Damn the cult

We played a game of Talisman, with four players. 

The cast:

Arcane Scion -> Prophetess
Scavenger
Warlord
Celestial

We played with a hidden ending and Cataclysm board.

Early game was dominated by having the Toxic Spring pop up on Graveyard, and Fountain of Wisdom right next to it.

Arcane Scion got otherwise good start, but got into the nasty situation of hanging by the thread with just by one health remaining. Eventually Warlord paid for Black Knight to put the wonder kid out of his misery, and Prophetess entered the game.

Celestial had mediocre progress, not facing serious setbacks but not great progress either. It soon became apparent that it was a race between Scavenger and Warlord to win the game after Scavenger robbed the remains of Arcane Scion, getting the Talisman that gave +2 Craft in the middle and inner region. Warlord had utterly obnoxious  battle stats, but was locked behind unfinished warlock quest. This gave Scavenger the headstart to start getting through the inner region. Which was astonishing in it's own right. Scavenger had two health remaining, but managed to roll just one life lost at the icy tower thing, and even beat up the snowbeast like it was nothing. Mines and portal of power were a joke.

But then the hidden ending was revealed. Cult of the Damned was formed, and suddenly all the heroes had to set aside their petty squabbles and try to eradicate all dwellers. This... was perfectly doable, but somehow that happened when Warlord had to miss two turns, and Celestial was missing their next turn as well. This gave the cultists an enormous head start. 

Prophetess and Scavenger (who had one life remaining) were both attacking with Strength 4, while Celestial was doing just a little better. But warlord had easy enough time dispatching a stack of three.

Given the circumstances, adventurers were doing better than expected during battles. However... they absolutely started to botch their movement rolls, which meant that six remaining cultists were  able to infiltrate through portal of power after Warlord failed to attack a stack of four.

So, EVERYBODY loses.

Espionage

 A three player Talisman, 4th Edition. We had all the corner expansions and the Cataclysm board, and no special ending.

We had Leywalker, Spy and Amazon in this game.

Spy had an explosive start when he got the Astral Journey spell that gave +1 Strength and Craft. Then he got to visit Guru to pick a spell from spell discard pile that had only a single spell in it... yeah, +2 Strength and Craft right from the start.

Leywalker could have had a promising start, rummaging through the remnants in the middle region, but the first card drawn sent it to Highlands via magic portal. I suppose that was somewhat of a flashing start as well, as Leywalker got the Talisman on the first round of the game.

Amazon was shuffling around here and there, getting only some minor equipment here and there, so she decided to seek her destiny in the woodlands. She did complete two paths successfully throughout the game, but did not receive a destiny in any straightforward way. However, she did pick up the item that acted like a destiny.

Spy had quite the rollercoaster of a run. Quite early in the game he got the money to go and get a flail, but that was stolen from him by the Amazon via Path of Greed. However, just two or three turn later he got to pick a "place" card from discard pile, which was den of thieves or something, so he stole the flail right back. And not too long after, Green Mist destroyed it. But he wouldn't give up, and saved up for another one. 

That all took a while, during that while Leywalker had some luck. It managed to get back to Middle Region, and found Toxic Spring there. Not only that, it also got Craft spell from the spell deck. It also had Spell Call, and was able to set up a teleportation circle to Runes space. Leywalker had also received Healing spell at one point, so he was able to soak up the toxic waters of the magical spring.

Leywalker also had the Woodlands follower that essentially gave him +2 Craft, but also lost a life whenever Leywalker gained a stat. That follower was ultimately it's downfall, as it decided to take a point of unnecessary damage instead of just ditching the follower - Craft 13 was not necessary to get through Portal of Power and Mines. Leywalker was just at one life remaining when it would have got to fight the snowbeast, so instead of taking that risk, it teleported out of Inner Region. With two lives Leywalker would've tried to fight the snowbeast at least once, but now it just teleported back to Runes that had a portal, and was ambushed by the flailing Spy. Leywalker went down. Enter Arcane Scion.

However, Leywalker had delayed Spy long enough that Amazon was able to get to Inner Region before Spy, both only a turn or two. Bitterly cold part of the Craft path delayed Amazon for a turn, so Spy got to the crown first. But then a challenger - the Amazon - appeared. Without the flail the fight could have been a little more even, but that piece of equipment just made the combat completely one-sided, and Spy absolutely dominated that fight. Since it took a couple of rounds, Arcane Scion had plenty of time to ride around the City on his riding horse and Hopper, the bunny.

Victory for Spy.

Only Vanilla Allowed Here

During my weekend trip we also managed to crank out a game of Talisman.

We used Cataclysm board, Reaper and Harbinger, plus a hidden ending. Prophecy was the one where magic fills the land.

Characters were Elf, Sorceress and Mutant. 

And damn that Mutant is crazy character. Well, it did get the best result from starting bonus so that might play a role in it. But it just seems excessive that Mutant can get one fate and heal one life on average rolls... and get two fates with a result just above average. That meant Mutant is able to roll one of the two mutation dice again too reliably, thus dodging negative results effortlessly. 

Or maybe it just seemed overpowered when two other characters were from base game... 

At least early on Sorceress found the Orb of Time that gave her an alliance of sorts with the Elf. She spent two charges and just happened to ditch the orb near Elf. Elf would then use last charge, transferring Orb back to Sorceress. Once, Sorceress did spend the last charge from Orb, but Immobilized Mutant so it couldn't use orb. Then she cast Acquisition, taking back Orb of Time now that it had replenished its charges. 

All of these shenanigans, however, did not lead into even one stat up for Sorceress. Elf had it rough too, and super early in the game Mutant went Craft 11, Strength 5. It looked like game over already, and even more so when Sorceress went to desert space to receive the absolutely worst possible item for the moment: Desert brought Sorceress down to one life, and she found cursed Key of Hades, healing her as other characters heal and damaging her as other characters get damaged. Next in turn order was mutating Mutant, who loses one life to mutate and kills Sorceress outright. Enter Priest.

However, things were about to turn worse for Mutant. It was perhaps a tad too greedy with mutations, and willingly went down to two Life remaining. Slowly, slowly Elf had been gaining strength and with Magic Belt was sporting Strength 7, Craft 5. After a time of exchanging blows with Mutant, Elf was down to two health remaining, Mutant one. 

Priest had modest stat gains, but managed to get everything required for a victory - Talisman, albeit a cursed one, Craft 6 and a Gnome. Mutant also had Ageless Talisman and a generic Talisman, but didn't dare to enter Inner Region with Life of one. If Priest wanted to challenge that monstrosity, it had to happen NOW. So, he got to middle region and entered Inner Region. There he was rather lucky, as he gained a generic Talisman from somewhere and was able to cast Alchemy on Cursed Talisman. Roll in the Mines was a six, and after only one turn of waiting, he rolled only one lost life while shivering in cold. 

As Priest was creeping towards Crown of Command, the Elf found Altar of Wrath and killed the threatening mutant by bringing himself down to one Life remaining. There were plenty of random terrain cards in the Outer Region, so Priest vehemently waited for his chance to cast a spell to choose the movement direction of a character. Before Elf healed, he just got that chance he needed! 

However, Mutant had been replaced with Mutant, and while she herself had no bid to the Crown, Elf would easily kill Priest, given the chance. And maybe Prophetess was a little sour from Sorceress/Priest allying with Elf to remove Mutant. Just as Priest cast the spell that brought Elf to it's doom, Prophetess saved Elf by replacing the Barrens terrain with only a Bog. Drats!

But, both Prophetess and Elf were too far away to actually threaten Priest, and either some weird Harbinger card or another spell gave Priest the Amulet, so he was safe from any attempts to Random his glorious victory.

And surely enough, Crown of Command he did reach. 

There was just one but. The hidden ending was Cult of the Damned, which turned game into "either everybody wins or everybody loses" -scenario. Oops.

And there were a lot of Denizens on the board. And characters just didn't seem to be able to land on spaces with cultists. Fortunately the amount of cultists was somewhat of a double-edged blade - at least it appeared that characters had a lot of time to kill them.

Elf had gained respectable strength by now, like eleven with Magic Belt. Even Priest had strength 5. However, neither of them did the major lifting. Oh no, it was the Prophetess with meager strength 3. Well, on the other hand, she did have the cursed Flail of Blood...

At least 3/4 of all of the cultists in total were killed by Prophetess. Majority of the remainder were killed by the Elf, as Priest botched most of his attacks despite drinking Potions of Strength and whatnot. Once the number of cultists ran down, they sped up so much that the trio was on the verge of losing. A couple of cultists managed to get past Portal of Power. And since there were now just three cultists remaining, this meant they would easily outpace adventurer characters in the Inner Region.

Elf killed a cultist in the Crypts, but a stack of two cultists - one Craft and one Strength - went to Mines. Earlier, Priest had managed to kill two cultists, and only one of them without a Psionic Blast. 

It was the very last turn heroes had their chance to win. And it all remained on Priest's shoulders, with Priest's track record. 

And while Strength 4 rolled kind of low, Priest managed to roll even lower. He did have one fate point remaining, so that had to be used. Such a relief! Cultist went down. 

Then there was Craft 3 cultist versus Craft 6 Priest. Easy, right? Cultist threw the dice before Priest dropped his, and rolled a six. Safe to say there was some tension in the air regarding that last dice roll that would decide the ultimate result of the entire game. A victory only on 4+.

Well, it was...

A six. Woo hoo, finally you did something right, Priest!

In this game, Harbinger was surprisingly benign. I don't think we got past third omen even once, as there were quite a few sixes and not a single one rolled in Harbinger encounters. All manner of angelic messengers also re-placed omens from their discard pile, so much so that our standing in revealed omens was so good even after at least four instances of selfish "discard omen to gain a boon" -type of things.

Destinies Galore

 Since the longest of time, I played a three player game of Talisman. 

My character was the Scavenger, and the other players were the Alchemist and Totem Warrior. 

Early on in the game Totem Warrior found the Cataclysm Blade and went to wreck face in the Highlands. The Alchemist "found" a Flail in the city and went to wreck face, well, kind of nowhere. All manners of enemies seemed determined not to encounter him, or if they did they were of such high level that the battle turned into a stand-off. 

Scavenger was just fooling around without accomplishing much by herself, but Auctioneer encountered by other characters gave her a Greatsword and a Spiked Shield. A notable find for her was the Magic Wand.

As Scavenger's game didn't seem to be going anywhere, she made the drasic desicion to go to Woodlands and chose the Path of Fortune. And what a fortune it was to get the Alchemy spell from magic wand! However, Scavenger did n't rush to cast the spell and waited intead until she was closer to meet with her destiny. 

However... in the particular corner space where you draw cards equal to the difference between two die rolls, she managed to land on the maximum of five cards. And what an excitement it was. First Oberon robbed Scavenger of her fate and lives, and Urdr filled the lives back. Then it was time for Baba Yaga to torment her, but fortunately she did not turn into a toad. And then Leprechaun - again one opportunity to turn into a toad! Fortunately no, this Leprechauns was rather nice and gifted Scavenger with six gold. 

Scavenger had twice lost all of her fate during her time in the woodlands, thus being Fateless a tad too often. Nonetheless, I pushed my luck and was finally gifted with the destiny of The Champion.

Around that time Totem Warrior had come back from the Highlands, and entered Woodlands, too. His journey there was miserable, as right near the end of it with Path of the Wyrd he got turned into a toad. Heroically the little ribbit survived whatever the trees threw at it, and even landed on his stuff right after turning back into Totem Warrior. And his luck did not end there - he had a successful encounter with Queen Mab, gettinga free destiny before managing to score another destiny from Path of the Wyrd. One of them was the Wealthy, and the other one was one to replenish a fate whenever another player replenished fate, I think?

Throughout the fateful ordeals of Totem Warrior and Scavenger, Alchemist had played a weird game. He had not exactly had bad luck, no, not like that... at least in the way it is usually meant. He had nice items and a few followers, spells and stuff, but actual stat ups had evaded him all through the game. 

Totem Warrior had scary enough base strength via stats and items, so my Scavenger was in a hurry to go to Crown of Command before he'd come out of the woods. With ease she beat the Eagle King, managed to find the Arnkell, forced the lock of Portal of Power, ditched Arnkell after finding the Ageless Talisman from Plain of Peril, and teleported to the space before Crown of Command. Then, she won the game. Right? Nope. 

She only managed to cast the Command Spell two or three times, failing every time, before Alchemist attempted to play the kingmaker and summoned Scavenger away from Crown of Command with the Gongs of War. 

It was time for Totem Warrior's gambit of power. 

He shuffled about in the outer region until he managed to land on Woods space for a raft. With ease he passed the Portal of Power, and didn't have much of a problem in the inner region, having more than enough followers to feed to the Lich. Scavenger was following him just behind his steps, but got an unlucky roll in mines or wherever and got teleported to Crags.

So, Totem Warrior was able to reach Crown of Command without anyone opposing. However, once there, Scavenger opposed him indeed, as now her stats went through the roof due to Ageless Talisman.

Easily enough Scavenger passed the first two spaces of the Inner Region. However, even all the Totem Warrior's followers had not fed the appetite of Lich. Scavenger was to lose six lives even after trying to haggle to price with fate.

And, as a cruel twist of fate, that was Scavenger's last Bright Fate. I didn't take into account that Scavenger had Death Pact spell - by using that fate to redirect the loss of lives to Totem Warrior would have almost certainly won me the game.

Oh well. Scavenger died there, and Alchemist defied Totem Warrior by dying to a random enemy rather than the Command Spell.

The Eternal Crown

I had a weekend trip a while ago and visited some friends. It has been a while since I got to play Talisman. That changed a total of four times during my stay.

All games were three player games. All games were played with Cataclysm board. We had none of the side boards, which had me worried because of Harbinger. "Everyone loses" is a bit bland ending to a game like Talisman.

First game we didn't use any special ending or the Harbinger, though.

Characters were the Knight, Bounty Hunter and Ogre Chieftain. Bounty Hunter died early in the game thanks to some bad luck and was replaced with Ancient Oak.

I have some trouble remembering any interesting details about this match. Ogre Chieftain was the first to reach Crown of Command, and after a few turns of failing to cast the Command Spell he finally got the hang of it and won.


Second game we had Harbinger with the terrain altering prophecy and Warlock Quests ending. We house ruled first three Warlock Quests to give a quest reward card.

This game, on the other hand, was a memorable one. And record breaking. Starting characters were Highlander, Dread Knight and Dervish. But when game ended, the lineup was something entirely else - most of us having had their characters killed multiple times.

Dread Knight was the first one to die. Graveyard was the first board space to become altered, so Dread Knight wasn't able to get a new warhorse. Thus crippled he was no match for just about any drawn monsters. But Dread Knight's legacy passed on when Arcane Scion entered game.

Dervish and Highlander died soon after, with Scout and Mutant making their appearance.

Key to Hades killed Scout and made him Jin Blooded, and the Arcane Scion grew up to be Philosopher. Mutant looked like the only real contender to Crown of Command, but was stuck in some Warlock Quest.

But the real winner here seemed to be Harbinger. Omens were juggled back and forth, but the progress went towards the inevitable doom. Philosopher did find Apocrypha that would give him the victory if last omen is discarded. But he died, or perhaps was thoroughly corrupted by the Apocrypha - next character was Possessed.

Due to some luck the Possessed managed to pick up the Apocrypha where Philosopher had ditched them, and the last omen was discarded. A cheaty victory for the Possessed.

But the game was record-breaking in many ways. First, for a three player game it involved seven different characters. One of the players made this record of playing four characters - and still winning the game. Granted, it was a very non-standard way of winning. So much so, that winning with Apocrypha has never happened before. That's another record.

This was also the first game for Arcane Scion, Scout, Mutant and Jin Blooded.



Third game we had End of Days ending and Stars Align prophecy.

Characters were Scavenger, Totem Warrior and Leprechaun. Scavenger had terrible luck, as she picked this card that reduced life value for each spell she had - and Stars Align increases spell limit regardless of Craft.

As a result, Scavenger died. Next in line was Cleric.

Cleric and Leprechaun struggled with character progress, but Totem Warrior had a major snowball effect when he received this follower that enables a teleport to face-up enemy in region in place of move. And with End of Days ending enemies were not in short supply...

I was sure that this game would end in Harbinger's victory, though. Omens were getting discarded at an alarming rate. But for some reason it all stopped for the late part of the game. Not a single event was drawn for ages.

But once game was nearing end, Harbinger hasted pace. In fact when Totem Warrior faced The Beast, everyone would lose if Totem Warrior lost the fight. Last omen was face-up, and End of Days would discard top omen if someone lost a combat with the Beast.

Totem Warrior didn't lose. He had Strength of twenty or twenty-one, so odds were in his favor. But there was a chance to lose.


Last game we had The Eternal Crown ending and Armageddon prophecy.

Characters were Chivalric Knight, Necromancer and Warlord. Once again none of the starting characters were alive at the end of the game.

All characters died so early in the game that it might be more accurate to list Spider Queen, Vampiress and Cat Burglar as the initial draw. Warlord's death was a pity, since she had an amazing start. I forget what actually killed her, but Cat Burglar had great animosity towards Vampiress, who cast this binding spell and made Cat Burglar pick up Key of Hades. Cat Burglar was able to et rid of it, but the spirits of vengeance had been summoned. They were fighting over The Ring and Unicorn, and Cat Burglar made Vampiress to lose all craft.

Necromancer was used as a sacrifice to banish Harbinger from the board. Good riddance.

But in the end Vampiress took some risk and tried to enter Crown of Command with Strength 10. It took a couple of tries, but succeeded. She didn't roll 1-2 even once, so it took four or five turns on the crown to achieve victory.

Had Cat Burglar been fast enough, Vampiress would not have stood a chance. Burglar had Strength and Craft 13 both - in stat points only, not counting the gear.


All of the games were rather interesting. Seems like Harbinger ups the body count in dead characters quite spectacularly, but still all of these games ended in player victory. And perhaps losing a character isn't that depressing when everyone else is losing them, too.

Cataclysm Characters

Finally it happened.

All five figures from Cataclysm expansion for Talisman are now painted.

Sadly my camera is all messed up and shows these strange vertical lines when not using flash.

I kind of got bored with the Scavenger in the end. That miniature is so full of tiny little details that painting them was almost a frustrating experience, considering that two years or so might actually pass before she gets even one game. And that's optimistic guess.

But as far as Talisman miniatures go, I'm quite content with this batch. Almost happy, even.

The Angel and the Cat

So there was one more two-player occasion with Talisman.

This time we didn't use any "NPC's" and had City and Highlands extra boards. We played on Cataclysm board.

Random ending was Judged by Fate.

Initial characters were the Celestial and Barbarian.

Celestial met the Black Cat early during his journeys. Celestial has Craft value equal to his current fate points. And Black Cat removes all fate plus doesn't allow to replenish or gain fate. I guess cats make angelic beings even more stupid than an average troll. I mean, who could resist those cute fuzzballs?

So, Celestial died. I got Dragon Priestess next.

Dragon Priestess found some sort of prayer book that made stat-upping way too easy. But still Barbarian with head start was a furious contender. He had -2 Strength versus Dragon Priestess, but he was armed with a flail.

Race to the Crown of Command was a tight one. Barbarian was literally just one step behind Dragon Priestess. But then again, random ending turned out to favor Dragon Priestess since she was able to pray for fate points from the temple.

Trial By Toadification

First time in a great while I got to play a game of Talisman.

Sure, it was two players only, but still this is a rare, exhausting and mind-numbing 'treat.'

We used Lands of Wonder revealed ending, Cataclysm board with Harbinger. Grim Reaper and Werewolf were there too, as well as Woodlands and Dungeon extra boards. Day and night. Prophecy was Stars Align.

Initial characters were Warlord and Leprechaun.

Warlord (me) had astonishing start with +2 Strength points on second turn from those long lost relic cards. But that was the extent of my luck. Warlord had a streak of terrible luck and somehow managed to die. I got Gladiator next. Amusing, as both characters were Follower-abusers. I had the questionable honor of turning into a toad twice during the same game. First was Rain of Toads from Harbinger deck - Gladiator rolled a five. Leprechaun a six. Ribbit, ribbit. Leprechaun was in same region and rolleda six for move. Well, at least he was on maximum carrying capacity, and I had had two cursed objects around, so I didn't lose everything. Leprechaun also left Verdant Talisman for me (he wasn't in short supply on Talismans...)

Second time Gladiator was fateless and encountered Puck. Ribbir, ribbit. Leprechaun in same region rolls a six for move, robbing Gladiator again.

Still Gladiator managed to get to twelve Strength points as well as the Immortal destiny. If Gladiator wouldn't have continuously losing turn to toadification and whatnot, game would have been far closer, as Gladiator wasn't able to get the wonders for victory condition with Strength & Craft 1.

Gladiator took a run when game was nearing end - only option was to try to kill Lord of Darkness by eight or more. Four turns in a row Gladiator rolled a six for move. Nice try, but as the game ended immediately when someone reached the Crown of Command, he just wasn't quick enough.

Thieves' honor

But wait! There's more!

Last weekend there was also time for a four player Talisman.

Since the amount of expansions starts to be overwhelming, we used only some expansions to hopefully cut down the time required to finish the game. Reaper and Werewolf were there, as well as Dungeon and Woodland side boards. Ending was random.

Characters were Elf, Cat Burglar, Spy and Philosopher. No real fighters and no real spellcasters. Interesting.

Strength and Craft ups were tremendously rare in this game. Early game Elf went to the Woodsland, and Cat Burglar had a streak of bad luck. Both characters had their time without fate and only on one life.

Spy and Philosopher seemed to have the strongest starts. At least when it came to survival.

Since it's already been five days since the game, I'll just highlight some moments I still remember. That is, my character (once again) being turned into a toad. Despite having a fate to re-roll the unlucky "1" at Enchantress. Which was my warlock quest, by the way. So all of my stuff fell to City while my new croaky form was teleported to the middle region. Oh joy. I was the Spy.

Philosopher also found it difficult to progress despite having amazing combo with Orb of Knowledge and his own card exchange.

Elf and Cat Burglar had made an amazing comeback and suddenly looked like top two contenders for alternative ending.

Elf got stuck in the Woodlands and Cat Burglar had it all too easy to navigate through Inner Region with Magic Lamp - an item that let's manipulate dice rolls.

Random ending was Thieves Guild, which seemed like pretty bad design to me. I mean, if the one at the crown rolls a 3+, what's to stop him or her getting talismans from other characters? It's next to impossible to get to the crown.

It probably should be so that affected players can choose which items they give.

Yet it was fitting that Cat Burglar won with Thieves Guild.

Cataclysm

I've been stalling the acquirement of The Cataclysm expansion for Talisman.

After all, Talisman gets rarely played these days and I somehow find this expansion a little dubious. I mean, are we going to see a new line of expansions that are expansions on top of expansions? Probably not, but this way of expanding game feels a little cheap. The Cataclysm could've been a stand-alone expansion and that would have been perfect, but now it's pretty much alternate centre board, while original centre continues to be mandatory.

Oh well.

The figures were, as far as board games go, gorgeous. They have been improving in quality for quite a while, and now the details are so sharp that models like Scavenger, Arcane Scion and Barbarian wouldn't gather dismissive looks if included in a full fledged miniatures game. Barbarian's sword is worthy of mention: it's not a flimsy, flaccid rubber baton that melts in the sunlight, as often longish, unsupported appendages are on board game figures.

Figures do 'suffer' from gigantism yet again when compared to earlier Talisman figures. Maybe it's because of the magical radiation that The Cataclysm brought.

Rules for new characters were a little off. Scavenger and Arcane Scion look to me like they're hideously overpowered. Black Knight also has the potential to be the premiere player character killer with little danger for himself, and yet his starting Strength / Craft ain't bad at all.

And that was pretty much everything. There were two plastic bags of cards, and of course the main board.

For the heavy price that this game expansion came with, I can't help but feel a little underwhelmed at least when it comes to physical content. And actual play experience, oh, let's wait for a year or two... (hopefully not)

Harbinger is OP, no matter the game system

I kind of dislike writing these things down not in chronological order, but I happened to lose my camera during Warmachine tournament in Turku. I'm trying to ask around if there has been any sightings of it.

So instead of Warmachine games here are two Talisman games that were played in Salo.

And they were rather... different.

First game we played with City and Dungeon and the Deep Realms expansions - as well as Harbinger.

Harbinger is a real game changer. We randomised Shattered World to be the prophecy during this game.

Characters we got were the Warlord, Dragon Rider and Chivalric Knight. When the game ended, none of these characters were on board any longer.

We did have quite a bit of bad luck, as well as being completely unprepared for the Harbinger.

The Warlord was the first character to draw Harbinger cards. And she drew Gates of Hell, or whatever the event is that spawns three additional Harbinger cards. One of the three additional Harbinger cards was another Gates of Hell. So she had to, in essence, draw five lethal Harbinger cards on one of the first three or four turns. One of them was no other than Strength/Craft 18 The Beast.

She was left reeling with one life point remaining. In the end she decided to suicide herself and pick a fresh character, as it was very early game.

New character was Spider Queen.

Dragon Rider and Chivalric Knight also died rather early in the game and were replaced with the Possessed and Gypsy.

Spider Queen got one of the new cursed items, Keys of Hades or something like that. The item gives +2 Life value for each other player. Every time another player loses a life, the keybearer also loses a life. Every time another player heals or gains a life, well, you get the picture.

Possessed was kind of a nice combination with that item because of the constant healing.

Harbinger, however, was a major pain for all of the characters. Gypsy was relatively safe from the many effects of Harbinger events, but even she had to suffer from different Omens. Nobody wanted to lose characters any more and everyone wanted to see the game progress somehow, and this caused something to happen that was never heard of in the world of Talisman: players kind of actively helped each other if it wasn't too big of a sacrifice of resources. Though of course Spider Queen had a pretty big incentive on not getting other characters to suffer damage.

Bad luck caused Possessed and Spider Queen to limp with just a few lives for a long time, and eventually their characters expired once more.

This happened quite late in the game, so Magus and Spy really didn't have that much of a chance at winning. Gypsy was a clear winner, who now boasts impressive track record of 100% victories. Out of four games, though. But 100% is 100%

Ending was Battle Royale, but nobody else had a Talisman when Gypsy revealed the ending.

From now on I will be marking down to the statistics if some character has been a last draw with no real chance of winning any more.


Game 2:

First game had taught us that the more regions there are for Harbinger, the easier he is to navigate. So we got all of the expansion boards into play. Prophecy was The Rising Dead.

Characters were Ancient Oak, Dragon Hunter and Tinkerer. All of them pretty good.

And all of the first few omens were almost more a boon to the player than a penalty! This time beginning of the game was far more merciful. But I guess that served only to lower our guards...

Tinkerer and Dragon Hunter got a really strong start. Tinkerer got the Everfull Purse and Bow, for example. Dragon Hunter started grinding through the Dungeon right from the start and scored a lot of lucky Deathblows. His stats began to soar, and once he found Banesword and Book of Diablerie even the Craft monsters weren't that big of a problem.

Ancient Oak suffered most from the Harbinger this time around, and was the first character to die. Oak was replaced with the Grave Robber.

I fail to remember how it happened, but bad luck eventually caught the Dragon Hunter when he slowly lost lives and was unable to heal them back easily. Dragon Hunter was the second character to die, and this death lengthened the game approximately by one and a half hours, as he had looked like the best candidate for winning at that point. Oh, now I remember what began the downfall - Vengeance Hex that turned Dragon Hunter into a toad. Dragon Hunter began anew as Rogue.

Grave Robber had a decent enough start, but omens were slowly stacking. And when the Tinkerer died, and Grave Robber soon after and also the Rogue, the game looked hopeless. The board was littered with too strong enemies for us to fight, and zombie apocalypse had already began - due to the omen, all Strangers and Followers were Strength 3 (effectively 5) undead zombies instead.

So everybody had died twice during this game. Final players were Totem Warrior, Knight and Philosopher. Philosopher might have had the best chance of winning here as he had the ability to switch face up adventure cards... but there was no time.

But the final omen somehow was sticking around excruciatingly long. Eventually Knight used the Altar of Wrath to put every character out of their misery - last Omen was discarded. Every character lost the game.

First time ever when this has happened. Though, to be honest, there has been only a couple of alternate endings where that was even possible.



I'm not entirely sure how I feel about the Harbinger expansion. It does change the game a lot, which can be a good thing. But if there is a dedicated party pooper in the game, making everybody to suffer and eventually lose seems relatively easy with this expansion. But otherwise it can also be a lot of fun - especially in the first game it was a refreshing change of pace when players, while trying to win the game, also had to make amends and help other players at least a little.

*

The Harbinger of Talisman

As I usually do, I make a separate post once I've finished an expansionful of Talisman miniatures. This time here are the figures from latest expansion; The Harbinger.

So here they are. Possessed, Celestial, Ascendant Divine and The Harbinger himself.

I went the lazy way and just dipped them to Army Painter Quickshade.

I put a few scenery pieces in the picture that were finished with the Talisman figures. The fountain gets an honourable mention. That has been sitting on my shelf for, what, five or six years. It became an oppressive symbol that was quietly judging me and everything I ever did.

Deadzone walls were probably the reason I finally finished this phantom that was slowly draining the life out of me. Ha.

Victory.

Harbinger

Yesterday I bought the Harbinger expansion for Talisman.

I don't have a good reason for why I did it, since I haven't even played with the earlier expansion either.

The figures are beautiful - at least for Talisman figures.

I didn't look into content yet, but I find it an interesting possibility to play with more NPC's than actual adventurers. Reaper, Werewolf and now the Harbinger of Doom.

But that's it. No more jello for me.

Coupon update

Another one I seem to have forgotten to write up here.

Since I had earlier filled the board game discount voucher with stamps, I had to use it right away.

I got Talisman: Deep Realms with the coupon. Whee.

Toads and death everywhere!

Last two games of Talisman for this year were a four player game and a three player game.

First was the four player game, and characters were Knight, Vampiress, Priest and Prophetess. So there was some sort of a theme here, when everyone started from chapel except one player, who started in the graveyard. We played a revealed game variant "A Hero Rises" which

Knight went to Highlands right away, and there he picked up two monsters that caused extra damage before the fight. Due to a stand-off he didn't die yet, but during first fifteen turns or so Knight had died. New character was the Bounty Hunter.

Vampiress and Priest went to forest quite early in the game, but Titania's or Oberon's or someones gate teleported Vampiress to the space right before Treasure Chamber in the Dungeon.

Prophetess got stuck in the Highlands when there was a Talisman in an eagle's nest in the mountain pass space. Whatever she did, she just didn't land on the space. She did pick up amazingly good items and tossed enemies left and right as she drew them, so her Strength and Craft started soaring. At one point Prophetess did run through the Woodlands and got herself a wealthy destiny - whenever a player gained gold, she'd replenish fate. And because we had this game variant where you gained a Fate if you replenished when at maximum Fate, this destiny made for a nasty combo with Bounty Hunter. Bounty Hunter gains a gold whenever he wins a battle. Prophetess looked like a strong candidate for victory.

Vampiress took her chances in the Dungeon, but in the end it didn't pay off. She died there, and got replaced with Highlander. Bounty Hunter had had a good start even if original character died. Highlander also had a really good start, but this death happened in the middle stages of game, so it was a lot more punishing.

But yeah. Bounty Hunter was amazing, and gained both Talisman and enough fate to begin the race for Crown of Command. Well, this time it just couldn't be called a "race", since nobody else got into the Inner Region in time. Just a turn before Bounty Hunter reached the valley of fire, Prophetess encountered the Gong of War or something like that, which summoned a character from any region to battle her.

She chose Bounty Hunter.

And Prophetess was the same player who added some extra hours to the game length last time around at the very last possible moment. I guess she has a knack for these things.

So, the game continued.

Bounty Hunter, having both Talisman and enough Fate started a second run to the Crown of Command, all the while Prophetess desperately tried to get the Talisman from the birdie.

And there he was again. Just as he was reaching the valley of fire Prophetess cast a spell on him that removed all of his fate and gave them to Prophetess, which in this game variant meaned Bounty Hunter wouldn't be able to win the game, and had to slowly backtrack away from Inner Region.

Finally Prophetess got her Talisman, beat the Eagle King and teleported close to Portal of Power. Seven rounds later the game ended to the triumph of Prophetess.

Oh, and the Priest. I haven't talked anything about the Priest.

Well, Priest played entirely mediocre game with no real highs or lows. Only memorable thing was when he turned evil just a turn after he had cast the very same fate stealing spell Prophetess later used to win the game.


Game 2 (or 3?):

Last Talisman for the year started with a hidden ending, Amazon, Elementalist and Totem Warrior.

Statistically I was a bit bummed by Amazon and Elementalist, since they've had a lot of screen time. But at least we saw Totem Warrior make his entré.

Amazon had a rather hilarious start. No matter wherever she went, she picked up absurdly powerful magic weapons. So much so that she soon couldn't carry any items any more and started leaving magic weapons behind.

Elementalist also got a good start. He rolled a six from encountering the Reaper, and got turned into a lycanthrope from an encounter with the Werewolf. And it felt like the game was played in an eternal night, giving only bonuses to Elementalist and penalties for other characters. His progress was astonishing.

Totem Warrior was messing around in the Highlands and danced there for a long time with only one life remaining, and managing only stand-offs even against Strength 1 monsters. I guess Totem Warrior got all bad luck that should have been evenly distributed between players.

Soon it started to look like it was mostly a game between Elementalist and Amazon. Amazon thought it was a good idea to enter the Woodlands, since with two dice for movement she'd be able to dodge most of the more annoying spaces.

And just there was only about 30% left to go, she encountered a Fey Witch or something like that who rolled two dice for attack. If it rolled doubles, the character got turned into a toad. Double sixes.

Nice.

All the items she had dropped there, as did the followers. And worse yet - if the toad didn't move forward, it'd start fleeing the Woodlands and not be able to move forwards any more until it or she'd get out. Once Amazon finally turned back into a real person, she had only one chance to get her stuff back - by rolling a three for movement. And then she'd have to flee the entire Woodlands and abandon her path.

Amazon thought the items were better than the non-destiny reward of completing her path, and she did roll a three for movement. All items back.

One turn later she encountered the Toad King. Toad King turns your character into a toad for three turns and jumps three spaces counter-clockwise. If you encounter Toad King as a toad, your character gains either Craft or Strength.

But the horrible thing here was that Amazon had to dump all her items, and since she was fleeing the Woodlands, there was now absolutely zero chance of easily getting the items back. Perhaps after twenty turns or something.

Next space the Toadzon landed it encountered Dryad. Roll two dice, if the score is equal to or less than your Craft, you gain one Craft. If not, you're teleported to the forest space.

Really?

Twice in a row turned into a toad, then teleported away from your items and as an added insult being denied your prize of encountering Toad King again.

What a cruel way for fate to revenge the good luck at the beginning of the game.

Amazon never really recovered from such a crash land, and now there was nobody to challenge Elementalist unless he'd get his share of bad luck.

He didn't, and it was a victory for the Elementalist.

Best Christmas present ever

Just a day before Christmas we played a three player game of Talisman.

We used a random ending with a few most annoying ones removed.

Characters were Chivalric Knight, Tavern Maid and, well... the Alchemist.

Alchemist.

Such an annoying character that's all but bound to win any and all games he plays.

The other two players tried to balance out the Alchemist by targeting mostly him with any possible opportunities to kick another player in the knee. And for a moment it almost seemed to pay off - but then he picked up the Everfull Purse. Just what the Alchemist needs. If he doesn't have a gold at the beginning of his turn, he gains one.

Tavern Maid had a really good start, too. I don't remember any more what the items were that she got, but that didn't matter for long - she encountered the Leprechaun at the beginning of Highlands and got turned into a toad. Before she managed to get her stuff back, the Chivalric Knight picked them up.

For one reason or another Alchemist didn't start gaining Strength or Craft too much, and neither did anybody else. It was a slow start all over - don't know if some trips to the Woodlands caused that.

First Alchemist ran through the Woodlands board, but luckily didn't get a real Destiny. Only reward for him was to raise Strength or Craft.

Tavern Maid started grinding the Woodlands and during whole game managed to gain two destinies for herself, and even a magic object that essentially functioned as a destiny. And they all combo'd up.

I don't remember the complete horror, but it was something like that whenever another player rolled "1" for movement or lost a battle or psychic combat, she would replenish one dark fate. She was able to spend a dark fate to choose the result of a movement roll for anyone. One magic object gave her a fate if she started her turn without any. There was additional shenanigans involved, too, but those were the ones that came up most often.

Chivalric Knight managed to snatch Alchemist's Everfull Purse eventually, but by then all heroes got around 8-10 of either Strength or Craft, and so the race for Crown of Command began. Probably there were lots of memorable little happenings that I fail to remember, but game had already lasted for quite a while. Everybody was getting tired.

Alchemist was the first to try to enter Inner Region, and he had Craft 9. And somehow he managed to fail three times in a row to pass the Mines. By this time Tavern Maid and Chivalric Knight had got a bit scared that the Alchemist was running for victory, so both of them entered Inner Region too. Chivalric Knight was the last one to enter, but he had Cloak of Feathers. Before Chivalric Knight started stripping his clothes, Alchemist failed to pass Mines fourth time in a row with a roll of 6, 5, 5. To the tavern it was, then.

But game didn't end just yet, though Chivalric Knight teleported to Valley of Fire, and picked the ending next. Oh no. The game was just beginning, since the ending we got was "Spreading Flames", where every player dropped a fireland token at the start of turn.

And, well. Alchemist looked like the winner here, since he had easy healing available. And things didn't look any better for other players when he snatched Everfull Purse right back.

Tavern Maid had only dark fate, and she encountered Death and rolled one. The board was almost filled with fireland tokens, many spaces containing more than one token. Well, it had been a long game, but finally it'd be over.

Nope.

Chivalric Knight drew some kind of Ifrit enemy that removed all fireland tokens from current region. Gosh, looked like game just didn't want to stop.

So Alchemist and Chivalric Knight started to dance around the board again, trying to dodge the fireland tokens.

That one enemy unnecessarily easily added an extra hour to the game length, but the result was fully worth it.

Alchemist was left in the Outer Region that again had perhaps two spaces with no fireland tokens, and many spaces with two or more tokens. Chivalric Knight dodged the tokens and got his heals first twice from Chapel and then from Castle in the middle region. Final steps were that Chivalric Knight entered the black knight space that didn't have a token, and Alchemist had had to melt his Everfull Purse last turn to heal enough that he wouldn't have died. And then after over two hours of dodging the hot spaces Alchemist was not able to heal any more, and he lost.

Alchemist lost a game! Party!

Rainbow Colors

Well, technically these guys seem to have quite muted palette, but anyway.

As I'm most probably taking Talisman with me when I go for my bi-annual trip to visit my parents, I had enormous pressure to get the new characters painted.

And here they are. With and without flash, as I couldn't decide which one of the pictures was better - or, less worse in this case.

So, on to other painting projects now.

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.

An arm and a leg. And a kidney.

It was a terrible thing to do to give me a board game coupon at the local gaming shop, where after ten stamps I get a discount voucher.

I already get fixated on completing every conceivable collectable set, and this was no exception.

So instead of one expansion, I came home with three expansions for different, just to get more stamps. And because I knew that eventually I would buy those expansions anyway, so why not get all of them right away?

Well, eating something other than macaroni with salt for the rest of the month might have been a good reason.

First I got the Woodland expansion for Talisman. Usually I review new purchases a little, but I think I'm skipping on that part now. Too many packages to look into in any kind of detail. But I did take a look at the new characters for Talisman. Fantasy Flight Games has been steadily moving away from the mundane and traditional hero archetypes for Talisman, but Woodlands raised the bar there. Ancient Oak (treant) and Leywalker (who escaped from Avatar?) seem a little weird. Not entirely bad design choice, just weird.

All characters, however, do have interesting token mechanics. They're first characters that come with bits and bobs other than their character sheet.


Next expansion was the Festival Season for Dungeon Lords.

I took only a quick look through the various tiles, but what I saw filled me with dread. It seems that adventurer parties will consist of four heroes, and there is an extra battle round. There were also entirely new type of adventurer, the bard. Bards temporarily increase hit points of party members.

Considering I've only played four games of Dungeon Lords by now, I think I'm not going to force anyone to play with Festival Season just yet, and only add the game elements in to the base game that work without difficulties.


Last and least, I got Unfortunate Expeditions expansion for Gloom. I got all expansions for Gloom now, but I've heard that the Cthulhu Gloom is compatible with original Gloom...

Talisman

Uh.

I'm drunk, but I'm quite certain I will forget any and everything if I try to write anything about this game tomorrow or even later.

Three player Talisman.

Ghoul, Assassin and Priest.

Ghoul dies and is replaced with Warrior.

Assassin wins.

Cheers.