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
Login to vote on your own rating
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

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

🏢 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.