There are two distinct dynamics in play - collecting and playing. If the only game you can play is one you collect, then yeah, a game with a 4-per-case kind of card is going to be "tough to get" and you need to make your decision about playing that game accordingly. But, since WK DID market it as a collectible game, and anyone experienced with WK collectible product would not really be surprised by the collectible aspect of it, then I'm not sure what the issue is here. Disappointment in the rarity scheme? Wishes for it to be different? Sure, I get all that. But it's WK. They've been doing rarity like this since, geez, since Supernova - that's like 8 years ago. Every collectible game they've made has had its challenges in being collected.

My point is that if one has the capability to play a game without having a complete collection, then Dice Masters is perfectly set up to accommodate you. Both my son and girlfriend have a full "set" although many of their cards are printed on paper. Would they like to have the actual cards? Yeah, sure. But it takes NOTHING away from being able to enjoy the game.

Well, Dicemasters is freaking fun, and not that expensive to Collect.

I stopped getting more Quarriors after Quarmagedon. This is a game I primarily played with my kids, so that gave us plenty of options.

My son and I have both fallen in love with Dice Masters though. I do agree with you in your other point in that there is a distinct difference between "collect" and "play" for Dice Masters. I don't feel the need to "catch them all," so the rarity doesn't really bother me (Heroclix broke me of that a while ago). I just love that I can play Dice Masters with my 8 year old. I don't need everything to enjoy Dice Masters as a casual game.

Couldn't agree more.

I don't necesssarily disagree with most of the dicemasters complaints, but I do disagree with them being in the Quarriors thread.

There's plenty of other places to argue about Dicemasters, so can we keep the Quarriors thread about Quarriors?
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I'm curious to hear from people that have played with the new set--do you like the new rules for drawing dice and basic dice better or worse than the original, and why?

I haven't decided yet.

On the one hand, it always sucked when you'd have several cool creatures in your dice bag, but you'd draw nothing but Quiddity. So this does help with that.

On the other hand, you could always cull the dice you didn't want.

I do like the new dice, though, as it is now possible to roll up to 3 Quidditty on 1 basic die. This means even with only 2 basic dice, you can potentially get 6 Quiddity, plus whatever else you drew out of your bag. That can be a huge help early in the game.

I haven't had a chance to play the new expansion yet but I have a concern reading this thread and others. Has resource management been removed from the game? Often if you had a bad draw it was because you were making poor decisions in how you spent your Quidditty and decisions to cull. For those that have played the expansion, does it feel that rolling good early has replaced smart recruitment decisions?

Recruitment still very much matters.

However, since you are guaranteed to get *some* Quiddity every turn (from the 2 basic dice you always roll) and *some* whatever else, it isn't nearly so hard to get creatures out onto the map. Everything that goes into your bag is either some kind of creature (even if just an assistant) or spell. Sure, those dice could still turn up Quiddity when you roll them, so it is still possible to have turns where you can't field any creatures, but that is much less common now than it used to be.

Instead, it is more about what kind of creatures you want to recruit. Do you go for the cheaper, lower cost varieties and try to field a swarm? That can be a very useful strategy if you are playing the optional rules that let you capture two dice each turn. But if you do that, you'll often spend most of your Quiddity (maybe even all) just fielding the creatures when they roll up and you won't have anything left for capture the big guys and/or use the anchored spells. Or do you instead go for a couple big creatures? Those can withstand some damage and score some nice glory, but could be vulnerable to certain special abilities or anchored spells... also, your opponent(s) might be scoring smaller creatures, but more often.


The dice management still does matter, but for slightly different reasons. Plus, culling is still a thing and can let you get rid of stuff you decide you don't want.

First off thanks to the OP for telling us about this. Would not have found this out for a WHILE without you.

Played two different games today. One with two players and another with three players. And honestly me and my two friends agreed that the rules changes were by in large for the worse.

First off the board size has shrunk dramatically. What used to be three spells and eight creatures is not two spells and six creatures. One of my friends argued that this was the design team (or maybe an order from wizkids) to change the rules around due to them wanting to manufacture less product. And while I can't completely say I believe that it's hard to refuse the idea.

Secondly is the fact that you draw less dice all around. This is to compensate for the fact that you get basic quddity all the time but again it feels like you're given less options and pushes the game more towards being simply luck based where sets like quartifacts were staring to push the game away from that and add a lot of strategic elements to the game.

Third is the fact that culling is no longer a thing. There are creatures and spells that grant that sure (at situational times with often specific types of dice that can be culled) but you can no longer do it when you score. This is to compensate for the fact you get less dice but again I hate the strategic element it nixes out.


Thankfully there IS a simple solution for this... Just don't play with the new rules. Even if you're using the old basic quddity die you can still use the light and dark effects and discounts on the cards seeing as the creatures and spells that use them still give out the light and dark quddity they need. I just hope wizkids not only gives these new rules the revamp or tossing they deserve but also reprints the old rules or tells people on their product where they can find them.

TL;DR version
new rules are not fun but everything still works really really well with the old rules.

Thanks for the impressions. I still need to try it out myself still but from all accounts this changes the game significantly enough that I might just ignore the new rules. Maybe play experiment with a hybrid between the two or add house rules like the 'money pot' in Monopoly.

Did you swap out the old Assistants for the new ones using the old rules?

WK changing core mechanics in one of their games? This is new.

Thank you for your useful contribution to the thread, as always.

Thanks for the input, but I'm not following you on one point--how does the change to the dice draw make it more luck-based? I would think that having the same 2 dice to roll every turn would be more consistent and less luck-based than having 0-6 basic quiddity to roll every turn.

You're welcome.

Got my copy yesterday, and I agree with Valtz (in fact I played my first two games using Light Vs. Dark with him) that the new rules are horrible. Possibly the worst board game experience I've ever had. They took all of the bad parts of Dice Masters (of which I think there are quite a few, I do not like Dice Masters) and made them even worse, while taking none of the good parts of that game.

I have my conspiracy theories about why these changes were made, but the end result is basically that they aren't necessary at all. I played three games yesterday using the new cards and dice with the old rules and things went very smoothly. Much more smoothly, in fact, than with the new rules.

Drawing only three dice a turn adds more luck on two levels. First, it increases your chances of drawing three dice that you can't use at the current point in the game. Especially with culling being removed, drawing only three dice in an important late-game turn means your odds of drawing three assistants are much higher than they would be with six dice.

Second, having only three dice means that the face you roll on each die is much more important. With six dice you can potentially (and often will, later in a game) have at least 4-5 chances to roll a useful creature or spell (assuming you draw 1-2 starting dice after culling and 4-5 better purchased dice). With the new rules you'll often have just 2-3 chances, and if you roll all quiddity you're boned. It causes abrupt game ends in the same way that Dice Masters does.

To summarize/clarify the fundamental principle that I'm not sure I explained well, three dice is just not enough to dilute the luck factor because each die matters a lot more, which makes each unlucky draw or roll much bigger impact.