Gale Force Nine Dune Board Game

The GameDune is unlike any other game I've ever played. Every player controls a unique factions with awesome, game-changing advantages and abilities that make each one unique to play and to play against. It is a game of secrets, surprises, alliances, betrayals, conquest and comebacks. Perhaps most intriguing of all, itIt seems daunting at first, there are a lot of rules to go over and almost all of them have an exception to remember. But while that can seem intimidating, the gameplay itself is actually quite easy to pick up, and all those exceptions are lore based and so are easy to remember when you get why they are there. Having started with a group of first timers that don't normally play overly complex board games, I can attest to the fact that it is actually quite accessible. Just take the time to go over the rules, maybe have a quick practice game for a turn or two, and everyone should be able to get it.The rules are broken up into basic and advanced rulesets. I personally recommend skipping to the advanced rules right away since they are where the best parts of the game are and you don't want to have to unlearn bad habits from the basic rules. That said, I think the general consensus is to ignore the "Advanced Combat" rules which just add a distinctly unfun spice tax to battles. The Advanced Combat rules are meant to be paired with the Increased Spice Flow rules, which add more money to the economy, and many groups keep those even after ignoring the spice tax because it adds a little more money and more opportunities for alliances, but it works either way.This VersionThis game is a re-release of a classic board game that, as I understand it, had been held up by rights issues for decades. People have been waiting for this game to hit the market again since the 80s, and often printed up their own versions, and there's been an active tournament scene. It is a game that has withstood the test of time and then some.The art, layout and build quality are excellent. The cutouts from the battle wheel also give you extra blank tokens, which are good for homebrewing or simply making additional trackers or tokens (I used mine to make tokens showing the benefits of controlling certain strongholds, which can be passed to the player controlling them). There's a lot of information that is displayed clearly and concisely, it looks beautiful doing it, and the materials are all built to last.I do have a few nitpicks in the design. First, the faction tokens which sit in front of each player are in the middle of a ring around the board where the storm tracker goes, forcing you to move it out of the way when they overlap. It's a harmless annoyance, but it was also a completely avoidable design flaw. Second, the orange and red factions are just a little too close in color, and in a dimly lit room, they can occasionally be confused at a glance. Third, there is a phase tracker on the board but the token that travels along it is not included for those that didn't pre-order, and even we didn't get a fancy 3d printed sandworm, a simple cardboard ring would have been nice. And I've seen several groups that highlighted the line marking the borders of Fremen staging grounds, which should have been a clear part of the map or at least given as a map in a reference guide for the Fremen player to be able to see (I made one from a small printout of the map).But as I said, these are nitpicks, the kind of thing I would like to see fixed in future releases but not any reason to hold back now.The PublisherWhen I got the game, I found several components were damaged (seemingly in manufacturing) and contacted the publisher. They responded quickly and sent replacement parts in the form of a mostly complete game which had almost certainly been a return, but which had all the items I needed essentially untouched. Except the board itself was more damaged than the one I had. After contacting them again, they rushed out a new copy of the game rather than risk another problem.Excellent customer service that focused on resolving the problem and which went above and beyond to make sure I was taken care of.The GameplayThe majority of the game revolves around bidding for treachery cards (equipment), landing and moving troops, and resolving battles.* The bidding phase has players take turns bidding or passing on face down cards, with the card going to whoever has the highest bid once all others have passed, an auction with the structure of betting in poker. Each turn will have a number of cards up for bid equal to the number of players that aren't at their hand limit, so just enough for everyone to get a single card in theory, but.* The movement phase lets players land a single stack of troops in any one territory on the board (except in a storm or a stronghold with 2 factions), limited only by the cost and the number of reserves they currently have. They may also move a single stack of troops on the board, allowing them to attack enemies, gather spice (money), or simply move to safety. You only get one landing and one movement per turn, so despite all the depth of strategy, turns are fairly quick and the choices are often agonizing.* The battle phase resolves those battles set up in the movement phase. Each battle happens on two levels, the troops and the leaders. Each player puts together a secret battle plan consisting of the number of troops they are willing to sacrifice, the leader they are sending in, and any treachery cards they want to play, mostly weapons and defenses. If a weapon is played and the other player does not play a corresponding defense (ranged or poison), the targeted leader is killed. When the plans are revealed, add the number of troops sacrificed to the bonus from the leaders if they survived, and the side with the higher number wins. The winner loses all the troops they sacrificed, the loser loses all their troops and any equipment they played, and both sides keep their own leader if they survived. And if the leader they played is the one whose card you secretly chose from 4 dealt to you at the beginning of the game to be your traitor, you can negate the entire battle, wiping out their side entirely while losing nothing.* You win the game by holding three strongholds by yourself at the end of a turn or four strongholds between yourself and an ally at the end of a turn.What makes those interesting are the unique factions.* The Atreides can look at the face down cards as they are being bid on, and have a reliable income selling information both before and after the bidding, and they can ask to know one part of their enemy's plan in every battle.*The Harkonen get double the treachery cards and four times the traitors, and after winning a fight they can kidnap an enemy leader or just kill one and sell its corpse.* The Fremen don't have to pay to bring in troops, can move faster in the desert, are resistant to the hazards of the dessert, and have special forces that count as double troops.* The Bene Gesserit can compel opponents to play or not play a specific card in a battle, get free charity every turn, can choose to be noncombatants to peacefully coexist with other factions whether they like it or not, and can turn worthless cards into miracle cards.* The Spacing Guild takes its movement phase whenever it chooses rather than in the turn order, pays half price for landing troops, and is the one everyone else pays when they land troops* The emperor has special forces, and is the one who collects all the money paid for cards in the bidding phase.There's more, but you should be able to see from the summary above that the interaction of these factions is fascinating and dynamic. Especially since they can ally with each other and share some of their advantages.And of course, the special victory conditions are great. The game has a 10 turn limit. If no one has achieved victory at the end of the 10th turn, and no other special victory conditions are achieved, the spacing guild (and ally if any) wins for having maintained the status quo. If at the end, the Fremen (or no one) have control of their ancestral strongholds and no great houses hold the smuggler's stronghold, the Fremen (and ally if any) wins for having kept the outsiders from taking control. And then there's the Bene Gesserit, who at the beginning of the game choose a faction and a turn number. If that faction wins on that turn, they have played into the manipulative hands of the Bene Gesserit, whose carefully prepared schemes come to fruition, granting the Bene Gesserit (but NOT their ally) the true victory (possibly my favorite rule in any game ever).TL:DRGet this game. Play this game. Love this game. It is an experience that you simply cannot pass up, and I cannot recommend it highly enough.

It's a classic for a reason. Completely assymetric gameplay with deep interactions, this is practically the antithesis of a "eurogame". It's cutthroat, yet not in the same way unfun games like monopoly are cutthroat. In monopoly, you can lose the game long before the game is actually over, which is boring. In Dune, the game isn't over until it's over, and comebacks are always possible with the right deal or moment to take advantage, even if things look pretty bad.But that's not the greatest thing about this game. Yes, the strategy is incredibly fun and deep, but more important is the simulation aspect of it. Dune, the board game, *really* simulates the story of Dune, the book/movie/series. Playing the Emperor, you FEEL like the Emperor, amassing great amounts of wealth. Playing the Fremen, you FEEL like the Fremen, defending your homeland on your own turf from invading colonizers. Playing the Bene Gesserit, you FEEL like the Bene Gesserit, manipulating the other factions from behind the scenes towards a goal only you know. It's incredible how a board game can really capture the feel of all these factions so perfectly, and each faction nearly feels like it's playing a completely different game from each other.This is assymetrical gaming at its finest.

Ok so I’ll start with the main reason I purchased this board game. I have been obsessed with the DUNE franchise recently and after seeing the movie 4 times in iMAX, I thought it would be a fun experience to play the game with my group of friends. We all really liked the movie and we love board games so we thought it would be a really cool new experience.Boy we’re we completely underestimating this game. This is an absolute masterpiece of board game that grabs you and throws you with brute force into the DUNE universe. For people who have read the book or seen the movie, but especially for those who are fans of the book, this will be an absolute nostalgia trip and a joy, with mechanics that refer to events in the book and make complete sense. For those who haven’t read the book or the movie, the mechanics are still interesting enough to encapsulate you in Frank Herbert’s world. Although extremely fun, every special ability of each possible way to play has its equal or opposite rule set to contradict it, which can make it harder for young players to understand sometimes why they just lost literally all of their troops during a battle, so I suggest playing without advanced play if you’re playing with anyone who isn’t older than 13. But for those of you who love board games, or are Dune enthusiasts like I am, this board game is a pure treat.There’s also an expansion pack that really adds to the game a lot that I would also recommend.Final score: 10/10Should you buy: 100% yes if your family is into the war type games