About the Game
Long ago, the sorcerer Medivh opened a portal to another world. Through this dark gateway came the Horde — armies of orcs and ogres driven by a simple purpose: war. Since then, the land of Azeroth has not known peace. For those bold enough to adventure, the dangers are great… but so are the opportunities.
World of Warcraft: the Adventure Game is an exciting journey through Azeroth, the setting of Blizzard Entertainment's award-winning MMORPG World of Warcraft. Players will take on the roles of Warcraft heroes, battle monsters, complete quests, and collect powerful treasures in their bid for supremacy.
Players
Two to four players each take on the role of a Warcraft character. The base World of Warcraft Adventure Game comes with four unique and distinctive characters: Burbonn Fang the Dwarf hunter, Sandrai Darkshine the Human warlock, Sofeea Icecall the Undead mage, and Grumbaz Crowsblood the Orc warrior. Each character is depicted by his own detailed plastic figure and has his own specialized character and ability cards.
Gameplay
On each of his turns, a player will roll the movement die to determine how many spaces he may move on the game board and how much energy he has available to spend. He will then move throughout Azeroth, potentially playing cards as he goes to smooth his own path or interfere with the other players.
When a character reaches his destination, he will activate any resources present in his space (such as scrolls that let him draw cards, or flight paths that let him move rapidly across the map) and then have an encounter. Some spaces have pre-printed encounters on them–such spaces may act as "gatekeepers" to allow players to achieve the next level, or offer a powerful or useful ability to anyone who lands on that space. In spaces without a pre-printed encounter, players must draw an encounter from the relevant encounter deck.
Encounters
There are four challenge decks, corresponding to the four game levels: grey, green, yellow, and red. When a character has an encounter in a grey space, he draws a grey challenge card. Challenge cards can be events (which each have their own special rules as printed on the card) or encounters, which represent the monsters and enemies of the Warcraft universe. Encounters each have an attack, defense, and damage stat, in addition to a special ability. If a character should defeat an encounter, he may flip the encounter card over to reveal his reward: the item the encounter was carrying.
Double-Sided Cards
Many cards in World of Warcraft: the Adventure Game are double-sided. Most obviously, every encounter in the game has as its flip side the item that is its reward. Event cards are also double sided, usually describing a trigger condition which will cause the card to flip and change its effects. Perhaps most pertinently, each character card is double sided as well. Grumbaz Crowsblood may flip from Battle Stance to Berserker Stance as the situation requires, for example, and Sofeea Icecall may spend some energy to flip herself to her Ice Block side.
Abilities
Each character has his own deck of ability cards. As the World of Warcraft: the Adventure Game game line grows, you will see certain races and classes of World of Warcraft characters repeated, but each ability deck will remain distinct. For example, Grumbaz Crowsblood is an Orc Fury warrior; he focuses on aggressively attacking often at the expense of his own safety. Shailara Witherblade, a Night Elf warrior not yet published, will feature her own take on the warrior class.
Each ability card has an energy cost, which will limit which cards can be played on a given turn. Cards also have a timing icon, indicating whether they are played during the Movement or Combat steps or if they have a special timing. Each ability card has unique effects, from serving as a powerful attack in combat, preventing or healing damage, affecting movement on the game board, or even more varied and powerful uses.
Many ability cards have improved effects when the character playing them has achieved a higher level. While any character may use his entire available ability pool even at the lowest possible level, more powerful characters will be able to use more potent abilities as they unlock progressively more powerful effects.
Levels
Each character begins the game at grey level. As they play, they will encounter special challenges that, if defeated, will award them a higher level. When a character advances to green, yellow, or red level he gains access to higher-level items and may move onto higher level spaces of the game board. While it's theoretically possible to win a game of World of Warcraft: the Adventure Game without leveling up, the benefits of doing so are enormous and many quests will require you to achieve a certain level to complete them.
Combat
Combat in World of Warcraft: the Adventure Game is fast-paced and easy to understand. First, the combatants may play ability cards. Then, the attacker and defender each roll a single combat die. They add their attack score and compare it to the defense value of their opponents to determine whether or not they've hit. If a character has been hit, he suffers damage equal to his opponent's damage value and may be defeated if the total damage he's suffered equals or exceeds his health total. Encounters have no health total–if they're hit, they're automatically defeated.
To this basic combat mechanic are tied many unique interactions and abilities. Some encounters, abilities, or items will trigger special abilities based on the results of one or both combat dice. If one combatant has a ranged attack, he has a chance to defeat his opponent before that opponent can counterattack. Some abilities and items will allow players to reroll dice.
If a character defeats an encounter, he receives the listed reward. If he defeats another character, he may take an item from that character's bag as the spoils of victory! Of course, he may also find he's completed a quest…
Quests
Each hero has his quest, and quests in World of Warcraft: the Adventure Game are heroic indeed! Each quest is unique, and each is worth some number of valor points. Quests may ask characters to travel to specific locations, defeat a certain kind of monster, or challenge enemy characters in combat. Although characters may exchange their quests at a capital city, they may only have two quests in play at a time, so a player's short term strategy will be largely dependent on which quests he has access to.
When a character completes a quest he places it in his quest log and draws a new one to replace it. Each completed quest in a character's log contributes to his score and eventual victory!
Victory
The winner in a game of World of Warcraft: the Adventure Game is the first hero to achieve eight valor points. This hero has become so well-known and celebrated that he has become legend!
The principle way that a character gains valor is by completing quests, but it is in fact possible to win without doing so! While quests represent decent amounts of experience points, they are somewhat a "luck of the draw" affair — sometimes you'll draw a quest that, due to your location or hand of cards, is very easy to complete, while other times you will draw a quest that will take you far out of your way or doesn't play into your long term strategy. Fortunately, there are a number of other ways to gain valor points.
The first and easiest way to gain valor is to buy it from the goblins of Booty Bay. By turning in any matching set of potions (as determined by the potion icons present on all equipment), heros can purchase a Trophy card which is worth 1 valor point. This can be a great way to push a hero who has almost won the game "over the top," and is an excellent way to find a use for items a character doesn't need anymore.
There are also four overlords scattered across the World of Warcraft: the Adventure Game map. Nefarian, Kel'Thuzad, Hakkar the Soulflayer, and Highlord Kruul are all waiting for a foe mighty enough to challenge them. A character who does defeat such a foe receives a trophy card worth a large amount of valor points! Leveling up and defeating the overlords is a perfectly viable strategy for victory, and it may be possible to disregard quests entirely and still emerge victorious.
