to summon it. For spell dice, if you roll the spell face, you “ready” the spell to cast following rules of that spell.
Phase 4 gives this game the player interaction many feel Dominion lacks. Every creature you’ve summoned attacks EACH player, in turn. You add your attack value and each opponent must send creatures (one at a time, if they have any) to block. If you exceed the defense, the defender is discarded. One thing that surprised me (but ends up working) is the fact that defenders do not attack back. They are only there to soak up damage. Also of note, extra damage beyond what creatures can absorb does nothing (you don’t “damage” your opponent). Once you’re done with one player, your creatures attack with their full strength against the next player. This means you should be prepared for your creatures to die.
If you have any creatures still alive at the beginning of your turn (none of your opponents have chewed them up with their attacks) you score them for glory. The amount you get is shown on the card for the given creature. The game ends immediately upon one player gaining a predetermined amount of glory (based on number of players). The game will also end if four different creatures have had all of their dice bought.
As expected with dice, there is a fair bit of randomness, which in my opinion holds this game back from being a “feature” game for a game night, and relegates it to filler status. It’s fun and pretty quick (4-player games tend to end around 30 minutes, once everyone knows the rules). It is prone to wide swings in luck. There is always the chance that one player will get a high money roll and buy a first turn dragon (or other large creature), and dominate the game. Or, someone who gets that early dragon may never get a dragon face when rolling its die.
I’m not normally a fan of the randomness of dice, and yet I enjoy this game, now that I know going in to not take it too seriously. There is enjoyment to be found in rooting for your creature to survive, and the rush of getting multiple creature buys to pay off in the same turn. If everyone at the table is playing to have a good time, Quiddity! can make that happen for you. If players are expecting a strategic game and spending their time complaining about the rules and focusing on how unbalanced the game can be, even the relatively short play time drags. Keep it fun, upbeat, and light and Quiddity! can be an enjoyable addition to your collection.
I was fortunate enough to attend a demo of Quarriors on Saturday night. I played the first game and was then asked to “demo” the second game (it was simple enough to grasp as this was an easy game to learn). My son played in the second game (more on the relevance of this later).
An Overview:
Quarriors is a “Dice Building Game”. That is to say that all the players start with a preset number of identical dice and, through game play, acquire (buy) different, better dice for play. The goal of the game is to acquire Glory. When a player has accumulated enough Glory, predetermined by the number of players, they win the game.
Components:
Please note this was a demo copy and perhaps preproduction insofar as color and quality of the components is concerned. There are dice, lots of dice – 130 in the base game. These are six sided dice. The dice are in groups of 5, each representing a different creature, monster or spell. Each group of five is distinctly different in color. Each die has a variety of symbols- Quiddity (represented by a “tear drop” shape with a number inside it) and/or several different symbols representing the creature, monster or spell that is associated with that die. The symbols vary from each die and there are corresponding data cards for each creature, monster or spell with an explanation of the symbols. In fact, there are three cards for each creature, monster or spell (more later). The artwork is described as “anime” style and is therefore light and cute. There is a small rule book as well. In all fairness I didn’t read it as the explanation during the demo was all that was needed. There are also dice bags, one color for each player to hold the dice in and there is a small colored block (in a color matching the dice bag) for tracking glory of each player. There is also a small 8”x 8” scoring board numbers 1-20 for tracking player’s scores. And last but not least is one of the nicest components – there is the box for all of the above. It easily holds everything with room for more. It is made to look like one of the dice and is metal! Yep, the box is tin (or whatever they are making metal boxes out of these days).
Set up:
Each player is given a colored bag, 12 dice – 8 Quiddity dice and 4 Assistants. Quiddity dice are white with light blue ink and assistants are brown with white ink. The assistant dice are basically light weight creatures. The number of players will determine the glory required to win. Each player’s glory total is placed on the scoring board for tracking. The “board” is then set up with 3 starting spells and the rest of the board by randomly distributing 9 cards for the creatures and monsters and spells. Each player also has a “Monster” card and a “Spell” card for placing monster and spell dice as they are acquired.
Game Play:
Game play consists of clockwise rotation of players. The first player randomly selects 6 dice for their dice bag and rolls them. The player then totals the amount of Quiddity. This total is then used to “purchase” other dice that represent the creatures, monsters and spells. As a player purchases these dice, they are added to their collection (in their used pile). You are allowed to make one purchase with your Quiddity. Play then passes to the next player. As the players run out of dice in their dice bag, their used pile is put back into the bag, thus allowing the player to use the creatures and or spells bought in previous rounds. The creature, monster and spell dice all have different symbols on them. The effect of these is described on the appropriate cards for each creature, monster or spell respectively. As play continues, a player will purchase creatures, monsters and spells. As these are rolled, they may show a symbol other then Quiddity (most if not all the dice show Quiddity on one or more of their sides). These other sides represent the creature, monster or a spell effect. To use a creature/spell effect that has been rolled (i.e., has a symbol showing), a player must spend the appropriate amount of Quiddity to purchase the creature/spell. The cost to do so is on the upper left hand corner of the die (usually 1 or 2 Quiddity). Once purchased, the creature or monster is placed on the players Monster card (or a spell would be placed on the players spell card). The player now has a “monster in play”. At the end of a player’s turn, as determined by spending all the availability Quiddity, the active player’s monster(s) then attack the other player’s monsters clockwise and in turn. Starting with the active (attacking) player, if the player on their left has any creatures in play (on their monster card), they are attacked. Attacking is a simple affair – Compare the attack total shown on the attacking players monster dice (upper right hand corner) with the defense numbers shown on the defending players dice (lower right hand corner). If the attacking monster total is greater than the defending monster(s), then one or more of them will be killed. The defending player may determine the order in which his dice are attacked. This is important as the total attacking value will be reduced by the defenders defense. For example, if player one has a attack total of 8 and the defender and two creatures with defense values of 4 and 5, the defender will determine which of his two monsters will be killed. As the remaining amount is less than the remaining defending monsters defense 8 – 5 = 3 only one of the two will perish. After resolution of this battle, the attack moves onto the next player clockwise and so forth. Defenders cannot attack back. They simply defend. Once this is completed, the next players turn will start (with the rolling of six dice ETC). Scoring occurs when, at the beginning of a players turn, they have a monster on their monster card. When a player does have a monster on their monster card, they will score the appropriate amount of Glory as shown on the card for that monster. Spells are handled differently as they are used to alter the outcome of combat or affect die rolls. They have no Glory value themselves. Once the Glory total has been reached by a player, the game ends and they win.
Observations and thoughts:
If you hate dice games, you will not enjoy this game. Really! It’s all about rolling dice. There is a reroll ability granted by several dice and that should give some of you peace of mind that can roll poorly several times in a row and still suck. For what it’s worth, I believe that the odds of rolling poorly are directly proportional to how funny the result of a poor roll will be.
The quality of the dice is very good. The dice are “engraved” with the images rather than being painted on. This is nice although in some cases you will need to look very closely as some of the numbers are very small (they don’t look exactly like they do on the box). The colors are great and closely match the corresponding data card. They are very different from each other and I think it’s always fun to throw a bunch of different colored dice. I like the “Mighty Ooze” color – Clear Florescent yellow/green. Think antifreeze colored dice.
The dice tin is great. It looks like one of the dice (a Dragon). They choose to print all six sides (inc. the bottom). And during the demo, the active player used the top of the box to roll his or her dice in. Convenient and functional! It’s nice to have something other than a cardboard box to lug a game around in
The box states 30 mins to play and it is right on. We played two, 3 player games and even though we were learning the game, it still about 30 mins or so.
I didn’t like the scoring board. They did the 1-5 and then 10-6, 11-15, 20-16. In other words, the scoring went left to right and then right to left, back and forth in an “S” shape. A minor annoyance, but I guess you would get used to it. But it wasn’t intuitive.
Replay value is HUGE. The set up cards have three different “levels”. When randomly distributed, you have about (inset math here) options. Well a lot of options anyway. Or just choose the dice you want to play with. Either way, you have a random distribution option here for repeated play.
One gross inaccuracy was the suggested age for play- 14+. WHAT! To roll dice? My 9 year old played (against adults) and won. It was speculated that perhaps the dice may be to enticing to younger players due to the tasty colors used. I would think by age 14, one would have outgrown the “looks tasty put in mouth to find out” urge.
I would describe this game as Thunderstone with dice. This is not very helpful if you are not familiar with Thunderstone. And I don’t mean to say it is a knock off of Thunderstone. Rather that the style of play is very similar to Thunderstone. I am a fan of Thunderstone BTW. One thing I do like better about Quarriors is that you are playing against other players and therefore, unlike Thunderstone, you can’t get a bad starting set up with the dungeon. I very much like playing this game. It was a fun, easy and quick. (Did I date someone like that? NM).
In closing, I would recommend this game, even if you hate dice. Why? Well it is just a recommendation after all. It’s not like I can make you go out and buy it. But it is light and fun. A great filler for some, but I think you might find this a great game overall, even for non-gamers. Simple to explain and play and should be enjoyed by one and all.
This evaluation was based on two plays during a demo. There may be inaccuracies. There may be falsehoods. But they are not intentional. Just to be fair, if someone wants to send me a copy for evaluation I will revise my review and be forever thankful.
This review can be found on Boardgamegeek as well.
Quarriors has been called a dice builder game. It does play like some deck builders but this isn’t a bad thing in my opinion. Simply by utilizing the dice, there is a fairly large amount of luck involved, but that doesn’t mean there is no strategy in this game. It’s a fast paced and fairly short play time game, but it’s fun and has a lot of replayability.
The components of this game are high quality. The art on the cards are well done and imaginative, the dice are very well made as well as quite abundant, and it even comes in a nice metal box. A score card as well as wooden place markers are included. The packaging and presentation are convincing enough to make the purchase, but the fun keeps you from regretting it.
Game play is pretty simple. You roll your dice, use the points or spell or creature that is showing on each dice, then use them for yourself or against your opponents to score points to win. Word of caution though, the rule book isn’t the most easy read. It is not complicated, but some things are out of order from the way I figured they would be presented, or just not very clear. After a full playthrough or two everything will be fine though.
The game can turn into a game of “first person to get the dragons” pretty fast though. It’s easy to go for the big monsters and just go for the win, but this game offers many other interesting spells and creatures. Remember your other options and take out the dragon hoarders.
Pros:
-High quality components
-A lot of fun
-Short game
-Easy to learn, teach and play
-Game makes it an ease to play multiple times in a row and still want to play again the next week
Cons:
-It can feel like there are not enough different variations on your card options at times. There is an expansion for this out and another one on the way which could resolve this issue pretty easy.
-If you don’t like dice/luck based games, this may not be for you. Lots of luck, but you still have options and strategies.
Conclusion:
I purchased this game based only upon a few reviews and the packing presentation and description on the box. I mean, a game with 130 dice is enticing. I was not disappointed. I keep wanting to play this game and I’m planning on picking up both expansions. It’s an easy game that will entertain. Worth the money and worth the time.
Quarriors! is one of those games that doesn’t come along very often. It has a ton of very nice dice (with a few exceptions), nice quality cards with a great art style, and a lot of built in fun.
Quarriors! is the new dice-building game from Wizkids. The game is unique in that everyone builds their specific bag of dice from the same pool of dice available in the middle of the table. Think Dominion, but with dice. One key difference though, is that each of the dice, having six sides, has the chance to give you one of six different results. For example, a dice that is representing a creature has only a few of it’s six sides with that creature on them. The rest of the sides may contain Quiddity (money) or even a special action.
What this means is that you won’t always get the creature, even though you have that creature’s dice.
I am normally not a huge fan of luck based games, but I feel that Quarriors! does an excellent job of using just enough luck to keep the game fresh and fun, but allows the player the ability to strategically build his bag of dice. It can be frustrating when you don’t get the dice you need, but when you do…Look out!
The fast paced game-play goes a long way toward keeping the luck part of the game from drowning it in frustration. You can play four players in about 25-30 mins. If you have a bad game, reset, get some new cards/dice on the table, and try again.
Quarriors! is a great game for gamers of all levels. It is my 12 year old son’s favorite game. (he has beaten me 15 out of 20 games.) And my wife even enjoys it. Give it a shot, you won’t be disappointed!
Game play: 9
The game is easy to learn, plays quickly, and is overall just a lot of fun.
Replayability: 9
There are three variants of each of the ten creatures in the game and four variants of each of the five spells. This means a different game every time you play!
Quality: 9
The quality of the game’s components is top notch. The dice are etched, not stickered, which is a huge plus for a game with over 130 dice. The only exception to this is that the portal dice are a bit hard to read because of the size of the die and the pattern they chose to put on it. The cards are of good stock and filled with nice artwork.
This is my review of the game Quarriors, the new game designed by Mike Elliot, and published by Wizkids games
THEME
Quarriors oozes theme, and reminds me of a comical version of Thunderstone in that respect. The cartoon characters on the cards are well illustrated, and the whole package comes together very well. Some people have said that they had a problem with all the Q names in the game, but I don’t mind them at all. I am really looking forward to seeing where they go with future expansions.
PRICE
The price for this product is surpisingly low, props to the designer and Wizkids for putting this game out so cheap, especially since it contains 130 dice!
QUALITY
The quality of this game is good, but not great. The tin the game comes in is well done, and holds the game in a stylish manner, but some of the contents inside could use a few minor improvements. The cards included in the game were surprisingly thin, and semed like they wouldn’t hold up very long if I hadn’t sleeved them all, and several of the dice had unpainted sides or illegible paint. These faults are minor, and were easily fixed with a nail file and some white paint so no biggy. Overall, the game is beautiful, and the dice look sharp in the many colors that were chosen.
ARTWORK
The artwork of Quarriors is tip top, and the illustrations on the cards look simply amazing. Everything about the game was designed well from the tin, to the cards, to the dice themselves. The layout of the cards and dice is easy to understand, and aesthetically pleasing. I love the many colors of the dice, and they really seem to fit the characters on the cards if that sounds strange.
LEARNING
This game can be easily taught in 5 minutes, and the wording on all of the cards is easy to understand. I was able to teach one of my Korean speaking friends how to play very quickly and he really enjoyed the game. I think this would be good for someone who is just beggining develop an interest in board games. I could easily play this game with children of a moderate intelligence level possibly as young as 8 to 10.
COMPLEXITY
Complexity isn’t what Quarriors is all about, it is a simple, light little game that plays quickly. Quarriors has been compared to Dominion, but I think that this game is really in a different sort of league. Dominion has depth, this does not. Even though Quarriors isn’t necissarily a deep game, don’t think that it isn’t a blast to play because it is.
INTERACTION
This game has a lot more player interaction than most deckbuilding games I have played, and it can be a lot of fun to mangle your opponents cratures. There is even a creature that lets you trade it for one of your opponents. Me and the friend I have been playing with spent each and every game wincing every time an opponent rolled.
LENGTH
This game takes anywhere from 15 minutes to 45 minutes, depending on who you are playing with. The short time that it took us to complete a game meant that we played over and over. It was fun to see who ended up on top from game to game.
RE-PLAYABILITY
The amount of variety in this game is huge, and should keep this game interesting at least long enough till the expansion comes out. I can see this game gaining momentum and variety with more creatures and spells thrown into the mix. I would like to see a different mechanic introduced, and have heard rumors of a poison die…hmmm
OVERALL
I think Quarriors is a fun game that I could teach to just about anyone, but it’s randomness and lack of depth might not be for some players. I really enjoy the game personally, and look forward to my next session. This is the second game designd by Mike Elliot I own (the other being Thunderstone), and I enjoy both of them.
SNAP SHOT:
Simply put–this game is “Dominion” with dice.
THE GOODS:
The rules are poorly written and horribly laid out. You get a photo copy-able battle mat which proves to be fairly important to keep track of your dice. The score card is flimsy. I guess they blew the budget on the 130 DICE. But still, it leaves you a little sad to see important parts, which you have to photocopy to play the game. I guess I expect this from a smaller company, but WIZKIDS? Wow! There were also errors on dice manufacturing–sad face.
GAME PLAY:
You basically build a “deck” of dice that you roll to score points. I wish i could say more, but there is nothing else to it. This game is sooo close to cracking the code to making a brilliant game, but lacks the pop dominion had. There is just too much chance involved to give you the satisfaction that your strategy worked. It is close enough to a brilliant game to make you want to play for the fun of the ride. I just wish it could go back into development to get that extra bit it seems to need.
WHO SHOULD PLAY?
This one is good if you loved dominion, but wished it was a dice rolling randomized version. There is not a lot of strategy, which can be fun if you want to just enjoy the ride. But there is the illusion of strategy, which actually might daunt the very casual gamer. Don’t be daunted.
FROM MOUTH OF BABES:
I will quote a 7 year old who played the game and said this to a passer-by, who was considering playing it with us…
“Its easy, you just throw the dice and do what it says.”
[This is a tl;dr review. While the whole review is extensive, you may read the last paragraph for the overview of my impressions.]
Quarriors! is not just a game where the developers tried to stuff as many ‘Qu-‘ words in its lingo as possible. It is also a fun, light game that makes for great filler. And as much as many gamers would hate to admit it, rolling dice is pretty darn fun.
The premise of Quarriors is simple. You are one of the eponymous Quarriors, a wizard with the ability to harness Quiddity to summon Quarry–magical creatures and mystical spells that help you do battle. The goal of the game is to obtain glory for the Empress (not Queen?) Quiana before your rivals do the same.
The base mechanic of Quarriors is deckbuilding–or more accurately, dicebuilding. Naturally, this means that, instead of building up a deck of cards, you build up a pool of dice. To do so, you draw dice from your bag, roll them, and play them.
Setting up is pretty easy, and similar to determining the bank of Dominion, for example. A set of cards denoting creatures and spells are shuffled; seven creatures and three spells are drawn. The dice that are associated with these are put in the center of the play area, along with three cards that are common to every game. These are the ‘Wilds’ and represent the Quarry available for you to capture on your turns.
Like in all deckbuilders, you also start with a set of pretty bad dice.
On your turn, any creatures that survived the previous turn are ‘scored’. This means they award you with a certain amount of Glory points and are discarded. Then you draw six dice from your bag (replacing your discard pile into the bag if you need to draw more) and roll them. You may ‘spend’ these dice to gain the effect on the top face. There are several effects you can roll:
*Quiddity, the currency of the game. You can spend this to gain that much Quiddity for later use.
*Creatures, the linchpin of the game. You must spend Quiddity to summon them; they give you points on the next turn and attack your opponent’s creatures to prevent them from doing the same.
*Spells. Depending on the exact spell that you’re using, you can either spend it to immediately gain some sort of effect, or equip it on a creature for later effect.
After spending your dice for your actions, any creatures you have immediately attack your opponents. Battle resolution is simple; you add up all the offense of your creatures to get your total attack, and your opponents defend against your attack one defender at a time. If the creature a defender chooses has more defense than the total attack value, then the attack is successfully blocked. But if that creature has less defense, it is destroyed and your opponent’s attack strength decreases by that number. It’s not easy to explain in words; it’s most similar to the trample mechanic in Magic: the Gathering.
After attacking, you may choose to use any leftover Quiddity to capture a die from the Wilds. You discarding any unused dice, then your turn is over.
The rules of Quarriors are quite easy to grasp–well, they would be if the rulebook didn’t use so much weird terminology. The dice immediately available for you to use (the analog of a hand with cards) is referred to as your ‘Active Pool’; summoned creatures and prepared spells are put in the ‘Ready Area’, and discarded dice are placed in the ‘Used Pile’. Once you remember this strange terminology, though, the rest of the rules will click in place.
On to the components. The tin where the game is stored is absolutely beautiful. It looks like one of the dice in the game; I’ve heard that different tins have different dice on them. The cards feel strong and able to withstand several games, and the art on them is gorgeous. You get Standard Eurogame Cubes for marking score and four dice bags to serve as your ‘deck’.
The dice in the game are pretty small. There are more than one hundred dice in the box, so I assume they’re kept at this size to keep them cheap. I’ve noticed a few of the face have some paint defects, although nothing that makes a die completely ambiguous. Barring that, though, the dice are nice to look at; each class of creature or spell is represented with a different die. The Quake Dragon is a brown mottled die, for example, whereas the Scavenging Goblin is a stark green.
When playing the game, my group and I have noticed that the game goes by way too fast with the suggested point scores. I know this is a filler-type game, but it’s a bit frustrating when the game goes by too quickly–after all, you don’t really know whether the decisions you made are the right ones!
Luck is also a big part of this game, which is inherent due to the dice. Naturally some dice are better than others, but again, you don’t always feel like you’re synergizing dice together like cards in Dominion.
This game is one of the few games I actively house-rule. Generally I play to twice the Glory recommended by the game. This does increase the feel of strategic depth a bit, and makes the game go on for just the right amount to be the perfect filler.
[tl;dr] Quarriors! is a fresh variation on the deck building mechanic. While I had some issues with the dice being kind of small and some minor paint issues, the game itself is fun and fast-paced. It’s certainly not as deep as Dominion, Ascension, or Thunderstone, but its simple mechanics and the sheer fun of rolling dice make it a great filler game.
Let’s get some basics down, anyone who has played a deck building game in the last few years will be fairly familiar with the basics of Quarriors. This is a deck building game, but with dice. This, of course brings a unique twist to the game. In a card-based game, each card you purchase for your deck grants exactly the same resource each and every time it is played (a gold will always be a gold). However, in Quarriors, each die has several different sides to each die. When you roll a Quake Dragon die, only 3 sides of that die actually represent the Quake Dragon creature. The other sides will give you different resources like money (called Quiddity) or possible re-rolls. This does add an element of randomness to the game, but in my opinion it also adds another element of excitement.
First impressions:
I was quite impressed with this game from the first time I saw it. It comes in a beautiful metal tin shaped and colored like one of the dice. Mine looks like a giant version of the Quake Dragon die. It has a sturdy card paper wrapping with very nice artwork and a few tongue-in-cheek jokes for those who care to look closely at the writing.
Inside you find four cloth bags of different colors that are sturdy enough to hold up to many games without tearing. There is a cardboard score card to track points with although it can be slightly confusing at first glance. The score track zig-zags back and forth down the card. 1-5 track from left to right, then the next line with 6-10 goes from right to left and so on down the board. There are also four wooden cubes, one of each color, for tracking each player on the score board. The instruction manual is fully colored and easy enough to read if you can keep track of all the odd names and terminology (Quiddity is money, Quarry are dice in the Wild, etc.)
Dice and Cards:
Holy moly there are a lot of dice in this thing, 130 total. The dice are by far the most impressive feature of this game, each creature and spell has a completely unique set of dice for it and they are all quite nice. In total the game includes cards and dice for 10 creatures, 5 spells, and the 3 basic cards of Quiddity, Portal, and Assistant. The standard setup of the game calls for 7 creatures and 3 spells in addition to the basic cards. In order to avoid the game becoming stale, each creature has 3 variations and each spell has 4 variations. Because of this, the possible combinations for play number in the hundreds of thousands.
Bonus: Quaxos Promo:
There is a promo pack of cards available that will net you one new variation for each of the Scavenging Goblin, Warrior of the Quay, and Quake Dragon creatures. I would say these variations are interesting at best. They are each designed to interact with other creatures in the Quaxos promo. First of all, each Quaxos creature takes no damage from any other Quaxos creature and they all gain +1 attack and defense for each other Quaxos creature in play. Aside from that, each creature has another ability who’s usefulness is highly variable.
The Scavenging Goblin give +1 money when summoned for each Quaxos creature in play.
The Warrior of the Quay when summoned allows you to summon a second creature in your active area for free.
And the Quake Dragon will, when summoned, destroy another creature outright and score a point for you.
Overall, I would say that if you are a huge fan of Quarriors like myself, the Quaxos Promo pack is a must buy, but anyone else can feel free to pass.
Quarriors! is a game of rolling dice in order to ready creatures for glory, smiting your fellow player’s creatures, and recruiting more creatures into your fold. Taking inspiration from the deck building genre, each player starts the game with an identical bag of 12 dice. On his turn a player will score glory for any creature he still has in play from his previous turn, then he will randomly draw 6 dice from his bag and roll them. Each die belongs to a set of dice, easily identified by color, and each set of dice has a corresponding card in the play area describing what each face of the die means. A die is either a spell, a creature, or currency. After rolling the dice players have to decide which creatures they rolled they will ready; they can only ready creatures they can pay for out of the currency rolled. All creatures the player readied will now attack every other player; each player will defend the attack with their readied creatures; some will perish defending their player, and thus will not score. Finally, the player may recruit one die from the common area with any remaining currency. Play continues until one player accumulates the necessary glory to win the game!
Quarriors! has a higher luck quotient than its deck building cousins, and the game’s combat mechanics are straightforwardly ruthless: you cannot play favorites, nor can you be merciful, you will attack everyone. The greatest conscious tension in the game is deciding what to do with your rolled dice, as readying a creature will diminish your ability to recruit another creature. Some creatures are cheap to ready, won’t survive most attacks, and score few points, while other creatures cost a premium but will score a handful of points. The strategy of the game lies in curating the dice in your bag as well as making the best of every situation.
Each game only sees a few sets of dice brought out to play with, the others saved for a future game. Additionally, each set of dice has more than one card describing its abilities, so future games with the same dice will not always grant the same power, offering a wide array of replay options. The game plays fast, with little in the way of down time and setup time. It is heavier on luck than deck building games: you know what dice you will roll, so you know your chances, but you don’t know what you will roll. You may, or may not, get that creature you were hoping for. This can be both a good and a bad thing, for it levels the playing field allowing a less skilled player to still have a chance to win the game, but a highly skilled player can still lose with a few bad throws of the dice. Because of this the game should be played in accordance with the theme: have fun, take it lightly, enjoy yourself, and play for the social interaction.
As did many people that have recently gotten into board gaming, we were introduced to gaming via one of two games, either Catan or Dominion. I have to admit, for my family and me, it was Dominion that pushed us into additional games. We loved the idea of starting with a small, weak hand of cards and hopefully building an engine that would lead us to victory. I wanted to play more Dominion, and I wanted to play more games within similar mechanics. This eventually led me to Quarriors.
Now this is not a deck building game, but rather a dice building game. You start out with a relatively weak set of dice, and from there move on to building an all powerful pool of dice, all in the effort to collect victory points.
Components – For the most part, the components are of good quality. Card stock is solid, art is good and the variety of the dice is plentiful. Even the dice bags are fabric, not some cheep paper bag that some dice games come with. The one potential negative is the fact that, depending on the set, either some or many of the dice are poorly painted. This can be fixed if you want, but you shouldn’t have to.
Theme – Well, there is some fantasy theme layered on here, though it is more for flavor than for game play. The theme definitively does not drive the mechanics, or is really at all tied to the mechanics, but the art is fun and the idea of some of these creatures and their powers is quirky. Definitely something a young boy would love.
Game play – This is a fast moving game, as each player draws a hand ful of dice, rolls them, and then plays the dice, either by using to field creatures (dice), to purchase new dice or as the creatures (dice) to be fielded. If the fielded dice (creatures) survive until the players next turn, they score victory points before going back into the pool.
Creatures (Fielded Dice) each have a strength/attack value and a defensive / hit point value. All fielded dice are required to attack when fielded. On your turn, they are the attacker. If their strength is greater than their opponents fielded dice, the opponent must discard creature dice. If it is less then the defensive dice, the attack fails (but the dice remain fielded). Special powers on all dice impact various aspects of the game (defensive values, attack values, rerolling capabilities, VP accrual).
It is fast moving and relatively simple. Rules are basic and powers are not difficult to interpret. I think you could go as young as 6-8 playing this game, just understanding that they may need some help reading some of the cards.
Final Verdict – It is a fun game, that could potentially have some strategic elements in it based on building your dice pool and understanding the potential combos that are eligible. The problem is that the game end conditions are met too easily, resulting in the end of the game before you can really get your dice engine purring. Personally, we sometimes house rule the game end conditions to result in a longer and more strategic game.
I want to preface this by saying that although I love dice, dice do not love me. Dice do not even like me. In fact, dice take an odd, particular sort of pleasure– nay, delight, in destroying my dreams any time I pick them up to roll them. Friends laugh at this when I tell them, until they see it in action. Seven workers on the Gold spot in Stone Age, Sharv? Why would you need to roll so many for one resource? ::Rolls:: 1,1,1,2,1,2,3. “Oh.”
That said, I really enjoy rolling dice. I think most gamers do. It’s strange, how although so many gamers claim dice games and luck games aren’t as good as “pure” strategy games, they still play games with dice, treating it as a shady back-alley deal to be hidden. “Kingsburg? Okay, okay, but don’t tell anyone! Pass the dice.”
In that vein, I ordered a copy of Quarriors for myself before I had actually played it. The next day a friend brought their copy over and I played a 4-player game.
Setting up the game itself is interesting. So many little tiny bags of dice to open up and randomizing the Quarry (selection of cards to be used for the game). Basically you will have a small number of spells and a larger number of creatures available each time you play, with the cards dictating which dice represent which abilities.
Once those are set up, you take a starting pool of dice into your bag. (If you’ve played Thunderstone, think 6 militia and a handful of cheap utilities).. A bunch of Quiddity dice (read: money) and a few utility dice which can either be Quiddity, re-rolls, or very weak creatures. You jumble them up in your bag and you’re ready to start.
During the game you will, each turn, randomly draw 6 dice from your bag and roll them. Then you use Quiddity to either summon creatures, cast spells, or purchase new dice to expand and improve your repertoire. Unlike Thunderstone, where a dagger may be used either for an Attack bonus OR gold, in Quarriors, each die will (generally) only give you one effect, making decision making a bit streamlined.
You may also roll portals, which basically allow you to draw extra dice from your bag and roll those as well, allowing you to afford larger, better things, or creatures, which are the way you win.
The attacking and defending mechanism in Quarriors is one aspect I am not thrilled with. Basically, you summon (a) creature(s) and they attack every other player. If a player has no creatures, nothing happens to them. Your creatures wander up to them, look around, and then go “Oh, sorry. Thought you might have had something over here for me to poke at. I’ll let myself out.” If they DO have any creatures, however, your opponent totals up the attack value of all your creatures and has to assign that as damage to their creatures.
Then play passes around the table until it comes back to you. If any of your creatures have survived the other players’ turns, they score Glory (read: Victory) points for you. Then they go away. Yep, nothing sticks around here (except spells). Everything is a one-turn-wonder. This prevents one player from simply popping out a handful of dragons and nasty things and trouncing everything else anyone tries to do.
The reason I don’t really care for it, is that it feels less interactive than using blockers/defenders/etc.. Once your turn is over, you just listen every turn to see how much damage you have to assign and figure out what dies. The only decisions you have to make is what dies first and if you have any spells prepared.
Spells are the exception to the “nothing sticks around” rule I mentioned earlier. If you roll a spell die and get the spell symbol, you can keep that spell “readied” indefinitely. When something happens that makes it useful, you can cast that spell and then the die goes back into your cycle of rolling. This is handy for two reasons: first it means you don’t have to have the die rolled the specific turn you want to use it, and two it thins your dice bag out while the spell is prepared, giving you better chances to get those big, nasty creatures you want to summon.
You also get to thin your dice out each time you have a creature survive a round and score for you. Generally, you get rid of those basic quiddity-only dice from the start of the game.
The creatures have interesting effects as well, making things cost more for opponents, or making all of your other creatures stronger, or allowing you to swap them for an opponent’s creatures that have already been used. All in all, with the cards changing each turn, it really makes for a nice change in gameplay each time.
I took a few points off on components because some of the dice are just very difficult to read. The portal dice especially – you have a big swirl on it, with a number in the center, but the 1’s and 2’s look very similar and are so tiny it can be difficult to figure out what you rolled.
Pros
Fun, fast gameplay.
Great replayability.
No sense of “picking on” or “being vindictive” to other players.
Cons
Sometimes difficult to read the dice.
Limited interaction between turns.
Quarriors! is a 2-4 player dice game with a deck-building mechanic in how it’s played. The currency of the game is quiddity and players spend quiddity for spells and creatures, which gain them glory points. The first player to score enough glory points wins the game! (20 pts for 2 players, 15 for 3 players, 12 for 4 players)
The game comes with unique cards representing the different spells and warriors, and each coordinates with a particular die. There are three base cards always used, 3 random spells, and 7 random monsters. Since some spells/monsters share the same dice, you only use one of them during a given game. The cards have a picture for the creature, show all possible sides on the die, and describe any special abilities the die has.
Players put starting dice into a dice bag, draw 6 dice per turn, and on their turn roll the dice to see what they actually have. Since the game revolves around rolling dice, there is definitely luck involved in what you roll, but each dice is centralized around a basic concept, so the distribution on the sides of the die are fair. For instance, a warriors die might have 3 sides that give you quiddity, but 3 sides that give you a monster. All of the warriors sides might be the same, or one might be slightly stronger.
Warriors have a summoning cost (or level), attack power, and defense power marked on them. When players summon warriors, The full attack power is summed up and that much damage is dealt to every other players’ warriors. Each player assigns the damage, one warrior at a time, until all the damage has been absorbed or all of their warriors have been defeated. When your turn comes around again, if you still have your warriors in play, they collect glory points for you and are discarded.
Replayability:
This game is decently replayable. There are many monsters and spells in the game, which are dealt out randomly to show what the game setup will be, allowing for numerous possibilities. The aspect of die-rolling with so many dice is uncommon, although seen before, so it adds a level of uniqueness to the game and the randomness means every game will be different. The game doesn’t hold my interest as long as other games do, but I still really enjoy it.
Components:
The components are excellent, but I have a few problems with them. First of all, the scoring track goes from 1-20 in 4 rows of 5. But instead of reading left-to-right, top-to-bottom, it flows in a zig-zag pattern. They did add a line along this to help demonstrate the direction scoring goes, but since they also put a large Q in the background, it doesn’t stand out, making it difficult to score properly unless if you’re really focused.
The cards are amazing. The artwork is great and the pictures of what the dice have on them is great for knowing what you could roll and also even greater for verifying what you rolled when you can’t fully read the die.
The dice are awesome. They are custom with various symbols, they’re very beautiful, and there are very few symbols on them that players have to memorize. These are all huge pluses. However, the problem with dice is that no two are exactly alike in how they’re made, and images tend to bleed and/or blur. So sometimes it’ll be difficult to read your warrior’s power, defense, or cost. This can usually be remedied by consulting the card, but is still an inconvenience. Finally, the portal die is poorly done in that there is a number inside the swirly portal picture, making it inherently difficult to read what number you rolled, which is only made worse by the fact that the dice images are blurred already.
Ease of Learning:
This game is very easy to learn and play quickly. Especially if you’ve played deck-building games before, this game will be very simple to pick up. There will be a few card descriptions or dice interactions that don’t make sense at first or will take some effort to figure out, but the amount of this is minimal.
All in all, this is an excellent game. I don’t see it lasting as long in replayability as my other games, but it would be something I would always have fun pulling out and playing a game with somebody and rolling dice. I definitely recommend it.
Although this game didn’t jump out and SCREAM “AWESOME!” during our play sessions, my wife and daughter somewhat enjoyed the game.
This was another one that my daughter (age 7) had been requesting for about 5-6 months. I kept putting it off, because it looked like it might just be out of her range of play. After playing other games with her though, and seeing her work out some strategies and whatnot, I figured I’d let her get it.
Unboxing was fun, as she just giggled with glee over all of the dice. She loved the cards and artwork as well (and I agree). I did notice a few minor imperfections in one or two dice, but nothing worth complaining about. I did not, however, care for the tin as a storage option. That was barely functional for storing the dice, and a complete waste at trying to organize anything (without rebagging each individual set of dice, which we were not interested in).
I removed the Oozes and the Quake Dragon for first play with the family, watched a few videos on how to play, and set the game up. Setup went a bit faster than I expected, only 2 cards had me looking harder than I should have been for the appropriate dice (Hint – don’t always go strictly by color, look for the creature/spell symbols instead and it will be easier to match with cards).
Within about 10 minutes I had the game set up and ready to go, explained the basics to my wife and daughter, and off we went.
Still had to check the rulebook on occasion, as when we would purchase creatures/spells from the “Wilds”, and then get the opportunity to summon them, we forgot to discard after scoring. This caused me to get a “runaway” train of monsters quickly in the first game, and I raced to 20 points (only wife and I were playing at this point).
My daughter joined, and I double checked the rules, and we played game #2. This one took longer, and required a lot more planning once we started playing right. My daughter got a bit frustrated early on, trying to figure out which dice were better than others (but she did start to grasp it better towards the end). She also got hung up rolling a bunch of quiddity (the game’s currency) and not much for creatures. She also wanted to buy purple and pink dice (her favorite colors), without caring (at first) about what it actually did…lol. This of course, didn’t help her much.
This game, my wife took the win, with some smart creature and spell purchases (boosting defense and making it very hard to destroy her creatures before they scored) and good luck of the dice. I tried to mount a comeback, but it was too little too late. When she hit the 15 point mark, I was around 9 points.
My wife was a bit “meh” on the game. She enjoyed the second game more (of course she did, she won!), but said it wasn’t a game she would insist on playing.
My daughter, beginning to grasp the gameplay and importance of the dice/creature statistics, wanted to play a third game, but it was already past her bedtime. Since then, she and I have played 2 other games of it, and although she still has yet to win, she is getting closer and does enjoy the game (and asked for the expansion, Quarmageddon).
Myself, I found the game INTERESTING. It wasn’t my favorite game of my collection, nor my favorite purchase this year. But, I love dice. And I like magic/creature combat games. This one kind of reminded me of playing Magic: The Gathering with dice, crossed with a bit of “deck builder” mechanic in it. I’m not all that familiar with many deck building games, as my experience is limited to Thunderstone (online version) and “Eaten By Zombies”, but I enjoyed that aspect of culling dice that I didn’t want anymore, to increase the chances of pulling the better dice I had purchased. Only being able to cull dice when you score (up to the number of creatures you scored with) was a nice feature, imo.
I’d rate this game a solid 7/10. It didn’t make anyone jump out of their seats and holler with joy, but it was a solid and mostly enjoyable experience. A few rules and abilities required some reading and faq/rules browsing online, which slowed things down on just a few occasions. As people learn more of the cards/dice/abilities, it will only serve to improve the gameplay, however. The rules aren’t the worst I’ve read, but watching a gameplay/how-to video made it much easier to figure out how things should progress.
Expansions should, theoretically, help the game, because the one negative that did really seem to stand out, was that after setup I noticed only 3 types of dice that weren’t used. So although there APPEARS to be more creatures and spells, in all actuality there are 3 strengths of each creature, all using the same dice. To be fair, however, each strength/version of a spell/creature has unique abilitie(s) on the card, so it does get changed up. For the price, though, I don’t think the variety was good enough, nor the tin a good way of storing everything.
So just admit it, you want play/buy this game because it has a lot of dice.
What gamer doesn’t like rolling dice? Quarriors! takes the fundamental urge to roll dice and mixes it with the recently popular deck-building strategy for entertainment galore. The game consists of both cards and dice, but rather than collecting cards to build a deck, players collect dice to build a pool and use the cards as a reference. The interesting twist is that each dice represents a host of game options due to the multiple faces available – not only are you hoping to pull the dice you want, but also to roll a favorable result on that die. Fortunately the player interaction is fun and straight-forward and thus Quarriors! is just plain fun.
Replay: Great! Similar to the deck-building games available, Quarriors! has replay value built into it by way of providing more reference cards and dice than are used in a single game. The very fact that your turn also hinges on the roll of the dice make for a high replay value. The game is addicting with all the dice rolling.
Components: Fun artwork, smaller than average dice with hard to read details, would benefit from a play mat. The artwork is definitely light-hearted and has a graphic novel feel with decent graphic design. You can’t complain for the price point, but the dice are smaller than your typical d6 and the details stamped on the faces can be hard to determine at a glance. I’d imagine folks with poor eyesight would also have their issues with the dice details. I’m a fan of play mats in general, but Quarriors! would benefit even more than its deck-building brother as you can’t easily turn your dice or change their facing like you could with cards to keep track of what area of the player’s space they should be in.
Learning Curve: Turn by turn: very simple; strategy: medium. Once a hand or two has been played, your turn flies by making this a very easy game to pick-up and is part of its addictive quality. The overall strategy is very similar to a deck-building game as you choose which dice to add your pool, but is less strategic as your still roll those dice for a random result. Some of the card interactions could be explained better in the rulebook, but nothing game breaking.
Defense:
Dice are random – yup;
Dice are random – I like dice;
Dice are random – re-roll for another answer.
Obviously there are folks who will not like this game; don’t take the game too seriously. Based on the artwork and snippets from the designer/publisher, they don’t intend for you to take it too seriously either.
Personal:
I haven’t played a ton (yet) as the game is still new, but it is definitely going to take a top spot for the quick, easy, and fun games I like to have on hand to fill in the free-time. I think I’ve said this before, but I love rolling dice so Quarriors! had my name written all over it from the beginning. I also think there is some room for improvement, so I’ll be keeping my eye on what may be in store for the future.