Variation

According to the rules, all vampires must announce in which direction they flee when leaving a room with a hunter.
To give Dracula and his minions a small advantage, you can agree to skip this rule.

In this way, a vampire can use his last movement point to disappear. The hunters will have to guess where the vampire moves to.

Game aid + extra note pads

On Boardgame Geek, I've posted a handy game aid in order to help Dracula reading the zone numbers secretly without revealing his position. Besides, you find a summary of the most important rules.

You can also download extra movement log sheets to print out.

Lock markers

The Lock markers are rather big and risk to cover counters and zone numbers.

My fellow Eric Hanuise proposed to use matches instead of the markers.

Vinciane on the other hand proposed to use plastic bases from another game. Now, the locks fit better in-between two zones.

The figures

Zvezda, the publisher of the game, has sculpted very nice figures. Of course, they come unpainted in the box, but look here how expressive they become with a quick brush of colour.



Example : How to paint Dracula in 10 minutes?
1) Use acrylic colours : they dry quickly.
2) Paint first the figure in black.
3) When the colour is dry, add some delicate grey tones with a dry brush in order to lighten up the details.
4) Clean your brush and add red details on his cape.
5) Clean your brush thoroughly and paint his face white and add dark eyebrows (in brown or black).
6) Put some brown on his boots. It's dirty in his castle.
7) If you are as clumsy as me, correct now your mistakes.
8) Stop your stopwatch. You are ready!

How to attack?

See the trailer by clicking on the label Videos!


Case 1 : Van Helsing enters a room and discovers Dracula. He can immediately attack, using his last 2 action points. He uses his pistol and needs a 2 or less to succeed. Unfortunately, he rolls 3 and 6. He misses both attacks.


Case 2 : Dracula fights back using his claws. He has still 5 Blood points and requires a 5 or less to succeed. He attacks 3 times and rolls 2, 3 and 6.


Van Helsing gets 2 hits and lowers his Blood points from 4 to 2. Above this, he must drop one of his objects (at his choice).


Next Dracula tries to bite Van Helsing. In contrary to a claw-attack, Van Helsing must roll the die. He needs 2 or less to remain unharmed (equal as his actual Blood points). Van Helsing rolls 3 and loses 2 extra Blood points. He becomes undead and transforms in a vampire. He loses all his objects in the zone.
Note: if Dracula would have failed his bite-attack, he would have lost one Blood point.
Finally, Dracula disappears in an adjacent room.

Actions

As explained earlier, you have as many actions points as your actual blood points. Each action costs one action point. In your turn, you can :
- move
- search
- use an object
- attack

Examples:
You have 4 Action points. Van Helsing moves 3 times and searches the room. You flip over the marker and find the master keys. Now, you can open any locked door.


Dracula has 5 actions points. He moves secretly by noting the arrival dots on a log sheet. Nevertheless, at the start of his turn, he must announce where he is standing. So, the player reveals that Dracula is standing in zone n°20. Dracula enters the room of Van Helsing (1 action). He attacks him twice (2 actions). Then, he moves away to zone n° 19 in order to be hidden again (2 actions). He notes n°19 on his log.


Next: how to attack?

The castle

Here is a 3D view of the castle of Dracula.


The gameboard consists of 3 parts, each part showing one level of the castle.



Each zone has a number, which is useful for the vampire player, as he will move secretly (more or less in a similar way as in "Nuns on the run"). Zone n° 34 indicates the coffin of Dracula. He will start there and he must try to reach it back after finding his brides.
You can move from one level to the other by using one of the 5 small towers.
The dotted squares indicate the places where object counters will be put down. The characters will be able to pick them up and add them on their sheet.


Next: what can you do in your turn?

The characters

There are 5 characters in the game: Dracula and the 4 hunters : Van Helsing, Mina Murray, Jonathan Harker and Lord Godalming.

Each character has one sheet. On this sheet, you see a row with Blood points and a row for objects (bats for Dracula). The Blood points indicate your life points, your action points and the number of objects that you may carry.

At the start of the game, each character starts at the maximum number of Blood points, which is 4 for the hunters and 5 for Dracula.
This is indicated by placing a Blood marker as a diamond on top of the right square.

The hunters get 6 initial objects to divide: a crucifix, a dagger, a pistol,a lamp, an antidote and a first aid kit.


The first problem emerges: who gets which object(s)? The hunters must find an agreement. The objects are placed facedown on the character sheet. Dracula does not need to know who is carrying which object.

The small number on some objects indicate the chance that using the object succeeds. The higher the number the more chance on success.
The asterix indicates that the object can only be used once. After use, you must discard the object.

Soon : the castle and its 3 levels.

Trailer Van Helsing

Here is the trailer for the new game.

I hope you like it as much as we had fun to make it.



The game will be released in the first week of october (in Europe).

Many questions...

Where are these people going to?



What will Lord Godalming chose?



Where is Mina so scared about?



Why is Jonathan Harker holding a rifle?



What is this stake for?


So many questions...
Soon, you will know the answers by looking at the trailer or by playing the game "Van Helsing"!

Teaser trailer

The shooting of the trailer is finished and now I'm busy with the editing.
Here is a first picture as a teaser.



A few interesting facts:

- The trailer was shot close to Borgo Pass in Roumania.
- The actors were selected among the most talented Belgian stars.
- The crew was the "crème de la crème" of the professional filmmakers.
- The original budget was surpassed ten times.
- The producer has expended all his savings due to excessive extras, like a private jet for Van Helsing.
- The director, which is the same person as the producer, got big family problems as his wife had to clean all the mess at the end of the shooting.
- The release of the game is postponed to october in order to allow finishing the editing in time.

Van Helsing

Early September the new game "Van Helsing" from Sirius will be launched.

To promote this game, I'm preparing to shoot a trailer (like for Nuns on the Run).

You may expect the trailer around mid-september.