Does anyone compare Frostmarch cards to the past editions? I know that Howl of the Wendigo is weekest than in 3rd ed. but what about the rest? I am disapointed that Spider from Reaper lost it's web abbility comparing to 2nd ed. I do not understand why they do that... special abilities of enemies are really cool and gave lots of fun. But what about abbilities of the enemies from Frostmarch - most of them are weak but maybe abbilities are interesting? I know only Balisk and it's really good. What about the Strangers and Places - are some of them interesting or dangerous? What about Objects? I hope that arts are so good as in previous...

Croonos said:

Hi Croonos,

I feel the same as you. I have give a house rule for the giant spider to give his ability back.

Howl of the Wendigo is indeed weaker than the 3th edition version. But it's no use to use the text from third edition for the mainboard, so i must accept the new card now.

The Trapdoors from the Dungeon expansion for the mainboard have also been changed, compare to the 3th edition version. I also advise you, to give the original text back. I have use it already in my games, and it's awesome and very dangerous to draw

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About the Frostmarch expansion, it's true that most enemies has special abilities, but actually it's worthless because of their low craft.

Most Craft enemies has a text, that if you lose the combat, you need to miss your next turn. Well, you can easilly defeat them, so they are not dangerous.

The Yetti does the same as the third edition version, so that's a good point, and Medusa has changed a little. You do not lose a life now, if you lose from her and instead of that you are turning to stone for 1 turn, they have changed it to 2 turns ! Makes sense somehow.

Chinese dragon's ability is better than third edition. Now you need to fight it with your weakest atribute. On top of that, it steals a magic object, instead of a normal object.

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There is one very dangerous stranger ( talismonger) you don't want to land on her. She does somewhat the same as the random spell, so you can lose all your strength or craft, or you can be changed into a toad. ( so that's a good point)

From the places, Ice queen(from 3th) and the new transmutor are dangerous, because there is chance that you can be turned into a toad. (so that's good)

The Art on the cards is perfect !

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The Reaper expansion is slightly better, in balance. You can see my rating about the Frostmarch, what the bad points are from that expansion

PS: i have not compare all the retro cards yet. I will do it, if i have time, or if someone else notice it.

Greetings, Velhart

Hi Croonos,

I did a further inspection on the retro cards of the Frostmarch expansion, and some of Reaper..

With the Porter card, you need to pay him 1 gold now, to make him a follower (good point)

The Ancient Artifact card is less powerfull now. ( instead of adding +4, it's +3 now ( good point i think)

With Wingboots, you can cross the river if you roll a 6 now. ( normally you could move more spaces by adding points to the die)

Lucky Charm has also been changed ( good point) the normal one from Dragon Tower is similar as you use fate)

Treasure Chest is a title from the Dragon expansion. It has a different text now.

The Dryad from the Reaper expansion has changed from a event card to a stranger card. Normally you must roll 2 dices under your craft, otherwise you land in the Dense Forest, in the Forest expansion. ( similar to trapdoor for 3th but then for dungeon)

The Stone Golem (from Reaper) has lose the (no spells text) so spells can be cast on him now

The Hydra (from Reaper) has changed ( if we compare it to the Hydra from the heraut france card( it has not 4 lives now) Not really a problem

Greetings,

~Velhart~

Hi Velhart,
Thank you very much for the information. It looks that some of the changes are quite interesting. Talisman is see as a family game so I think they do not want to make it dangerous and complicated at the beginning. To sum up I think game is going into a good way but we have to wait for all the Expansions to receive full balanced game and it goes about 2012…

My indications for a future expansions are:

1. Talisman – base game
2. The Reaper - 128 cards
3. The Dungeon – some thematic cards as Lesser Demon or Cave Troll has been take from Reaper - 128 Dungeon cards + the rest
4. The Frostmarch – 128 cards
5. Mountains – new corner board and new harder/mystic way to get CoC by high Mountains - some thematic cards would be taken from Frostmarch (and Mountains/Forrest from 3rd edition) – 128 Mountains card + the rest (Spells + Dungeon cards and base game cards)
6. The Denizens – 128 cards – expansions about Denizens of the land of Talisman - we do not know much about them yet. Why some of them are going to take the magical crown? Do they have alleys in common people? What about King’s favorite? There can be more applications for alignment and benefits from it - good characters can be supported by good denizens while evil ones can find alleys in bad guys. More ways to spend a gold on the main board and more interacting with other characters. Stronger enemies also nice viewed.
7. The City - 128 City cards and lots for Purchase Desk + new powerful characters which can be changed in only in the City by completing some quests.
8. Dragons – 128 cards including lots of strong enemies cards from Purchase Desk, new thematic Spells and of course Dragon King - the Red one form base game box should appear as a appear as a Alternative Ending.
9. The Wastelands - new corner board – imagine that land of Talisman is surrounded by great Sea where Strom River runs… On the Great Sea there are many islands some of them are friendly some very dangerous. In this expansion can be used new mechanics (as in was in Timescape). Characters can travel but do not know on which island strong wind will take them. At last island character can find Old Dragon the one who knows the way of flying to CoC and if he defeated and enslaved him he can become of dragon raider. Then on an Old Dragon’s crest it can fly to CoC space… It would be 4th way of getting CoC: main board way, via high Mountains, by dungeons and at least by air.
10. The Tower – 128 cards – increasing the difficulties of reaching the CoC space by main board.

Greetings

Croonos

Croonos said:

I think that you can changed 2012 into 2013 or 2014

I would love to see a Dragon expansion (it will probably be a small one) with 90 + cards

And a Dragon Tower with 128+ cards, that fits on the whole Inner region would be awesome !

Actually, i hope that Talisman is not a family game. If this would be true, no wonder why the game is so easy.

Talisman should be a game for hardcore gamers !

Velhart said:

I am aftaid we can not wait it, so lets stay with 2012, maybe after that our wold turn into... land of Talisman

Croonos said:

Haha

That would be awesome !

Ugh, Warlock is starting to really worry me now, he's 4-1 after 5 games. Even in the game that he lost, he made it to the CoC first, so was in with a shout. Today he was up against two characters that have done very well for themselves: Gladiator and Sage* (see below), yet the Warlock crushed them in 50 minutes. But neither could touch him for the early part of the game, because, yep, Warlock sat on the Middle Region, where the others just couldn't get to. With Sage and Warlock in the game, spell-cycling was rampant and didn't slacken when the Sage finally made it to the Middle Region only to be killed by the Warlock and was replaced by the Prophetess*. Spell deck was over half-way through at the end of the game, despite the Warlock getting stuck with 3 unusable Spells after he passed Mines with Brainwave's help. Even though he starts on the Middle Region along with the Reaper, it's hard to get the Reaper to land just right on the Warlock, so can't count on that. When the Warlock is at his most vulnerable, that is, at the start, reaching him to slap him down is hard and if he sees you coming, he can most likely hold on to/cycle some usable Spell to mess with.

Only one to defeat the Warlock so far has been the Gypsy, who of course strikes at the Warlock's spell-cycling.

I have played with the Frostmarch expansion today, and it was exactly as i suspected

We drew lot's of objects and weak enemies . ( 10 strong vs 31 weak on the mainboard) and i have not lose lives due to events.

Still the Warlock was close to dead ( 1 life left, and made it to the Castle) ( due to combines enemy's and one strong enemy in the Middle Region

Ón top of that, we drew lot's of bag of gold. i ended the game with 6 gold, and the other player with probably 9 + gold ( he has discard the gold card too, due to Orb of Prophesy to draw another card !

I have spent my money, for the Arcane Archive, Goblin Sapper, some objects at Market and for healing at Castle, because the Warlock was evil.

Saw the Necromancer reach the Crown by bashing the Lord of Darkness this week. He just collected 4 Spirits of med-level (4s and 5s) and hit the Dungeon. Upon reaching the Treasure Chamber, he cashed them all for +15 for Craft, giving him an auto 8+ win (had Craft 10 in psychic combat himself), first time the LoD had been attacked in psychic combat. Necromancer has an edge over the Ogre Chieftain that he doesn't have to defeat any Spirits to take them as Follower, just get his Craft up a bit. At Craft 8, he'll only miss Death Knight and Demon, but there are plenty of lower level Spirits to collect. Both the Necromancer Ogre Chieftain's ability to use any and all Followers in single combat sets them apart from the Follower-users from base game, Ghoul and Minstrel. It is kinda worrying how the power creep is shaping up.

Thanks for the recap, Dam. I haven't actually played those characters yet, so that's still to come. But the notion of how they operate sounds like a very boring game... either in playing them or playing against them. Perhaps they need to make the luck of the draw to gain this kind of power, but even that doesn't mitigate such excess when it does happens. I'm unsure that any of my larger group that will gather to test Frostmarch is going to be enthused when half of them will be playing more standard characters. We'll see.

I must say when I opened and looked thru the desks. I couldn't belive the lack of things to kill, and when I did find some they were 1 valve mosters. That was the mean disappiontment.

I also don't like the little charather. He ended up having every peice of gold avaiable expect 2!!!

I hope FFG go back to their high standards in the furture otherwise, i might stop buying the expensions.

This is the first expansion I have bought for the Tailisman, but I have played with Dungeon and Reaper. The main reason for buying this expansion was for the alternate endings. Having different options gives us players a since of surprise every time.

The new Character seem pretty powerful, but I won't make that call until I see them in action.

Spells look good and add new strategies.

I'm ready to play!