WizKids have recently released an exciting new miniatures skirmish game set in the Dungeons & Dragons Universe, and Sue and Kris sat down to give it a try and share their early thoughts!
Dungeons & Dragons: Onslaught is a Player vs Player vs Environment, dungeon crawl that is grounded in the Forgotten Realms setting.
Each player controls an Adventuring Party of 5 characters as they complete a number of scenarios, fight rival parties, and take on whatever dungeon monsters happen to be lurking, all the while, they must search for treasure, avoid traps and hopefully make it back to the Tavern in one piece!
The game comes with everything you need to start playing right out of the box, including:
- A beautiful, double sided board.
- 2 Factions with 6 pre-painted miniatures each.
- Character cards for each character which include stat dials to keep track of HP, XP, etc.
- Popular, pre-painted D&D monsters including kobolds, gnolls, a troll, an Ettin, and, of course, a Dragon.
- A rule book.
- A scenario book.
The Character Card has all the character information and the combat dials keep track of HP, XP, etc.
The Starter Box factions will be a familiar sight to people who have played the Dungeons & Dragons 5e Beginner Adventure, The Lost Mine of Phandelver, with both the Harpers and Zhentarim featuring heavily in that, so they are an ideal choice for introducing us to Onslaught.
Each Faction comes with six characters, of which the player chooses 5 characters to make up an Adventuring Party for a typical scenario.
While the characters who come with the game are colorful and interesting, there are even more options available. For starters, there are currently two other faction packs available, the Many-Arrows, and the Red Wizards.
Additionally, for even more versatility and customization, https://www.dndonslaught.com/ has a list of alternate D&D miniatures that can be used to substitute each character. They include both pre-painted and unpainted options, and it looks like as long as the class is the same, any race can be used, which gives players quite a few options for each character. It’s nice that players have the option to play the team right out of the box, or customize to their taste.
Expansions have already announced, but these are the factions and miniatures currently available. As you can see, there is a fun mix of races and classes on each team and some thought has obviously been put into making some interesting characters to play.
The Harpers
The Zhentarim
The Many-Arrows
The Red Wizards
These are the monsters that come with the game. Another benefit of having so many pre-painted miniatures come with the game is that the heroes and monsters can also be used in any regular D&D campaign.
Our first attempt was to play the first scenario (It’s a great place to start!) and we both had some thoughts on our experience.
The first scenario only uses three characters per side as opposed to the “standard” five, and players are guided through the first round, taking over after that.
Kris:
I have been really looking forward to this game hitting the sleeves after getting to demo it at the GAMA Trade Show last year!
I am really excited to have a “low effort” miniatures game that I can pull out and play when I am stuck in a painting rut on some of my other projects. Similarly to how I like to throw X-Wing on to the table, but this definitely scratches a more traditionally gaming itch with its classic D&D setting.
It’s fast paced, simple to pick up and I love the PVE element, in our test game, I snuck in the kill shot to try to steal some bonus points away from Sue by making sure that my Fireball caught the Gnoll she was trying to finish off in the blast! That sort of fun backstabbing moment was really cool and felt like a very Zhentarim thing to do (Sorry Sue!)
Sue:
I really enjoyed this game and thought it was a lot of fun! I love skirmish games and I love D&D so I had high hopes for this game and it did not disappoint. I thought the game was well paced, and I liked the way we were guided through the first round of the first scenario. The way it guided players through the first round, really highlighted how everything worked and everything that could be done, including special abilities.
I like all the characters that have been created for this game, and I like that it is playable right out of the box, and I feel that this will appeal to a lot of players. The one thing that I thought was both good and bad though was that the character stat cards were already named. I feel like some players will want to make a team of entirely their own characters. My hope is that they will release blank stat cards in the future for players who would like this option. In the meantime, as a quick fix, I got some dry/ erase stickers and just covered up the names on the cards. The dry/ erase stickers I got also have the option to be affixed to walls, so the adhesive didn’t damage the cards, so I can use the cards as the regular characters or cover their names up and use the stat cards for any character I choose. Want Drizzt Do’Urden in your party? No problem!
Last year, I picked up the minis from the D&D cartoon (who are all grown up now), and was so excited to be able to use them in this game.
I thought this game was a win and can’t wait to play it again!
Keep an eye on https://www.sentrybox.com/events.html for upcoming D&D Onslaught events!
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