Publisher: Dark Gate Games
Number of Players: 1-4 (5/6 with expansion)
Play time: 90mins+
Age Guide: 13+
Type: Co-operative Horror
Mechanisms: Dice Rolling; Action-Point Allowance; Area Movement; Modular Board; Player Elimination; Variable Player Powers
Want the short version? Skip to the Low-down…
Vampires used to be really horrible. You know, back in ye olde folklore days. They were little more than a bundle of tooth, claw and conditioned reflex. Or am I thinking of cats?
Whatever. My point is that vampires used to be feral, bestial horrors from the darkest places of the human subconscious, but by the year 2000 weren’t even particularly scary any more.
I guess at least they were still cool (The Lost Boys) or gloriously anarchic (Near Dark). But then they turned… shiny. The horror.
In recent years there’s been the odd welcome shift back towards those terrors of old (30 days of Night): bloodthirsty, amoral creatures from your worst nightmares, all fang and claw. Hang on, that’s cats again isn’t it…
The Order of Vampire Hunters (OVH) from Dark Gate Games, offers much the same, so prepare for a veritable zoo of bloodsuckers, and some kick-ass stake-wielders who could put Buffy & Co to shame.
Overview
Originally dubbed Vampire Hunters, OVH was the product of a successful Kickstarter campaign funded way back in October of 2016. The game was scheduled for delivery to backers June 2017 but was late. Very late.
In fact the game didn’t turn up on doorsteps until Feb/Mar 2018, but thanks to regular updates from Dark Gate Games, backers remained fairly patient and upbeat.
Personally I’d just forgotten I’d backed it.
OVH is cross between a traditional dungeon-crawl and a hack-em-up miniatures game akin to Zombicide, and it’s the latter that most folk will probably draw comparisons to. Myself included in this review.
Players will don the mantle of vampire slayers, engaging in Hunts (missions) to clear vampire dens of their residents and achieve certain objectives set by their Order.
Objectives might include the acquisition of Relics used to slay powerful Vampire Lords, the freeing of captive blood-sack humans or merely the slaughter of happily slumbering bloodsuckers minding their own business. Or all of the above.
These can either be tackled as standalone scenarios, or strung together into a campaign. Campaigns allow players to tackle Hunts in order, perhaps adding or skipping some depending on each scenario’s outcome.
Campaigns also allow you to carry over found/crafted equipment, buy new stuff and learn new special abilities during the downtime. Which is exactly what I’ve been after from Zombicide since 2012.
Components
Obviously with this kind of game, the miniatures are what tend to draw folk in, and the ones in OVH are actually pretty good.
They have slightly more delicate limbs and detailing than those in Zombicide, and to avoid any fragility the plastic they’re made of is fairly bendy. The upshot is that some of that detailing isn’t as crisp as you’d get from the likes of CMON.
This also means the models can be prone to bending in transit/storage, but I didn’t find many that needed attention, and only found one that required a hot water bath, due to a slightly warped base.
Fortunately they’re (digitally) sculpted with dynamic, lifelike poses. In fact there’s a lot more life in them than those in games I could think of, by far bigger studios (yes, Mansions of Madness/FFG, I’m looking at you, again.)
There are six different types of minion (eight sculpts in total as two minion types have variants), which is great variety compared to Zombicide, which certainly has a variety of sculpts, but only actually representing two types of standard zombie.
Talking of Zombicide, its Abominations are the big bad-asses that give you a ‘Boss’ to fight. In OVH there are Elders and Lords, and you get two of the former and one of the latter in the core game.
These are pretty cool, with individual special abilities and nicely imposing minis , although one of the Elders will almost certainly get painted up as Skeletor at some point.
The board sections are made of good quality card stock and have excellent artwork. The counters too are well made/printed and easy to punch out. They’re fairly standard size for this kind of game and can hold their own with the rest of the field.
The cards are a slight let-down after the quality of the rest of the components. I can live with the fact they’re not fabric-quality, and even that the black background/edges will show wear quicker (I can always sleeve them).
What’s harder to forgive is the almost identical backs to all the cards (and there are a LOT of different decks), with just a thin band of colour and a single line of text differentiating them. Maybe they’ll produce a sleeve set at some point to overcome this? You’ll get used to them pretty quick, but it’s intimidating out of the box. And just… boring.
The title font is kind of overused too. It’s fine for the logo, but less legible for the names on the different vampire and hunter cards and the backs of every other card.
Thankfully, the face of the cards is really legible and intuitively laid out, with the same good artwork on the item cards.
The player boards also feature the same artwork, but would have been been a little classier if made of punchboard material, as would the Day/Night turn “clock”, but it’s a minor quibble. They work and look fine. Zombicide: Black Plague‘s plastic player trays are way cooler though. Perhaps Omnitray will step up to the mark on this one?
The dice are a decent size with nicely-rounded corners. As well as eight standard D6s, there’s a red die with just two “breakage” sides which you roll when using fragile crafted weapons.
I’m not sure why Dark Gate Games didn’t make the Kickstarter Exclusive specialist Hunter/Vampire dice a retail item (although most probably a cost/demand concern) as they add some thematic bling, but at least the stock dice are good.
The rulebook isn’t that great. All the information is certainly in there, and it’s full-colour with plenty of examples, but it’s really not laid out in the most intuitive way, and I’d advise watching a How-To-Play YouTube video before reading it.
It would also definitely benefit from being split up in an FFG-style manner, with a Quick Start booklet (with introductory Hunt), a main Rulebook and a Hunt/Campaign book. A single intimidating 60 page manual for what isn’t really that complicated a game might put off a lot of folk, which would be a damn shame before a game has even started.
Gameplay
For those familiar with Zombicide and the dungeon crawl genre, there’s nothing too revolutionary here: players takes turns (in any order they choose) taking three actions, usually revolving around moving, searching for funky items or making attacks.
A Movement action yields two movement points to travel between Areas on the board, often modified by intervening doors (-1 MP) or by vampires in the same Area as the Hunter (-1 MP).
Attacking is your usual dice-chucking vs a target number for both Hunters and vampires. It’s not modified by any environmental factors and you either have line of sight or you don’t. It’s all pretty basic stuff and very much like Zombicide, although you can boost your attacks in some ways (see below).
Searching involves a draw from the Item deck, which can also spawn the occasional bad guy. Mostly though, Hunters will find things they can craft into new Vampire-killing devices using Focus.
Focus tokens are acquired through defeating vampires, and can be spent in more ways than simply fashioning weapons A-Team style out of junk you find lying around.
Every character can use Focus to boost their standard attacks, or they can hoard them in order to purchase upgrades and equipment during downtime between Hunts.
As players enter new areas new foes will be spawned via a set of Encounter cards. Bad guys (and girls) will appear at one of four points on each tile, which can occasionally affect line of sight. You’ll never have more than four vampires spawn in a single room.
The game’s turns are split into Day and Night, divided by The Awakening. During the Day, vampire minions will spawn asleep, shown by laying minis on their side. During the Night, (or when awakened) the mini is placed upright.
Minions will automatically wake at The Awakening (duh!) at the start of turn 6 (N.B. Hunts don’t necessarily/usually start at turn 1) but can be awakened early by a number of things, such as a failed attack by a Hunter, a loud weapon being used in the same room, or a Guardian hound spawning.
Hunts are strictly timed, so it’s always a race against the clock to complete the objective. Each Hunt description will state a start and end time for the Hunt. Players keep track with counters placed on the provided turn tracker, divided into day and night with the Awakening clearly marked at the end of Turn 6.
To make matters worse vampires become more powerful after dark, using stats on the reverse side of their cards. Not only that, but any special Day time ability they possessed is also carried over.
During the Day, Hunters can also make use of daylight itself as a weapon. Some rooms of the den have boarded up windows which, when broken, flood the room with sunlight and kill every bloodsucker inside (apart from those pesky Upyr!).
In most Hunts there’s also an NPC Hunter the players can make use of. This character is armed with harpoons and a winch rig, and can be moved around outside to the various open external doors of the Den allowing Hunters to retrieve a harpoon and then go to find a suitable vampiric victim.
Within four areas of this “winch man” a Hunter can choose to use a harpoon instead of a making a normal attack. If successful the poor bloodsucker is caught, and winched outside into the purifying rays of the sun. This even works on Elders, which is a particularly useful way to avoid their mind games.
Activation cards function as the game’s AI mechanic and are split into Day and Night decks. During the Day a Hunter will draw one at the end of their turn, whereas at Night activation occurs before they get a chance to act, making nocturnal Hunts even more dangerous.
Both Day and Night Activation cards are read and resolved from top to bottom, usually commencing with an event (like a random minion appearing, which also wakes all the room’s inhabitants in the process), followed by Vampires moving in relation to the active Hunter, followed by attacks in that Hunter’s area, followed by another general round of Vampire movement towards their nearest Hunter.
This makes the AI fairly unpredictable, which might not go down well with players more used to strategising their way around the fairly predictable critters of Zombicide. Personally I find it refreshing and more exciting.
Night Activations often call for tests against one of a Hunter’s three stats to resolve other random events or the effects of the powerful Vampire Elders.
Attribute checks (rolling a number of dice against a target number) against Speed, Knowledge and Faith are another way the game differs from Zombicide and gives Hunters more individuality. You automatically make a check when attacking Elders.
Elders are not only physically imposing and dangerous, but also a formidable mental force that must be overcome. Should a Hunter wish to attack an Elder they must first (after choosing a weapon/attack method) draw an Elder Influence card calling for an attribute check.
Success usually means the attack can be carried out as usual, but sometimes an Influence card allows for an additional attack or some other bonus. Failure is predictably bad, resulting in an automatic attack failure… or something worse.
Considering how bad Elders (and some Minions) can be, it’s lucky that Hunters can collaborate using Combo Attacks. These additional cards allow pairs of Hunters to spend Action and/or Focus points to carry out suitably impressive moves to perhaps give them an edge when they need it.
Since most Hunts have the Hunters entering the den in equal sized groups (where possible) from different locations, in four player campaigns players can develop strong partnerships that make the most of these combination moves.
Every vampire den has a network of underground tunnels that can be accessed via a number of ladders. These give access to the game 3-area mini-board, and allow Hunters to travel quickly to disparate parts of the den.
If this sounds like good news in a race against the clock, it is. But the bad news is Vampires also make use of these shortcuts. And these dudes are quick. Since each hunter draws an activation card, and each card will often move vamps towards their closest hunter, it’s easy to get swamped by the time it’s your go.
So tread lightly. And carry a big flamethrower.
Of course a Vampire story wouldn’t be complete without one (or more!) of the protagonists being turned into a Vampire themselves!
In OVH when a Hunter is reduced to zero wounds they don’t die, but are instead Turned. The player will flip their character card, swap their blue base ring for a red one and carry on playing, but with a different set of objectives.
Whilst they still can act relatively autonomously, they suffer a Compulsion drawn randomly from its own deck. This might mean they end up having to attack their erstwhile friends, or must seek out the nearest Elder.
Luckily the Order has a cure for vampirism and they’ll be back to their old selves come the next Hunt… provided their team mates didn’t take being attacked too badly and put them down for good!
The good news is that if they complete their own objective it usually benefits the group in some way, so if you do get Turned your friends are probably not going to stake you unless you start getting dangerously… “bitey”.
The Low-down
This game went down well surprisingly well here at Tribe HQ, considering the production delays and bewildering (at first) number of card types. Given the choice between it and Zombicide:BP I’d definitely choose OVH. At least at the moment. That might just be due to gaming Zombie-Fatigue though. It makes a nice change to kill some different undead.
For a game where you mainly kill vampires, there’s a really good variety of minions that each have their own particular flavour, and the differences in the way they behave during the Day and Night add another level of individuality.
The vampire Elders and the Lord are suitably dreadful, and not simply stronger vampires with more hit points. The Elder Influence cards really give the impression that you’re dealing with a powerful entity, both in body and mind.
The difference between Night and Day is suitably stark, without getting bogged down in a wealth of new rules. You really feel the danger level ramp up as the entire den rouses itself at The Awakening.
Another plus point over Zombicide is the handling of player death/elimination. Being Turned is nice and thematic, and creates a whole new dynamic between players that leads to some hilarious moments (“Don’t kill me! I can’t help myself!!”). It also gives a player a second chance rather than just killing off the character they’ve spent half a dozen Hunts personalising and getting attached to.
Giving Turned players their own objectives (and even their own Combo moves) means they’re handy (if unpredictable) for the group to want to keep around, and not just a potentially souring “traitor in the midst” that can ruin things for everyone,
The difficulty level can be easily tweaked, as the Encounter deck contains three levels of cards. Each Hunt description specifies how many of each should be included in the deck, but you can chop and change them as much as you like. If you’re a lightweight.
You can tweak this further by giving yourself more/less turns to get the job done, or more/less daylight. But to be honest the advised turn limit keeps players from dawdling too long searching for funky weaponry and creates urgency to the game play.
Since the entire Nest will Awaken at the end of Turn 6, there’s always a temptation to dispatch slumbering vampires whilst they’re an easier target. But spend too long staking folk and you may find you’re out of time to complete your objective… unless of course you’re tasked to wipe out every bloodsucker in the place!
Once it all kicks off the AI movement is suitably feral and unpredictable. Since vamps potentially move on everyone’s turn, there’s a danger of being swamped, but since they only attack the active player this never feels completely unfair, or like you’re defenceless against their attacks.
The game scales well, with the encounter cards’ colour-coded banding making it easy to play at different player counts without any real adjustment to the game.
My main criticism with OVH components is the “samey” card backs and a few places where thin card might have been exchanged for card stock, but that’s a minor quibble – I didn’t find it affected game play.
The rule book could be more intuitively laid out, and be split into more digestible chunks, but Dark Gate Games does provide some play-through examples on YouTube that make life a good deal easier, and they’re very active on the BoardgameGeek forum for the game, answering queries and notifying of errata in very good time. I respect that in a developer – they haven’t just dumped it and run.
Some of the Kickstarter exclusive components really should have been for retail release. Whilst it’s fine to have minis as exclusive content, things like thematic dice sets and replacements for counters should be a retail upgrade.
The whole Day/Night clock thing can seem pretty weird at first, if looked at as a literal clock. Why not just start a Hunt earlier? Once it’s night why not just carry on the mission until the job gets done?
But you really need to just get over this – after all, no-one really worries about the totally unrealistic “12 hours to midnight every day” clock in Elder Sign, and there’s plenty of movies where the protagonists inexplicably decide to tackle the vampire lair at the end of the day. It all ramps up the tension and drama, so just go with it.
All in all, the game is a hoot. Sure, it’s still essentially a dice-fest where combat is concerned, so don’t expect any Gloomhaven-like innovation here, but compared to the similar games in its class it could well replace them on your table as your go-to beer’n’pretzels monster-killer. Sure, it has some flaws, but nothing that’s game-breaking, and it’s a fine first outing for a fledgling developer.
Expansions
At the time of writing there are a number of expansions to keep things fresh (so to speak), including:
From Blood To Dust: adds three more map tiles and a whole horde of Lurkers, a new type of Vampire with their own Elder. Plus of course there are a bunch of new Hunts that include the new tiles and critters.
The Night Is Darker: adds 5/6 Player components, a couple of new Hunters, 6 new Desmodus vampires, 10 other assorted minions to boost what’s in the core box for 5/6 player games, 2 map tiles, 6 new hunts and one campaign.
Castle Dracula: adds the eponymous Count, his brides and the crazy retainer Renfield, along with two new map tiles and of course a scenario book covering 4 new Hunts inside the castle and a mini campaign.
Brith: A transforming Elder represented by two large minatures, with separate associated stats.
Vibora and the Jararaca: a new Elder and 6 new minions.
Tori Zaibatsu: a group of four Japanese Hunters.
Crawlers: 5 of a new type of minion, that look a bit like a super-Burrower.
Pros:
- Detailed, dynamic miniatures.
- Good artwork.
- Campaign mode with character progression. Woot!
- Highly thematic with a distinct Day/Night flavour.
- No shiny vampires! Proper monsters.
- Easily tweakable difficulty.
- Unpredictable AI (although this may be a Con for some).
- A tense, tricky and suspenseful experience – definitely no walk-in-the-park monster bash.
- Good support from Dark Gate Games on BGG and their website covering errata and general rules queries.
Cons:
- Cards not the best quality, and the backs are too similar.
- Could benefit from 3mm cardstock replacing thin card here and there.
- Some of the Kickstarter exclusives should be retail releases.
- To maintain variety in the Hunts, you really need to invest in expansions.
- The game is hard. Not impossible, but perhaps frustratingly difficult for some. Expect to fail.
- Poorly laid out rule book that would be better split into three.
