Time to Defend our Realm!

Minions are quickly spreading across the land and the evil Generals are relentlessly advancing on Monarch City from the outer regions. Can you and your little band of adventures rid the land of these dark forces before it’s too late?

In Defenders of the Realm, that’s exactly what you’ll have to do.

Cooperative board games are great for families because it gets you all working together toward a common goal. And you’ll win or lose the game together as a team. So when Defenders of the Realm was first published in 2010, I thought it looked promising. After all, it’s set in a fantasy world with wizards, elves, dwarves, rangers, and evil foes to vanquish. Wouldn’t it be fun to have this great adventure with my 3 sons?

So when I finally picked up a copy from Eagle Games last month, I was excited to get the boys together and play Defenders of the Realm.

But lo and behold, the one that loved it right from the start was Brooke – our 11 year old daughter!

Brooke has never been interested in anything fantasy themed in the past. Fantasy themed games hold no interest for her and the same has been true for any other dice rolling combat type games. So my assumption from the very beginning was that she’d have no interest in Defenders of the Realm. Thus, my only thoughts were centered on playing it with my boys.

But when I set up the game for the first time, Brooke walked in to see what I was up to. Then she noticed that there were a couple female character roles and asked me what the game was about. Next thing I know, she’d picked a character card and pulled up a chair.

So we went through what she could do on her turn, what her special skills were and we were off and rolling – literally. And of course right from the start she was knocking down minions left and right and worrying about not rolling high enough numbers. And as the generals started advancing she was totally into the game – concerned that we wouldn’t get to them in time.

You can hear it straight from Brooke herself in her video review of Defenders of the Realm. The video may be a little longer than average, but there’s a lot going on in the game and she wanted to talk about it all.

Can the whole family enjoy Defenders of the Realm?
While I thought Defenders of the Realm might appeal just to boys and more specifically to teenage boys, I was pleasantly surprised that it can appeal to girls as well. To have Brooke asking when we’re going to play Defenders of the Realm again is a pleasant surprise.

There is a lot to keep track off with all the special abilities of each character, the unique challenges of each evil faction, and the multiple things you can do on your turn. So the recommended ages of 13+ and the game length of 90-120 minutes will tell you that it’s not for the youngsters.

But since it’s a cooperative board game, don’t worry about letting your kids younger than 13 joining on the adventure. When they see all the awesome pieces on the board and the colored dice, they’ll want to check it out and join in the fun.

Watching Brooke’s video review will give your a great feel for what’s involved with the game so you can see if it’s something your family would enjoy too.

Are there downsides to Defenders of the Realm?
Defenders of the Realm is a great cooperative game, but it does have a couple things we were disappointed about. The most noticeable one we’ve encountered are the generals miniatures that won’t stand up straight. Don’t get us wrong – the miniature pieces in the game are fantastic and very well themed. However, the biggest and most imposing of the generals, Sapphire, keeps falling over.

That big blue dragon is fantastic, but also loves to nap during the game. Any little tap on the table, and down it goes. After standing it back up multiple times, we give up and just let it rest on its side for the remainder of the game.

The other element that we’ve had to work around are the hero cards. The hero cards came in two decks – standard and special. They all get put into one hero deck during play, but when we put them together we noticed that the special cards are cut ever so slightly larger – which makes shuffling difficult. They can still be shuffled, but not cleanly. Instead, while shuffling the cards go in clumps and thus don’t get a thorough mix. So we’ve had to change our way of mixing the deck instead of shuffling so we don’t get batches of one color of card coming up repeatedly to the scarcity of another color (inevitably the one we’ll need).

But those two production issues aside, the game is a lot of fun and difficult to win. We haven’t had to ramp up the difficulty level at all and we’re still trying to get our first win! We’ve come extremely close only to have it slip away just before the winning play. But rather than frustration, the difficulty of winning has added to the fun.

There’s nothing quite like aching to play the game again because you didn’t win. If you win too easily, it may get boring after a while. And Defenders of the Realm isn’t boring. The time flies by because we’re so involved in the game.

How does Defenders of the Realm score on the “Let’s Play Again” meter?
Defenders of the Realm scores very high on our “let’s play again” game meter. Even though the game takes a while to play, it’s one that we’ve really enjoyed and will pull out again and again. Maybe it’s because we’re still trying to get that elusive win!

Thanks Eagle Games for a fun family cooperative board game!

The Board Game Family Game Ratings
	Caleb
	Brooke
	Jaden
	Trevor
Has not played	Mom
	Dad
	Average

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Interested in what others think of Defenders of the Realm?
Check out these other opinions:
* Board Game Reviews by Josh review of Defenders of the Realm
* Play Board Games Defenders of the Realm review