Archdruid said:

I am glad to hear that.

This means that we get the (lost file)Magic Gateway instead of the (event) Harpies!

PS; It would be nice to see the band of carrions show up in the future, who can bring you also to the lost city.

But we have carrion crows...

Gladiator was in action today (lost along with the Priest to the Dwarf who trounced the LoD in battle by 12) and was having trouble getting Followers. Looking at the Highland deck, not a lot of lure for the Gladiator to head there if he wants Followers at least, 11 in 142. Don't know if Dungeon has that good a ratio even (too lazy to check), but looks like sticking to the main board is the way to go for the Glad.

Dam said:

Dungeon has 6 followers and Highlands 12..

Just got mine in Edmonton, Canada.

Of course we played last night, and I found a copy of the expansion today, what a bummer.

Oh well hopefully we can squeeze a game in this week.

One week has just pasted since I ordered my copy of the Highland expansion and I just recieved it today Since I ordered it from the United States, It got here to Denmark munch faster then I expected

The first thing I looked at was the board - Very nice

Second thing was the miniatures - Wow, they are the best detailed Talisman miniatures so far and they are back to 30mm scale I just have some Toad Kings I need to paint and then these are on my painting table next

Third thing was the cards - I have not looked at all the cards yet, but I can see there is a lot of fun and interesting things. I like the art on them too.

I just can't wait to play a game of Talisman again.

Cheers

Hmmmm I thought the mini's were much less detailed. Paint is going to have to bring the Vampyress to life.

danjr said:

That's pretty powerful paint, bringing the undead to life .

That was a good one!

I was just wondering about this.

Has the mountain dragon the Fireball ability?

I have receive the Highland and it seems that it has the same problems as the Frostmarch expansion.

The artwork is not printed in the centre of the card.

The character figures are low quality

can you show how bad they are aligned?

burst said:

i shall make a picture soon

burst said:

It's not a real problem actually, but only the artwork is not in the center of the card, because of the cutting.

As you can see, the left side in white is larger than the right side.

yeah, that one looks pretty bad. you should contact ffg support.

burst said:

There's some misaligned card here and there, but not as bad as in Frostmarch expansion. I didn't check the cards one by one, but I noticed the same problem on my Friendly Giant.

I think misalignments like these are acceptable, even though I wish I could get the best quality for my money.

Miniatures are good looking but they are even thinner than in Dungeon and Frostmarch. Hey, I want to paint those things and I'm not exceedingly skilled. May I get some more room for colour next time? Tonight I was figuring out how I could give some expression to Vampiress' and Sprite's faces... heads are almost smaller than my tiniest brush. I will think again tomorrow and choose to paint during the late afternoon. At night I need big heads and big details like in the Base Set & Reaper.

I agree. I'm a half-decent painter, but the detail on the figures is very low (and in some cases missing: is the Alchemist supposed to only have one ear?). I was pretty happy with the job I did on the base set and the Reaper, but since then I've been frustrated with the results. If I had to sacrifice a few of the cards (trinkets, etc.) in the expansion in return for larger/more detailed minis, I'd be fine with that.

Zozimus said:

That's an ability that didn't make it in the final version, somehow it was inadvertently left in the figure: "If you run out of Objects and you need money VERY badly, you can alchemise your ear. Use this ability up to two times per game."

Ok this was lame

Har! I guess if you can make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, you could do that too!

Finally bought my HL this week, three games down. Alchemist won the first one, did nothing to alleviate my concerns about him with the default ending . I mean, Sprite and Necromancer threw EVERYTHING at him and still couldn't bring him down. Lightning Bolts, Finger of Death, Fireball, 2x Random, anything they could get their hands on was zapped at the Alchemist, who came out smelling like roses and in the end calmly crossed the Inner Region, turning useless stuff to gold to health while Command Spells by the Sprite rained upon him.

The other two games were much more interesting, probably because they didn't feature the Alchemist. Most appealing to me was the perceived increase in PvP. With people hitting the Highland board, 'cos it's the new sh*t and all, Talismans were quite rare (none in the HL deck I think). Thus, when game rolled around to the point where people started thinking about hitting the Inner Region, usually the character who had stayed on the main board had a Talisman, thus s/he became hunted. Valkyrie killed the Sorceress in PvP in game #2 to claim a Talisman, then proceeded to the CoC to thrash the Vampiress, stripping her one by one of Str-boosters, turning a fairly even Str 11 (Valkyrie) vs Str 10 battle into Str 13 vs Str 6 washout. Vampiress tried psychic combat, but that was Craft 11 vs Craft 7, again for the Valkyrie, so she won.

Today's game featured the Rogue, who as I suspected, turned the City and Enchantress from a never-visited wasteland into a popular hang-out with her ability. There was also plenty of blood-letting, Rogue killed the Philosopher (just 'cos she could). Ironically, she could've chosen to kill the Highlander that turn instead (he was down to 2 Lives and Rogue had Finger of Death in hand). Philosopher was replaced by the Troll, who visited the Highlands, took plenty of licks, limped out, ran into a pair of Craft Enemies, dead. Hello Dwarf, who drew an early Talisman and thus became hunted by both Highlander and Rogue. After losing to the Roc, Dwarf found himself deep in the Highlands and on the way out lost lives constantly. At the Highland Entrance, he was attacked and killed by the Rogue (partly for the Talisman, mostly just 'cos she could), replaced by the Minstrel. Rogue made a beeline for the Inner Region, only to fail 4 times at Crypt, despite Str 11 and 2 Fate!!! Highlander completed his Warlock's Quest to get a Talisman and made for the Inner Region as well. Rogue dropped back out, since she couldn't take him on in battle. Highlander made it to the Crown, only to fail miserably at his Command Spell rolls. So badly the Rogue managed to boost her Str to 18 (thanks to the Magician) and she then made her way to the CoC, beating the Highlander like a red-headed step-child, despite his efforts to charge at her.

Dungeon has seen a lot less action in the three games, only the Alchemist spent any real time in there, but even he left via Passageway. Not too thrilled about the Eagle King at the Eyrie TBH. He was beaten three times in the first two games, there is just no real challenge there. You pretty much just walk through the Highlands, say "Boo" and he dies . Rather meh experience for me.

My first Highland game was won by the Alchemist too, but not because he was overly powerful, just because the player was lucky. With Hand of Doom handing the Highlander could have cheated everyone with his early rush to the centre (Arnkell in his hand) and Alchemist won only because the Vampiress juggernaut was to slow to fight back.

Second game was won by Prophetess that did everything she wanted: killed Valkyrie with premeditation (Demigod + Finger of Death) and comfortably dominated the game, until the very end. No chance for Rogue and other reviving Characters.

Third game was won by the Sage in a non-official manner, because we allowed him to draw a Spell if he had no one at each combat session. Still this waits clarification. Sage managed to draw Finger of Death and cast it on a 2-Lives Gladiator with no magical protection.

I think all 3 games with Highland were very competitive. Only the second game featured an intense Dungeon exploration, since a couple of heroes dared (or could) try the Dungeon very early; Rogue died, Prophetess was succesfull. It's gambling.

Normally, when you go 2-on-1, you can take out the picked on character fairly easily. Sage has been a victim of this before, when he was kicking butt in the win-loss column. But here, there was never any point where the Alchemist was out of gold/health/fate, thus anything thrown at him didn't slow him down much at all. Barring horrible luck with item draws (and with Highland now out there, doesn't seem likely), I can see the Alchemist losing if he gets Toaded and the character at the CoC goes on a 4-turn success streak with the Command Spell, otherwise, the Alchemist will just cash his stuff for gold for health, all in one turn. I'd hate to be forced to use a different ending just because the Alchemist won't die from the Command Spell.

So we have 2 broken characters in one expansion Cool

Valkyrie being the other? I agree she can get into a permanent-stalemate situation, but still requires fair share of luck on her part. Whereas the Alchemist gets by with just drawing basic Objects, if they happen to be Magic Objects, so much the better. Starting with 5 Gold, he cashes two in for 2 Spells right off the bat and at least in the first game, he was keeping up with the Sprite with regard to spell-cycling, purely by turning Objects to gold to Spells. Combine that with never being out of Fate and healing where ever he likes, Alchemist is a walking disaster without needing the amount of luck the Valkyrie needs. And Valkyrie just gets a stalemate, Alchemist can hang out there long enough to boost himself to a winning position.

Dam said:

Have you ever played MTG? Do you remember the Zuran Orb? The Alchemist has more or less the same power, but linnked to Objects / Gold.

A charactere with 3 Magic Objects and a normal Objects has 10 extra lives(!). Its only drawback is that you can use his ability olnly during your turn, so the Alchemist has no special power whatsoever during other players' turns. An Alchemist playing on the defensive would maximize his life total every turn, "just in case".

Maybe it's early do declare it broken, but I am worried I look forward hearing more session reports.

On the plus side for me, I won't have to worry about the Alchemist doing his usual thing in the next four games he'll be in, since I'm planning on testing out the three endings from HL as well as doing one game with the Warlock Quests ending (no point in doing Ice Queen, when the Eagle King is pretty much the same). With 6 characters, pairing off 2 HL chars each time gives each 5 appearances, thus CoC and 4 alternate endings. Only minor blip is keeping track of which pairings have appeared together, so that no pair teams up more than once, but that's just bookkeeping.