A few days ago I was looking through my collection of empty Dragon Dice boxes searching for a bit of light reading that might be enclosed therein, and came across the 1996 Battle Box rules. The memories came flooding back as I endeavoured to recall how the Dragon Dice obsession began and I decided to read through the rule book which, I seemed to recall, was a watered down version of the real game. How wrong I was.
Having read through the 16 very reader friendly pages, full of pretty diagrams and examples, I came to the conclusion that I would like to relive ‘old times’ and see if I still could get anything out of this game that brought me into the Dragon Dice fold. I didn’t take me very long to come to some interesting discoveries.
Firstly, I was 100% wrong about the game being a watered down version of the real thing. It is not. What it is, is a fun, fast board game played using a random selection of Dragon Dice (races do not really matter, nor do colours) with a few modified game mechanics coming from the parent game. It is in no way designed to be as cerebral or tactical, merely good fun, and it succeeds.
If you fancy trying it out as a diversion, or to play a new game with a family member who does not usually do Board Games, it might be worthwhile investigating.
The bad thing about the rules is that it does not tell you what units you need, it just refers to ‘your bag of dice’, so I will tell you to save you having to undergo the investigative process.
To play Battle Box DD you need:
- 2 x 3 Health Units for each player
- 4 x 2 Health Units for each player
- 9 x 1 Health Units for each player
- 1 x Dragon of any type or colour for each player
- 2 x Terrain Dice of any type or colour for each player
- A copy of the rules (download below)
- A copy of the reference sheets (download below)
- Playing Board (not essential but pretty)
The original game only had units from the original 4 races namely, Coral Elves, Dwarves, Goblins and Lava Elves, all mixed together, so I suggest that it might be a clever ploy to do likewise.
So far I have only tried out 3 games, but I have a feeling that it might get an airing along with my Mexican Train dominoes when I have visitors around.
