About Dragon Hoard: A Thrilling Journey for Gold and Glory!, from BoardGameGeek:
Embark on an epic adventure in the enchanted forest of Dracoheim - land of molten lava, icy blasts, and five fierce dragons guarding an ancient treasure hoard. You and your fellow adventurers begin the race in one team, but as you inch closer to the treasure, alliances break and only one adventurer will seize the fabled Dragon Hoard.
Goal:
The game rewards players for both, winning the race and maximizing resources. To win, players need to be first to complete the treasure trail and defeat the final dragon, while also acquiring 8 golden talismans.
Game-play:
Dragon Hoard is a twist on the classic race to the end mechanic, combining euro-style mechanics like resource management, collaboration and shifting alliances. The Game Board is a treasure trail with numbered tiles containing special markers for key game mechanics - ice and lava tiles, wildcards and dragons!
(1) Turn
Players take turns to (i) collect gemstones, (ii) use gemstones to move ahead and/or (iii) exchange into golden talismans, (iv) play wildcards and (v) mystic spirit cards
(2) Playing in a Team
All players act as part of the same team, but take turns independently. When players are in a team, they move together, share resources to move faster, and act consistently. They are also not allowed to play wildcards and mystic spirit cards against each other.
(3) Dragon Challenges
There are five dragons on the Board, which need to be battled before anyone can move forward. When the team moves to a dragon tile, one player stays behind and fights the dragon alone (i.e., the dragon challenger), while the team moves ahead. Winning rewards a challenger with faster movement. Losing a challenge, stalls movement and depletes golden talismans.
(4) Shifting Alliances
When a player stays behind to becomes a dragon challenger, they split from the team and play the rest of the game solo, including all future dragon challenges. This means that teams progressively get smaller as one player turns challenger at every dragon tile, until all players compete individually for the treasure! Solo players can betray and be betrayed by those in a team. This dynamic makes for several interesting twists in the second half of the game, when players sabotage each other through wildcards and mystic spirit cards.
(5) Good Balance of Strategy and Luck
The game rewards players for speed & resource management. This means that players must make a series of strategic trade-offs: Use gemstones to move ahead faster (and carry the team), or acquire more talismans for themselves? Use talismans to sabotage opponents? Optimize for speed and be the first to finish the trail or gather more resources? There's a healthy dose of luck thrown in as well, with wildcards, mystic spirit cards and the outcome of the dragon challenges being decided by a die roll.
-description from the publisher
