Hasbromance

Last August I made a trade for Conquest of Nerath, the D&D-themed conquest game from Wizards of the Coast. For months it sat on my game shelf, mostly serving as a toy for my three-year-old son. It was hard to deny its appeal in that regard, but it wasn’t until just this last week that I was able to scare up the four people that so many have recommended. True to my expectations, I had a great time. I have a history of not caring much for dudes-on-a-map games, mostly because I’m kind of an impatient gamer. Conquest of Nerath didn’t disappoint in that regard; we were attacking each other immediately, swapping territories until one team hit the victory point threshhold that ended the game. There wasn’t a single mechanic I hadn’t seen elsewhere. I have played lots of games where you roll dice to conquer territory, and I’ve seen plenty of conquest games where you get victory points for your trouble. It was one of those situations where it wasn’t so much what the game did, but how well it did it. It was like watching a brilliant pianist performing a song that someone else wrote. The fact that it’s not original doesn’t diminish the performance.