The Dragon Prince: Battlecharged is a potent little skirmish board game

Breaking out the boardgame Battlecharged: The Dragon Prince Players may be surprised at the small size of the playing area for the first time. Netflix’s animated series The Dragon Prince is an epic fantasy that encompasses entire kingdoms and countries, so its 10-inch-square game maps can seem constricted at first glance — especially when you realize they aren’t used in conjunction with each other, and that an entire game is meant to be played on one board.

Once you are in the game, this compressed area is key. Battlecharged This is an tactical, skirmish-style minis game. Positioning and movement are key to many character mechanics. Those simple little setting boards, with their varied obstacles, help keep matches exciting — and once the characters start to face off, they don’t actually need room to maneuver, so much as they need luck, careful planning, and teamwork. You may feel a sense of comfort if you are familiar with turn-based tactical video games, such as Banner Saga.

From the beginning, players control their characters. Dragon Prince series — displaced crown princes Callum and Ezran, their warrior aunt Amaya and their elf ally Rayla, their arch-nemesis High Mage Viren and his two adult children, Claudia and Soren, and the Sunfire elf Janai. Each character is given a mini with detailed information and a character cards that detail their health, energy, movement and attack, along with their initial health.

Each player decides which characters they want to play. Then, the players place these characters on the game board and attack one another. A character who runs out of health is knocked out until the controlling player’s next turn, and the first player or team to accrue three tokens for knocking out opposing characters wins the game. It is very simple, and the game can be completed in about thirty minutes.

Minis and character cards for all eight playable characters in the Dragon Prince: Battlecharged board game

This is the first problem that comes with game set up. BattlechargedAlthough it is advertised to work for up to six players (or more), the game works well at just two. Players can either control two or four characters each, and everyone takes one character. Teams are formed by two of these players. The five- and six-player variants put six characters on the field, which can feel enjoyably fast-paced and chaotic, but also means games may whisk by before some players feel like they’ve gotten any chance to shine. A five-player version can be a bit more balanced, as two people face off against three others, while one person in each team controls an additional character. While some characters work better together than others, it is not possible for all characters to feel equally balanced.

The second complication comes from the characters’ play decks. Each character has a 16-card deck with special abilities they can perform for maneuvers, defenses and stronger attacks, or a chance to profit from events happening on the board, even things that don’t directly affect them. Some cards can only be used on a player’s turn, while others are reactions to other players. One of the game’s strengths is clear, simple design — terms like “react” and “technique” are universal across the otherwise highly variable cards, making it easy to pick up any character and immediately see which cards can be used at which phase of play. It is easy to play and learn, as there are very few symbols that you need to know in order to comprehend card powers.

BattlechargedTo introduce the game, the only thing that is offered to players is a brief flavor text. Dragon Prince newbies won’t learn anything significant about the political machinations, moral quandaries, and gradual character growth Avatar for The Last AirbenderAaron Ehasz, writer UnchartedJustin Richmond, the game director for this series, was integral to their seven-season plan. On the other end of the spectrum, enthusiastic fans of the show could be frustrated at the game’s complete lack of narrative, which offers no justification for these characters to ignore all their past alliances and affections, in favor of mindlessly whacking each other unconscious on the battlefield.

Detail on Dragon Prince: Battlecharged’s character Callum, with his mini and four of his power cards

But players who are at least partially familiar with the show will have an instant advantage in understanding how each character’s mechanics differ from the others, and what the basic strategies should be. They also may see some humor in how smoothly the tactical design emerges from the characters’ personalities. For instance, the brash young swordsman Soren has moves called Taunt and Show Off, which let him lure in attackers, or gain energy if he has more health than whoever he’s fighting. Soren is a mundane fighter with no arcane powers, so he has a low starting energy score compared to many of the game’s mages and elves, and his powers are mostly fairly small and cost little energy. However, Soren is an allies protector and recharges very quickly. He can gain energy every time he, or an ally, gets attacked.

His powerful father Viren is in sharp contrast to him, who uses his magical abilities to do terrible damage but has high energy costs. Appropriately for Viren’s parasitic magical style on the show, Viren also has difficulty charging quickly, because he has to consume his own health to gain energy. This gives each character an individual play style that is appropriate for their roles. Battlecharged A lot of it’s flavor.

The most exciting matches happen when characters’ styles conflict — for instance, Rayla is a quick, mobile elf who wants to attack with her knives, then get clear of combat, and she recharges energy if she ends a turn with no adjacent enemies. Janai, a heavy hitter, has some terrifying buffing moves. However, she likes to stay still and hit hard. She gains energy if it is not possible for her to move. Players controlling either elf will have to decide whether to sacrifice energy to gain a hit or take damage while powering up.

All the characters have similar trade-offs, which don’t run deep enough to make Battlecharged feel complicated, but do guarantee that players will always feel like they’re making meaningful choices that affect the game. For instance, the young, empathetic prince Ezran regains energy if he goes a round without attacking, and he has support moves like Encourage and Call For Peace, which let him contribute significantly even if he isn’t doing damage. On the other hand, he can bring persistent cards into play — his glow-toad pet Bait, his young dragon friend Zym, and the adult dragon Pyrrah — which can significantly boost his attacks, making it tempting to get his metaphorical hands dirty.

A typical setup for the Dragon Prince: Battlecharged game, with four characters on the game board, and their arrayed decks and character cards around them

Small character decks make it easy for players to get used to the game quickly. If this game succeeds enough that expansions are warranted, it would make more sense to add more cards and strategic options for each character. However, there are many combinations of characters and interactions that can be made, so it is important to have a variety of options. Even if you only choose one or two characters, this gives the game a great deal of flexibility. This is the rare board game not expressly designed for two players that doesn’t feel anemic for one-on-one play.

In fact, depending on players’ personal style, they may prefer the control of managing two characters in a smaller game to running one character on a team. In a six-person game, players have much more to coordinate with each other, and unless they leave the table to debate tactics (and slow the game down to a crawl), discussing their plans will let the opposing team know what they’re up to. A player can have two characters. This is because they will need to shuffle both their character cards into one draw pile. A team can have many characters, so one player has more choices and flexibility in tactical matters, as well as more chances to come up with a cohesive strategy.

Those small combat maps — six of them in total — have a surprising amount of variety too. Each one introduces a different barrier to movement or line of sight or both. This allows players to find safe spots and stay out of trouble long enough to recuperate. They’re appropriately varied by setting: Tactics that work in the forest, with only scattered boulders and trees in the way, won’t fly in an abandoned keep, where walls and stairways are more of an issue. Advanced rules that allow for line of sight and zone of control can be added to give players more options when trying to defend or block.

BattlechargedThis game is intended to be easy for anyone aged 10 or up. It has simple rules that are consistent across all characters so young players can have lots of fun. Younger players can team up with their older counterparts, while more advanced players may learn strategies from experienced players. But the game’s variability and wide range of character combinations make it a solid quickie option for more sophisticated players, too, whether or not they care about The Dragon PrinceIn its fourth season, you are either invested or involved in it.

Battlecharged isn’t a massive, groundbreaking experience that’s about to replace Warhammer 40,000: Kill Team in the world of tactical skirmish games, but it’s a respectable introduction to the genre. Given how fast it is, Battlecharged: The Dragon Prince plays, and how easily a group can add or drop players from game to game, it’s ideal for the start or end of a board-gaming day where people trickle in at random times. These little boards can open up an entire world with many possibilities.

Battlecharged: The Dragon Prince Available now: Friendly local game shopsBoth online and off-line. Brotherwise Games provided a final retail copy for review.