BACKGROUND: Trogdor! The Board Game is a co-operative tile game for 1-6 players. It was created in 2019 by Boardelectrix (Mike and Matt Chapman), James Earnest, and written with Loneshark Games. All players work together to burninate the countryside and cottages, eat or burn the peasants, and avoid letting Trogdor perish.
GAMEPLAY: Each players turn consists of 2 phases, their actions and the boards actions. On their turn, the player draws and uses 1 of the 2 Trogdor Action cards, which determine how many AP (Action Points) and ability the player has that turn, or they may discard it for 5 AP. AP is spent to have Trogdor either move orthnologically, Chomp and eat a Peasant, Burrow through a tunnel to the other tunnel tile, Hide in a mountain tile to become impervious to damage, or Burninate the tile. Players don't have to use all their AP, but it's lost at the end of the turn. Players may also use their Keepers of Trogdor abilities or Item cards once on their turn, unless otherwise stated, and items must be recharged to use it again, as indicated by the card.
KNIGHTS: Finally, the knights and archers move according to the movement path on the right. If a knight moves into Trodgors space, he takes damage. The archer shoots both directions of the last direction he moved (if he moves west, he shoots east and west), except in his own space. If Trogdor takes damage, a 3rd knight spawns, the Troghammer. He acts like a Knight, but can also move if one of his cards is drawn. Peasants, Knights, and Archers have "wrap-around", so if they move off the board in one direction, they appear in the appropriate tile on the opposite direction.
BURNINATE: The goal of the game is to Burninante all the tiles. When a tile is Burninated, it's flipped over. Cottages can only be Burninated if it and all surrounding tiles are Burninated. If a Peasant is on a tile that is Burninated, they are drawn and given a movement path, and go into the void afterwards, Burninating any tiles along the way. Knights can repair any cottage along their path, and Peasants sometimes can repair tiles according to their movement.
WINNING: The players win if all tiles and cottages are Burninated, and no more Peasants are on the board. However, everytime Trogdor takes damage, he loses a Peasant from the Trog-meter. If he were to take damage while no Peasants were in the Trog-meter, he has FIERY RAGE! The player draws 5 Movement cards, and follows their paths, Burninating every tile and cottage along the way. For this action, Trogdor has Wrap-around, and immediately sends all Knights and Peasants into the Void. If all tiles and cottages are Burninated, and there are no Peasants left, the players still win. If not, the players lose.
CONCLUSION: Oh man, this one is crazy. First off, note that there are 2 major points of criticism, the decks and the cooperation. There's an amount of luck that goes into co-op games that can frustrate a lot of players, and some players just don't work together well. So, now that that's out of the way, I can talk about the positives, and there are a lot. First, it's FREAKING TROGDOR! Obviously, if you don't know the theme, you won't be as excited as I am, but that's okay. This game plays incredibly well for those who aren't aware of the theming. In addition, even if you don't, it's easy to see that a lot of care was put into the theme of this game. Now, the gameplay. If you have ever played the original Trodgor, there's some inspiration from that, such as Troggie not getting the Wraparound, but the other characters do. The game feels great, being able to control 1 character amongst the party, but due to his level of strength and abilities, it nevers feels too broken or ridiculous. Actually, like most co-op games, it's really hard to win, but you never feel like it's because you can't do something, it's more like you are either just unlucky, or (more likely) you didn't plan ahead. So go and visit this pleasant kingdom of Peasantry, I know I will again sometime soon.
AFTHERTHOUGHTS: For a bonus, I'll link the original source and some additional flavor for the game:
DRAGON: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90X5NJleYJQ
RULES SONGS: http://trogdorboardgame.homestarrunner.com/rulebookEP.html
SOUNDBOARD: http://trogdorboardgame.homestarrunner.com/soundboard/
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