Tyrants of the Underdark

PRO: Great game. Played a few times now with wife, 13 & 15 year olds. So far we all won at least once each. Not too complex. Lots of alliances and subsequent betrayals. How else should a Drow behave?
CON: There was one white troop missing and I have contacted the original suppliers. They said they would send out a piece on the next game run (not sure when that will be).

One of the better deckbuilder-with-a-twist games, this is a little like Arctic Scavengers or Star Realms mashed into Risk.

The individual components of the game are slightly less deep than those games taken individually, but mashed together give you quite a lot of different tracks to score points, and the Drow/Underdark theme lends itself well to holding your real power level secret before booming down your best track, and engaging in a war for territory with very porous and shadowy front lines. The game comes with several different kinds of cards for the market with only two allowed in effect at one time, and the combination you pick changes the gameplay quite significantly - different types of decks emphasise spies, neutral creep elimination, player combat, area control, opponent deck poisoning, card combination plays, card sacrifice, etc. We found an hour was fairly optimistic for a timeframe to complete a session for a couple of players, but the main factor was how many draw-new-cards-from-your-deck kinds of cards were in play.

A cheap expansion adds 2 more half-decks to the mix which you can combine for up to 15 combinations with the base set, and these change up the play style even more. If you buy the expansion you'll also want opaque backed card sleeves as the card stock and colour is significantly different (the ULTRA PRO Deck Protector Sleeves, Pro Matte Purple Standard, 50ct, 66 x 91 mm x 7 were my choice here).