I can not help but to agree with the earlier review for this game. I originally found this game 2 years ago in a used game store. It was in new condition so I bought it without ever hearing anything about it. Let me tell you this game is outstanding and is truely worth the investment if you can ever find it.

The game is set around the story of Dracula and is for 2-4 players. One player plays Dracula and the other three players play vampire hunters from the novel (the characters Van Helsing, Doctor Seward, and Lord Godalmling). The game mechanics have some basic similarities to the game Scotland Yard in which it pits one player against the remaining players who act as a team. The object of the game is for the vampire hunters to find and kill Dracula, where Dracula must either kill off the hunters or place 5 vampires secretly throughout Europe.

The game board is a map of Europe, England and western Asia and depicts cities and towns of varing sizes all interconnected with roads, train tracks or sea zones. The Dracula player moves in secret, marking his location on a separate map board hidden from the players. The players make all of their moves on the game board. This is where the similarities to Scotland yard end and where this game truely excels. The dracula player has a pool of 5 encounter chits (drawn at random) and may place one encounter chit on any location that he moves to during his turn. The encounter chit is placed in secret on his hidden map. There is a very wide variety of encounters ranging anything from creatures that the vampire hunters must fight to encounters that make them miss their turn or rob them of their weapons or event cards. One of these encounter chits in particular is a vampire. If Dracula places 5 of these encounter chits on the map he wins the game.

The hunters then move to different cities on their turns and must face any encounters (if any) and then may draw weapon chits (ranging from rifles to anti-vampire weapons), or event cards. The event cards are drawn from the bottom of the deck and depending on their card back design may either be for the Hunter or for the Dracula player. The hunters must depend on these cards to make themselves stronger as well as to help reveal Dracula's location to them at certain times during the game. But with every card drawn there is a risk that it will be one of the Dracula players cards, thus making him stronger.

The only other way that you can find Dracula is by the Local Rumors. Local Rumors follow behind Dracula as he moves from town to town and always mark the town that Dracula last moved from. If a hunter lands on a town and hears Local Rumors then he knows that Dracula is most likely only one town away. This can be very unnerving for a player who is not prepared to fight Dracula but from finding the Rumors realizes that Dracula could pounce on him next turn.

Combat is played out with a variety of weapons or attack moves that are selected in secret by each player before the dice are rolled. Then the weapon or attack move is revealed and the result is resolved. The result of the combat depends on the particular combination of weapons/attack move/defense move that is played by each player.

This is a fantastic game and the game length may vary anywhere from 15 minutes to 3 hours. There are MANY different strategies that can be employed for both the hunters as well as the Dracula player throughout the game. The game is also very well balanced.

This game is truly one of the best Games Workshop boardgames ever produced (next to Talisman 2nd Ed), and it is very sad that this boardgame was discontinued many years ago. I have owned this game for 2 years now and it is the most requested game that I own during that 2-year period. I can not recommend this game highly enough. If you find it at a good price, it is certainly worth every penny.