Reddit mentions of WizKids Dungeons & Dragons: Tomb of Annihilation Adventure System Board Game

Hey, so I don't know what your budget is, but I'm going to make a few recommendations.

Those are: Any of the D&D Board games from this list:

The Legend of Drizzt $50

Castle Ravenloft $50

Temple of Elemental Evil $45

Wrath of Ashardalon $50

Tomb of Annihilation

May seem pricey, but lemme tell you why I recommend these: they come with a shitton of minis, the minis are high quality, they come with DUNGEON TILES, they come with loot cards, they come with tokens for HP and stuff, and they can be used to play a game that has different scenarios if you're into that, though the game isn't D&D proper (though it is D&D flavored).

So here's a picture of all the minis that Wrath of Ashardalon comes with

ALL of that. That's 42 minis right there. If the box only came with minis, that would be about $1.20 a mini. You're not going to find minis of that quality that cheap pretty much anywhere else. It is an insanely good deal.

So then we have the tiles. They interlock with each other, and are compatible with tiles from all the other games I listed. [Here's a pile] (https://spalanz.files.wordpress.com/2015/07/imag3329.jpg) , here's some assembled, and that's 12 tiles. The box comes with 40.

Lemme give you a breakdown of what WoA comes with in terms of minis:

Ashardalon, Red Dragon

Bellax, Gauth

Cave Bear x3

Duergar Guard x3

Gibbering Mouther x3

Grell x3

Heskan, Dragonborn Wizard

Human Cultist x3

Keyleth, Elf Paladin

Kobold Dragonshield x3

Kraash, Orc Storm Shaman

Legion Devil x3

Margraath, Duergar Captain

Meerak, Kobold Dragonlord

Orc Archer x3

Orc Smasher x3

Otyugh

Quinn, Human Cleric

Rage Drake

Snake x3

Tarak, Half-Orc Rogue

Vistra, Dwarf Fighter

There's been five released so far (ordered below oldest to newest):

• Wrath of Ashardalon
  
• Castle Ravenloft
  
• Legend of Drizzt
  
• Temple of Elemental Evil
  
• Tomb of Annihilation
  
  They are each designed to be cooperative adventures where there is no DM but instead all of the monsters are designed to run themselves according to a set of rules outlined on monster cards corresponding to each creature (Note if you buy one, keep the two decks of cards separate until told to combine them in the adventure book -- this is not clear in the rules). The players face off against different scenarios in an adventure book which prescribes what monsters and tiles to use or set-aside and then they generate a random dungeon through drawing dungeon tiles from the stack as they explore.
  
  They can of course be played on their own and are a moderately enjoyable (some even have one of their adventures that is suitable as single-player). Though I own all of them I've only played Elemental Evil, but I hear that they experience improves with each one released.
  
  They can also be lots of use for a budding DM; there lots of useful stuff in them that can be borrowed or raided.
  
  

  Useful D&D Elements
  

  
  

• Dungeon Tiles that interlock allowing for quick and easy custom dungeons. Ashardalon, Ravenloft, and Elemental Evil have pretty standard stonework dungeons, but Drizzt has nice cavern tiles, and Annihilation has jungle and vine choked corridors. EE also has 6 or so tiles with a micro-scale town on one side of each, making a quick and dirty town map super easy.
  
• Lots of figures, about 40-45 in each set, ranging from 'Small' to (in some sets) 'Huge.' All of them are sized correctly to match other official D&D figures, the plastic is pretty durable. They are highly detailed and quite suitable for painting. They're also rather useful if you are running the official 5e campaign that corresponds to the setting/theme for each game (e.g. Tyranny of Dragons = Ashardalon, etc. [SKT has no Adventure System game]).
  
• A ton of cardboard tokens, varying by set, for doors, treasure, chests, traps, additional NPCs or creatures
  
  But there's also downsides:
  
  
• Many tiles have an assortment of icons or the occasional words on them, Elemental Evil is the worst offender here with lots of random icons that might make your players scratch their heads at the normal D&D table.
  
• Many more tokens than you will have use for. I have started to use the hard cardboard tokens as bases for off-brand figures that need things to stand on, just glue it on, paint black over the cardboard printing -- voila!
  
• Several of the figures may be bent from being packaged and packed in there -- curved spears, flaccid swords, leaning creatures. I have not found a good way to rectify this.
  
• The scenario book and monster cards are mostly useless if you are getting one only for parts and pieces useful in your normal D&D game.
  
• The tiles do not promote the building of many really large rooms or corridors, there is no "inside corner" to make L-shaped rooms or wide hallways. Furthermore, the fully open 4x4 tiles are extremely rare (with tiles from 6 complete games I have less than a half-dozen), making really large rooms difficult -- they usually just become really long rooms.

Already released
Whoops. Well at least here are the preorder dates which answers your question.

https://www.amazon.com/WizKids-Dungeons-Annihilation-Adventure-Strategy/dp/B071LF9DJ3/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1506110398&sr=8-1&keywords=tomb+of+annihilation+board+game

https://www.amazon.com/WizKids-Annihilation-Premium-Board-Games/dp/B071P11CB1/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1506110398&sr=8-2&keywords=tomb+of+annihilation+board+game