Defenders of the Realm - a long and casual discussion

[@davidk6269]

Wow! A 1 hour 11 minute upload from Daniel? Yes, please!!!!

[@TheDungeonDive]

Hope you enjoy it. :)

[@Ribby00]

"You can never be too sexy for war."😅

[@CosmicTavern]

I just started watching this, but Defenders of the Realm is one of my favorites of all time! Great game!

[@callum5257]

Looks very interesting. Thanks for bringing it to the community's attention.

[@T_U3721]

Fantastic complete overview of the the game components! Just Elmore's illustrations alone are enough to compel me to try running a basic d&d/ ad&d campaign using this game as the campaign setting!

[@bigpawz9326]

i've had this game for years, finally got to it around a month ago. Definitely keeping it in my collection.

[@ajmunzi]

Those companions cards are sick! I Imagine they would be a great addition as NPC for any other game

[@Boardgamer69]

One of my first coop game after pandemic when I was back in the hobby. I always loved it, even if only playing a basic game from time to time. I love the race between evil forces and heroes, I love the pandemic system and it's numerous variants like Rome and Star Wars. But DotR is among my favorite games. I think I have everything for it, even painted and non painted minis. The major problem now, is if I want to play with expansions, there are lots of stuff to read before playing :-)

[@candlerocker]

You had me at Dragonlance😂 !

[@ajmunzi]

I love this game! Very fun to play!

[@larryosborne5141]

I watched this and Paul Darcy's playthrough and decided to give it a try. Picked it up for 30 dollars on ebay and now can't wait till it arrives. Never played a game like this ( I usually play dungeon crawls ),but you guys make it look like a lot of fun. Thanks for the video and expanding my horizons. On a side note, Small Bites is a hard book to find for a reasonable price, but will keep looking. See you in the next one.

[@TheDungeonDive]

Yeah! It was great to see a new series up from PD at the same time. Perfect timing. He does good let’s play videos.

[@godlaydying]

"Set in the D&D campaign you wanted to make when you were 13, but you only got as far as doing a map in pen in the back of a school notebook".

[@TheDungeonDive]

Haha! Love it!

[@jdebarr]

Great video. Never got a chance to play this game. Maybe this is the time to seek it out now that you say it is selling at discounted prices. Thanks for this deep dive. Gonna have to watch some gameplay on this one.

[@crazyvolucris]

It gets always expensive for me watching your cool videos🤪🤣 thank you… and i love the art… thats what we hab im my youth… dragonlance😍 so if it feels like playing the war of the lance… i am sold🙈

[@DocHogan]

DotR and “The Dwarves” are my favorite pandemic mechanic games (honorable mention, though, for the Plague mechanic of the Mean Streets expansion for Dungeon Degenerates)

[@d.aardent9382]

Oh forgot to mention, Michaels crafts has a great selection of 3d plastic animals and fantasy creatures now also. If you are looking for dragons ,they have at least 10- 15 different types of dragon figures and they are not excessively big, most are about good game size,some are larger depends on the type of dragon. They are really well done detailed designs. There are also several mythological creatures like gryphons , chymera, cerebus, Phoenix, mer-folk, etc. Anyway, for your Eagle Rider they make some cool eagle and hawk figures in different scales and you could get some nice 3D minis of Wolves, horses, raven,etc also. Of course the downside is the bigger figures ,like dragons are kinda pricey. Which for chunks of painted plastic seems a bit too much than what they should be costing.

[@Scotch5ailor]

Good on ya. Well done.

[@Linnir]

Wow! The is a blast from the past. I got all the expansions and played this game to death when it came out. Well worth it! For me personally would not play again because I am satisfied and this is well trodden ground. However for new players it is a strong recommendation as you will get a lot of fun out of the game.

[@chrisc1625]

I got a ton of the expansions earlier this year and love this game. The Heroes Calling definitely makes it a longer game when playing solo with 4 heroes. Keeping track of each hero's abilities is overwhelming at first, but it is worth it.

[@ajmunzi]

Heroes calling and companions expansions boost the gaming experiencie.of the game!

[@bradlybillingsley1870]

They're making a new version of Defenders of the Realm, called Legends Retold. It doesn't use Elmore's art, but Launius is working on it with other designers.

[@ajmunzi]

I saw the new art, is fresh, cool and everything, but honestly the old art is gorgeous...

[@bradlybillingsley1870]

I agree, the original art is what first attracted me to the game. But I think the new art is more appealing for people now, as opposed to my generation. And it's not just a straight reprint, it's themed to be some amount of time in the future of the world and they've changed things and added some interesting mechancis.@@ajmunzi

[@hlorridirudel9627]

I don’t like the new fancy art nowadays. I love DotR, but I would never be interested in the reprint at all.

[@d.aardent9382]

Whoa an hour discussion? I wondered about that game, I thought before it was an older game but couldn't recall where I'd seen it awhile back.

[@d.aardent9382]

You've made me get interested in this now. Aaaaaaaaahhhhh! I don't need to start buying into another big game! Lol Well, I guess its not that elaborate as some games out there can get with all the ridiculous paraphernalia and expansions. I will go check out the prices anyway. Just looking, yep that's all, sure not gonna buy anything, nope ,definitely not. Probably. Anyway, Idk wht it is about this game look, it does hit that nostalgia button for me as the original board reminds me of some games from back when I was a kid...and those bright colored minions, like the game pieces back when I was a kid. My problem is I'm who'd I get to play it much, but then I also don't have a lot of time I take to play games as I'm always either working at my business stuff or I'm asleep because I have chronic fatigue.lol its so hard to motivated. Im in constant home refurbishing and construction it seems and all my tables are covered in one project or another. Makes it difficult to even get a game out to set up.

[@TheDungeonDive]

Even thought his game takes up a lot of table space, it's actually pretty easy to get to the table. There aren't a ton of components, and it's pretty easy to set up and get played.

[@davidrussell7085]

i picked up a second hand copy last month (cards still sealed) main game boxed, plus dragon expansion (no actual expansion box) and 4 extra hero cards (no extra models though) for £50 - seemed like a good enough deal and i wanted to try the game, so a timely chat for me thank you

[@TheDungeonDive]

Have fun! Lot's of adventure to be had, for sure!

[@marksdicetales]

never knew about all these expansions, enjoyed the game definitely a keeper but in storage

[@ajmunzi]

Thanks Daniel! The expansions indeed look great! Would love to see a video exclusively reviewing and perhaps a gameplay approach on the companion and catacombs expansion

[@the_Mike_d]

You're right about the art work. I don't know if it's technically "good", but seeing all the Elmore work is like an instant nostalgia injection and I do think it helps to elevate the game (even with the weird unfocused layout design).

[@prestigepea1235]

I recall making a board where the spaces were regions rather than circles - shame they didnt go that path! I got the base game, Dragon expansion and some quest cards tgat were a pain to collect, then they did some minion expansions yhat would have been a pain to get, so fell off the wagon.the art direction definitely put me off in he end. Be jntetedted in a reboit if it smartens everything up

[@COOPFORTWO]

Oh thank god they fixed the readability of the board especially the place names.. That was a deal breaker for me.

[@ajmunzi]

It is not that bad! But good they changed it!

[@DocHogan]

Sadly, base game no longer in stock at E-G

[@TheDungeonDive]

They had some ding and dents up, but looks like they just recently sold out.

[@DocHogan]

@@TheDungeonDive looks like all the components to *assemble* a base game are available individually (except box)

[@TheDungeonDive]

There are so many copies of this game out in the wild that I bet used copies will almost always be available and affordable.

[@DocHogan]

@@TheDungeonDive true

[@noreasternbrewmaster8705]

@@TheDungeonDive yeah, I just picked up a copy from ebay in decent condition for $62 with free shipping today. There are some other decent prices there, fortunately this hasn't gotten into grail game territory... *yet*. Waffled a lot since I don't get Defenders of the Last Stand to the table nearly enough, but I've wanted this for so long.

[@kcw1879]

DotR is one of our gaming groups favorite games. We heard for years that DotR2 is coming out. We watched a gameplay demo with it, and visually, artwork wise, we loathe it. It looks like elementary school kids drew the art. Seriously, the general of death was replaced by a female character that looks like The Count's wife (a Muppet). SO very disappointed.

[@TheDungeonDive]

I haven’t seen the new one. I already have everything I want for the old one, so I think I’m good. :)

[@yodaforclass]

Had it. Sold it. Very mediocre game.

[@TheDungeonDive]

Hope you found something to love instead!