Once you have defeated one mini-boss, you set up the board again, but instead select a main boss to defeat. Your party’s goal is to work your way through the dungeon, completing encounters on each tile. Also, take the corresponding player board, which tracks your character’s stats, tells you your character’s special ability, and their starting equipment cards. The mini-boss you choose dictates the number encounter cards of each difficulty level you’ll come up against on each tile.įinally, all players choose a character and place the miniature on the Bonfire tile. Then, choose the mini-boss you want to fight. The Bonfire tile acts as your safe haven, or respawn point. To create the dungeon you’re going to be exploring, randomly place six square tiles in whatever formation you like around the Bonfire tile. So be careful, or it might not be only the game that you lose. There are lots of little fiddly pieces in here. But then I suppose that’s testament to this game’s focus on all-out-combat rather than unearthing new and interesting terrain. While the tiles themselves are arguably a bit boring. The cards all look pretty neat but don’t necessarily add a great deal to the theme. The rest of the kit doesn’t quite reach the same heady heights. While even the mini-bosses, such as the Titanite Demon, are imposing. In particular, the bulging Dragon Slayer Ornstein & Executioner Smough is a real treat to behold. The hero characters and enemies are all perfectly good but it’s the boss characters that really take the biscuit here. The level of care and detail is clearly evident, so if you like collecting decent miniatures this will be a great addition to the collection. One of Dark Soul’s stand out features is its miniatures. Inside Dark Souls’ rather intimidating box, you’ll find: Versions & Expansionsįortunately, Bryan has already written an in-depth overview of all the Dark Souls expansions you need to be aware of.

But, even then, it will still be a tall order.

Luckily, if you die, you get several attempts to try again. Much like the video game, it’s an extremely hard game to win. And, if successful, upgrade your character and their abilities. You’ll need to have your tactical hat on as you choose the weapons and maneuvers to make your dice-based attacks. It’s primarily a game of combat, rather than exploration. Your party of cursed undead must move from tile to tile, defeating monsters and completing encounters as you prepare for the final boss. Dark Souls is a co-operative dungeon-crawler for one-to-four players, based on the video game of the same name.

Board games like dark souls