5 DAYS OF HALLOWEEN - DAY 5 – FURY OF DRACULA

5 DAYS OF HALLOWEEN 

DAY 5 – FURY OF DRACULA

Even before they started to sparkle vampires were incredibly popular in literature, movies, games and other aspects of popular culture. I remember playing the old ‘I Vant To Bite Your Finger’(Hasbro, 1979) game as a child. Never knowing if Dracula would bite you as you possibly sacrificed your finger to his bloodthirsty teeth (the teeth left two red felt pen marks on your finger to show you had been bitten.

(I Vant To Bite Your Finger photo courtesy of http://growinguplast.com/post/109394469671/i-vant-to-bite-your-finger-1979-what-are-some found via Google)

Almost a decade later an altogether much more involved and fun game came out from British publishers Games Workshop which featured our friend Dracula travelling around Europe giving those hunting him the slip and leaving an assortment of problems for the hunters to face if they started getting too close to his trail. The game, of course, was Fury of Dracula and it was the first board game I played where the players where playing as ‘a team’ against the person who controlled Dracula. It wasn’t the first game to introduce this idea (Scotland Yard had been published by Ravensburger in 1983 and won the Spiel des Jahres award that year) but was took the idea and added rules for combat, events and encounters – as well travel by a variety of means for Dracula.

Scotland Yard, by Ravensburger

Fury of Dracula 1st Edition, by Games Workshop

I loved Fury of Dracula and was lucky enough to get one of the early sets that contained metal miniatures.

Fury of Dracula sadly disappeared out of print as Games Workshop shifted their focus away from board and roleplaying games to concentrate on the miniatures market through their immensely popular Warhammer Fantasy battle and Warhammer 40,000 brands.

Fury of Dracula 2nd Edition, by Fantasy Flight Games

We had to wait until 2005 before Fury of Dracula returned to print, after years of inflated second hand prices, when Fantasy Flight Games entered a deal with Games Workshop to produce (and in some cases reprint) games based upon GW’s brands. Fantasy Flight revised the game and upped the production quality to bring us a fantastic new edition of the game which was, unsurprisingly, as popular as ever. A third edition of the game, with all new artwork, has recently been released by Fantasy Flight Games.

Fury of Dracula 3rd Edition, by Fantasy Flight Games

It’s a great game at any time but especially one for Halloween. It is quite a long game though, with all editions quoting about 3 hours of play, but if you’re hunters get very lucky and track down the Count early on the game can be played quicker… but make sure you have plenty of time just in case!

  

Buy Fury of Dracula : http://www.boardgameguru.co.uk/fury-of-dracula-3rd-edition-1278-p.asp

By Angus Abranson