Yup, it's that time again. It's been a few weeks thanks to other events and a get-together with other board games, but my roommates and I have finally returned to the land of Talisman. And with one of them very eager to play with all four corner Regions, we did! And since I wanted things to be a bit more difficult, I requested that we add The Harbinger in as well, choosing Stars Align as our Omen deck. I played as the Possessed, RA chose the Leprechaun, and RB had the Leywalker. I had also mixed in Frostmarch and Sacred Pool into the Adventure Deck permanently.

The Possessed got absolutely nowhere. I got turned into a Toad twice, never managed to finish any of the corner boards all the way through (hell I never set foot anywhere except The Woodland), and I got some really bad draws that kept hurting me, making progression exceedingly difficult. The Leywalker wasn't much better, as everyone kept hoarding spells and her own were only partially useful when she did have them, so its abilities barely had a chance to come into play. The Leprechaun was the clear favorite from the beginning, getting an Herbalist very early on as a Follower, landing on the Woods several times, and finally making a break for the City with all of her loot. Twice in fact. The only bad break she caught was losing her horses when she tried visiting the Highland, and I'm pretty sure she's sworn off the region forever at this point. Not once has the Highland treated her well. She also managed to get a full clear through the Dungeon in no time flat, and probably would've made a quick run for the Crown if it wasn't for losing her horses that forced her to go back to the City.

The real surprise was when the Leywalker picked up a Gnome for a Follower. As soon as she nabbed that, she made a beeline for the Inner Region despite only having six Craft and less Strength. However, she had picked up the Arknell from her visit to the Highland, and had gotten a Talisman very early on thanks to Warlock Quests being much more prolific. She cast Temporal Warp, got through the Portal, used her second turn to port to the Valley of Fire, and her third turn to hit the Hidden Ending, which turned out to be Judgment Day. I deemed her unworthy, cancelling out her own worthy rating, while RA decided after a bit of deliberation to cast a vote for worthy. RB rolled a 3, added her single point available, and won the game for both herself and RA since they shared alignment.

Overall it was a solid game. I never felt like I was falling too far behind despite being Toaded twice, although it did suck a lot. RB pulled an amazing come from behind victory in the end. And RA had a blast running everywhere as the Leprechaun, getting just as much gold as she did when she played the Tavern Maid. The Harbinger was threatening to a point, but we seemed to keep ourselves in very different regions, so it was rare that the Harbinger was a threat to more than one person. He did make it a bit nerve-wracking to delve too deep into a region though, and more than once I was wary about going too far because I was afraid of getting stuck drawing too many Harbinger cards. We did only get to the fourth omen though, so while things were starting to get bad, it never went to full "Oh crap we're gonna die!" mode. We also enjoy the Warlock Quests being much more prominent as well, both with cards in the Adventure Deck to help dole them out, and the rewards being worth it to do multiple times. RB and I completed several on our own, getting a few nice things out of it. Not our best game, but still up there as one of the better ones.