Quarriors

Players: 2 to 4

Game Length: 30 minutes

Complexity: 

Best enjoyed: With 2-4 players who want a light and fast-paced deckbuilder-style game

Quarriors is a ‘dice-building’ game that owes much of its design to the game Dominion.  In both games, you start with small, less-powerful options and will acquire new options to add to your collection over the course of the game.  The key difference between the two is that while Dominion uses cards, Quarriors makes use of dice.

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Much like in Dominion, there will be a central market of dice with a limited supply that is determined randomly each game, but many of these dice will represent creatures that may be summoned.  The goal of Quarriors is to summon these creatures and keep them alive for each other player’s turn.  If they are still alive at the start of your turn, they are scored, granting you Glory points.  The first player to a set number of Glory points wins the game!

Players will need to weigh up which dice to purchase – should they purchase cheap creatures to score quickly, creatures with high attack to prevent others scoring, or focus on expensive creatures?  Will they augment their collection of dice with powerful spells that can alter the tide of battle?  You’ll need to evaluate what options are available in the central market and what other players have already bought to determine the best course of action!

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Quarriors, as a dice based game, is highly dependent on luck.  Poor rolls can prevent a player from being able to summon a single creature despite rolling a handful of creature dice each turn.  A single lucky roll at the start of the game can allow a player the chance to purchase an extremely powerful creature that allows them to dominate the rest of the game.  If you don’t mind these turns of fortune, then Quarriors makes a good light deckbuilder-style game that flows quite quickly.

After your first game or two, it’s highly recommended to play with the advanced rules.  These allow a player to buy two dice in a turn instead of one, and force players to return a die to the supply that they have used to score Glory points.  Without this rule, players tend to simply purchase the most expensive dice available, and the first player to purchase the most expensive creature on offer (such as the powerful Quake Dragon) will have a great advantage over the others.

Quarriors makes a good light deckbuilder for those who don’t want to have to worry too much about deep strategy.  There is a lot to enjoy in the deckbuilding model, such as seeing your collection of dice grow into a unique and powerful engine of destruction over the course of the game, and the random market that changes the dominant strategy from game to game.  If you’ve been turned off by other deckbuilders in the past or want to try one with a different spin on it, then Quarriors is well worth a roll of the dice.

Links:

Quarriors on Board Game Geek

Buy:

Amazon (US)