TROOOGGDOOOOOOOORRR!!! Burninating the countryside! Burninating the peasants! Burninating all the people! And their thatch-roof cottagesss!!!!
I grew up on watching Homestar Runner. My brothers and I always looked forward to the next episode. Weather is was a new toon, a holiday episode or a Strong Bad Email, it always brought a smile to our faces.
And undeniably, Trogdor was one of the favorite characters that emerged from the show. I spent hours and hours playing peasant quest and doing by best to defeat him. So when I found out there was going to be a board game, I couldn’t have been more excited.
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When I first heard about the board game, I assumed that it would be similar to peasant quest. I figured the players would peasants trying to defeat Trogdor. And boy was I wrong. Why go against Trogdor when you can help him and burninate the country side? Or burninate the peasants? Or, even better, burn the thatch roof cottages?!
One thing I will say that I really love about this version of the game is the versatility of meeple pieces. Love wooden meeples? We got you covered. Love plastic meeples? Hey! we got those too! Do they do anything different? Nope, the game play is exactly the same. It’s only there for fun!!
The game itself is a fairly simple cooperative game. On each turn, you play one card that dictates how many action points you have that turn. With those actions you can: Move, Chomp, Burrow, Hide or BURNINATE!! Why eat the peasants when you can set them on fire and watch them run through the countryside burning everything along the way.
But of course, there is always a wrinkle. Trogdor isn’t invincible after all (but I mean… he should be). The knights and archers are moving around ready to attack. And Trogdor can only take a certain amount of hits before its GAME OVER. That’s why maybe burninating all the peasants isn’t the best idea. When peasants are burninated the go to the Void. Or Also, the Void. But when Trogdor chomps down on a peasant, they go back to the Trogmeter – which is Togdors health.
One of the things that I really love about this game is board versatility. The country side is made up of twenty five tiles that can be changed and mixed depending on difficulty or how much you like randomness. Now, being the Homestar obsessive person that I am, I was a little sad that this wasn’t a 4 by 5 grid like in peasant quest because that’s still how I see this game. This game is just reverse peasant quest.
Also, if you’re playing with the wooden meeples, there are many options for Trogdor. Because why not versatility? For those familiar with the Trogdor Strong Bad Email, you might remember him teaching the other characters how to draw a dragon. Or, in Strong Mad’s case, a Dagron. And you can play as all of them!
Now one thing I probably should have mentions before this point is that each player does have an individual character. This is to provide some asymmetry to the players and gives each player a cool power. Each player will also receive an item they can use throughout the game to help Trogdor. There of course is the normal keeper characters (and HardyBardy is the best of the keepers) but then there is always the real keepers of Trogdor. Hand drawn by Strong Bad himself! I will say that on the mechanics side of the game, the real keepers totally break the game. I don’t know if I could recommend playing with them.
And that is Trogdor the board game! It is fun, easy and enjoyable for the whole family. I know this because I actually did play this game with my father and he did enjoy it! (Which surprised me because he is not big into board games). I was also very lucky to have gotten in on the Kickstarter for this board game because it came with meeples of the whole Homestar Runner gang!
So yea, I had a field day playing with the meeples, putting together all of the fun groups! The Strong Bad gang, the best friends of Homestar and Pompom, and the musical group Cool Tapes! I swear I probably could play with these meeples for a while. And while they have no actual purpose, it means they can be used for anything!!
