Dice Clash
- Board's Eye View
- 12 minutes ago
- 2 min read
Designed by Galen McCown, Jonathan Carnehl and Ryan Sromek, Dice Clash is a tactical two-player to-and-fro battler, tho' it's playable too as a solitaire game. It comes in a small tin box and is published by Galen's Games as part of their series of 'mint tin' games.
Players each take one of the six warrior cards showing their warrior's special ability, along with a two-sided card where each side shows a 3 x 3 grid. Players each take nine regular six-sided dice: six black dice, two white dice and one red die. They roll the dice behind a screen so their opponent cannot see the numbers generated and, in turn, players place dice out on their grid: the number placed serves as both the attack and defence value but the position in your grid where you place the die may modify the number on the die or its attack and/or defence value. Oh, and a 1 is deemed to successfully parry an attack die of 6.
Play continues, to and fro, until a player is unable to successfully defend against an attack die. Win and you force your opponent to flip their grid board to play the next round on the reverse 'adrenaline' side; the winner ultimately is the player who defeats their opponent on their adrenaline-side board.
On first sight you might think this is a simple game where you're entirely at the mercy of the 'good' or 'bad' dice rolled. To some extent that may be so, but when you use the white and red dice you have a chance of ameliorating the luck factor. When you use your red die, it gives you the option of triggering your warrior card's special power/effect. Whenever you place a white die, you must re-roll all the remaining dice in your pool; in effect, this offers a 'Hail Mary' gamble that you can improve on the 'poor' dice you have remaining.
There's more then than meets the eye in this small-box filler-length duelling game. And with games playing in 15 minutes or less, you can enjoy exploring each of the various warrior powers pitted against each other: a total of 15 different pairings in total.
