SFR, Inc.

[invisiblejon]

Greetings All,

I need your help creating four to six (or more) armies that are appropriate for demos to get new players into playing Dragon Dice.


Here's why:

I love Dragon Dice dearly, and had a largish collection that was getting zero usage. Howard Tayler (the writer/creator of the popular sci-fi webcomic Schlock Mercenary) mentioned that he played a little Dragon Dice at his local game store and enjoyed it, but thought he'd like it more if they had more dice to work with. So I sent my collection to him.

Howard's having a book launching party at his local game store. They're going to play games during the party. This is a *great* demo opportunity for Dragon Dice. I didn't really organize the Dragon Dice I sent into armies, and it's been too long since I've played seriously to create four or six armies off the top of my head... So I'm tapping y'all for help.


Here's what you have to work with:

http://www.invisible-city.com/images/326.jpg

* One complete set (1 monster, 1 rare, 2 uncommon, 4 common) of the first six races (Dwarves, L and C elves, Goblins, Amazons, Firewalkers).
* At least one of every terrain.
* One of every core set Dragon and Wyrm.

The collection also has:

* Many excess assorted Dwarves and Goblins.
* A few extras in the other races. (Unless a unit is essential to your army, you're probably better off assuming that they're not available.)
* One of each Dragonkin.

* A limited assortment of Undead, Feral, Swampstalkers, Artifacts, and minor terrains. (You're better off pretending that there are none of these. They're probably not super-appropriate for a starter army anyway...)

The collection has no Frostwings, Scalders, or Treefolk.


You mission, should you choose to accept it:

* Build one or more armies that are appropriate for a new player's first game or three.

The sooner you can post army suggestions, the better.

Thanks a bunch!

Jonathan Leistiko
Games Advocate
http://www.invisible-city.com/play

[ddicerc]

Well, it depends on whether you want to introduce players with the kinds of armies they could get out of the box (which is what all "official: SFR demos do, but we're also trying to sell starters), or give them more competitive armies that they may not understand how to play right away, but will give better results in specific situations.

If you are using the demo rules from the SFR pages, one suggestion I'd make is that if you are playing someone in a demo, take elves and give them Dwarves or Goblins. Without racial abilties, elves die fairly easily, so you are essntially handicapping yourself. (I accidentally won a demo at GenCon, but lost every single other one playing Morehl against Dwarves-and I wasn't sandbagging my play.) If you have two playes matched up, pair Coral vs. Lava Elves and Dwarves vs. Goblins. (Not coincidentally, these are the pairs in the new starters.)

In my opinion, for starting players stick to the first four races. Have some of the other dice to show off, or even to play later, but start simple. When you move a player to adding more rules from the demo, these four races have easy racial abilities to use, and they make terrain choices make sense.

To make "out of the box" armies, take 1 monster, 1 rare, 3 uncommons, and 5 commons of each race for an army. Mix them up a bit. For the initial setup (which I don't think has been changed in the demo rules yet), use the monster/rare at home, uncommons as horde, and commons as campaign.

If you want better armies, I'd suggest 24h (small games usually are shorter and easier to handle). Here's some suggestions. I use 1/2 magic armies, which are more competitive, but they also may slow down your demo while you teach players about magic use. You'll almost certainly get a dragon in play, however.

Coral Elves: 12h of mages/12h of missile. If you want to use a monster, use a Sprite Swarm, which helps both. Try this:

Sprite Swarm (counts 3 for magic purposes), Enchanter, Conjurer, 4 Evokers, Sharpshooter, 2 Archers, 4 Bowmen. Coastland Tower Home, Coastland City proposed (if you aren't using a set frontier). Blue Wyrm.

Dwarves: 12h of melee/12h of magic. I'd probably skip monsters for Dwarves, but you could use an Umber Hulk. Try this:

Warlord, 2 Sergeants, 5 Footmen, Wizard, 2 Thaumaturgists, 5 Theurgists. (Sub an Umber Hulk for a Sergeant and 2 Footmen if desired.) Highland City home, Highland Temple proposed. Red Wyrm.

Lava Elves: 12h of mages/12h of cavalry. Your goal is to protect your army and run like heck. I would definitely skip monsters here. Try this:

Necromancer, 2 Warlocks, 5 Adepts, Wyvern Rider, 2 Scorpion Knights, 5 Spider Riders. (Consider adding a second Necromancer in place of a Warlock and 2 Adepts.) Highland Standing Stones home, Highland City proposed. Black Drake.

Goblins: How much fun do you want to have? You can rig this army for some serious action. I'd mix this army up a bit more. It's slightly magic-light, but the Troll should handle your resurrection duties.

Troll, Leopard Rider, Wolf Riders, 4 Wardog Riders, Death Mage, 2 Hedge Wizard, 4 Tricksters. Swampland Standing Stones home, Swampland City proposed. Black Drake.

Hope this helps. Editorial comments welcome. Chuck will post better armies soon.
_________________
Steve "DDice" Braun
The Diceman's Gaming Pages: http://ddicerc.weebly.com
2014-2015 U.S. National Champion
(Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse...)

[invisiblejon]

[chuckpint]

[ddicerc]

Disparage my army-building abilities? I'll have you know that, outside of demos, I was undefeated at GenCon this year. In fact, I didn't lose a single tournament game in 2006, and I attended three conventions.

















DISCLAIMER: OK, I ran demos at Dreamation while Mike D. ran the events, and I ran the events at DexCon, and I did demos during the day and ran the Novice events at night at GenCon, so technically I didn't actually play any tournament games, but hey, I was still undefeated for the year...
_________________
Steve "DDice" Braun
The Diceman's Gaming Pages: http://ddicerc.weebly.com
2014-2015 U.S. National Champion
(Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse...)

[Howard Tayler]

First post...

I'm just here to say a few thanks:

1) Thank you Jonathan, for a very, very nice collection of 884 dice. It's nothing record-setting (obviously), but it puts every local collection to shame (yes, I checked).

2) Thank you ddicerc, for great advice on demo-running. None of us have much experience, but with your post we can probably put together a good time.

3) Thank you Chuck Pint for a) linking to DDASSIST, and b) providing actual images from your collection so I could catalogue dice without having all the little rulebooks. Sunday was spent counting to 884 from zero.

My plan is to build the four armies, put them in labeled bags, and use them for demo purposes. We'll play at least one or two rounds prior to the book release event a week from Saturday. After that those armies will be left at the store (Dragon's Keep in Provo, Utah) so that anybody who wants to try the game out can.

With 884 dice, I'm pretty sure I won't miss the 10% or less that go into four 24-point demo armies. I'll build another few armies at home for playing with the kids. Screw Monopoly. I wanna throw bones and not have to be the shoe.

[ddicerc]

Howard-

Can you send me the contact info for Dragon's Keep? I'd like to send them an e-mail about carrying DD products, once you get your foot in the door there. Send it to me at wholesale@sfr-inc.com. Thanks.
_________________
Steve "DDice" Braun
The Diceman's Gaming Pages: http://ddicerc.weebly.com
2014-2015 U.S. National Champion
(Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse...)

[Howard Tayler]

thedragonskeep@gmail.com is the address they're using these days. The store manager is brand new -- his name is Zac. The owners are slightly less brand-new (four months) and are named Levi and Davidson Jensen.

You'll probably be talking to Zac, or maybe Levi.

In related news, Zac, Matt (a regular, and a DD fan from ages past) and I played a three-way game with the demo dice. We struggled a lot with the rules, since Matt and I were both a mixture of rusty and inexperienced, and Zac knew almost nothing besides "Goblins hate Elves."

The demos you provided required a bit more expertise than we had, since they were half melee, half magic. A little bit of "assume we are all idiots" instruction would help. By the END of the game I THINK I figured out that the goblins need to be charging wherever possible, and pretty much everybody needs to pull mages into their reserves on their first turn. From there it seems that you struggle for maneuvers against the superior goblin hordes, and rain magic from afar.

But that's not what we DID. That's what we'll probably do NEXT time.

"Themed" demo armies, with a little bit of tactical and strategic advice, would be a great bootstrap for the group.

[chuckpint]

Sounds like you should read the new rules, posted on the SFR website. Charging is no longer part of the game (plenty of posts elsewhere about that). Hopefully, the new rules are easier to understand than the old ones.
_________________
You can never have too many dice.
First Place at the first ever Daemon Dice sealed starter tournament.
Battlefest tied for first GenCon 2012
Single Race Champion GenCon 2008-2009, Sealed Box Champion GenCon 2007,2009,
My collection is 21,500 Dragon Dice, 20,000 Daemon Dice, and others (too many to count).

[Howard Tayler]

[chuckpint]

There are not any printed version available, yet. They will be in the new starters coming out (see elsewhere about that as well). For now, you can just download the PDF, and print it yourself.
_________________
You can never have too many dice.
First Place at the first ever Daemon Dice sealed starter tournament.
Battlefest tied for first GenCon 2012
Single Race Champion GenCon 2008-2009, Sealed Box Champion GenCon 2007,2009,
My collection is 21,500 Dragon Dice, 20,000 Daemon Dice, and others (too many to count).

[ddicerc]

If you want to try less specialized armies, make armies that are 10h light melee, 6h missile, and 8h magic. This gives you more diverse rolls, allows magic a decent sized role in the game, and gives at least a little bit of maneuver to move terrains.

Also, while downloading the new rules download the Demo Rules. They provide a basic version of the game with most of the mechanics in but a lot of the special stuff (SAIs, extended spell lists, racial abilities, etc.) out.

If you do use the standard rules, try limiting yourself to the Basic spells only until you become familiar with the game again. The part of DD that generally takes the most time is spell selection.
_________________
Steve "DDice" Braun
The Diceman's Gaming Pages: http://ddicerc.weebly.com
2014-2015 U.S. National Champion
(Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse...)