Armies of Death
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 The original Puffin Books cover (1988) | |
| Author | Ian Livingstone |
|---|---|
| Illustrator | Nik Williams |
| Cover artist | Chris Achilleos |
| Series | Fighting Fantasy
|
| Genre | Fantasy Location: Allansia, Titan |
Publication date |
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| Media type | Print (Paperback) |
| ISBN | 0-14-032486-0 (Puffin) ISBN 1-84046-436-4 (Wizard) |
| Preceded by | Trial of Champions |
Armies Of Death is a single-player roleplaying gamebook written by Ian Livingstone, illustrated by Nik Williams and originally published in 1988 by Puffin Books. It was later republished by Wizard Books in 2003. It forms part of Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone's Fighting Fantasy series.
It is the 36th in the series in the original Puffin series (ISBN 0-14-032486-0) and 14th in the modern Wizard series (ISBN 1-84046-436-4).
Rules
[edit]The story features an additional game mechanic: both the player's character and their army have attributes for combat, as there is a combination of individual and mass battles.
Story
[edit]Armies of Death is a direct sequel to the Fighting Fantasy title Trial of Champions. The player assumes the role of the winner of the Trial. With the continent Allansia threatened by the evil Shadow Demon Agglax and his growing undead army, the adventurer must use his newfound-riches to raise an army to stop the threat. Despite being a sequel storywise, the gameplay has little in common with the two previous entries, as the player is no longer exploring a dungeon.
Reception
[edit]Writing for Fantasy Book Review, David Gilchrist commented, "This is a good, fun gamebook, with enough fighting and adventure to keep the average young adventurer happy. There are a few nice touches added in this book that help the gameplay ... The addition of skirmish battles help add variety to the gameplay, and although the combat system for these is about as basic as it could be, it probably couldn't be much more complex or it would risk leaving younger readers behind." However, Gilchrist thought some of the inevitable bad endings were unnecessary, noting, "there are just too many arbitrary deaths scattered throughout the book. I think I was killed three times by turning the wrong way in a maze. No hints about air going stale, no map I could have picked up earlier. I was just led up the garden (dungeon) path and then a huge rock landed on my head."[1][unreliable source]
After a thorough examination of the book, Allison Cybe concluded, "Armies of Death is a pretty solid and exciting book. Its system for large scale combat is really easy to use and flexible enough to work really smoothly without cutting into the flow of the story. This is good. Buy it."[2][unreliable source]
In a list of the Top Ten Fighting Fantasy gamebooks, Andrew Brassleay ranked Armies of Death as #9, commenting "Ian Livingstone advanced Fighting Fantasy's standard lone adventurer narrative and gave the hero, flush with cash after winning the Trial of Champions, an army to manage. The battle section is a lot of fun, as you steer your troops against an undead horde."[3]
References
[edit]- ^ Gilchrist, David. "Armies of Death by Ian Livingstone (Fighting Fantasy: Book 14)".
- ^ Cybe, Allison. "Armies of Death".
- ^ Brassleay, Andrew (2022-12-10). "The Best Fighting Fantasy Books".
External links
[edit]- "Armies of Death on the official Fighting Fantasy website". Archived from the original on 2007-06-17.
- "Armies of Death on the Wizard Books website".
- "Fighting Fantasy Gamebooks on gamebooks.org". Archived from the original on 2016-12-04. Retrieved 2007-05-05.
- "Armies of Death on gamebooks.org".
- "Armies of Death on the Internet Archive record of the old fightingfantasy.com site". Archived from the original on November 27, 2005.