I’ve almost played 100 games of Dominion on BSW. Hooray!
The game is remaining entertaining, although there are times when interaction ceases and super-combo decks become standard. Just like Magic. Yeah, there are things I don’t miss about Magic.
The Chapel (trash up to 4 cards in hand) has proven to be incredibly powerful – especially when taken early game. Getting rid of all the low value cards in hand makes your deck so much more efficient.
Talking of weird combos, I now have the new FFG version of Cosmic Encounter. Bitswise, it’s great. 50 races, and nice plastic spaceships that are so, so much more usable than the recent Avalon Hill version. (They are little flying saucers that stack). They’ve also got plans for an expansion. Let’s see how that goes.
I also have the upgrade pack for Talisman 4e. Now to get the Reaper expansion…
I also buckled and picked up the Road to Legend expansion for Descent. (Scott – did you ever finish that campaign you were running?) Don’t know how often we’ll get to play it; the drawback of our group owning somewhere upwards of 150 boardgames. Or 200. We need to find out.
I was happily reading the 4e Draconomicon and Manual of the Planes on the weekend. I’ve got a sneaking suspicion that they might be the best versions of those books yet. Yeah, I enjoyed them. 4e does some incredible things to the D&D cosmology – it keeps the best of the old, and puts in a lot of things that really resonate with me. Shadowfell and Feywild, I’m looking at you! (Oh, and the Elemental Chaos. Love that concept).
And I’ve just got to love any book that gives space to the Fomorians.
I also have the upgrade pack for Talisman 4e. Now to get the Reaper expansion…
I#m interested in what you think of the upgrade pack, as I put off getting it until this weekend. I think it’s nice to have the option to get the new figures and stuff cheaply, but the fact that the revision includes edits to the board (and that the revision apparently just says “remember waht the board should say now”) had me a bit concerned. As I said in a recent post, it seems FFG have a far broader approach to editing games they inherit than I feel appropriate. 🙂
I was happily reading the 4e Draconomicon and Manual of the Planes on the weekend. I’ve got a sneaking suspicion that they might be the best versions of those books yet. Yeah, I enjoyed them. 4e does some incredible things to the D&D cosmology – it keeps the best of the old, and puts in a lot of things that really resonate with me. Shadowfell and Feywild, I’m looking at you! (Oh, and the Elemental Chaos. Love that concept).
I just got Draconomicon today for my birthday, and I’ve yet to read it, so I’ll report back soon. Manual of the Planes, I’ve got to confess, didn’t psyche me up… but I suspect part of that is that it’s mostly mid tier content and I have no experience as yet with that.
I will say that I think the new cosmology is cool, but then since I already had a Faerie in 3E I would say that. 🙂 I liked that the Great Wheel got a 4E adaption of sorts in the Manual of the Planes, but would have to question why it would be a sticking point for anyone in moving editions. (“There’s no Bytopia? J’ACCUSE!”)
George Q
The board hasn’t really been changed that much; the Graveyard is really the only significant change. I think you can now download paste-ups from BGG…
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/image/415842?size=original
From looking at Fantasy Flight’s own website it does indeed seem that most of the changes are comparatively minor – and in the case of the Desert, it’s less a change and more a correction of a misprint.
Still, it bugs me that the company themselves don;t really hae a solution for this – sure, the website article I linked to has pictures of the changed squares, but isn’t this something worth including your supposed update pack? (I think I heard the update pack just has a list of changed spaces, but that seems awkward to monitor mid-game) More importantly, if the changes are that minor, should you be making them at all?
Like the substantial “errata” to Dark Heresy, it just seems like tinkering with small but annoyingly common bits – I wish they’d just saved it for an entirely new edition and supported the game I bought originally rather than try to “fix” it and then throw in expansions that assume I’m using their fixes. (I had a similar problem with the otherwise quite cool Call To Arms, a Babylon 5 wargame which couldn’t resist bringing out reasonably major rules changes every year.)
Then again, I’ll probably still be buying the update pack, so what do I know? 🙂 I enjoy Talisman (even if my girlfriend always wins) and I’m glad to see it’s still in print and getting new material, but since FFG got the Games Workshop licenses I’ve found a couple of their choices go against the grain for me.
George Q
I wouldn’t have bought the upgrade kit if I didn’t want the expansions, though. The cards are completely different; the actual card set is slightly changed (a good change – there were definitely too few spirits given the rules), but you wouldn’t be able to put the 4e cards and the Reaper cards together.
The minis are nice, but I’m not a big fan of unpainted minis.
The cards are completely different; the actual card set is slightly changed (a good change – there were definitely too few spirits given the rules)
That does sound kinda good, actually, because I have noticed that increasing Strength is way easier than increasing Craft – and the spirit-specific powers didn’t get much use.
you wouldn’t be able to put the 4e cards and the Reaper cards together.
That seems a real shame to me. I could appreciate that some amendments to the main game may be needed to support expansions (because if you don’t, you end up like the old Decipher Star Trek CCG 🙂 ) but I’m a bit suspicious about how difficult it would have been to make the Reaper without adding those new rules, or making a relatively cross-compatible one.
I imagine I’ll find out when I get the two boxes, though, and give it a proper look myself – and if I’m blown away, then all will be forgiven. 😉
The minis are nice, but I’m not a big fan of unpainted minis.
Minis of any sort, though, are a bit more hard-wearing than the cardboard standups of 4th Edition Talisman. 🙂 Arguably, that number of (even unpainted) miniatures will be worth the admission price for some people, especially since they’re an interesting mix of character types.
George Q