I agree you have to adjust your playing style when using Harbinger. But there are so many Event cards that it's difficult to escape for long. I believe the Dungeon has the fewest Events but it's hard to survive in there early in the game. I don't think we took advantage of landing on the Harbinger and sending him off the board, but most of the time when we did, we advanced the Omen deck, and we never had an instance where we reversed the Omen order. So perhaps it was an anomaly, but I only get to play a couple times a year, sadly, so I don't get much chance to figure out the best strategy.

Oh yeah, you need to play with a few regions for sure otherwise its very hard.

Don't forget that when you land on the Harbinger himself, you can send him to any space in any Region. If you summon the Harbinger while deep in the Highland, it might be too inconvenient to run to the Outer Region. However, you can land on the Harbinger to send him away to the Region of your choice. Likewise, if you are not using any corners and the Harbinger is harassing you in the Outer Region, you can send the Harbinger to the Middle Region if you land on him. This also makes the game more competitive, as when someone is near the Harbinger, they can send him to your Region, even if you are on opposite corners of the land. Landing on the Harbinger is an important strategy!

The Harbinger expansion at first was something I thought I would only play once in a while. Because the Harbinger can chase you and force you to draw from his deck, I thought it would take away from the exploration of other decks. But I found the opposite was true. I found that I was exploring Regions I normally would not, such as entering the Woodland when normally I would stay in the Outer Region. The Harbinger expansion actually caused greater exploration than before! Combined with the amount of strategy and competition it offers, in addition to the four possible end of world scenarios, it's something that I think I will always play with! It's a real game changer.

Artaterxes, you are not quite correct. If you land on the Harbinger, you send him back to his character card; in other words, off the board completely. You then roll a die for his character card, just like the Reaper and Werewolf cards. The Harbinger will reappear on the board when the next event is drawn. You don't get to send him wherever you want

Artaterxes, you are not quite correct. If you land on the Harbinger, you send him back to his character card; in other words, off the board completely. You then roll a die for his character card, just like the Reaper and Werewolf cards. The Harbinger will reappear on the board when the next event is drawn. You don't get to send him wherever you want

I think You are wrong.

When You land on the Harbinger, You move him to another space on any board, and then roll a die for his chart.

Harbinger returns to his character card only when the top Omen is discarded. And returns to the board when an Event card is drawn.

Ok as I reread the rules, I see I made a mistake, but I don't have the character sheet in front of me. Does it saw on the card you get to teleport the Harbinger??

"After a character not in the Inner Region draws an Event, move the Harbinger to his space. Whenever the top Omen is discarded, move the Harbinger to this card after the next Omen in the stack is resolved. Whenever a character in the same Region as the Harbinger is instructed by a board space to draw cards, he must draw Harbinger cards instead."

"When you land on a space with the Harbinger, instead of encountering your space or a character in your space, you must encounter the Harbinger by moving him to any other space not in the Inner Region and then rolling 1 die:"

Wow, my apologies. I completely misread that and played this wrong. And I'm usually a stickler for rules. Mea culpa

So, if I interpret this correctly, you can land in the Harbinger, send him to the Dungeon, and if no one enters the Dungeon, the Harbinger won't have an effect again? That doesn't seem right

Yes.

You are correct.

As long as no one enters the Dungeon, Harbinger cards can't be drawn.

Only if an Event is drawn does the Harbinger move to your space.

Sorry, the coffee hasn't kicked in yet. I guess he still moves when any Event is drawn? I should go back to bed

The Harbinger will always move to your space whenever you draw an Event. So if he is in the Dungeon, and you are in the Highland, he will move to your space in the Highland if you draw an Event there. Landing on the Harbinger allows you to send him to any space you want, so you can force him to bother the other characters in some other Region of your choice. But once you draw an Event again, he'll move back to you, wherever you are.

He only leaves the board once the top Omen is turned over, but even then, he'll be back next time someone draws an Event.

The Harbinger will always move to your space whenever you draw an Event. So if he is in the Dungeon, and you are in the Highland, he will move to your space in the Highland if you draw an Event there. Landing on the Harbinger allows you to send him to any space you want, so you can force him to bother the other characters in some other Region of your choice. But once you draw an Event again, he'll move back to you, wherever you are.

He only leaves the board once the top Omen is turned over, but even then, he'll be back next time someone draws an Event.

yes I see this now. I must have just been too anxious to try the expansion out that I missed the part about moving the Harbinger to another space. I don't think it would have changed our game too much. We drew too many events and he was always on the move.

I'm not sure how I feel about this expansion yet. 2 of the 3 people I played with didn't care for it, but I think we just were unfortunate to continue to have to draw from the Harbinger deck. I think if I were to play Talisman often (which I don't get to do), I'd use this occasionally and not every time.

In Talisman, we're very comfortable using House Rules to shape the game "our way" when there's something we don't like.

With the Harbinger expansion, we just weren't that happy with the Omen Cards, or the dreaded countdown to doom.

We didn't like the idea of "everyone dying", or anything that artificially shortened the game (we love our 7-hour games).

So, we just don't use the Omen Cards. How does this change things?

Well, we still use the Harbinger. He comes out when someone draws an Event, and characters in the same region must draw cards from the Harbinger deck (which we've made extra spicy by mixing in the Nether Realm cards). Yeah, I was initially against mixing two separate decks together, but after a couple of games, I don't really notice it - and this gives a "legitimate" use for the Nether Realms. When one of the Seven Signs is drawn, the Harbinger goes away until the next Event is drawn. So, we still have the danger ramped up by the Harbinger deck, but without the extra badness that the Omens bring. All the Omen-specific cards were removed from the Harbinger deck (not that many actually).

When you land on the Harbinger, dice roll encounters 2-5 are the same. On a 6, you can move the Harbinger to any space (instead of this happening every time), and on a 1, that character must suffer the effect of the most recently drawn Seven Signs card (keep the latest one visible near the discard pile). If none of the Seven Signs cards have been drawn yet, then you got lucky and there is no negative effect. I might find something different for a roll of 6, and go back to allowing you to move the Harbinger every time - haven't decided yet.

Its a fabulous expansion lot of fun to play with. I listened to the aforementioned advice not to spoil the cards before the first game, I actually waited til after the second one.

What disappoints me, though, is the lack of shuffling the Omen cards. I mean I played one game with only the main boards so it would be difficult to avoid the Harbinger. There were three characters on the board and with an Axe they avoided him pretty much all the game so we got to the Second Omen and the game was over.

During another game I had all the Regions on the table and it was even easier to avoid the Harbinger and even with the Armageddon Crown ending we only got to the Fourth Omen.

But the Omens are perfect, I love the Seventh Omens, theyre deadly, I wish one of my games got to that point when the Sixth Omen gets discarded.

Had another try today, this time with the Shattered Earth deck, as well as the Highland, Dungeon, Deep Realm and City Regions.

We managed to finish the game proper but the Harbinger, as well as the Terrain cards, caused problems only allowing us to use the Highland's full potential, but not the pther regions.

At one point, the City Stables got terrained into a Forest (also used Firelands Terrain cards).

We both got to the Crown of Command - I got there due to luck as I had a new character and my dice rolls at the Crypt would have taken me to the City had the City not been terrained.

My friend won because he developed more points and my characters got killed a lot.

"After a character not in the Inner Region draws an Event, move the Harbinger to his space. Whenever the top Omen is discarded, move the Harbinger to this card after the next Omen in the stack is resolved. Whenever a character in the same Region as the Harbinger is instructed by a board space to draw cards, he must draw Harbinger cards instead."

"When you land on a space with the Harbinger, instead of encountering your space or a character in your space, you must encounter the Harbinger by moving him to any other space not in the Inner Region and then rolling 1 die:"

A character landing on the same space as the Harbringer must encounter the Harbringer by rolling on his chart instead of encountering the space or another character on the space.

The second quote is actually on the Harbinger card.

Had one thought:

If using the Blood Moon expansion and you draw a Lunar Event, would that also qualify for the Harbinger to land on your space?

The second quote is actually on the Harbinger card.

Had one thought:

If using the Blood Moon expansion and you draw a Lunar Event, would that also qualify for the Harbinger to land on your space?

I see it now thanks! Kind of odd that the relevant language isn't in the rulebook. As for your second question, I think yes. Lunar events are events.

Played the harbinger for the first time today, using reaper cards, city, dungeon and highlands. I have to say the harbinger cards are brutal. We used the sead rising set.

We all lost in the end, but it did help with making sure the game had an ending. One player knew there was the object that caused you to win when the last omen was pulled on the city deck which then got buried under under enemies by another card. But he couldn't work his way through them quickly enough.

Two of our group were the type to get upset when bad things happen to you, a mindset that does not help when playing talisman. Being toaded early, or not being able to beat stuff when expected didnt help their cause. Being toaded is funny, but harbinger cards can make that harder to recover from. The cursed objects effectes everyone, slowing down development. I liked that, instead of the all powerfull characters you can get. Although it delayed development a bit.

I personally enjoyed it, but I think I will only use it from now on depending on who I have playing. The riding horse was useful to flee a region quicker, and we had the sentinel fought on fairish terms simply to escape. Next time we will give the Firelands a whirl, without Harbinger.

Played the harbinger for the first time today, using reaper cards, city, dungeon and highlands. I have to say the harbinger cards are brutal. We used the sead rising set.

We all lost in the end, but it did help with making sure the game had an ending. One player knew there was the object that caused you to win when the last omen was pulled on the city deck which then got buried under under enemies by another card. But he couldn't work his way through them quickly enough.

Two of our group were the type to get upset when bad things happen to you, a mindset that does not help when playing talisman. Being toaded early, or not being able to beat stuff when expected didnt help their cause. Being toaded is funny, but harbinger cards can make that harder to recover from. The cursed objects effectes everyone, slowing down development. I liked that, instead of the all powerfull characters you can get. Although it delayed development a bit.

I personally enjoyed it, but I think I will only use it from now on depending on who I have playing. The riding horse was useful to flee a region quicker, and we had the sentinel fought on fairish terms simply to escape. Next time we will give the Firelands a whirl, without Harbinger.

The Rise of the Dead is actually one of the toughest Omen Sets. I think the Stars Align and Armageddon are a bit more manageable.

Still, I believe that the Harbinger expansion requires a completely different approach to Talisman. It changes the game a lot, it makes the board very hostile and players must calculate their movements well, not just roll, move, roll and see what comes up. For this reason, it's recommended for experienced players, who know well what to expect from the board. Fleeing from the Harbinger is mandatory to avoid drawing too many Harbinger cards, so you need to know where you can move.

This expansion requires something unusual for a game of Talisman: a sort of non-hostility pact between characters and a sense of responsibility for the greater good. They must stop acting like kids, throwing Spells and other hindrances towards the others at every opportunity, but must concentrate on developing their character. They shall also understand that drawing Harbinger cards should be avoided whenever possible: those cards will harm not only your character, but all characters, and most important they make the Omens advance quicker. They don't offer many rewards, and all of them have a price to pay that may seem acceptable for the present, but will weigh a lot in the future. The design of some cards, e.g. the Altars, is just "devilish". You don't have to trust them, they'll give you a hand in the short term, but their ultimate purpose is your damnation.

You have to move faster between Regions, in order to stay away from the Harbinger figure, and be ready to leave if an Event is drawn. They should also be ready to move on the Harbinger and face him from time to time, to send him far away. Your setup with 3 corner Regions allowed for this to be done conveniently.

Thinking of The Apocrypha as the best strategy to win the game is a bad plan, since it might just not be drawn and will surely require the characters to suffer a streak of penalties, which ultimately will make everybody lose. The Apocrypha it's ok if it pops up unexpectedly, or as a last minute attempt to avoid an utter defeat. Don't start looking for that book too early, it will make everything go wrong.

I think this is a really advanced expansion and a great game changer. I personally don't like to cooperate with others while playing Talisman, I prefer to stab them in the back or crush them with superior strength, but I recognise that the pact above it's the only way to take on the Harbinger's challenge. If we're up for a heroic attempt to save the world from annihilation, we'll use Harbinger; if we want to race for the Crown of Command and to gain ultimate power over our rivals, we play without it.

Talisman with the Harbinger is definitely different than "regular" talisman. I hadn't looked at the Harbinger deck before hand, so I was going on rumor rather than actuality, and it was worse than I thought it would be. There was some player on player to begin with but that relented pretty quickly, there wasn't much spell targeting but that was mostly down to the characters in play.

I don't think the players liked Harbinger that much but partly it was because of the attitude some players had. Like suggesting it was unfair that they would have to circulate around the city region with the harbinger present. I would not attribute "fairness" as a characteristic for the game of Talisman. Its a random walk of humorous consequences. I will not be pulling out this expansion for a while it would definitely require the right group. The players had all played numerous times, so I think it was a fair challenge. One of the players always likes to take on the dungeon early so was willing to take the Harbinger cards head on, he was soon disuaded as to this being a good idea.

The apocrypha was in a known location on the top of the city deck that then had a few weak city enemies on top of it and we were on the last omen, so this a pretty good stratergy in the circumstances, I definetly would not want to deliberately pull Harbinger cards to try to find that one item to win!

I went through the deck this morning and I think that by comparison we were actually drawing the easier cards have you seen the Beast? I would like to have a way to mix the cards into the game without it being so harsh as I think they have interesting effects.

I think plain talisman might be the order of the day for a while. By plain thats the three corners mentioned above with reaper, sacred pool and frostmarch, with the Reaper curculatung around and a hidden ending mixed up from a few of our favorites. Once they have recovered maybe then I can unleash the Ifrit on them.