Emberheart – Rescuing Dragons While Trying Not to Burn Out

On the island of Emberheart, dragons still soar across the skies like living fireworks. Beautiful, powerful and, unfortunately, very much in danger. Long ago humans and dragons lived peacefully together, but those days are gone. Poachers from distant lands have started sneaking in to capture these creatures, and the King has finally had enough. He’s sending his champions to the island, which conveniently means you, to protect the dragons, free the captured ones and hopefully prevent the whole place from going up in flames.

In Emberheart, two to four players step into the boots of these champions, each trying to earn the most glory and become the next dragon ambassador. The game lasts five rounds and during that time you’ll send your followers all over the island to complete missions, rescue dragons, recruit heroes and train your personal dragon companion. Every choice adds a little heat to your reputation. Push too hard and your flame rises, and that fiery reputation might come back to haunt you at the end of the game.

👥 2-4 players, ages 12+
⌛ Playing time: 80 minutes
📝 Designers: Rob Fisher & Adam Porter
🎨 Artwork: Andrew Bosley

🏢 Publisher: Mindclash Games (review copy provided)

Gameplay overview

Each round is split into four phases: action, reward, raid and reset. After the fifth round, everyone counts their glory and the champion with the best story to tell the King wins the honour.

During the action phase, players take turns choosing one of three things. You can send a party to a location, use a special location for an instant effect, or take one of the ambassador’s aides. Sending a party is where most of the game happens. The island has several locations such as the heroes’ guild, the tavern, the poachers’ camp, the mountain, the preserve and the garrison. To visit one, you send a stack of one to five hirelings with your crest on top to the matching numbered space. Larger parties act earlier during the reward phase but they drain your people quickly, so it’s always a bit of a balancing act.

Hirelings are the villagers helping you out. Grunts are general workers who can go anywhere, though they disappear after doing the job. Then there are experts, which stay with you from round to round but only visit certain places. Scouts handle anything involving recruiting or sneaking around. Rangers focus on the garrison and the preserve. Wardens climb the mountain. You can mix grunts with any experts that fit the task. You’ll also gather gear, which you can use to swap hirelings in your supply or save up so you can reduce your flame at the end of the game. You need three gear to lower your flame by one.

Every player also has a dragon companion with three attributes: strength, senses and speed. Once per round you can send your dragon along with a party. Strength lets a smaller party count as a bigger one when placing it. Senses can give you extra gear, but only when you place your dragon on space number 3 of a location. Speed helps you cool down and lower your flame, but only if your dragon arrives somewhere before anyone else has put a party there. Improving these attributes also earns you glory at the end of the game.

If you don’t want to send a party, you can use one of the two special locations. The warehouse gives you two gear and the firestation gives you four grunts at the cost of one flame. Or you can take one of the four aides, each with a small perk. The leader makes you first player next round and lets you recall a party right away and place a new one. The defender lets you remove one of the raid cards. The survivalist gives you a gear and decides tie order on the mountain. The healer simply lowers your flame. The action phase ends as soon as the last aide is taken.

During the reward phase, locations are resolved, one after another. Within each location, the biggest party acts first. If you don’t want or cannot take a card, you can bring your party home and gain two gear instead.

At the heroes’ guild, you recruit heroes who give you abilities and scoring at the end of the game, as long as you attach a dragon of the same colour to them. At the tavern, you pick up new hirelings and sometimes adjust your flame level. The poachers’ camp lets you free captive dragons, including exotic dragons that can count as any colour until you attach them to a card. At the mountain, you climb through several levels and can rescue up to three dragons, though your wardens might get exhausted or singed along the way. If you reach the top, you also improve one of your attributes. The preserve lets you shelter dragons and move two steps up the matching attribute track. And the garrison offers missions that need specific combinations of dragons, heroes or hirelings. Completing these gives you glory and moves you up on an attribute track.

After everything at the locations has been resolved, grunts are discarded and experts, crests and your dragons return to you.

Then comes the raid phase. The remaining raid card shows what each player must discard. If you can’t meet the requirements because you’re missing certain hirelings, your flame rises. Later in the game, these raids get tougher because you’re holding more cards and dragons, so you need more workers to keep things in order.

In the reset phase, fresh cards are drawn, aides come back, two new raid cards are revealed and the first player marker goes to whoever has the leader aide.

After the fifth round, it is time for final scoring. You add up the glory from your dragons, the highest level on each attribute track, heroes whose scoring conditions you met, any completed garrison missions and finally your position on the flame track. Whoever ends with the most glory becomes the new dragon ambassador and guardian of Emberheart.

Gameplay and flow

Once you start playing, the game falls into a comfortable pace pretty quickly. The turns are short, so even with four players nobody sits waiting very long. You place a party, use a special location or take an aide. That is the whole structure, and honestly, it keeps the pace nice and steady. What gives the game its bite is how the party size decides when you get your reward. A big party acts early, a small one waits its turn. It sounds simple, and it is, but in practice it creates a small race on almost every location.

You feel this most when you and another player clearly want the same thing. Someone drops a stack of four hirelings on a location and you just think… well, fair enough, I guess I am changing plans. The board fills up faster than you expect, especially with four players, so you cannot just wander around doing your own thing.

Most turns are quick, but the real decisions happen between those turns. You look at the board, check how many hirelings you have left, maybe sigh a little, and then decide whether this is the round where you go for a hero, refill in the tavern or deal with the mountain. The game rewards timing more than anything else. If you rush without thinking, you run out of hirelings. If you play too slowly, the good cards disappear.

The reward phase, where the results of all placements happen, is the slowest part during the first play or two. There is a lot to resolve in order. But once you know the flow, it becomes very automatic. The raid and reset phases are quick housekeeping moments and rarely interrupt the pace.

Strategy and luck

Even though Emberheart looks cute and colourful, the gameplay leans more towards planning than luck. There are card draws of course, but let’s face it, this is not the kind of game where one unlucky flip ruins your round. If something you hoped for is not there, there is almost always a backup plan. You can grab another card, push an attribute, or simply recall your party and turn the moment into gear. The game does not punish you for adjusting on the fly.

The most important decisions come from managing your hirelings. Grunts disappear after work, experts stay with you but only visit certain spots, and you can upgrade them with gear when needed. To be fair, this is one of the places where new players often slip. If you rely too much on grunts, you end up rebuilding your whole workforce every round. If you lean too heavily on experts, you might accidentally limit yourself. After a few plays, you start to see the balance more clearly.

Your dragon companion also becomes more important the more you play. You only get to use it once per round, so the timing matters a lot. Strength helps with earlier placement, senses gives you extra gear at the right moment and speed cools your flame if you arrive somewhere before everyone else. When you first learn the game, the dragon feels like a small bonus. After several plays, you start thinking… no, this is actually the key to getting ahead.

There is luck here and there with card draws and mountain dragons, but the game usually gives you another route forward. The real challenge is managing your workforce, keeping your options open and choosing when to commit and when to wait.

Player interaction

The interaction here is steady and noticeable without being annoying. Nobody steals your resources or destroys your plans directly, which some players will appreciate. At the same time, you cannot just play in your own corner. The moment someone places a party on a spot you wanted, you feel it immediately. That is the heart of the interaction. You are always watching what others commit, especially their party sizes, because that tells you which cards might be gone by the time your turn comes.

Some spots get competitive more often than others. The tavern becomes busy when everyone’s hirelings start running low. The poachers’ camp turns into a small race when a useful dragon shows up. The heroes’ guild can get tight if several players chase the same colours. And the mountain is its own little contest, especially because climbing order matters.

The aides also play their part in keeping things interesting. There are only four each round and they disappear quickly. The leader and defender often go early, and if someone takes the survivalist just before your climb, well, that can be a slightly painful moment.

The nice thing is that none of this becomes hostile. You feel the competition, but you are never blocked without options. You always have a backup action. It keeps the table active without stressing anyone out.

Theme and atmosphere

For a euro game, the theme in Emberheart comes through better than you might expect. You are still pushing tokens and collecting icons, but the artwork and little touches do a lot of work. The mountain is the strongest example. Climbing higher, losing wardens on the way and finally reaching a dragon at the top ends up feeling like its own little moment in the game. The poachers’ camp has a similar energy. You see captured dragons and feel a little push to free them before someone else arrives.

Other locations are more mechanical. The tavern is basically a worker supply and the garrison is a set of requirements. They work fine, but you do not exactly feel like you are living in a fantasy novel there. Still, the player boards, the different dragons and the hero cards give the game enough personality that it does not feel dry.

The theme is not deep, but it brings colour without getting in the way. It is enough to make the experience feel warmer and less abstract.

Components and art

The game looks great once everything is on the table. The artwork has a soft, painted look that makes the island feel like a real place. It is detailed, but the important areas stand out clearly once you know where to look. The dragons are easily the most striking part of the art, each one with its own personality. The heroes have a lighter, storybook look and the iconography is easy to read across the cards.

The hireling tokens are mainly practical. They are big enough to handle easily and stacking them gives the game its own look on the table. The little wooden dragon meeples on top make the parties look lively, even when the stack is only two tokens tall.

The cards are clean and consistent in their design. Mountain dragons look a bit dramatic, tavern cards feel warm and busy, and garrison missions stay more neutral so the icons remain clear. The player boards are also lovely, with big dragon art that gives each player a bit of identity.

The only thing to be aware of is the table space. The board is quite large and the different areas spread out quickly. If you have a smaller table, you will feel it. But once everything is set up, the game looks cohesive and does not feel messy.

Pacing and replayability

The pacing stays pretty even throughout the whole game. The round structure is simple, the turns are short and the phases are easy to remember. The reward phase is the slowest part during your first game, mainly because you need to check a few things, but after that it becomes smooth. The last round usually takes the longest, since everyone is trying to squeeze out a little more glory, but it never becomes a slog.

Replayability mainly comes from the card decks and the different setups they create. Some games point you towards the mountain. Others lean towards the preserve or garrison, and the heroes available each game can nudge you in certain directions. The B side of the player boards adds some asymmetry that keeps the early game interesting. The skills are small, but they encourage players to try different approaches.

The structure stays the same every game, so do not expect dramatic surprises. But the shifting cards, dragons and player skills give the game enough variety that it stays fresh over multiple plays.

Accessibility and complexity

Despite the amount of stuff on the table, Emberheart is relatively easy to teach. The box says 12 plus, and that feels right. The actions are simple, the worker types make sense after one round and most people pick it up without much trouble. The mountain is the only part that usually needs a little extra explanation, but after one example it clicks.

The rulebook helps a lot. It is organised clearly, the examples actually match the situations you see during play and the final page has a very handy icon overview. The detailed explanations of the hero abilities and scoring conditions are especially nice. It feels like a rulebook written by people who actually teach games at tables.

The game fits nicely between light family euros and the heavier titles in the hobby. Enough to chew on, but no headache.

Final thoughts

After you’ve played it a handful of times, you start to see how the game actually wants to be played. It is a medium-weight euro that cares a lot about timing, party sizes and how you manage your dragon companion and hirelings. The party stacking looks like a cute twist at first, but honestly, it decides far more than you might expect. The more you play, the more you start recognising the little tempo battles at almost every location.

Your dragon companion also grows in importance as you get better. At first you treat it like a small bonus. After a while you think about it every round, because placing it at the wrong time feels like a missed opportunity you cannot get back.

Different games push you in different directions depending on the heroes, dragons and missions on the table. The B side of the player boards helps keep things fresh by nudging everyone down slightly different paths. It is not wildly asymmetric, but it does make each game feel a little different.

The game is not perfect. The board takes a lot of space, and some rounds rely a bit too much on the safety actions when your plans fall apart. The reward phase also slows down a bit at higher player counts. But none of these things get in the way of enjoying the core loop.

At the end of the day, Emberheart sits comfortably in that medium weight space. It is easy to bring to the table, teaches well and offers enough small decisions to stay interesting without becoming heavy. If you enjoy games where timing matters more than complexity, this one fits that feeling quite well.

📝 We received a review copy from Mindclash Games.