Dragoon and the Bard Barian

Have you ever wanted to be a dragon, hoarding treasure, subjugating towns, and fighting other dragons? If you had backed Lay Waste Games‘s Dragoon last year, you could have been doing all these things like Rachel, who brought this addictive game into our office and made all of us her slaves–she who controls the Dragoon game controls the office!

Fear not, you still have the chance to command your own friends and co-workers: Dragoon is getting a reprint! And better yet, it’s getting expanded (adding two playable humans for a six-player experience with new rules and moves), and you can choose between the Standard game with plastic pieces or the Gold Edition game with real metal playing pieces. Rachel’s game has metal pieces, and they make an already fantastic game a hefty joy to play.

We were all pretty stoked when Lay Waste reached out to Pat to see if they could include him in the game as an add-on. We’ve been working with them to develop the Bard Barian, a special piece that takes place of the Barbarian expansion piece and features three unique rules to switch up your game play. The plan is that, similar to Tak: A Beautiful Game, we’ll be able to carry Dragoon in The Tinker’s Packs once Kickstarter fulfillment is over, thus bringing the game to more folks who need rampant dragonery in their lives.

This is a drop-dead gorgeous game, and best of all, it’s quick to learn, with a simple mechanic and enough variety so it never gets old. You’re a dragon. Humans are moving into your area, where you and the other dragons have been just hanging out for, like, ever. As human towns build up and spread across the landscape, you and the other dragons decide it’s time to start collecting tributes, beefing up your treasure hoards, and keeping those humans in check. But now that the gloves are off, it’s not just you against the uppity humans–you’re also duking it out with the other dragons (and a thief!) to see who can conquer the most towns, control the most land, and accumulate the most treasure to win the game.

Jenny won, by the way.

The Kickstarter runs through April 11th, so make sure you get on board. If you need to play it NOW, definitely track down Lay Waste Games at one of the small handful of conventions they’ll be at this year.

Rampage on!