Huntress Vs Tactician – Dice Throne: Season Two

Are you ready to choose your hero and fight to the death? Well then, pick your hero, set your health to 50, ready your die. We are going to find out more about this enjoyable 2-6 player tactical card and dice game.

Huntress Vs Tactician – Dice Throne: Season Two is a fun 2 player tactical card and dice game created by Nate Chatellier and Manny Trembley. It is a 1v1 duelling game where you start with a health of 50 and once you reach 0 you are defeated.

Huntress Vs Tactician – Dice Throne: Season Two is part of the larger collection of Dice Throne games that includes 16 heroes from season 1 and 2, plus a cooperative expansion. Let’s find out more about this intriguing game.

Table of Contents

• What is Huntress Vs Tactician – Dice Throne: Season Two about?
• How well is Huntress Vs Tactician – Dice Throne: Season Two made?
• How do I play Huntress Vs Tactician – Dice Throne: Season Two?
  • Preparing to play
  • Playing the game
  • Game Turn
• Is Huntress Vs Tactician – Dice Throne: Season Two worth buying?

What is Huntress Vs Tactician – Dice Throne: Season Two about?

Each Battle Chest (Season 1 Rerolled & Season 2) has 8 unique heroes all of which can be used interchangeably. The game is well designed and as such there are multiple playing modes once you increase the heroes and number of players.

With the possibility of 1v1, 2v2, 3v3 or even 2v2v2 plus other modes. There is even a Dice Throne Adventures expansion that will allow you to collaboratively pit your heroes against various bosses.

The beauty of this game is that it is completely modular so you can start small and add players.

How well is Huntress Vs Tactician – Dice Throne: Season Two made?

Huntress Vs Tactician – Dice Throne: Season Two is a beautifully made game. It has clearly been well thought out and there has been a lot of effort to make sure that it remains in good condition.

These are well made and the graphics are top notch. Each hero has a colour theme so they are easily identifiable. Each hero comes in it’s own tray with lid, called a trayz, to keep all these components nicely together in 1 hero pack.

The trayz also protects the games when not in use and serves well for quick setup and frequent use. Just grab your hero trayz and lay out the components in front of you and you are good to go.

You will be impressed with the visual illustrations and overall graphic design of this game, it is truly beautiful. The characters are not overly sexualised and so making it suitable for the younger audience.

Overall it is a beautifully designed and made game.

How do I play Huntress Vs Tactician – Dice Throne: Season Two?

You will need a minimal amount of space to layout each person’s hero board, leaflet, health dial, combat points dial and cards plus a space for the draw pile.

Preparing to play

Take out the hero board, unfold it and place it in front of you. Then drop down the Combat Points and Health Points dials. Set the Combat Points dial to 2 and the Health Points to 50.

Take the hero cards and give them a good shuffle then place them down in front of you.

Take the leaflet and read the information on one side to help with setup and also an FAQ. Once read you can turn the leaflet over and place it on the table to show the status effects.

Take each of the status effect tokens on their respective places on the hero leaflet.

Complete any of the unique setup actions for your hero noted in the hero leaflet and finally place the die down ready to play.

There are several game modes depending on numbers of players (which requires more heroes) but to find out more about these check out the official variants here.

These include King of the Hill, 3v3 and even 2v2v2. Here we will be playing a 1v1 head to head duel.

The starting player is decided by rolling 1 die each. Highest die wins and that player goes first.

The objective is to reduce your opponent’s health to zero which eliminates them. Last person with health is the victor. If all the remaining players lose their health points in the same turn then the game is a draw. You can’t win if you are dead!

Playing the game

OK, this is one of the more complex games. With that in mind I think this is one of those games that is easier to play and learn than explain in words. I will do my best to give you an overview below and in this instance seeing is understanding.

So, below is a great video play through from Geek and Sundry playing through with Gunslinger and Tactician. Nate Chatellier, one of the creators, joins them to explain some of the finer points of the rules.

The game begins with each player drawing 4 cards from their pile.

The start player takes their turn and as the first player they miss the income phase. What does that mean? Well, let’s take a look at the game turn.

Game Turn

The game turn has 8 phases, although in 1v1 duelling you will only have 7. The turns are as follows:

1. Upkeep phase

The phase is where you identify any Status Effects or Abilities that come into effect during. If so then they are resolved now. You also choose the order in which these will be played.

Any damage and healing effects are accumulated and applied at the same time e.g. damage points reduce your health, health points restore. So a damage of 4 and health of 2 mean you will get a total damage of 2.

2. Income Phase (skipped by the first player in the first round)

You increase your Combat Points dial by 1 and draw a card from your deck. If your deck is empty then reshuffle your discard pile which then becomes the deck.

3. Main Phase (1)

The main phase is repeated later. So, this is the first one. Here you can perform any of the below, any number of times in any order.

• Sell any card which will increase your Combat Points by 1.
  OR
• Play any Blue card in your hand. These are Main Phase Action cards. These have a Combat Point cost and when used reduce the Combat Points dial by the amount indicated. You then perform the action and place the card on the discard pile.
  OR
• Play a Hero upgrade card. This again will reduce your Combat Points by the number indicated on the card. If you are upgrading from level 2 to level 3 then you only need to pay the difference. Once paid for you place the card onto the corresponding space on the Hero board.

4. Offensive Roll Phase – by the current active player

Anyone can play Roll Phase action cards at any time during this phase. These can be played on your own or other players and usually are positive changes for you and negative for your opponent.

1. The player performs up to three die roll attempts. The first roll is with all 5 of the players dice. The player can then re-roll any number of dice e.g. they may only roll 3 dice the second time and two dice the third time.
2. Once they are happy with their roll (they conceivably could stop at the first roll). Then the player can either:
   • Announce the Offensive Ability they intend on activating which tallies with the thrown dice.
   • Announce they are not activating an Offensive Ability. This may be wise if the attack you have rolled is weak and the opponent has a strong Defensive Ability. It could harm you more than them.
3. At this point your opponent may have altered your dice in which case you can announce a different Offensive Ability or return to step 1 and use any remaining unused re-rolls.
4. Finally, If one was chosen you activate your Offensive Ability, determine its variable effects. Then resolve any effects that don’t require a target like heal or gain evasiveness.

5. Targeting Roll Phase

Not required in 1v1. This will decide who you are targeting in multiplayer games.

6. Defensive Roll Phase – taken by the player who is being attacked

This only comes into play if the active player’s Offensive Roll leads to an attack. The player who is now being attacked will have an opportunity to Defend as follows.

1. Resolve any effects from the Offensive Ability that requires defense and is not damage related such as Wither, Bounty or Steal Combat Points.
2. Only if there is an attack and the attack is defendable then the player can activate their Defense Ability. If a Hero has two defense abilities then one must be chosen now.
3. The defender now rolls a specified number of die noted on the chosen Defense Ability on the Hero card.
4. Based on the roll the defender resolves all non-damage effects like Synth, inflict shame or gain combat points.
5. At this point there is one last opportunity for any player to spend Status Effects or play cards.
6. Finally, the damage, prevention, and/or healing effects are accumulated and applied simultaneously at the conclusion of the Roll Phase.

7. Main Phase (2)

This is identical to Main Phase (1).

8. Discard Phase

At this point you discard cards until you have at least 6 or fewer. Then add a Combat Point for each discarded card. Place the discarded cards on the discard pile.

The active player is now changed to the opponent who then begins the same game turn with the Upkeep Phase. This goes back and forth until one or both players’ health hits zero. If this happens during the same turn then it is a draw.

Is Huntress Vs Tactician – Dice Throne: Season Two worth buying?

If you have younger members of your family that will be playing then perhaps take a look at Gunslinger Vs Samurai set as it has slightly easier mechanics to ease them easily into the game. Once they get the hang then definitely add Huntress Vs Tactician next.

	Players	Age	Playtime (m)	Rating
Dice Throne Season 2 Tactician Vs Huntress	2	8+	20-40	7.9
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