Review: World of Warcraft - The Board Game, Page 3
Fast Forward
Quest Quest, Level Level, Quest Quest - I won't bore you with a complete play-by-play. As I mentioned before, both sides stuck together, and after that incident with the Wildkin we all ended up playing a bit cautiously. Going into the last few rounds of gameplay, all the characters on the map were level three, and significantly more powerful than they were at the beginning. Characters max out at level five, so imagine every level in the boardgame as representing ten levels in WoW, and you have a better idea of the power scale you're working on.
If you remember, there are two victory conditions to the game. Option A, the PvE option, involves getting to and killing the Overlord. Neither team even came close - looking at its stats, it was pretty obvious that you'd want at least a group of level four characters, if not five. Option B is a final, game-ending PvP battle, which happens automatically after round 30. And man, did we think we had it planned out.
Going into round 25, the Alliance was sitting on top of our planned final quest mob - a drake. It was pretty powerful, but we figured we could take it down, and the quest rewards would be quite nice. Unfortunately, we weren't going to hit level four, but if we got some nice drops the loot could be very helpful. Round 26 we'd kill the creature, Round 28 would be devoted to travelling back to town, and Round 30, the final round, would be spent resting in town and preparing for the final battle. We had just enough time and would go into the final battle fresh.
But first, it was the Horde's turn. They were taking a flight back to town from the other side of the map, and wanted to get in one final quest before the game ended. There was only one within range. Unfortunately, there was a random mob in the way, and if they couldn't clear it out this turn they'd wouldn't be able to make it. Making things worse, after a nasty encounter with two ghosts, the Druid and Shaman were out of energy. Changing their strategy a bit, they decided to split up - while the Druid and Shaman stopped in town and used their second action to rest, the Hunter would keep moving and attack the random mob on the way solo.
The plan worked. The Hunter cleared out the space without taking a point of damage, and the way was clear to the final target. Even with the way clear though, there was no time to get back to town afterwards. Regardless, the Horde pressed on.
Meanwhile, the Alliance team slew the drake, and started to head back to town. The quest gave us a nice pair of swords, but unfortunately they all required level four characters to equip. They would sell for quite a bit though, and that would net us a nice pool of gold for our final training and equipment purchases.
On their final turn, Round 29, the Horde launched their attack on their final quest. With every point of damage they took, the Alliance team got a little happier. This was it, their next round was the final battle. But something happened at the end of the battle that we, the Alliance, hadn't counted on - the reward for the quest pushed all three Horde characters up to level four. Although they wouldn't be able to train any new skills, they were all healed to full, and all chose their third talents.
The Final Battle: PvP
The situation was looking pretty grim for the Alliance. That last level pushed the balance towards the Horde, and they were fully healed for battle. But there was no stopping now. As planned, Round 30 was used for a final rest - we healed up to full, upgraded whatever equipment we could, and picked up a couple of scrolls with the extra gold from that last battle. Then... to war!
PvP battles play out very similarly to the PvE battles, with one major difference. Instead of taking away a fixed amount of damage from the Melee/Defense area, you use the defense markers to remove one point of damage each. Once the defensive rolls have been applied, all the markers move into the damage box, and you get the totals for each side. Whichever side has the highest total damages the other side for the difference. Here's how it played out:
- Round 1
Even though he burned his level three strength scroll, and had his defensive dice maxxed out with the assistance of a shield from the Priest, the Warrior just didn't perform well. The Druid, on the other hand, discovered that his new Hurricane talent guaranteed six attrition damage markers a round. Everyone on both sides went all out, and when the dust settled the Alliance distributed nine points of damage between them, though the Priest managed to recover six. - Round 2
Making up for last round, the Warrior hit on all seven defensive die, and a whole bunch of reds as well. Then the Rogue completely flips out, ninja-style, and hits with just about everything he's got. On the other side, both the Druid and Shaman rolled under par, and the Horde took a total of 10 damage. Of course, two of that was thrown onto the Hunter's pet bear, and the Shaman healed himself for five. - Round 3
This time around it was the Rogue who just didn't get the hits, while the Hunter cleaned house. The Shaman burned the last of his mana, but definitely got value from it. The Alliance took another eleven damage between them, and the Priest was out of heals. - Round 4
Things took a turn here, with another bad round for the Warrior, and another great round for the Hunter. Improved Hunter's Mark and Aimed Shot were really paying off, guaranteeing that two shots would hit every round and making four very likely. Another ten damage for the Alliance, and the Warrior went down.
At this point, the outcome was obvious. The Alliance was down to two, while the Horde were virtually unscathed - another round or two and it would be over. At 4:00am, we decided to call it a night, declaring the Horde victorious. This time.
