War of the Dragon: The Wheel of Time Deep Dive
What the Community Thinks About War of the Dragon: The Wheel of Time
War of the Dragon: The Wheel of Time is Dire Wolf's two-player war game built on Robert Jordan's fantasy series, and all of the coverage so far comes from its Kickstarter campaign, so these are previews and first impressions rather than reviews of a finished product. The reception splits cleanly between the game and the campaign. Man vs Meeple, The Dice Tower and The Board Gaming Doctor all come away expecting a good game, while Bower's Game Corner gives the Kickstarter page a D for how poorly it sells the product. One disclosure matters up front: Man vs Meeple's preview is hosted by co-host Ryan, who is also on the game's design team, and the channel says so on camera. The Dice Tower's livestream played a prototype on which, as Tom Vasel pointed out, some cards still had no art.
Core Mechanics That Define War of the Dragon: The Wheel of Time
Action Selection and Tableau Building
Each turn a player plays a card from hand and chooses one of five actions on a shared action board. The Board Gaming Doctor explains the twist: once a card sits on an action, an opponent who wants that same action later has to pay a cost for it, and Man vs Meeple adds that repeating your own previous action also costs extra. The actions cover recruiting allies, moving, reinforcing, consolidating and weaving. Allies are minor characters from the books, and they are tucked into columns on your player board. Each column is linked to one action, so as the tableau grows, those actions get stronger. The Board Gaming Doctor notes that having more of an icon than your opponent also scores points at the end. Man vs Meeple stresses the layering this creates: a card might be played for its icon rather than its text, so even a simple turn carries several decisions.
Area Control and Asymmetric Tracks
The map is split into regions made up of smaller areas. Control enough spaces in a region and it belongs to your side, bringing points during the game and at the end. The two sides score differently. As Ryan explains, the Light has one banner track worth 12 points at the top, while the Shadow has a banner track and a corruption track worth 8 points each. The Shadow scores for every city it has corrupted, which gives the Light a reason to go in and remove corruption markers. Each round also puts out two themed missions for both players to contest. Every player board has a wheel that advances to unlock rewards. The Light uses it to upgrade heroes such as Rand, Perrin and Mat, while the Shadow uses it to break the seals and release the Forsaken.
The War of the Dragon: The Wheel of Time Experience
Two Modes, One Spine
The game ships with two modes. Hero mode drops the armies. Man vs Meeple describes its conflicts as very deterministic: the side with more strength in an area wins it and routes the other side's unit. A full game there runs close to two hours, possibly as little as 90 minutes, and The Board Gaming Doctor reports that the rulebook supports a four-player, two-versus-two version. Epic mode is primarily for two players and is longer. It adds armies and a battle board where both players secretly assign units to lanes before revealing them. That is the mode The Dice Tower played, and on their table a win in the center lane decided the whole battle and forced a retreat. Epic mode ends by playing out the Last Battle, using rewards earned over the game. Tom Vasel summed up Hero mode as a simpler game where most of the rest stays essentially the same.
Theme for Fans and Newcomers
Man vs Meeple's David, who has not read the books, could tell during their play that the cards meant far more to Ryan than to him. Ryan says everything in the game is drawn from the books, from starting positions to event cards named after chapters, with original artwork rather than material from the TV show. The Dice Tower warns of spoilers: the game starts around the end of book four and runs through the Last Battle in book 13. Tom Vasel has read the series several times and Zee Garcia has not. By the end of the stream, Zee said Tom's stories about the books made the series sound fascinating.
What Makes War of the Dragon: The Wheel of Time Stand Out
Tug-of-War on Every Front
Across the previews, the standout quality is how many contests run at once. Ryan describes the Shadow weighing whether to protect its wheel or build its army, knowing the Light cannot block both. David compares these parallel tugs-of-war to smaller games like 7 Wonders Duel and calls the secret lane assignment of Epic battles the one part that sounds intriguing even to a player who does not usually enjoy this kind of game. Bower's Game Corner, for all its criticism, found the player board appealing enough to want to play despite having next to no attachment to the series.
Design Team and Publisher
The design team has three members. Ryan from Man vs Meeple is one, and The Board Gaming Doctor notes that another worked on the Clank legacy games and expansions at Dire Wolf, which gave the host confidence in the design. The campaign itself leans on Dire Wolf's reputation as the publisher of Dune: Imperium and Clank. BoardGameCo put the game sixth on a most-anticipated crowdfunding list largely on that name, then admitted it knew almost nothing about the game and probably ranked it too high.
Potential Drawbacks
Pricing and a Weak Campaign Page
The standard pledge with cardboard standees is $90, the miniatures version is $123, and the top pledge Bower's Game Corner looked at is $289. Bower's argues that the page never justifies these prices: the main image and the 48-second video say almost nothing, the miniature count is hard to find, and the draft rulebook was only released after backers asked. Bower's also flags that a solo mode was being discussed only after launch, which made it feel like an afterthought, and ended the critique with a grade of D.
No Way to Try Before Backing
The Board Gaming Doctor's reservation is different. There was no full gameplay video at the time and no Tabletop Simulator or other digital version to test, and the rulebook is still a work in progress. Because a Dire Wolf game is likely to reach retail anyway, the channel's host decided to wait for the retail release and for a possible digital version, and noted that the lack of a solo mode matters to players who play mostly alone.
If You Enjoy War of the Dragon: The Wheel of Time
Man vs Meeple places the game in the vein of Star Wars Rebellion and War of the Ring, big two-player war games built around a licensed story, and Ryan hopes it produces the same organic, story-like moments as Rebellion. For the parallel contests, Man vs Meeple points to 7 Wonders Duel. The Board Gaming Doctor draws on War of the Ring: The Card Game for its card-driven control of story locations, and says Epic mode's lane battles recall Air, Land and Sea and The Old King's Crown, with their hidden placement and bluffing.
What Reviewers Are Saying
"I think fans of the property will come for the property, stay for the game, and the reverse might happen as well. If the type of game this is sounds like something that's compelling to you, you'll play it, and that might spill over into wanting to know a little bit more about the universe."
— Man vs Meeple
"And so I don't have any doubt about the game being good. But with so many good options these days, it's hard for me to reconcile what I used to be able to do, which was to try the games and decide if it was worth my money to have a physical copy"
— Phil, The Board Gaming Doctor
"This board looks fun. Like I wish we could have zoomed in on this player board. I wish you would have decided to do that instead of whatever it was you chose to do in the video wasting everyone's time. Like that looks awesome. I want to play that game and I have next to no attachment to The Wheel of Time at all."
— Bower's Game Corner