Red Dragon Inn Allies game review

Yet another Red Dragon Inn post from me. This time it’s on all of the single character expansions called Allies. I find these expansions fun and interesting. They are great if you only need one or two more characters for your game group to play. Since the characters fit with the base game rules there’s no need to go over those again so I will jump right into the characters.

First off is my wife’s favourite: Pooky. For those familiar with Red Dragon Inn the resident wizard Zot has a familiar named Pooky. He’s a bunny with some insanity issues and now you can play him too. Pooky has an extra mechanic where his mood slowly descends into psychotic where he becomes very damaging to other players’ fortitude. He plays a lot like Kaylin from Red Dragon in 3 but Pooky’s mood fluctuates much more rapidly. Pooky is definitely a character for your table’s wild card player.

My favourite ally is Cormac the Mighty. A barbarian of great power and drunkenness and by Crom he reminds me of someone… He has a mechanic where certain cards have a rage icon. Once used these rage icon cards go into the rage pile instead of the discard pile. Cormac slowly builds his rage until the next rage marker turns. Each increase in rage increases the fortitude damage he deals. However it does increase the rate at which he gets drunk as well. His rage is a double edged sword, one he will use to crush his enemies, see them driven before him and hear the lamentation of their women!

Erin the Everchanging is an interesting ally. She is the resident shapeshifter. Depending on your stance in the game you can be an aggressively damaging bear, a gold loving raven, a sober tree or an elf. Knowing when to change and why is very important for her. Erin is a great character for the cunning strategist player.

The Witchdoctor Natyli is the last of the Allies out at this point. A witchdoctor with a bag of curses who just so happens to be Brewmaster Phrenk’s niece. A nice touch for those who really get into the role play Her cards are really funny for the subtle voodoo doll art. Her hexes are needles in the side: her mind hex ups the alcohol content of your next drink, her pain curse increases the damage of the next incoming attack and her most sinister mind hex decreases your next card value by one. The mind hex often completely nullifies some much needed cards. Natyli is great when you are working with her against another character. When she teams up against you she can be a real… witch… doctor.

Each of these characters does have a downside. Natyli is pretty underpowered, Cormac can get drunk under the table if he doesn’t build his rage fast enough, Pooky always seems to be a big target and Erin is a very basic wooden character (pun intended.) All of the characters require other players to constantly watch how they are played. Often players can forget to change a mood or form leaving themselves in a powerful position. Missing these required changes can really unbalance a game. New players will definitely be confused by these characters extra mechanics. The components of the boxes (namely the gold and player boards) are very different from the base game. Aesthetically this makes for an ugly mash-up but you can always use the components from RDI 1, 2, or 3 so it’s more of a nitpicky issue.

To sum up each of the characters has their pros and cons but for a collector of Red Dragon Inn or for a player who really likes the style of an ally these are great buys. Of course you do get more characters for your dollar with the other boxes of Red Dragon Inn. The Allies do not include drink decks so you will need to get the base game but being able to choose characters on player preference is a definite plus, I hope to see more allies in the future. As always I love Red Dragon Inn so I don’t think you can go wrong with this game or choosing your favourite Allies to play with.