Fury of Dracula has been on my mind for some time now. With my income tax coming up and some reading up on the game, I have found out it has much more promise than I had imagined. Probably the biggest reason I am considering is nothing has to be written down: the cards lead the trail, unlike many of the other deduction games created by other companies (don't ask, just very particular about maintaining the quality of a game, even if it comes down to a notepad).

However, I have a few concerns.

1) Apparently this was revised or re-released in 2010. What does the latest version have, and is amazon selling only the latest or both 2006 and 2010 versions? How do I tell the difference if they are selling both side-by-side?

2) I have heard many critics say that Dracula is very weak in this game. The Gamers' Table even states they had yet to win with Dracula at the time they had posted. Scott's Stuff has said the game is the "Fury of Buffy" in reality. Are these criticisms unfair and there is a secret way to play Dracula extremely well, or is Dracula too easy to kill off?

If he is easy, I believe my gaming group would like a tougher version. We play Mansions of Madness, Death Angel, and Dungeon Quest, and we very much like the feeling of brutal slaughter by the bad stuff in the glimmering hope that sometimes we do pull off a win.

Is it possible Dracula can have a variant that gives him a slight edge? I know some criticisms of variants have said if you make Dracula too strong, he won't want to run away and instead just kill off his pursuers, so does anyone know how to give Dracula more challenge against the hunters?

New version (except for getting more game copys to the shops) have cards that have been misprinted corrected and added to the game. That's all from what I know.

And what about Dracula being too easy. In my game group it is about 90% wins to Dracula. FoD is not a game about endless combat, brutal fights and all that stuff. It is about HUNTING, following the Dracula who is ESCAPING. Open confrontation (in most cases) is not the way the Dracula wins. He need to be clever, clever in falsing the leads, choosing his paths around the europe, and clever in placing the event encounters. If he menages to do that, the Hunters have only small chances to succeed.

Hi Tromdial,

nice to see you even in the FoD forum :-) The 2010 edition is a reprint, no new rules should have been added, the only things that were changed were those mentioned by Jervon

Dracula is very weak indeed when enters combat with the Hunters and when the Hunters are good (I mean, they've learned some lesson in tactics, like dividing Europe in three zones via Holy Host to better corner the vampire and they have quite a considerable number of stakes and they've learned how to use properly the Event deck). At the moment (playing this game since 2008), I've lost only once when I was playing the Hunters.

But. The first part of the game, hunting Dracula throughout Europe, trying to understand his movements, moving in the proper way to force him in a corner, using properly allies and other stuff is *SUPERB*. And played as Dracula, the game is even greater, because it's all about strategy.

The main point is that, in order to win the game, Dracula need to survive for six days (unless he's able to score some extra points by activating vampires or defeating one of the Hunters, but these are rare occasions, let's say you're good if you're able to do one of these during the game), and usually he's dead by day 3. There are some ideas on how to make the game easier for Dracula on the rulebook: it is suggested to shorten the vampire track, so he needs only 4 points to win a game, which is a good rule if both Dracula and the Hunters are expert players. But there are others (non official) rules to compensate.

In my opinion, the game is absolutely worth trying / playing. It has something special, and it's very detailed. The only two defects are the combat system, tending to kill Dracula very soon (I've changed it, simply assuming that a kill result will reduce Dracula to the next multiple of 3 on his track, instead of a multiple of 5) and the rules needing a better FAQ for some nasty card combos (most of those are discussed at BGG, so you can find tons of good advices on how to handle difficulties over there)

Hope this helps!

JULIA

Thanks, Julia and Jervon. Yeah, my one friend has Arkham and he said he'd sell that to me in the future quite possibly, so I went with Android instead. Sorrily, that game was a huge miss with my playing group, even after planning carefully for its implementation. So now I'm looking at a clue-chasing mystery game, because I noticed Dungeon Quest and Mansions both have those sort of themes as my favorite games as well others in my group, one being the mystery of the deadly labyrinth being built and the other being the drudgery of collecting clues as you duck a stalking Hound of Tindalos.

That's very interesting that Dracula wins 90% of the time, Jervon. All the reviewers on youtube comment on how weak Dracula is. What exactly does it take to make Dracula that much more powerful in your group? Does one player always play Dracula or does your group know a pro-tip on how to out-maneuver the hunters?

Also, would a permanent +1 dice modifier during his night cycle be challenge enough, or would that be too empowering? I will keep in mind the multiples of blood loss. I probably will be getting this game but I want to be sure it doesn't end up like Android did. Can't afford that, and Fortress America, Infiltration, and any new expansions for my current games are not coming out fast enough.

Yea it is always one person being Dracula. Most of the games with the Dracula never been caught - sometimes even not being reaveled to hunters. When Hunters start fighting with him it gets hard an mostly Dracula loses.

I dont like the idea do boost Dracula in combat. Like I already said this game is about hunting Dracula not about Hunters chasing they predator (or sire if we consider they like to be vampirised ).

And for Julia - yes the Hunters divides europe in zones.

Blah wrong button - reply instead of edit - sorry.

Tromdial said:

Dracula is weak in combat if the hunters are prepared, or if it's daytime. He's only strong at night against unprepared hunters. This is as it should be, however, as has already been said, Dracula is the prey in this game, not the predator. The goal for the Dracula player is to evade the hunters long enough to claim victory. I suspect the reviewers on YouTube were either trying to get confrontational with Dracula (a great way to let the hunters know where you are, btw) or they were getting tangled up in the trail movement as first time players, leading to easy wins for the hunters.

- The way Dracula moves (and particularly the fact that he cannot cross his trail) takes some getting used to. First time players will probably get Dracula stuck somewhere he can't get out of legally, or there's only one legal path, so the hunters can follow him easily (Great Britain is especially bad for this.) Experienced Dracula players will know the right cities to move through so that you can slip through their fingers when you need to.

(The last time we played, one of the hunter players was eerily good at guessing where I was. Fortunately for me, that player was a bit of a "know-it-all jerk" type and the others were disinclined to listen to him for most of the game. Thus, I laughed.)

- Newbie hunters will likely be timid about drawing cards due to the unknown possibility of giving Dracula cards in the process. This is a great advantage for the Dracula player (ie: that they're scared to draw cards) and once they get over it, they will perform much better. In actual fact, the deck is 2:1 in their favour.

If you're looking for a way to give Dracula a leg up, the best way I can think of is to remove some of the hunter cards from the deck. Make it half and half Hunter and Dracula cards, instead of two thirds and one third. If memory serves, the old GW edition was 50/50, and Dracula was definitely more fearsome in that game (though just as easily squashed by a well-equipped hunter party.) The fact that he could also move freely across his own trail was an advantage, though.

Steve-O said:

Steve, as usual your memory of games of the past is impressive :-) I didn't know this, and yeah, trimming the Hunter's deck to 50 / 50 seemed a good way of balancing the deck. In fact, the game is off balance even because of Encoutners (too few encounters allowing Dracula to move, too many forcing him to reveal cards or his position)

All of you are right while saying this game is about a hunt; my point was that being 6 days of "run" required for Dracula to win, it's a very hard to complete task, especially if the Hunters are *good*. I mean, if you move the Hunters in the proper way, Dracula will *always* be cornered. The point is that they should converge on him from different directions, and it's very difficult to find cities with more than three ways of moving away. Not to mention that Hunters shouldn't go all where the Vampire is: the better equipped should do so, while the others should move to cut him all the chances to flee. So, in my experience, if Dracula hasn't won the game by the dawn of day 3 (4 in some very rare cases), there is no chance left for him

Thanks for the advice. When I see what I am looking at in budget this week, this is next game I get for sure. My friend is undying to play. Wiz-War is incredible though, fyi.

Hi:

I can only speak from my experience, however, of all the times I've played Drac (round 10 or so), Drac has only lost twice.

Drac is great at defeating weak solitary opponents at night, like Steve-O just typed, an item-less Mina is prime prey. If he can get anyone else Bitten, so much the better. When groups come after him, run!

The best strategy (for me at least) is just to let Vampires mature at all costs. I always begin my game using the Dark Call power, looking for new Vampire encounters to put in play & placing them right away & as far away from the Hunters as possible. Each gives you 2 points when matured!

HtH

L