Eagle King: Banned

Last weekend I was visiting friends and I defied my shoulders and brought Talisman with me.

We played two games there, one with three players and one with four.

First game was the three player affair. Victory condition was a secret, and characters were Warlock, Druid and Minstrel. There seemed to be two distinct stages to the game. First half Druid and Minstrel were doing great, while Warlock got stuck to the middle region by refusing to come down.

Druid was the first character to complete a Path from the Woodlands expansion and gain a Destiny, which was a really good one, too. I think it was the one where the character may use light and dark fate liberally as either fate.

When just about every player had either Strength or Craft at 9-12, every player went to the inner region almost simultaneously. Minstrel went first, followed by Druid and Warlock was last.

Minstrel found out that it was the Eagle King up there. I think Minstreal had strength of 11. He won once the Strength & Craft 12 Eagle King, but then was thrown to the crags.

Druid had a lot better statistics, I think he had 12 Craft or perhaps even more. But Minstrel had cast a spell on Druid that removed all Fate from him, so unlucky rolls caused Druid to be thrown to the crags, too. Warlock was the last to come to the party, but he had lousy statistics for a fight. It was either nine or ten. So he was thrown out too.

Druid didn't have any followers when he encountered the vampire's tower, which caused him to lose two lives. Then he lost to the Eagle King, so suddenly probably the strongest of the three characters was walking very carefully with no fate and only one life. I don't remember what eventually killed the Druid, but die he did. New character was the Sage.

Now Warlock started to gain some impetus, and he was the second character to gain a destiny from the Woodlands. He didn't have all that great Strength and Craft, but he finally started getting some good spells, which caused him to win the Lord of Darkness not once, but twice. We were all starting to get really tired, so Warlock just started rushing to the crown of command when he had 12 Craft in battle.

And then yet again all the players were simultaneously in the Inner Region. Even the Sage, who just tried it for giggles.

But Warlock had the Cloak of Feathers, so once he got into the Inner Region, he jumped straight to the Valley of Fire, and next turn he fought the Eagle King. Thanks to objects and spells Warlock had to fight Eagle King honestly only once. But it was enough. Warlock won the first game.

I'm rather tired of the Eagle King as the random ending. I'm seriously considering of removing him from the random pool, since he tends to find his way to the crown way too often. I want to see something else as the random ending.


Game 2:

Second game was four players, with one who had never played Talisman before. We didn't use Reaper, Werewolf or night/day card because of that.

Characters were the Ley Walker (who is still unpainted, which annoyed me slightly), Doomsayer, Cleric and Elementalist.

Leywalker took some bad hits in the middle region. Since this happened very early in the game, the player decided it's worth it to kill Ley Walker and get a new character. So Ley Walker died and Dervish stepped in instead.

Cleric had a good start, as she got flail from the City armoury deck just by switching it to broken armor item. She also had other really good objects, but soon enough she picked up the living doll. Living doll forces you to pick it up and ditch every other object you have. And you get it off only at the alchemist. To make matters even worse for the cleric, Elementalist picked her stuff up - and next die roll cleric made for movement would've got her to the space where she had had to leave her stuff.

Doomsayer had a really good start too. He spent a lot of time in the Highlands region, and soon got enough gold to go and buy warhorse and riding horses from the stables at the city region. Nobody gained Strength or Craft insanely fast, but Doomsayer would have started snowballing himself if he only would have drawn monsters to fight.

Later in the game cleric cast Mesmerism on doomsayer's warhorse, but it was too late to actually affect doomsayer much. I think he had around seven strength by then.

Elementalist attempted to travel to the woods, but failed to meet complete his path. Cleric attempted to travel the woodlands twice, and once she succeeded. Her path was the "clear path", though, so she didn't gain a destiny.

Somehow cleric fell behind from the progress of others, even with her warhorse. All other characters were trying to get to the inner region. Doomsayer got first to the Plain of Peril, and he used Arnkell to teleport to Valley of Fire.

The Eagle King was robbed empty in this game, by the way. So much for his glory.

Random ending was Crown and Sceptre, which turned out to be a weird ending. Penalties to other players are so harsh, that to me it seems a little pointless to even have those effects - the ending might just as well read "Congratulations! You won the game!"

Well, at least it didn't take an eternity to resolve like in last few games.