Dragonwood

Hunter is the one that introduced today's game to our family. He played it in a gameschooling class at our homeschool co-op, and bought it with his birthday money. It is definitely a favorite here! Today's game is Dragonwood.

Before you begin the game, you need to separate the green cards from the red cards. Find the two dragon cards and remove them from the deck. Shuffle the deck and remove 12 cards if there are two players playing, remove 10 cards if three people are playing, and remove 8 cards if four players are playing. This is optional, actually - if you don't mind a longer game, just leave all the cards in the deck. Shuffle the dragon cards back into the deck.

Lay out five cards from the Dragonwood deck (green side) face up in the center of the playing area. Stack the rest of the deck face down beside it.

The five Dragonwood cards:

Shuffle the Adventurer cards (red) and deal each player five cards. Stack the rest of the Adventurer cards face down near the cards which are laid out.

The five Adventurer cards in my hand:

There are three types of Dragonwood cards that you will see laid out.

These are creature cards. Your goal is to defeat them and collect the points on the card. The number on the shield is how many points they are worth.

These are enhancement cards. They don't give points but make it easier to defeat creatures. They may add on points to your attacks or allow you to re-roll. Some are one-time use and some are for the entire game.

These are event cards. They occur immediately and affect all players.

On your turn, you may choose one of two options.

Option 1:
Draw a card. You'll draw from the red pile, add it to your hand, and then say, "Reload!" to signal that your turn is over. There is a 9 card hand limit, so make sure you play something once you hit 9 cards!

Option 2:
Attack a creature/enhancement card. Let's say I'm going to attack this wild boar card. I want the three points associated with it. I need to roll an 8 if I attack with a strike, I need to roll a 7 if I attack with a stomp, and I need to roll a 7 if I attack with a scream.

An example of a Strike - three numbers in a row:

 An example of a Scream - three of the same color:

 An example of a Stomp - three of the same number:

 Announce which card you are trying to capture and show the cards you are using by placing them in front of you. Take one die for each card you are playing and roll them. In the previous examples, if I lay down three cards, I will use three dice to roll. Remember - the dice only go up to the number 4, so if you need a 12 to win the card, it's very unlikely that you'll win by using only three cards/dice! You can use up to six cards to attack, plus any enhancements.

You capture the card if the total of your dice is equal to or greater than the related value on the card.

How to Win:
Both dragons are defeated, not necessarily by the same person.

All players total up their victory points. Whoever has the most creature cards captured also gets three bonus points added to their score. Highest total wins.

Verdict:
This is such a great game! It's really engaging, I love the graphics, and it's a fairly short game if you need something like that.

Great for Learning:
Math, strategy (beware trying to get a lot of enhancements, which means you won't end up with as many creature points!), patterns, matching, probability, risk-taking