Dungeons & Dragons: Tomb of Annihilation Review

In a previous post I did an unboxing for the Tomb of Annihilation, the 5th game in the Dungeons and Dragons Board Game series. A few months have past since and having played through the first few adventures in the campaign, I am quite pleased to present a more in-depth review for this version of my favorite boardgaming indulgence:

The Tomb of Annihilation is a cooperative board game for 1-5 players that plunges the heroes deep into the festering jungles of Chult, where a mysterious death curse has been plaguing the lands. The source of the curse lies in a trap-riddled tomb, known as the Tomb of the Nine Gods that lies hidden beneath a lost city in the depths of the vast jungle. Your heroes arrive at Port Nyanzaru where they partake on quests, investigate the surrounding jungles and towns and eventually find a path towards the hidden tomb, where a somewhat familiar menace awaits you...cackling hysterically.

Yep, the titular villain for TOA is the demilich Acerak - yes, he of the Tomb of Horrors and one of  the most vile and dangerous enemies in the Dungeons & Dragons lore. I remember my 10 year old self getting my hands on a magazine showcasing a Tomb of Horrors campaign and being completely and utterly immersed in the mythos. Then, when Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom was released, I always imagined the character of Mola Ram being either influenced or inspired by Acerak in some way and also visa-versa. To this day, I still think of Acerak with an Indian accent!

Overview:
Like with previous iterations in the Dungeons & Dragons board game series, the mechanics are pretty much the same with a few welcome changes. The first half of the Adventures are not as much 'dungeon crawling' as it it 'jungle crawling' and the theme works marvelously. TOA is also very much campaign-driven and it is advised that you play the adventures in sequence in in order to properly justify the narrative. Adventures are grouped around specific locations with each location offering a new set of challenges and changes to the Encounter, Monster & Treasure decks. Cancelling encounters as you progress through the game also becomes significantly harder and by the time you reach the Tomb of the Nine Gods, it will cost you a hefty 8XP to cancel a single encounter! There are a few additional perks as your heroes travel such as upgrades and trading between adventures, the introduction of a marketplace which allows you to buy/ sell treasure items as well as purchasing useful advancement tokens to us in game for the benefit of your party. Much like the Underdark caverns from the Legend of Drizzt game, I found the jungle setting of Chult to be a welcome change. Instead of the usual dungeon lurking monsters, you have hordes of Vegepygmies, warlike Batiri Goblins, Giant Gorillas and reptilian like foes. Keeping inline with the death curse theme there are the usual skeletons and zombies to contend with and the dense jungle is riddled with traps that force you to strategically consider your character's movement.

Components:

This is without a doubt the best looking version of the game to date (I know Dungeon of the Mad Mage has been released but until I get my claws on it, I'm standing by my verdict - uZ). The jungle and tomb/ dungeon tiles are a complete step-up from the previous versions. The artwork on the box and rules and adventure books are full color and definitely pushing the 5th edition style of the game. However, and this is probably my only real gripe with the game, some of the monster miniatures are not as well sculpted as others or previous games. The hero  Druid, Wizard, Ranger, Paladin & Tabaxi Bard minis as well as most of the villains are great minis with the impressive Stone Juggernaut and the titular villain Acerak rendered menacingly and masterfully. The same can not be said about the standard monsters though. The goblins and vegepygmy minis are extremely tiny and the same goes for most of the remaining monsters. The velociraptors are tiny in comparison with the hunting drakes from Drizzt and many of the skeletons and zombies may need some warm water in order to get them to stand up straight. If you were buying this set purely for the miniatures, then I would probably give it a miss and opt for the TOA blister packs instead. That said, I quite like the heroes and villains in this set and found the addition of spell decks and, in the case of the Ranger, the Ring of Winter power decks brought some cool power variants to the game. The rest is the usual fare - the monotone colors for the heroes and villain cards. One thing I did note though was the D&D logo on the back of dungeon/ jungle tiles as well as treasure/ monster cards has changed from the previous games which could perhaps affect backwards compatibility with earlier games if you were opting for some random dungeons/ monsters. I normally combine the monster & treasure decks from CR, LOD and WOA but I suppose for the TOA, it makes more sense to keep the jungle creatures inside the jungle :-)

Gameplay & Setup:

Setup is straightforward and normally involves the usual 8th-tile placement and shuffle to locate a specific tile in order to trigger the next point of the adventure.
Gameplay still follows the same process of move-attack-explore but with the additional consideration of movement due to trap & treasure tokens present on the tiles. The heroes have some of the best powers and abilities we've seen in this format of the game and this is welcoming, considering that the campaign increases in challenge as you draw ever closer to the hidden tomb. I read a few posts about the lack of playable female characters in this version but you could easily slip in a few from previous games (or create some custom heroes!)

Final Thoughts:
I'm halfway into the campaign and loving every minute of it. The jungle theme works really well and, while it works for solo gaming, I do encourage group play particularly for this game. If you're just getting started in D&D or are just curious to play a dungeon-crawling cooperative game, then, like with all the previous games, I highly recommend checking out Tomb of Annihilation. Hey, if you survive, you'll have something to tell the kids someday...

Components: 6
Setup: 8
Gameplay: 8
Replayability: 8
Theme: 9
Overall Score: 8