World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King Review – Pandemic Without the Panic

Wrath of the Lich King the board game is like going to a restaurant and asking for some hot, thick-cut chips. As it arrives, it’s partnered with a small container of white sauce.

Without thinking, you dip a chip assuming it’s mayonnaise or garlic aioli, and it turns out to be tartare. Leaving you with this weird taste in your mouth, where it isn’t bad so much as it is different. But it creates a disconnect between what you were expecting and what you got.

This is what this Warcraft version of Pandemic felt like. My expectations and hopes for this game weren’t met, in a way that left me confused and disappointed.

Before we get into that, I want to set the scene.

While I haven’t played in a while, Warcraft was a large factor in my life during my formative years. We’re talking over a decade of gaming, with most of that time playing with my then-girlfriend, now wife, mother of my child, and editor. So the series is close to my heart.

Then from the board game aspect, Pandemic was one of the first games to have clicked with me. It’s a game I come back to regularly in one form or another, although these days it’s mostly Pandemic Iberia.

Given this, I felt like Warcraft Pandemic was made for me.

Before I could pre-order the game, I checked the Advent Games store weekly. Pre-ordered it the second it was available and counted down the days until it arrived.

It wasn’t until I ripped open the packaging and saw on the front cover six words that everything changed. 

Based on Pandemic by Matt Leacock.

Shock.

Without Matt’s involvement would this be the same Pandemic that I love?

Notable Differences to Pandemic

I’ve written enough about Pandemic games that if you need an in-depth run-through of the rules see my reviews: Pandemic, or Pandemic: Iberia. But quick refresher: each turn you get four actions, once taken, you get two player cards and then spread disease cubes all over the globe.

This is where the similarities stop between Pandemic and Wrath of the Lich King the board game. Some changes are small, like the setting being Northrend, and that now you’re dealing with ghouls instead of diseases.

Then the changes get weirder.

Firstly, it doubles the amount of playtime and replaces player cards with action cards. They no longer provide actions themselves but empower actions you’re already capable of. For instance, the fight card gives you additional strength on a fight action, while the travel card allows you to move four spaces for free.

Winning is drastically different as well. From set collecting a bunch of coloured cards, you’re now making your way to different quest points. Then unsatisfyingly spending turns to move the progress marker up the quest meter.

However, the biggest change in gameplay is that you’re no longer playing a logic puzzle that builds slowly into a disease-ridden crescendo.

Instead Warcraft Pandemic feels more like Talisman.

The puzzle becomes the backdrop to rolling dice, Warcraft, and adventure. Where it’s more about telling a story than forcing you to solve anything. This would be great except Wrath of the Lich King the board game relies too heavily on its Warcraft theme and doesn’t bring anything new to a story we experienced in a better medium for storytelling.

What Went Wrong?

While Wrath of the Lich King Pandemic is a genuinely fine game and sits comfortably alongside the original Pandemic and Horrified. It doesn’t feel like a Pandemic game, nor does it feel like anyone on the team understood Pandemic. Not really.

Specific elements are missing – both big and small. For instance, the graphic design, instead of opting for intricately patterned card backs, went with references to the original Warcraft. Not a faux pas in itself but when you’re making the next in a series of games, especially one with such history, it stands out.

Then there’s the new outbreak, or overrun, mechanic. In Pandemic, an outbreak spreads disease cubes to neighbouring towns. This puts a lot of pressure on you, and you get this fantastic visual representation that something has gone wrong.

In Wrath of the Lich King, this gets replaced by an abomination, which chases you around attacking your efficiency. It doesn’t feel as dangerous and doesn’t provide that sense of disaster that Pandemic outbreaks do.

Because of these new mechanics, a lot of the tension – one of the key components of the Pandemic formula – is removed from the game. 

Your biggest fear is running out of components, as only then does the despair track move up. A key losing condition. But running out of components doesn’t provide enough feedback for the danger it represents.

The original Pandemic suffocates you with disease cubes. Putting you on edge by giving you too much to do and forcing you to multi-task and triage every turn. Warcraft Pandemic has none of this, therefore I found it harder to get invested in the game, and the problems it presented.

Warcraft is Still Good

The one shining light of this Pandemic System is the way the Warcraft property was handled. They created this game with love. Everything is incredibly evocative of the Warcraft domain, so fans are in for a treat.

There’s one tiny exception, and I mean destined-to-be-lost-in-the-couch tiny, and that’s the progress markers. Which are so small, and I kept losing them inside the game box.

Otherwise, they went all-in on the theme, with each icon, or piece of art evocative of the world of Warcraft. From Thrall to Jaina and Sylvanas all of the characters have unique abilities you’d find in the games, and their models are all well-detailed. It feels great to throw Muradin at your friends shouting ‘Dwarf Toss’.

The effort put in shines through, as it gave me a massive dose of nostalgia for simpler times. When I could nurse a bottle of coke, ignore my homework, and do nothing else but play World of Warcraft for hours on end.

All that said, the most disappointing aspect of this theme was the Lich King. Who acts more like a cheerleader than undying royalty. You never get to fight him, not really, and for the rest of the game, he only causes one damage if you’re in his area. Which is only a deterrent and not representative of the 15-minute boss fight at the top of the Ice Crown Citadel.

Rare, Epic or Legendary?

Overall, Wrath of the Lich King: A Pandemic System is a good attempt at adding a Warcraft theme to Pandemic. However, it’s like Horrified in that it does a great job thematically but fails to deliver the crunchy gameplay and the pressure-cooker tension you’ve learned to love and expect from the other thousands of Pandemic variants.

But because it’s attached to the Pandemic brand, there are all sorts of pre-existing expectations for what this game should be. So in comparison, Wrath of the Lich King comes up short.

I still think die-hard fans of Warcraft will have a blast with this one, especially if you’re new to board gaming. For everyone else though, you’re better off getting Pandemic Iberia for board gamey goodness, or Horrified if you just want the rush of beating monsters off with a stick.