Takhisis the Dragon Queen has returned to the world of Krynn. Across the land, her armies of fanatical draconians wage a brutal war of conquest. As the Dragon Armies march on the unprepared nation of Solamnia, only the defenders of the city of Kalaman stand in their way. But the Dragon Armies want more than just to crush their foes. An ancient evil in the Dragon Queen’s service seeks a magical weapon that could dominate Krynn for all time. Warriors of Krynn includes 12 board game scenarios across three difficulty levels. Scenarios divide your team between completing objectives and influencing mass battles, and both of these take place on a variety of unique battle and adventure tiles that can be combined in various ways. Your playable heroes are represented by DnD miniatures, while wooden tokens and plastic markers stand in for various DnD monsters, as well as ally and enemy units. If you are a Sorc you get these 4 cards based the 6 abilities. would have been nice to "build" based on your character, like they were advertising. While I hate to see the relaunch of the Dragonlance setting marred by these kinds of quality and manufacturing issues, there is no denying that the Dragonlance: Shadow of the Dragon Queen campaign that underpins it all is excellent. But with One D&D right around the corner in 2023, a new version of the game meant to cement 5th edition’s preeminent status as the gold standard in the hobby, this does not feel like a company that is putting its best foot forward. Rather than a victory lap, this release — especially the Dragonlance: Warriors of Krynn board game — feels more like it stumbled across the finish line.

Action economy in Warriors of Krynn also feels inefficient. Players are all working towards the same objectives, some of which mean one player gets to hit the switch and complete the quest while the rest wander the map, farming equipment and trying to find ways to use the four actions per turn they’re given. Shadow of the Dragon Queen will not be a reboot of the Dragonlance campaign setting, and while it's mostly an adventure book, it will still contain information about the world of Krynn as a whole. The group is free to ignore the content from Warriors of Krynn and there will be rules in place for the mass battles to be handled in a more abstract way. The idea of combining Shadow of the Dragon Queen and Warriors of Krynn together was to allow players to experience epic campaigns, on the scale of something like The Lord of the Rings or Game of Thrones. This status refers to the mental state of your soldiers, and how they’re faring. Many of them come from the embattled town of Vogler, which as mentioned was an idyllic and peaceful fishing town, making them vulnerable to being scared and losing their strength as inexperienced warriors.even Commanders just change their names, and customize new ones. I would use the same abilities to not screw with balance, just change the name and image. Introduces a war game experience to D&D 5th edition, featuring heroes who participate in large scale military battles But if you rally your heroes together, using the skills of your battlefield leaders, you’ll be able to conquer your goals and move on with the overarching Dragonlance story setting. Once a major Warriors of Krynn battle is concluded, the Shadow of the Dragon Queen scenario book will guide you on your next steps through the main narrative. Image: Wizards of the Coast

Pairing a dense narrative with a more ‘active’ tabletop component is a frankly ingenious twist, and one that elevates both the board game, and the scenario book. It makes both more involved, and should help players visualise and enact the action of the Dragonlance campaign in grand fashion. A standard copy of Dragonlance: Shadow of the Dragon Queen printed in the United States on the left, a deluxe copy printed in China on the right. Photo:Charlie Hall/Polygon Dungeons & Dragons sourcebooks and adventure books have featured battles and wars in the past, such as the aftermath of the vast conflict in Eberron: Rising from the Last War. Nevertheless, it’s difficult to play out conflicts that feature hundreds and hundreds of people in a tabletop roleplaying game wherein smaller scale fights can take hours to complete. Warriors of Krynn looks to be providing dungeon masters and players with a way to experience the kind of epic battles featured in Shadow of the Dragon Queen, presenting a wargame board game wherein players make strategic decisions to help alter the flow of battle. The costs of war will be laid at the players’ feet from the very beginning. Battle Scenarios: Warriors of Krynn offers 12 different scenarios of varying difficulty, 6 with content customized for interacting with encounters in Shadow of the Dragon Queen, extending the roleplaying adventure to include options for mass battle play experiences. The heroes' actions in Warriors of Krynn will impact outcomes in the military battles in Shadow of the Dragon Queen using custom-integrated scenariosThis is always an interesting moment because you’re torn between keeping your cards and actions to try and progress towards your scenario goals, while also wanting to pool enough dice to guarantee success. Sometimes you have to do the latter and it’s always a thrilling moment. However, despite a range of difficulties, these challenges are disappointingly faceless and repetitive, with little to differentiate between some Goblin Poisoners and a Red Dragon other than the stat and successes required. Think of Warriors of Krynn, therefore, as a novel way to depict what would otherwise be a narrative event in an RPG

In this way, Warriors of Krynn acts as a ‘Combat Mode’ for the scenario book, allowing players to immersive themselves in the story by actively taking part in skirmishes and troop commandment. Having a hybrid setting is an extremely nifty idea, and one that should certainly be integrated into more tabletop adventures. Also, this is very much a stronger force vs weaker force. a lot of times the PC's are there to try and delay and get things done before the inevitable.i'm not sure what would happen if you made the armies more equal for a different campaign. I haven't dug that deep yet. Like in a normal game of D&D, players take on one of 12 DnD classes in Warriors of Krynn. Each gets a handful of powers and cards that let them influence the battlefield. As characters advance in the RPG, they advance in the board game as well. A level zero scenario provides a sandbox to find your feet in, then there are four low-level scenarios, followed by four middle and four high-level ones. The idea is to record whether you win or lose a battle scenario, then move on to the next in the story.