While the game has some serious nostalgia value to it (details in a bit) the game itself is so simple it makes Dungeon! look like RuneQuest or Champions.
Choose to be a warrior or a warlock and move your pawn on the board. Run into another player? Duel, which has the effect of pushing them back.
The goal is to get the blonde princess back to her castle so her daddy the King can give you half his kingdom and supposedly the princess too. Hey, it was 1977. Given the cover, I thought maybe the blonde was also a playable character. I really should have known better, but I had hoped.
But there are a few things going for it. First and foremost this game was designed by Gardner Fox. Yes THAT Gardner Fox. So I was hoping for a little more to be honest. The guy that gave us Zatanna and Doctor Fate (among others) should have had cooler warlocks.
It is also an "Introductory Fantasy Game" so it would be fun as an introduction to old-school D&D tropes for younger kids. Though the lack of anything like fantasy monsters (as moving pieces) or treasure limit the use of this for that. The playing pieces are basic, but not really for 1977 standards.
The cover similarities between this and Holmes Basic can't be ignored.
It really seems to be the same "Warlock" and "Warrior" on both covers. Both were done by David Sutherland and both boxed sets came out the same year.
This is also not the only time we see the "Princess" we next see her in the AD&D Player's Handbook looking over the collected treasure loot.
Maybe she told the Warrior and the Warlock (and her dad) to go get bent and she became an adventurer herself. I mean she is eyeing that magic sword.
Zenopus Archives (the authority on all things Holmes) comments on how the map from this game would make for a good Holmes Basic "Hex Crawl".
The box itself is surprisingly light. But I am judging it by today's standards.
Would this game satisfy my "Traveller Envy?" I am not sure. I think I could work it into a game somehow. Maybe as the previously mentioned Hex Crawl for Holmes (or Basic Era between levels 1 and 3). I could come up with a whole adventure for it to be honest. Warlock holding a princess captive, hex crawl to find her. But that is WAY too clichéd.
Still. I can't help think there is a way to add this to the Holmes Experience. Potentially add it to the Monster Manual for the full 1977 experience! Or maybe the Ancient Ruins on the map are the dungeon from the Dungeon! board game.
The game itself is really just a larger "mini-game" not much more complex than the mini-games that TSR would later release in 1981. I'll even go on a limb here and say the relationship between Warlocks & Warriors to Holmes is not significantly different than the relationship between the 1981 mini-games and Moldvay Basic.
More on these mini-games at a future date!
Reviews
Having played both, I'm pretty sure I'd rate Warlocks & Warriors as actually being less complex than, say, Saga there. Neither is anywhere near as polished a design as some of the freebie magazine games they stuck in Dragon, eg Search For the Emperor's treasure or King of the Tabletop.
ReplyDeleteInteresting artifact. The art connections were cool to see.
ReplyDeleteI feel like Kyrik and Kothar are severely under-rated.
ReplyDeleteHaven't seen one of those sets in a while. I recall they're pretty thin inside. I think your comment on the theme of the "minigame" is right on.
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