Flame & Forge Kickstarter Review & How to Play

About Flame & Forge, from BoardGameGeek:

Flame & Forge is a new and completely standalone game from 1 to 4 players. It's a Worker placement, deck-building, push-your-luck full of interesting choices and really fun meeples! This time we will be dwarfs marching into a city on flames to raid resources, forge powerful weapons and challenge monsters - and maybe convince them to join your side of the fight! Will you save the city… or rule it? in Flame & Forge you choose your path before the game begins - cooperate or compete, the forge is ready for both. So you may join forces to take down the mighty red dragon before your city goes up in flames, or if your friends are feeling bold (and maybe a bit greedy), storm the castle to see who will slay the beast and rise as the next Dwarf King. - In your turn pick one of your dwarf meeples from your campfire and place them on the outskirt city tiles in the first spot to the left of the chosen tile and take ALL visible actions in this tile AND take damage to remove fire tokens, if another player places their dwarf in the same tile they may perform less actions than you. In your next turn, your options will be reduced: the next tile must be up by one line closer to the dragon's castle and adjacent to the tile your previously placed your dwarf. Once all of your dwarfs are out you retrieve them all and start from the bottom again. Possible actions a tile can have (usually around 2-3 actions): Get a Gem Spend Gems to forge a weapon card Spend Gems to advance in the knowledge track Perform a ranged attack Fight a monsters on the same tile Grant a success hit on a attack Retire a card from your deck Heal 1 damage In the knowledge track you can also upgrade your dwarf workers to special meeples that give you actions, and also give special abilities to be used when they all return to you after they are all out. A big element of the game is the battling system that allow for you to hit cards (in a push your luck) where the damage you deal and the damage you take comes from your own deck. Weapons you forge and monsters you defeat also go to your deck along with cards that will allow for the most varied actions (as long as you survive the fight) so many times you need to decide to either flee and perform the actions or risk it all to try and defeat the monster. There are some arcade - boss battler - elements and the dragon fights back putting fire to the city and if any tile has 3 fire it will be destroyed and players will lose the game if 7 city tiles are destroyed. The game ends when the dragon is defeated by one of the players. If you are playing coop then you will all win together, if before the beginning of the game you decided for the competitive game then you will count points to decide the new king. -description from the publisher