The Woodlands – a fantasy board game that includes battles, review and testing

The Woodlands is a cooperative game for one to four people. It comes from Geoffrey Wood and is published in German by Miraculous.

Everyone plays the role of a forest creature with special abilities who fights monsters and spirits in their forest. The objective is the final boss or alternatively, depending on the mission, a fixed objective. Each character has their own specific abilities, which can be unlocked through party choices as the game progresses. There is also equipment that can be purchased.

Together, the randomly drawn forest paths are expanded round by round. And in the middle, all the characters have their role. Everyone must roll four dice to determine their actions according to the table. The order of actions to be performed in this way is determined by the player individually.

Waldland – We are only strong together

The name is Nazir. Positive and negative. To fight, the attack die must reach the minimum value to deal damage. For every point of the opponent's life energy, another die must reach this minimum value. By default, the figure has one attack die, and may be expanded with a second die through action and/or equipment dice. Special abilities then grant, for example, a +1 bonus. If the opponent needs 2 life points and a minimum of 5 points, the player needs a similar amount of luck.

Bosses tend to have three to five life points and a minimum of 4 or 5. Cooperation is required here, especially since the opponents also have special abilities. Additionally, the final boss's time limit expires.

Forests are dangerous

Undefeated opponents immediately recover immediately afterwards. Hero cooperation is limited. This means that the supporting player cannot use special skills and equipment or can only use them to a limited extent and can support them with dice. Intelligent terrain design can dramatically defuse forests.

Roll the dice well to cheat fate

If you roll the dice poorly, you sometimes do nothing at all in the round. Example: My character stands next to the opponent and only the “walk” action is performed. Unfortunately, the special ability important to combat requires level 6. Combat can only be won with a lot of luck or not at all. Or I have to move a distance to fight the opponent, and use all the special abilities to fight, but I can't make a move. Frustrating and inexplicable in terms of content. Why would a fighter forget or not want to use his shield when he used it in the previous fight? Why can't my character do this tour?

• Suggestion for improvement 1: Use 1 – 6, of which a maximum of three dice are 4 – 6, and the rest should be 1 – 3. Question: How many battles can I fight in one round? Unfortunately this is not explained. Not even when fighting against groups of monsters.
• Improvement Suggestion 2: Use the action action (roll 1-3 dice) for every fight after the first. Question: Monster Collection: Should I fight the second monster if I lose the first battle? Will I take damage from both monsters when I retreat? Suggestion: Use house rules that promote fun.

Because he's cute

Teamfights can be grueling, especially with the final boss. The first player goes, has to fight, loses, takes damage, and waits for the next player's turn. The second player, who goes there, has to fight with limited help from the first player due to the rules, and often loses, takes damage,… Meanwhile, the final boss takes no damage. (Clythor can help.)

Until there are enough players in the final boss, who all then have to roll the dice well, time passes, characters bleed out and often lose the game. In the proposed campaign, there is no final boss in each section, so this has been taken into account here and characters can improve from round to round.

Conclusion: Persevere until stress sets in

You're not just traveling through forest lands casually. Skillful work and luck with the dice are required, otherwise your frustration levels will increase. Even the best preparations do not help in the face of bad luck.

This greatly weakened the “it will work better next time” factor. Anyone who can stomach this (or make minor modifications) is in for some exciting adventures, which come with optional rules and expansions. For an easier start, I would start the campaign, as the final boss is missing here.