Tyrants of the Underdark

2016
Andrew Veen, Peter Lee, Rodney Thompson
BGG Geek Rating
7.4
based on 10,398 ratings
BGG Average Rating
7.9
community average
BGG Ranking
#163
all board games
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Players
2-4
Weight
2.54/5.00
Playtime
60 min
Age
14+

⚙️ Game Mechanics

How this game works - core systems and player actions

Connections Take That Variable Set-up Open Drafting Zone of Control Deck, Bag, and Pool Building Delayed Purchase Area Majority / Influence

📂 Categories

Fighting Fantasy

🎨 Artists

Ben Wootten Jesper Ejsing William O'Connor Alex Aparin Klaus Pillon (I) John-Paul Balmet Aaron J. Riley Carlos Nunez de Castro Torres Rick Hershey Damien Mammoliti Kieran Yanner Todd Harris Eva Widermann Tyler Walpole Héctor Ortiz Francis Tsai Tyler Jacobson Julie Dillon Emily Fiegenschuh Howard Lyon Jacob Masbruch Milivoj Ceran Katie Dillon Ryan Pancoast Olga Drebas Daren Bader Raymond Swanland Richard Whitters Bryan Syme Steve Ellis (I) Lars Grant-West Sam Burley Sławomir Maniak Conceptopolis Rob Alexander Ilich Henriquez Jason Juta Brian Hagan Marcel Mercado Marco Nelor Marc Sasso James Zhang Jason Engle Craig J. Spearing Claudio Pozas Matias Tapia Klaus Pillon (II) Eric Belisle Steve Ellis (II) McLean Kendree Guido Kuip Wayne England Arnie Swekel Vance Kovacs Adam Paquette Ralph Horsley Stephen Tappin Tomasz Jedruszek Jim Nelson

🏢 Publishers

Heidelberger Spieleverlag Kronos Games (Krogam) Wizards of the Coast

📖 About This Game

Tyrants of the Underdark is a territory control game with a deck-building element. Each player leads a house of Drow in a section of the Underdark below the Sword Coast. The Drow house is represented by a deck of cards, with each card being a minion in that player's deck. Each minion belongs to one of five aspects of Drow society, and those aspects correspond to different strategies in the game, e.g., malice minions excel at assassinating opponents' troops, while ambition minions are best at recruiting additional minions and promoting minions to your "inner circle", which is a special zone that increases their value at the end of the game. When you set up the game, you create an 80-card deck by shuffling two 40-card half-decks together, with the half-decks being Drow, Dragons, Demons, and Elementals. A central marketplace has new minions that can be recruited through influence, one of two resources in the game; purchased cards are placed in your discard pile, then shuffled together with other cards in your deck when needed. The other resource is power, which allows you to place troops on the game board, expand your forces across the map of the Underdark, manipulate happenings in the city, and assassinate enemy troops. Players gain points by controlling sites, recruiting valuable minions, promoting minions to your inner circle, and assassinating troops, and whoever ends the game with the most points wins.