Dungeon Twister 2: It's all in the Cards

Fighting, Moving, Jumping into Action! Your characters have to make a lot of stuff happen during a game of Dungeon Twister. And there's no dice. So how does it all happen? The rules have been laid down since ancient times…if not dice then CARDS!

Let's look at the cards we have in our hand.

Each "action" represents moving one of your characters, or performing one of their special powers. For instance, the Colossus can bust through a gate for the bargain price of 1 action point. The Banshee's "most disgusting sound" ability costs an entire 2 action points, and by itself sets a precent that it is possible for an ability to cost more than 1 action point. You can use your actions however you like, distributing them to a bunch of different characters or using them all on one for an insane burst of activity.

And once you use an action card, you don't get it back until you have used them all. Everything averages out as the game progresses.

Now there comes the fighting. This isn't a cooperative effort, in fact you get a victory point for smushing an opposing player in the same manner as if one of your own figures had escaped. So conflict is going to happen from time to time.

So lets look at the combat cards.

Here's what we have in our other mitt. Don't get them mixed up!

Combat cards don't return to your hand, EVER! The only exception is the lowly zero card, which stays in your hand no matter how many times you get beat down. So you must pick your battles wisely and save the higher value cards until they are needed the most. Otherwise, the Collussus (base combat value of 5) can just walk around and clean up. If he can catch you.

This is also why the Telepath might actually be pretty good. A 6 value combat card thrown away in a relatively insignificant battle makes all the difference later on.

And let me spend a moment writing about the "Jump" cards. Each is also ONE use only, and safely transports one of your characters from 1 side of a pit to any other side for, again, the bargain price of 1 action point. Like most players, I occasionally mess up my strategy by running a character down a path that ends in a unexpected pit. And I never have the rope! These Jump cards are like silver coins in the early stages of the game and gold coins in the later. Hold them as long as possible!

TEAM EFFORT

My previous post talked a little bit about team effort. You have complete freedom to assign actions however you want. Unlike in most minis games, where all the figures have the same ability to do a set number of things each turn.

This makes it incredibly easy to accidentally focus on some of your characters. I've spent all my actions for a turn using the Naga to cruise around the board because he's so much more maneuverable than anyone else. That's maybe okay to quickly scout some things out. But I'm pretty sure the correct strategy is to try to distribute the action points as evenly as possible to keep your team moving. Because as speedy and dodgy as he is, the Naga is 1 VP and you've got a long 4 more VP to go without his help.

Controlling rooms seems to be a real good objective to strive for, keeping your band confined to 2 or 3 rooms they can move freely around in without worry of unexpected assaults.

And it makes it so much easier if one of your guys ends up in an unexpected prison cell situation. The rooms of this dungeon are filled with bad places for your characters to end up. But that is for another post!