A solo D&D board game experience

[3 min read]

I played 4 solo games of around one hour each of Wrath of Ashardalon (a D&D Adventure System Board Game) over the holiday break, and below are my impressions. I plan to report back after having played it with my wife which, much like Dungeons & Dragons, is what the game is really built for.

Image by Wizards of the Coast

Why did you choose this particular board game? I love board games and was looking to play something reminiscent of D&D in between sessions, and found this review site with a great summary of all the options available. I wanted to recreate D&D combat as closely as possible, so the Adventure System Board Game series jumped out as a great way to do that. Wrath of Ashardalon (2011) is the second in the venerable series, which I admit I chose because the giant red dragon miniature would be fun to play with for my (almost) 3 year old. So I went ahead and ordered it as a Christmas present to myself!

Does this succeed at scratching the itch of playing D&D? Yes, with the caveat that it feels like 'D&D Lite'.  Exploration does resemble a dungeon crawl with a board that evolves as you explore and is filled with random traps and environmental hazards. Combat is close enough to the D&D ruleset to feel familiar and satisfying. Obviously the roleplay pillar of D&D is missing here unless you want to add that in yourself as you play. Not sure I'll be doing funny accents when playing with my wife though!

Can you play this solo? Yes, it works well as a solo game, although D&D/RPG players will want to control multiple heroes to have a more authentic and nuanced experience. Also, only one of the included adventures is designed for a single hero, the rest are for 2-5 heroes.

What is the degree of difficulty? Medium. It took me three attempts to beat the single hero tutorial mission (see why below), but when I did the tutorial for a multiple hero mission, I beat it first try.

Do you have any tips for first-time players? 

• Shuffle the cards well before playing! Spawning the same challenging enemy in back to back rounds is not fun, as I found on my first run as the cleric.
• But, you shouldn't have multiples of the same enemy type! This was a rule I forgot - if you already spawned one monster, you can't spawn a second of the same type.
• Don't forget taking treasure cards after defeating enemies! My second run went well as the paladin since I took it a little slower. But I rolled poorly against the final boss, and realised afterwards had I drawn treasure cards along the way, powerful items could have made the difference.
• The second scenario with an extra hero felt more achievable than that of the single hero, as the difficulty did not double. Although it might be I just improved with my fourth session!

The rogue and wizard have some great powers but felt like they may be too squishy

Success for our brave, squishy heroes! Plenty of good loot helped them through this monster hunt

Is there a way to play this online? I found a video game adaptation of the Tomb of Annihilation board game in the series, which is a good representation and more cost effective than the physical board game. However, this is single-player only.

Thumbs up from me so far, but more to come after more play time and with multiple players controlling the heroes!