Dragonbond Lords of Vaala Review

boardgamequest.com:

We review Dragonbond: Lords of Vaala, published by Draco Studios. Dragonbond: Lords of Vaala is a dudes on a map game with a bit of action programming sprinkled in.

In the world of Dragonbond, dragons rule. Or is it the armies? We must hash this out in an epic battle for the ages. Could a dragon and an army general ever find peace amidst their differences and rule together? What a twist!

Dragonbond is an area control/troops on a map game for 1-4 players. The main game mode plays 4 players, but NPC factions can join for lower player counts. A typical game takes about 90 minutes.

In Dragonbond, players are taking on the role of either a general or a dragon, competing to gain the most power points. Players will start the game with their player board, hand of action cards, and deck of Vaala cards. The gameplay is broken up into 3 phases. During the planning phase, players program action or region cards in turn order, building the action stack that was started with an event card. Once a player passes on playing a card, they take the first-player token (unless they already have it). At that point, one more event card is added to the stack.

During the resolution phase, cards are resolved in the order they were played, starting with the first event card and ending with the second event card. Event cards often add power tokens or neutral units to the board. They can also give players additional actions or even force a dragon bond if conditions are in place. Glyphs on the action cards played provide a variety of actions to players. These include moving, initiating combat, collecting power, drawing/playing Vaala cards, and deploying units (generals only). Region cards allow three actions in order, but only for the player who currently controls the region depicted on the card played. These actions include upgrading units (via the denizen card market), reinforcing with more units, and placing a city token on the board.

Finally, during the clean-up phase, action cards are