Description
Strategy board game of teamwork. The historical Dracula fights to survive as a massive Muslim army invades Europe! Badly outnumbered, Dracula can defend in castles and hide in the mountains. To win, he must know how to use secret mountain passes, ruthless impalements and launch vicious counter attacks. The Muslims must cooperate to win but cannot talk unless they are in the same area.
• Asymmetrical Sides
• Cooperative Team Play
• No Player Elimination
• Hardwood, Kriegsspiel style blocks
-“This is a game that casual gamers and wargamers can enjoy together.”
-“I hate strategy board games but I LOVE Dracula!”
-“Not being able to talk is excruciating and hysterical.”
Players: 2-7
Time: Fast. 1-2 hours.
Complexity: Light strategy game for casual players. Only 3 pages of core rules make it quick n easy to learn and teach new players.
Age: 12+ Choking Hazard
Paper maps are folded in a game box.
Canvas maps are rolled in tubes.
Real maps of the period were printed on canvas. This authentic, premium map is tough, durable and beautiful. Printed on 100 year, museum quality, archival canvas. It is water resistant, spill proof and lays flat and smooth. Truly a work of art.
Dice Tower Review
Andrew –
High Density Fun in a Tube!!!
The title “Forest of the Impaled” may sound a bit bleak, but it’s a fantastic bit of fun condensed into four quick-playing turns. In this historical boardgame, you will assault or defend late-mediaeval Transylvania and Wallachia in the role of one or more of Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror, Vlad III “the Impaler” Dracula, his brother “Radu the Fair,” or one of the Sultan’s generals.
Mechanically, the game is light, but don’t let that fool you; each side has a very sticky situation to deal with, and very different strengths and weaknesses.
As the Ottomans, you have an overwhelming numerical advantage, both a 2:1 advantage in numbers of potential troops, and also a 6:1 advantage in numbers of generals!!! … but you must capture 7 castles in Wallachia and Transylvania in 4 turns, all the while defending yourself from the historical Dracula, who is no slouch on the battlefield.
As Dracula, you are outnumbered heavily. But in addition to your much better leadership skill, you’re on home turf, you know the mountain passes, you can recruit locally, and you can live off the land, whereas the Ottomans must maintain supply lines if they want to eat. Oh yeah… you have one other advantage. You can turn Ottoman dead, your dead…or your living troops, for that matter, into “impalement markers” which cause Ottoman armies to pass morale checks which are very likely to split their armies into fragmented leaderless groups which you can mop up in detail….and you just need to keep one castle each in Transylvania and Wallachia for 4 turns to win.
This game plays very well with two, but absolutely shines with more. Most games that even attempt “fog of war” do so clumsily. Here it’s handled very naturally by forbidding allied generals to speak to each other (about the game) unless they occupy the same space on the board.
Surprisingly, it also plays well solitaire! There are no traditional “solitaire” rules…no “AI” to run the enemy troops, but it’s still a blast to sit down and run both sides in a sort of schizo-solitaire. It also plays to extremely close and nail-biting conclusions this way, which speaks volumes to the game’s play balance.
The game board is a beautiful roll-out fabric map of the area, and the pieces are wooden rectangles which will make your play area look like the maps in military history books, and the striking red and black pieces are a perfect complement to the theme.
bussiere (verified owner) –
That’s not the best wargame, but it’s may be the best first step wargame to initiate people. Party are around 45 minutes, the theme is fun, interesting mechanic and you can play whith casual friend, i’ve tested it with some non wargamer friend and they liked it. The non talk part also add fun to the party and can make it a “long” party game.
Very good casual wargame and an excellent initiation.