Okay, so the Gladiator just annihilated everyone in his first game. I mean, what do you expect from a guy who ended with 27/20 Str/Craft in combat? But did he jinx himself doing so? I don't know, you judge.

His second game, he kills off the Swashbuckler (who also won his first game) and eventually is the first to head for the Crown, packing somewhere in the neighborhood of Str 15 in battle. Even with the Shovel, takes him 4 tries to get past Crypt. Then comes Dice with Death. He rolls a 10, nice. Death rolls a 12! And then a spiral of losses or draws. Finally, he makes it forward with 1 Life left. But by this time, the Elf has kicked some Lord of Darkness bootie and has made it to the Crown. Gladiator kills the Were-pup, but Command Spell kills him.

Third game. Sorceress (who the Gladiator really doesn't want to see in the same game) draws an early Magic Stream, but the Gladiator gets the most benefits, landing on it for +3 Str total. Sorceress gets Reapered, making her 0-9 in 9 games, with 4 deaths mid-game. Gladiator is the first to land on the Sorceress' remains and is now Crown-ready. First two attempts at Crypt dump him at Plain of Peril, the third to the Portal of Power. Fourth attempt, he rolls a 17! Incidentally, in his first game, he was rolling against 14 Craft at Mines and rolled 18!!! So now he has to trek from the City back to the Inner Region. On the fifth attempt, he passes Crypt. But deja vu, Dice with Death hits again. Gladiator can't roll above 6 and despite having 7 Lives, is soon down to 1! Then the Dark Cultist gains a Spell after killing an Enemy and whammo, Random -> 1 -> Toaded! Even worse, Cerberus is now at Portal of Power, so after he backtracks Crypt -> Plain of Peril, he can't drop out or he'll die. So he has to spend his 3rd turn going forward. Yeah, Crypt at Str 1, that'll work . So back to the City. Reaper then jumps on him twice, first he lucks out and sends it back to the Gypsy, next Gypsy turn Reaper is back, but the Gladiator rolls a 6, getting a life. Next turn, he draws Demon! Then loses a turn in the Cave, while he hoped to gain Gold to heal. By then, the Dark Cultist (who replaced the Sorceress) has whupped LoD ass and exited at the Crown. One Command Spell later, bye-bye Gladiator!

I got that beat.

I played a gladiator in my last game. Player 2 had Darkcultist but died after about 45min. Player 3 was prophetess.

I was the first on the crown with 15 str after about 2 and a half hours of play.( i had only 1 follower)

It took me another hour to finally kill the pprophetess that finally rushed me on the crown with even up str.

Meanwhile the swashy killed the Darklord and random drew the clockwork owl so he was healing up and gaining str.

After another 30 min he bum rushed up to the crown and with 1 life left kills me as he has an unbeatable 27str at this point.

I rolled 4 misses on the crown while he was in the inner region with one life....

talk about a clutch win for him!

Wow, your games sure take long. That 27/20 Gladiator won the game in 90 mins, which is a really long game by our standards. Most games this week haven't gone past the 1 hour mark.

How does one get craft and strength of 27 and 20 without already having won? With values as low as 18 and 10 you're a shoe in to get to the Crown, and that's overly cautious by miles I think. Did Gladiator have a low life total and no followers for the vampire?

Now I understand why you tend to have so much gold accumulated by the time you finally go for the win!

crimhead said:

From this thread:

www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp

"Speaking of Warlock's Quests, the Gladiator almost lost the game by taking one today. He got the "discard 1 Fate", and had none. And as regular posters know, I use the BI board with only the Village errata, so no Fate gains at Graveyard or Temple. To boot, Philosopher cast Destruction on the Wheel of Fate. Eventually, he used the Orb of Prophesy enough to draw Enchanter and get the Fate he needed.

Of course, that might have all been moot, if the Gladiator had managed to beat the Lord of Darkness by 8+. Around mid-game, he took on the LoD with effective Strength 17 in battle, having spent most of the game in the Dungeon. Sadly, only beat the LoD by one. In the end though, Ghoul's poor Command Spell rolls cost him dearly, even with the Gladiator rolling 18 at the Mines !!! Once the Gladiator hit the Crown, it was all over. Ghoul had normal Crown stats, Strength 8 (in battle), Craft 9, but the Gladiator came in at Strength 27 (in battle), Craft 20 (in psychic combat, 16 normal)!!! At one point the Gladiator traded in 22 points of Craft (6+6+5+5)! Game took 90 mins."

I forgot you also play with random quests. Do you find you guys use quests much? We let players chose, but I'd guess we only see an average of one quest every game or two. Talismans are not that hard to come by, so we only take quests (rarely) when we're ready to win (and haven't been lucky enough to find one) or (more commonly) when there is nothing else really worth while to do that turn (and we can accomplish an easy one right away). I can only assume if we made the quests harder (such as by randomizing them) we would take quests for the former reason only and never the later.

You might be able to find an image of the new board and print the relevant sections onto sticker paper. Then you can get your fate happening. I think the good characters are given more fate because evil and neutral characters have an easier time replenishing. Playing with fate but the BI graveyard doesn't seem very fair to the bad guys.

I understand you're not a big fan of fate. Hopefully you'll enjoy the light vs dark fate when they're introduced. At that point you may find yourself wanting all the board updates...

crimhead said:

Talisman to me is about random, less choosing, the better. Thus, Warlock's Quests, Treasure all random. Characters are single-random (shuffle the "deck", everyone says a number), mulligan if you used that character in the previous game. This week has seen a game with a flood of Talismans. Seriously, all the special Talisman cards were in play and there were even a couple of Talismans from the Adventure deck. Today, the Assassin was Crown-ready, but no Talisman, so he took a Quest, completed it the next turn (trade in 5 points of Str trophies). Sometimes you just need the Talisman now, Warlock is often the quickest way, even with random Quests. Temple is okay for the Pray-trio or if you got a lot of Fate. Hermit always seems to come very late. And Talismans are quite often Alchemied if drawn early, to prevent PvP for them and because you don't need it early on and holding on to it would make you a target and also might force you to ditch other Objects.

crimhead said:

Like with choosing, I don't like rerolls in Talisman. I keep Fate, because of all the cards that relate to it, but I'm not a fan. Fate ruined Toadings among other things.

As to the alignment issues, only Good characters with a lot of Fate are Minstrel (needs it), Monk (5 is probably a bit much) and Priest (needs even more than 5). Ghoul has 4 of the Evil ones, but he is like the Minstrel and Priest, he needs it.

Personally I love Talisman very much (especially revised fourth). I have a lot of fun with it, play it frequently, and will continue buying every expansion FFG releases for it.

That said, I am primarily a strategy war-gamer. My favorite games are the likes of Cosmic Encounter, Axis and Allies, and Titan. While involving a strong random element, these games are primarily about choices - you make several per turn.

Incidentally, this is not why I like choosing treasure cards. We play the dungeon with two way movement and selected treasure. But we do this to encourage just the right amount of Dungeon in the game. We decided to start out like that, and if we found poeple going there too often we would add drawbacks such as fight or flight and/or random treasure cards. So far we see the Dungeon with satisfying frequency, so I'd be disinclined to discourage entry.

I love fate for the dilemmas it creates. There are times when a reroll would be beneficial almost every turn (and sometimes twice) but if you save your fate it could be even more beneficial later on.

Dark fate should unruin toadiness for you, but it will decrease randomness and add more choices. I hope you like it.

I find that Fate makes Toadings more memorable to be honest. Whilst at Gen Con there were a couple of "Double Toadings" where the hapless adventurer rolled a 1 and then used Fate, only to roll another 1. That is not the only time I have seen it or heard about it either.

crimhead said:

I have nothing against choice-games, I just prefer Talisman with the least amount of choices. Talisman is all about crazy, random events, where one minute you're the king of the world, next, you redraw a character as the Reaper just soul-sucked you (and if you draw the Priest, you'll get laughed at) .

crimhead said:

11 games with the Dungeon (41 with base + Reaper before that) and the Lord of Darkness has been challenged 5 times. He has also been defeated on each occasion, with 2 of the characters exiting at the Crown (Elf beat LoD by 10, Dark Cultist by 13). Generally, someone will pop into the Dungeon in a game, though not always. Most of the time, they stick to the area between Entrance and the Halls of Darkness (you got 1 3-draw space and 2 2-draw spaces in that section). If a character draws early Oaths of Vengeance (either from Dark Denizens or entering the Dungeon), they'll spend quite a while in there, no reason to let the Oaths go to waste. If you're at Ruins and roll a 6 for movement, you have the choice of going in and landing the Cavern to draw 2 cards or else Graveyard/Hills for 1. With some stat-boosts under your belt, Cavern is a very tempting choice. But, it has also ended lives, Sorceress today, Gladiator in an earlier game, when he had mucho Strength, but then went on a Craft-Enemy streak.

talismanisland said:

This is true, but I am still sad that the quantity of toadings has gone waay down. In fact, I haven't seen a toading in months! And now that we have the great plastic toad miniatures in 4th revised as well it makes me sad they don't get used as much.

It sucks, because the fate mechanic is growing on me. But toading has definitely suffered as a result. Definitely hoping we eventually get that frog themed mini expansion that Goodenough mentioned that should bring toads back in full force!

crimhead said:

When will we see rules for dark/light fate? Frostmarch? Or not till later?

Mattr0polis said:

This is true, but I am still sad that the quantity of toadings has gone waay down. In fact, I haven't seen a toading in months! And now that we have the great plastic toad miniatures in 4th revised as well it makes me sad they don't get used as much.

It sucks, because the fate mechanic is growing on me. But toading has definitely suffered as a result. Definitely hoping we eventually get that frog themed mini expansion that Goodenough mentioned that should bring toads back in full force!

Agreed. In 52 games so far (2 2-player, rest 3-player), there have been 6 Toadings.

There have been 9 Reaper kills.