Dino Battle! is a classic Ameritrash board game from the 1990s created by a real heavy hitter in the genre, but I doubt that many of our readers will have heard of it at all. Co-designed by Stephen Baker, creator of HeroQuest, Space Crusade, and Heroscape, this game of dinosaur-on-dinosaur violence was published in Germany and France in 1993, but never made it to the US or UK. That’s about to change, as Rebellion Unplugged has just announced a Gamefound campaign to bring the game back into print, in English, with “fast-paced, ‘beer-and-pretzels’ Ameritrash gameplay, faithfully updated from the beloved 1990s classic for modern players “.
Dino Battle!‘s title tells you most of what you need to know about the game: each player commands a team of cavemen riding on dinosaurs, and attempts to batter their opponents senseless. The original game was packed with cool plastic dino miniatures, and the new game is no different, coming with 30 cartoony figures adapted from artwork by prolific board game illustrator Mihajlo “The Mico” Dimitrievski.
The original game, published as ‘Die Schlacht Der Dinosaurier’, was a child-friendly strategy board game; players would set up fifteen dinosaurs of various species in designated board areas, and battle until one player had been eliminated. Activations were controlled using a hand of action cards, most of which allowed you to activate a specific dinosaur species. Many dice were rolled, and many plastic dinosaurs were swept off dining room tables.
The original designers, Stephen Baker and Roger Ford, are still credited, and they’re joined by Anthony Howgego, who seems to have made a few changes. The board has shifted from using squares to hexes, and there seem to be quite a lot more things to do: the press release suggests you’ll “seize arcane glyphs” to “secure mystical boons for your people”, “harness the crackling power of mighty energy crystals to devastate your enemies”, and “hoard precious blood fruit” for… reasons. Maybe it replaces the lava tokens from the original game, which let you replay a card you’d just used, or reroll dice in combat.
Will that turn this into a contender for a slot on our guide to the best board games? Everyone in the office loves dinosaurs and chucking dice around, so who knows! Perhaps modernized Ameritrash games are the wave of the future. Which ’90s classic do you think deserves a modern reimagining? Let us know in the Wargamer Discord community.
Source: Wargamer
