crimhead said:

If you're looking for slightly more difficult "task" oriented quests, you might look in the Home Brew section. Some are already being made to replace the standard ones and add a few additional. More will be coming soon. However, they do require making the cards somehow yourself, and Jon New's Talismanisland.com has some various methods for doing this.

These cards are being developed with details that make them autonomous from the Dungeon expansion so that anyone can use them even with just the base game or the Reaper expansion. Rewards gained by completing a task are a Talisman or another optional benefit. Adventure cards may be added so that an adventurer may stumble upon a quest randomly even without having encountered the Warlock's Cave. This concept has been under discussion for quite some time, even before the recent news release from FFG concerning future plans.

AND... it would be easy to make a house rule for the reward portion of any card, so that for those who have the Dungeon expansion (or any future one with more Treasures) could choose to draw one Treasure Card in place of taking any benefit listed on the task/quest card.

Do we have a release date on this expansion yet?

Msrushing said:

Not yet,

But we believe that it comes in november..

Just to add that I have posted some sneak peeks of artwork from the Frostmarch expansion on Talisman Island.

I hope you like them!

http://www.talismanisland.com/

talismanisland said:

Awesome! Thanks!

Hmmm... I wonder what kind of card the Astrolabe is for? Likely a Magic Object, but one never knows. But I do hope it has something to do with that actual object, since I can't imagine how that's going to fit in to Talisman. Oh... this is just going bug me now until I find out.

Does anyone know if the frost queen is going to get a character figure like the reaper or is she just a card?

Msrushing said:

Haven't seen her in any other form than card form. Frostmarch has been shown to contain 5 miniatures, 4 for the new characters and the Hydra.

Umm... Hydra? The Hydra mini that snuck into the Gencon shots was from Battlelore: Creatures.

However, I am going to be making some interesting enemies for use with Talisman out of it and the three Dragons from the other Battlelore expansion!

Cool idea, TI! There's a really awesome dragon miniature in FFG's Drakon the board game also, and it's base is round so it matches up with the other Talisman miniatures a lot more than those hexagonal battlelore bases do.

Drakon the board game also comes with 6 character miniatures that are the same scale as the Talisman ones for some custom character ideas while you're at it. Here's another pic for size comparison with the Dragon:

I'm not saying the battlelore dragons won't work good for your idea. I am just in love with the Drakon miniature and have been trying to find a use for it in Talisman for a while, so I thought I'd share the coolness of that piece with you!

Oooh. Nice idea and thanks for the heads up. I don't have Drakon, so have never seen this mini. Now I am going to have to try and find a spare one!

Frostmarch news:

www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_news.asp

Leprechaun is about what I expected. Didn't expect the Ogre Chieftain to be able to use all his Monster Followers in the same battle, even if they are one-shot.

Dam said:

Because of LoD. He, Ogre, can gather them all, then use in final ballte against LoD, and emerge in CoC.

Nemomon said:

Does tend to kick the Ghoul in the nuts though, who has a very similar ability (can Raise Enemy as Follower to get its Strength in one battle), but he can only use 1 per battle. Trend has been to pump out more and more powerful characters with each expansion, base game people are being left well-behind in the power-race .

Dam said:

Does tend to kick the Ghoul in the nuts though, who has a very similar ability (can Raise Enemy as Follower to get its Strength in one battle), but he can only use 1 per battle. Trend has been to pump out more and more powerful characters with each expansion, base game people are being left well-behind in the power-race .

I agree. It's the unfortunate result of trying to make each new expansion shinier than everything that has come before, in an effort to promote sales. I don't blame FFG for doing this; every gaming company does to a certain extent. Some companies are better than others about making things shiney without making them OP, though.

I agree with Dam wholeheartedly, and yes we can blame FFG just like we can blame any game company. They are not exempt. But part of the problem is that Talisman is inherently simplistic. There really isn't much to work with in developing new angles, new variations. Very little lateral development potential, so vertical escalation is all there is beyond the superficial bling that we all love anyways.

And the problem is that other than that vertical escalation and improved bling, it hasn't evolved at its core. Tweaks to cards and spaces for faster wins and more power characters to kick ass in record time aren't evolution. And the expansions so far have be rehashes. Reaper, other than the reaper itself, was a hodge podge of cards from previous editions expansions. Much as everyone found some cards in it that they missed and loved from the "old days", that was the real point to it... get to the foundation of the old fandom base and hang on to it. Even the Warlocks quest cards were only an expansion of what was already there, and by the new rules and attempt to make it even easier to get a talisman and win the game in record time.

Now we have Frostmarch coming. And I have all fingers and toes crossed that it'll be some more than Repear, something newer than the simply bigger Dungeon. And, by what's hinted a tiny tiny bit in the endgame cards... some attempt at lateral development within the core game itself beyond rehashes for the sake of nostalgia. If not, 4ER will go the way of all other editions. It will fade from the public shelves.

Nemomon said:

This scares me a bit because he may very well gather enough monster followers on his way THROUGH the Dungeon. Your strategy could be just from turn 1 immediately head straight into the Dungeon, gather some followers on your way through, defeat the LoD by ditching 3-4 followers, emerge in CoC, & win.

Hopefully it's not that easy. I need to check how many of the enemies in the Dungeon adventure deck are monster type. But still. Very powerful character, and with 5 starting strength & 6 lives on top of that, he is crazy good.

I definitely agree with everyone talking about power creep.

I will say that I am looking forward to curbstomping the Leprechaun over & over until he drops his entire pot of gold, & I'm sure that will be tempting to other players as well, so at least he will have a pretty big target on his back. Tough to catch the little bastard with his teleporting all around, but when players do, the beatdown is coming!

The Ogre Chieftain though, not really sure what tactics the other players can really use against him, other than some psychic combats/spells.

Much as the Ogre Chieftain is ridiculous overkill and little more than the Troll able to absorb enemies... the best strategy I see is to circle the main board until you can (1) augment Craft, and (2) pick up and extra life or two, (3) bolster natural Stength, and (4) sacrifice using Monsters for Strength points so you have you're overkill entourage. Then bulldoze into the Dungeon. If luck is wish you on a couple times around the main board, chances seem reasonable you'll have some good odds in the Dungeon.

And the only way to hamper him is (1) nail him through Craft in anyway possible, (2) kill off Enemy-Monsters he has or encounters. Neither of these will be very efficient approaches. I think the game itself will be the only thing to put down this juggernaut.

Assassin has a pretty good chance of wrecking his day, if he's also drawn in the same game.

1) Assassinate any face-up monsters to keep them out of the Ogre's army.

2) Assassinate the Ogre in an attempt to force him to commit followers to the battle or risk almost certain loss of a life.

Well, that's certainly an option... if the assassin is in play at the same time... if it can land on the orge... if it doesn't get whacked to death for doing so. That's a lot of ifs, considering the randomness of movement in the game. Nailing the O.C. through Craft and from afar are probably not better, but possibly less risky in some forms.

I'll have to wait and see how my group handles it once the expansion is acquired. But based on some other past characters getting ganged up on, I'm betting the O.C. becomes an instant Spell magnet. Either to damage it directly, or to remove any Craft benefits it gathers, and thereby kept its inherent weakness... sort of.

The ogre has 1 in fate and with the way death moves with the dungeon expansion he will be an easy target if you focus your death moves on him.

We can finally see the Leprechaun card

I think i will like this character.

Landing on the woods, and steal as many gold if possible.

Make yourself rich with 30 gold !

If the Sorcerer or Academy, Instructor will be drawn, then it will start interesting

With his teleport, he can try to land on pool cards if they are in his region, or even better cards.

A sneaky character

-

The Ogre Chieftain is pretty powerful.

If you can build up a army, then you will defeat the LOD in no time

Dungeon has 29 monster cards, so enough chance to draw some..

And the mainboard has some too.

PluTT said:

Anything that requires a counter measure that is (1) based on having another expansion and/or (2) requires godliness tactics outside of the actual other characters abitlies pretty much proves the point.

The O.C. is out of balance with the other characters and the game itself. It's Fate weakness is meaningless, because Fate actually looked like a character imbalance patch from the very start, though its mechanics and influence are less potent than people realize. Having low Fate is essentially having no Fate... or a character that predates the Fate patch. Assuming the O.C. was given low Fate as a counterbalance is false logic once we guess at the intent of, and examine the true mechanics of, the current implementation of Fate in the game.

JCHendee said:

How is the OC out of balance with the other characters? He looks pretty good but the original game has characters that are far more powerful. The Assassin Prophetess, Monk, Wizard and Dwarf have a better chance of winning quicker than the OC.