Humans ruin everything.

The land of Dragoon was a peaceful one. All the dragons had their own caves and they were all good friends, hanging out and doing whatever friendly dragons do. Campfires maybe. Then the humans showed up. They brought villages, cities, people, and – most importantly – gold. Beautiful gold. That ruined everything.

Calling Dragoon an abstract game may be accurate, but it doesn’t really paint the whole picture. After my first game I sat looking at the gorgeous cloth board and struggled to figure out how to describe it. Abstract was the furthest thing from my mind while I flicked through all the mechanics I could think of. It’s got cards, but it isn’t really a hand management game. There are dice, but it isn’t a roll and move. When I finally realized that the simple movement of pieces really put this game in the abstract category, I was a little disappointed because it doesn’t do it justice. This is the most evocative abstract I’ve ever played.

Forget the detached concepts of war or conflict that come with games like Go or Chess; Dragoon is a game about dragons and doing decidedly dragon things. Round by round villages and cities will pop up like weeds as the humans continue moving onto your island and industrializing it. All that gold they mine has drawn your attention and so your turn consists of trying to take as much of it as you can. Being a dragon, you have a few options at your disposal. Investment focused dragons may decide they want to force the humans to bend the knee. There’s a trade off you need to grapple with; cities and villages that send tribute will payout repeatedly though usually at a low rate.

How much gold you get, or even how many villages stay loyal, is determined each round through a simple yet potentially frustrating die roll. The roll of a single d6 does not often mesh well with abstracts though it works well enough for a game about the fickle whims of humans. All of your villages act according to a single die roll. It saves time, though it makes rolling a 6 when you have a large number of cities under your control very swingy. There’s no way to slice it, it doesn’t feel great to roll a 1 right after your opponent rolled a 6 and shot ahead 15 points on the track. To help prevent that, you might decide instead to just destroy everything in your path.

Dragons are (now) mean and vengeful, so don’t be surprised if your opponents don’t take kindly to you leaving a trail of destruction across the board or turning a corner into your personal gold farm. Destroying a village is trivially easy. Spend one of your limited actions and it’s gone. Wiped off the map in an instant without the need for the smoke to clear before depositing the gold in your cave. Aggressive destruction can slow the game down a bit, leading to a repetitive structure of “destroy, spawn cities, destroy again”. Luckily there is a way to break up the routine.

Not only can you attack your opponents, but you can enter their caves and swim Scrooge McDuck style through their hoard before forcing them to fly back to their cave to defend it. This is one of my favorite options, as it opens up the potential for board control. A dragon must return to their cave if an enemy ends their turn in it. It may be worth losing a few gold when they fight you to pull them across the board, away from whatever they were hoping to do.

The cards - and to a lesser extent the dice – are the double edged sword of this game. For a game grounded in simple tactical movements, the cards can be dramatically powerful. You ordinarily can only take 3 actions; each space of movement is an action as is destroying a village or city. There is a card that grants you two free spaces of movement and one that automatically destroys any settlement you step foot on, claiming the gold as normal. There is no limit to the number of cards you can chain together, so you can see how a player could build a combo that not only wipes their opponent’s territory off the map but also earns them a tremendous amount of points.

There will be games, especially early on, where it feels as if the roll of the dice or the cards determined everything. A couple lucky 6s and a strong combo can make the game feel out of reach. It’s a fair criticism, but their impact can be managed to an extent. Lay Waste is less powerful if you’ve been destroying every village rather than leaving them on the board claimed for your opponent to steamroll. Nothing hammers home the feeling of being a dragon like wiping out your own village in a fit of spiteful rage and fire. Dragoon may not have the branching depth of Go or Chess but honestly, it can be more exciting. The game may be shallower than the classics, but I don’t particularly mind it; Being a dragon is a lot of fun.

There’s also a Thief on the board who hordes gold and pushes the tempo faster towards the end of the game if you allow the board to fill up with cities. Defending villages by attacking your opponent’s dragon or cave can help bring about the end of the game before your opponent can build a power combo of cards. The ebb and flow of the tempo gives Dragoon a tension that simmers closer to the surface than in other abstracts I’ve played. Watching your opponent’s score marker march up the track can really light a fire under you.

While this really is a thematic and evocative abstract...it is still an abstract. It’s a short game about taking and retaking territory in the fast pursuit of gold. This isn’t a big sprawling fantasy adventure, but there’s definitely enough game here to build strategy and to adapt to different players and different player counts. Playing with 2 players is very different than playing with 4 as the board size doesn’t change. That island gets mighty cramped with 4 dragons flying around. Dragoon may not be a lifestyle abstract, but it does make for an excellent “themabstract”. I’d rather make roaring noises while having a beer with my friends than furrow my brow over a black and white grid any day.

___

Interested in audio coverage? Raf discussed Dragoon immediately after playing at GenCon on our GenCon Night 3 Coverage Episode

Raf Reviews - Dragoon

Rafael Cordero

Raf Reviews - Cthulhu Wars

Calvin's Corner - Putting the Cape in Caper: Age of Thieves

Calvin's Corner - Fog of War: the Twilight Struggle Killer

Episode 47 - Other People's Fun

Charlie's Take - Gloom of Kilforth

Episode 46 - Wasteland Express Delivery Service Review

Raf Reviews - Spoils of War

Raf Reviews - Oaxaca

Bonus Episode - Warhammer 40k Dark Imperium