I learned about this game during my search for the Merlin’s Company expansion for Shadows Over Camelot many years ago. When I finally found a copy it came bundled with the 3rd edition of Fury of Dracula published by Fantasy Flight Games. I had never heard of the game, but was happy to purchase it since it came with Merlin. As it turns out, I have actually played this game more than the Merlin expansion. Ironic, yes? 🙂
The third edition was short lived. I don’t have actual publish dates (or have any idea how many copies of the game were printed or put into distribution) but I know that it was sold out for a long time. Once it was gone, as with normal economics of Supply and Demand, the prices started going up. Folks on Board Game Geek started wondering whether the game would get a reprint…and when. There was some behind the scenes stuff that I can only speculate about (so I won’t) but ultimately the game did get a reprint, but this time by Wizkids.
Wizkids did some great stuff with the reprint! They provided pre-painted miniatures, which was cool. But even better, they took years and years of comments and discussion on Board Game Geek and used that to completely rewrite the manual. Several of the recognized experts / super-fans of the game on BGG were consulted during the rewrite process. However, they didn’t stop with rewriting the manual. They also reproduced the graphic files for other components too, and here’s where the “fury” starts.
There is a deck of cards in the game that is very important. Two decks, actually, but they’re shuffled together. One deck does good stuff for the hunters, and the other does good stuff for Dracula. When the hunters draw cards from the deck during the day they draw from the top of the deck. If it’s a hunter card, they keep it. If it’s a Dracula card it is immediately discarded. The important part is that the top of the card is visible so they know what they’re getting into.
During the night phase the hunters can still resupply (that’s what the card draw action is called) but they draw from the bottom of the deck. The only thing that is supposed to be different about the two types of cards is the icon in the center of the card. The suspense as the card is drawn from the bottom of the deck is a big part of the game. If the card drawn is a hunter card at night, they still get to keep it. But if it’s a Dracula card, the Dracula player gets to add that card to their hand, increasing their ability to perform nefarious tasks!
So what went wrong? The graphic artist who was reworking the cards seemingly decided (speculation on my part) that since the card backs had different icons, that they should have different shades so players could easily tell them apart. Which is the problem…players are not supposed to be able to easily tell them apart. This was a problem.
A less challenging problem was on the hunter cards themselves. One hunter has a higher hand limit than the rest. During the rework, apparently a “copy and paste” operation made sure that all of the hunters had the same hand limit, which was also wrong.
To their credit, Wizkids did create a corrected deck of cards and hunter cards. This was available…until it wasn’t. They also did a second print run of the game which game with corrected materials. Unfortunately shortly thereafter Wizkids stopped producing the game. It is once again out of print and hard to find.
TL/DR
Here’s the important part. As mentioned, Wizkids no longer provides the correction pack. If you are fortunate enough to find a copy of the game shrink wrapped (in a local game store or anywhere else) how do you know if it’s the corrected version or not? It’s fortunately quite simple. On the back of the box near the bar code will be a production code. It will either be 624W100318 or 624W033018. I have been assuming those are dates (October 3, 2018 or March 30, 2018). The March production code will have the incorrect materials. The October production code will have the corrected materials.
Both are in demand. There are work-around for the incorrect cards. But if you don’t want to have to fix a broken game, make sure you’re buying the October code and you should be fine.
As mentioned above, if I got anything wrong, please let me know and I will update.