The Red Dragon Inn 4
Special Preview!!!
Did you hear? The crew of the good ship Crimson Drake has joined in the Red Dragon Inn revelry! What mischief and mayhem can the crew contribute to your Red Dragon Inn game? Raise the mizzenmast and read on!
Avast! This game has funded and you have until June 18th to back this game! So click the link on the right to get your hand on this expansion and help Slugfest break their next stretch goal!
Overview
Red Dragon Inn 4 focuses on four unique characters with a nautical theme! It’s a stand-alone expansion to its two predecessors. So you don’t have to have the original set to play. It comes complete. If you want to see how the game is played, check out the Red Dragon Inn review here!
New Characters!
Captain Whitehawk
She is the brave and brash master of the Crimson Drake! And she makes sure her crew (and everyone else in the Inn knows it!) She is so in charge that she is very difficult to manipulate with other actions. She has several “Ignore” and “Negate” cards and several cards that turn the tables on anyone forcing her to gain alcohol content or lose Gold. But she is the Captain and she didn’t get there by subtlety! There are 12 cards in her deck that make other players lose fortitude. Ouch! Of course she has the basic gambling cards that let her compete in a round of Gambling – just don’t take her for too much Gold or you will feel the sting of her other cards in her deck.
Cool Card Combo! Ante up or walk the plank! + What a coincidence, I happen to have the same hand!
You, the Captain start a round of Gambling, but players cannot negate this card and no one can voluntarily leave the round. Ok that’s cool. But if she follows up with “What a coincidence..” she’ll take half the pot anyway. Oh, Captain, my Captain!”
First Mate Remy
Remy is the elf first mate and believe me – he keeps the crew in line! How does he keep the crew in line? A new mechanic called Remy’s Mark. Many of Remy’s cards can give another player a “mark.” If a Player has this mark, then Remy’s card increase in effectiveness. Players receive the mark when they play adverse cards against Remy, but also when they play adverse cards against other players! Then players with a mark better watch themselves! Remy can bring the hammer down, and any players with a mark will pay the price with fortitude loss or a backfire effect. Remy has a pretty good mix of all card types, ignore and negate, gambling, fortitude loss, and so forth. But its doesn’t look like he has a lot of gold gaining tricks up his sleeve, so perhaps Remy can be bought? Only time will tell!
Cool Card: Allow me to show you the proper technique.
Ok, Remy can be helpful too…sort of! This card makes a player lose 3 Fortitude. BUT… if the player does NOT have one of Remy’s mark, they may draw 2 cards from their character deck and place them into their hand. “Thanks you sir, may I have another!”
Bryn the Boatswain
Bryn is a female human boatswain. What’s a boatswain? Seriously? You don’t know what a boatswain is? (Well neither did we.) Look at Bryn’s physique and make a guess! She hauls the anchor, pulls the rigging and raises the sails! And if any other crewmembers mess with her, she will make them feel it! Bryn has a lot of cards that inflict damage to others but also deflect the negative effects as well. She is a tough cookie that’s for sure. She can hold her drink, protect her gold and gamble with the best of em’!
Cool Card: You mess with the crew, you mess with me!
This card will cause any character who played a card that caused other characters to lose fortitude to lose Fortitude in an amount equal to the number of players affected by their card. In multiplayer games, this can be a big hit. But hey, Bryn’s a boatswain, whattaya expect mate?
Tara the Navigator
Tara is the trusted navigator aboard the Crimson Drake and her scrying abilities have saved the ship many times. But being blind can sometimes cause problems in.. .normal situations like playing darts, eating dinner and gambling. Tara has a fair amount of card that help here avoid negative effects but here strength seems to be lie in gambling. I am sure she doesn’t use her precognitive powers during games of chance. Well maybe a bit.
Cool Card: I’m feeling lucky… how about another round?
After a player has won a round of Gambling, Tara can use this card to force a new gambling round with that winner and all the anted Gold remains in the pot! And with Tara having more than 12 gambling cards in her deck, this seems like a sure bet. Watch your doubloons!
Cormac the Mighty (STRETCH GOAL CHARACTER)
Oh, he’s a Barbarian. Anyone else love barbarians? How about a barbarian in a bar? Well Cormac’s deck , as you would expect can deal out a lot of hurt on other characters. Problem is, he can really go berserk. Many of Cormac’s cards are added to a “rage pile” that is sort of a special discard pile next to his player board. Depending on the number of cards in his rage pile, Cormac increases the amount of Fortitude damage his cards deal to other characters. (For example, if there are 2-3 cards in his rage pile, Cormac add +1 to all other players’ Fortitude loss. 4-6 grants him a +2 all the way up to +3. But there is a drawback, if he becomes too enraged, he becomes more susceptible to drink, adding alcohol content to the drinks he drinks. That same +3 rage bonus increases the alcohol content of his drinks by +2. Barbarians can get silly in the head!
Cool Card: Barbarians Constitution
This is the reset card that allows Cormac to place all the cards in his rage pile into his discard, narrowly avoiding become too intoxicated, bur also chilling him out a bit before he build up to another rage rampage! Don’t make him angry, you wont like him when he’s angry!
Witchdoctor Natyli (STRETCH GOAL CHARACTER)
She has strange powers and she’s Phrenk’s niece! Natyli has a reasonable array of ignore and negate cards as well as cards that cause Fortitude loss and Gold loss. But her real talent is in her mystical “debuffs.” 13 of Natyli’s cards will inflict one of three “debuffs” on other characters which are placed in front of them – and their effects are cumulative. Here is what they do:
- Pain Curse: When losing Fortitude a player with this curse must discard the curse and must lose an additional Fortitude.
- Mind Hex: When gaining Alcohol content, a player with this hex must discard this hex and must gain an additional Alcohol Content.
- Power Jinx: A character with the Power Jinx in front of them reduces the value of all actions card played on their turn by 1.
So Natyli can not only protect herself from other characters with her hexes and jinxes bouncing all or the place, she makes other characters susceptible to anyone’s attacks and negative effects. This is truly unique for a character in the game, and the fact that her affects are cumulative might take the wind out of just about any character’s sails!
New Sea Events!
The Red Dragon Inn 4 includes a new deck that is sure rock the boat: Sea Events. Since the characters are now carousing in the Captain’s quarters aboard the good ship Crimson Drake, random events at sea may affect all the characters at once. Not only must characters defend themselves against each other, and the affects of gambling and drink events, now random events at sea can really ruin your day! Character may even have to work together to get a bonus from the various Sea Events.
At the start of the game the Sea Event Deck is shuffled and placed in the middle of the table and the Progress Counters card is set at 2. At the end of each player’s turn, that player moves a Progress Counter from the Sea Event Deck. When you remove the last Progress Counter, the top card of the deck is revealed and an Event takes place. Each Sea Event card has a title and an effect. The card also has a number that resets the level of the progress token. The more horrible the event, the higher the number – giving the characters a chance to breath, Here are a few examples:
- Pirates!: Each player may discard a card to lose 1 Fortitude. If they don’t they lose 3 Fortitude! If all the players discard ten they also gain 1 Gold. If not they must pay 1 to the Inn!
- Breaching Whales: Each player loses 1 Alcohol Content. (They postpone the game to go up on deck and have a look.)
- Sirens: Each player must discard cards from their hands based on their Alcohol Content: AC = 0-5 – Discard 2 cards, AC=6-12 – Discard 3 cards, AC=13+ – Discard 4 cards. If players are short any cards from these totals, they must lose 1 Fortitude for each card they are short.
New Drinks
The new drinks in Red Dragon Inn 4 may sound a little familiar if you fancy the pirating way of life!
Grog: Gain 2 Alcohol Content
Shot of Rum: Gain 1 Alcohol Content
Bottle of Rum Gain 3 Alcohol Content. Yo Ho ho and .. well, you know.
Final Thoughts
With Red Dragon Inn 4 players will get some great new mechanics and tough characters that will pose a real challenge to eve the most competitive RDI characters to date.
The game mechanics are solid and not too overbearing – even when faced with the debilitating marks from Remy, the debuffs of Natyli, Bryn and Cormac pounding everyone to a pulp and Tara accidentally stabbing you with her fork. This real magic in this release is when these characters get going with the other characters in RDI (not only from this set.) Combine the effects of Remy’s marks and Natyli’s debuffs with Wulfric’s Mood or Wizgille’s device effects, Pooky’s Mood and Gog’s thick skull – suddenly the Red Dragon Inn had become one heck of a dangerous hangout.
The expansion is pure fun and as you can tell by the art (very well done by Rose Besch, Kennon James and Beth Trott) is filled with Piraty goodness. Perhaps the best things about the expansion besides the interesting new mechanics (and the Sea events that really place you out there on the briny blue) is the fact that Cliff Bohm, Jeff Morrow and Sam Waller have successfully added even more unique characters and game play possibilities into their RDI universe. The new powers sets and card combos interact seamlessly. And as the game has developed over the past 7 years, and found many devout fans, perhaps you are one that has not yet stepped into the Red Dragon Inn and met the wench and went one on one with Gog or Zot. All that needs to be said is if you want a mostly brain-free game experience, with a fair amount of strategy, backstabbing with expansions that provides great replay value, its time you checked in. If Tara could scry the future, hopefully it will see more expansions for this timeless game.
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