Against the Slave Lords - A Review

I received the second AD&D adventure compilation in the mail this last week and am once again very pleased with my purchase!  For those of you who do not know, Wizards of the Coast is in the process of releasing all kinds of old D&D products, core and adventure books from multiple editions.  Its nice to be able to pick up in print a nice shiney new version of the old adventures that I either lost or never purchased. Against the Slave Lords is the newest adventure compilation, it contains previously published adventures A1-A4 as well as a brand spanking new introduction adventure A0 Danger at Darkshelf Quarry.

This offering is very similar to the last adventure book, Dungeons of Dread.  It is a hardcover book with a very nice cover that features some slight embossing.  There are 162 pages of adventure and maps printed on a nice glossy paper and at the end of the book are twelve pages of black and white fan art.  Its a great looking book that does not suffer from the poor image quality of the first release.  My biggest gripe with both books is that there is no separate map booklet, all of the maps are printed at the end of each adventure, so you will need to make copies or you will find yourself flipping back a forth a lot.  I have heard that Wizards of the Coast will be releasing .pdf's of all of the maps but I was unable to find them.  Maybe my internet-fu is not as good as I believed (or maybe they are lazy and have not released them yet).  If anyone locates them please link them in the comments!

The adventures included are as follows: A0 Danger at Darkshelf Quarry, A1 Slave Pits of the Undercity, A2 Secret of the Slavers Stockade, A3 Assault on the Aerie of the Slave Lords and A4 In the Dungeons of the Slave Lords.  There are introductions to each by Skip Williams, David "Zeb" Cook, Harold Johnson, Allen Hammock and Lawrence Schick.  The art is fantastic throughout with nice crisp reproductions, though I found the new art in A0 to be mediocre and not as "old school" as the rest of the book.

The Slave Lord series is consistently rated as one of the great AD&D adventures of all time.  This is a great new package with a brand new introductory adventure and it is not one that should be missed.  Buy this book if you do not already own this series, it is Drunk Umber Hulk approved!