What is the best order to buy all the expansions? I was reading the rules in one expansion that said you needed the other expansions first etc. Do you usually play the base game with one other expansion at a time or would multiple expansions be needed for some campaigns?

Thanks in advance.

FFG does a pretty good job and *not* requiring any expansion to play with another expansion. As long as you have the base game, any one expansion will play very well with it and does not in the least bit require any of the other expansions. When I picked up the Descent expansions, I immediately combined everything. Some bits are only used in certain quests, but the Treachery cards, the Monster cards, the Skill and Treasure cards, etc, can all be combined and used in any quest, including the original ones.

As for which expansion to buy first? Like most, I would recommend *not* buying one of the Advanced Campaign expansion first (Road To Legend or Sea Of Blood). These expansions are *advanced* and it's best that you get some Descent playing experience under your belt before you try to tackle a 60hr+ game.

Of all the "vanilla" expansions, Tomb of Ice is my favorite. IMHO, it has the most original ideas of all the expansions: heroes that are unique (one worth1 CT, one that can hold 2H Weapon as 1H, one that has 5 Melee Trait dice, etc), some unique monsters (love the stomach), unique board pieces (largest room in the game, and indoor-outdoor transition pieces), and Invisibility potions/abilities. I love ToI and highly recommend it. The other expansions are good, but they kind of feel like it's more of the same, adding familiar components to the base game. ToI has very original bits and I love 'em

-shnar

I'd also strongly recommend Well of Darkness, since it adds treachery and dark portals to the Overlord's wargear. Treachery particularly really HEPLS a lot (welll...the Overlord, of course), especially in Advanced Campaign, and it's really fun. I also recommend both the first two expansions (Well of Darkness and Altar of Despair) because they add new (and very cool) Skill cards for your heroes...beside they add some more heroes, which is always good.

I'm a big fan of both of the expansions... (except for the hero feats in ToI!!! No no - they are good!)

One of my favorite quests however is the first quest in Well of Darkness - "Buried Alive" I think it was called. Every turn a piece of the map caves in - so they have to keep pushing forward or else crushola.

Tomb of Ice adds lots of unique stuff, including monsters and even some extra Road to Legend things since TOI came out after RTL.

If your looking for more monsters, of the two original expansions, Altar of Despair adds the most variety, while Well of Darkness adds the most actual plastic monsters. The kobolds from WOD add in a ton and they have a swarm ability which is nice.

I would put in another recommendation about Well of Darkness for the treachery upgrades as well. The other expansions give a few cards to add to this deck, but WOD has the most.

I got the core game today and looked it over. Looks great. My wife liked it when I showed her my package (the heros) then her package (Monsters etc). We will try to get in a game this weekend after I read the rules again. Also got Dungeon Quest and liked the idea of the heros can be used in each. Don't know who I will pick yet.

Thanks for the input on the expansions. I put them on my wish list. I tend to order expansions before I actually need them just do I can go over rules and get acquainted with the expansion. Got all of Arkham horror expansions but have only played with base game and two smaller expansions so far.

Looking forward to keeping up with this forum and reading about Descent.

Drakson said:

So I got what you were saying until the end... your wifes package?

Sorry - couldn't resist.

Blush. Blush. I guess I could have worded that differently. Anyway she is looking forward to turning me into a Monkey.

Drakson said:

My (future) wife does that to me all the time. What does it have to do with Descent? =P

shnar said:

Just out of curiousity; These Advanced Campaign Expansions. Do a single game-gathering last 60hours + ?. How is that possible to take in one go. Do you need to end the game as it stand at the table and then come back to it later?

Reason I'm asking is that we're still working our way through the base game and have no expansions..yet..

SC

No you don't have to play the Advanced Campaign expansions all in one sitting, or leave them setup the entire time. They are designed to be packed away and then brought out again between sessions. There are several tuckboxes to put each players relevant information in, and a campaign sheet to record everything on. This way you can pack the whole thing up, and then unpack and set it up without any problems the next time you play.

Also note that because the dungeons in the AC expansions are broken up into multiple "levels" each level is relatively small compared to a full Dungeon from vanilla Descent. As a result each level can be played in about an hour or less, and the game can be "saved" (i.e. packed up and put away) for later use after any level. Hence the Advanced Campaign can actually make it easier for some groups to play Descent, since each session can be much shorter, but progress still be made toward the resolution of the game.

In other words, it isn't 1 60 hour session, more like 30 2 hr sessions (or however many or long of sessions you wish).

I have a question that has surely been asked before. I'll use this thread to expand the topic instead of opening a new one.

My group has played all quests in the base game and we found that they were fairly balanced, with some quests that gave an edge to the Overlord (nr.4,5,7) and that we want to replay in the future. During this summer and in the following autumn we're planning to start some regular Descent sessions and I was thinking of a RtL campaign, but I'm also looking at the other expansions (WoD, AoD, ToI). How do the expansion quests play?

We enjoy playing Descent but we consider 5 hours to be a fairly long time, especially if you play in the evening. As I look at the expansion quests (most notably WoD and AoD), they look huge and considerably tougher than the base ones. Have you played all those quests? How do they play and for how long? Are there any ways to make the play smoother and faster with those big maps?

Thanks for any answer you may give.

From my personal experience the simple expansions are superior to advance campaigns. It might be a group here but... well... I have RtL and no one wants to play it.

As for the expansions:

WoD and AoD have much longer quests that are sometimes hard to get through in one sitting. Even with people fairly familiar with Descent. Though this might also depend on how long you spend with the game in one go. We never had more than three hours to play. Both WoD and AoD also add some more engagement for the Overlord in the form of cards he can use to customise his deck. Generally if you found the original quests balanced you might end up giving an edge to the Overlord if you buy this.

ToI is different. It has much more intense and has a few "compact" dungeons. It also he most interesting mechanics and some of the more interesting monsters. Generally though it tends to give the players more toys than the Overlord so it sometimes swings the balance in their favour.

WoD + ToI or AoD + ToI might be a good choice for you if you can spare the cash for two expansions. I have all three and don't regret it (I do regret RtL though).

In short:

WoD, AoD - more engagement for Overlord, long quests.

ToI - more toys for players, short to medium quests.

The_Warlock said:

I haven't played any of the expansion maps yet, but have read them through. It seems that ToI has a bit smaller maps than the vanilla box or the two other core expansions. Someone else here said it that ToI quests just look like more fun, where the other expansion quest (except Buried Alive, the 1st quest of WoD or AoD) seem like more of the same.

We had exactly the same "five hours is too much" problem with my group. After some consideration we decided to go with RtL instead of expansion single offs as with RtL you can customize the time required in each session much better. And there is a longer story arch which we really want to experience.

I got some amazing advice on how to speed up the game in this thread www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp . Basically you can make things smoother as an OL by organizing everything well and being prepared. Limiting spawns is the other way, but it might give the heroes an unfair advantage. Remember that no matter how much you as a OL speed up the game Descent is and will be slow if the heroes take 15+ mins each turn to agree on the strategy.

HighHanded said:

Thanks for the answers HighHanded, though this is not exactly what I was looking for. I have not explained my situation to let you understand in full.

I already own all Descent published material except for the Lieutenant Miniatures, which I'm not sure whether to buy or save money (they are expensive and nothing more than an eye candy); I know what's inside each box and what the expansions give to the game. I'm interested in receiving advice from people who played the long expansion quests, to know if they found them difficult/overlong/broken or anything like that. I consulted the WoD quest guide just before posting in this thread and many of the Quests looked like pure nonsense. A Dragon with Bolt ability that gives you 666 points of Damage just comes to my mind.

Of course I had this feeling when reading, but people who have played can provide different points of view. This is what I'm looking for, since it is not easy to find this feedback in the recent forum posts (perhaps BGG??).

From your post, I understand that most WoD and AoD quests are very long to complete, while ToI features smaller and shorter maps.

Mordjinn said:

I've read the quoted thread with great interest. The key to a game's length is the ability of the Heroes to decide quickly and correctly what to do. Still, with big maps such as WoD and AoD quests the game will always last long, the only way is to make maps smaller, IMO. Some of the dungeons look bigger than necessary, with long corridor pieces, deep halls... of course they'll take a lot to be played.

I hope to get some advise about the expansion quest balancement: this game has the problem that the difficulty does not remain constant throughout the game; it decreases significantly when the Heroes get good treasures. Some expansion rules add something to the heroes and others add something for the Overlord, but all these additions are available from the beginning of the game (Treachery, Dark Glyphs, Feat cards) and don't help eliminating the downward slope of difficulty that's usually seen in a Descent game. The only effort that I saw to maintain the game competitive is what is proposed in RtL: Campaign level increases with time and each Monster/Hero/City upgrade has a cost or results from a choice. This is something that tickles me and makes me think of the Advanced Campaign.

The problem that I see is that the expansion quests don't seem designed for balanced game: some of them just seem to be very difficult " right from the beginning" and with no significant improvement towards the finale, except for the occasional boss or extra-dangerous situation (which rarely changes things more than a Beastman War Party played at the right time).

If someone else wants to share thoughts about Expansion Quests I'm glad to read everything.

It is true and known fact that Descent is balanced in a way that if OL doesn't win the game pretty much in the beginning, the game will get easier and easier for the heroes. Personally I dislike this game mechanic, but it is just something you have to live with if you wish to play with the unmodded ruleset. If I've understood correctly advanced campaign doesn't really remove this fact, although the OL can achieve the victory on Gold or Diamong level if the heroes do not pay attention to the campaign map situations.

About the quest difficulty and analysis there's some awesome stuff about them on the BGG website by Jeff Long:

Vanilla box
www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/271256/journeys-in-the-dark-quest-difficulty-rating

Well of Darkness
www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/400225/well-of-darkness-quest-difficulty-guide

Altar of Despair
www.boardgamegeek.com/article/5746871

Hope that helps.

Mordjinn said:

It helps a lot, this was exactly what I was looking for. It gives the detail I needed and helps me choose which quests I shall propose to my group after completing the Vanilla box. Thank you very much for these links, which I were not able to find by myself.

The author has invested a huge amount of hours on Descent and tried every quest several times, especially the ones that the Heroes were unable to beat. With base Quests my group always decided to go on and save the difficult quests for later. With WoD and AoD I only feared that some of those quests are impossible and I didn't want to try them out, waste time on a long setup, play for a couple of hours and spend the rest of evening complaining about difficulty.

After reading these reviews, I will give a chance to "Buried Alive", "Raiders of the Lost Temple" and "The Hall of the Monkey Kings". I just want to try out some of the new stuff. I know that our future is the Advanced Campaign and, to some extent, home made quests.

If someone has some personal experience to add I'm still eager to know. Especially I'm interested if there's a way to make difficult quests more reasonable, perhaps giving the Overlord only a standard deck (no Treachery) and equipping the Heroes with Feat cards from ToI. Also Power/Invulnerability Potions should help if available. But this is theory, practice is another thing.