He may also “hide” for a turn regardless of the time of day, tricking the hunters into thinking he has moved. When moving, Dracula may never enter a city that is currently in his trail – unless he uses a Backtrack card which allows him to do so, but this card must be placed in his trail so he can only use it sparingly. (In fact all of these special cards like Wolf, Feed, Hide, etc. must be placed in the trail, so he cannot use them at will.)

There are six turns that make up a full 24 hours – three turns in the daylight and three at night. Each time a new dawn comes, Dracula earns one point (and once he reaches six, the game ends and he wins. There are other ways in which he earns points from ‘maturing’ a new vampire encounter to defeating hunters in combat.)

The backbone of the game is the event and item cards. The events shape how each game is played, and they add a lot of necessary flavor as well as some frustrations. Most of these event cards help the hunters and they can be as mundane as allowing faster train travel, but some are amazingly powerful, such as the Sense of Emergency card which allows a hunter to “teleport” to any city on the board (at the cost of health). Dracula, too, has several strong cards in the event deck, none of which are more powerful (and frustrating) than a card called Evasion, which allows Dracula to take an extra turn and move to any city on the map that does not contain a hunter. Nothing is more frustrating than chasing the Count for two hours only to have him play a randomly drawn event card that allows him to completely escape – thus forcing the hunters to literally start all over again. (There are a few cards that can counter it, but if the hunters don’t have it in hand…they are back to square one.)

Combat is done in rounds and uses a combination of item cards and dice. It’s a matter of choosing the best item for the occasion as well as getting lucky with the die rolls. Hunters start out with the basics: fist, dodge, and escape, and until they get some better equipment, they are literally sitting ducks, especially at night. However, once armed with items such as a stake, crucifix, sacred bullets, and/or holy water – Dracula is going to have his work cut out for him in combat, regardless of what time it is.

Duration and Downtime

Once your group gets the hang of it you can play a full game in roughly two to three hours, depending on how the game goes. When first learning the rules expect it to take longer, possibly pushing the four hour mark. Things definitely speed up once everyone knows what the encounters and event cards actually do. There’s a lot of info to digest at first.

Player downtime isn’t a problem at all, even in a five player game. The hunters are all working together so every player has a vested interest in what happens on each player’s turn. Since most turns do not involve combat, it usually consists of a hunter moving to a city and asking Dracula if that city is in his trail, and then drawing a card or two and moving to the next player.

Player Setup

Fury of Dracula works well with two all the way up to five players. The real sweet spot is playing with either three or five, though. Each game, all four hunters take part, so in a two player game one person controls all four hunters (and one controls Dracula) and in a four player game one player controls two hunters while the other two players control one hunter each.

In the two player game you miss out on the hunter discussion, which is really one of the best aspects of the game as the rules specifically say (and encourage) the hunters to openly talk strategy – and the Dracula player must be privy to the banter; the hunters may not talk in secret. It is great fun as the Dracula player to listen to the hunters discuss where they think the Count is…it’s especially fun when the hunters are dead wrong and Dracula has slipped past their net.

The three player game allows two players to control two hunters each, which works very well, and a five player game obviously allows each player to control one character. You add a little game time when playing with five, but it is well worth it.