So yes, I FINALLY got my copy of the game and we've recently played two games.

The first game we played was just the new Talisman Revised 4th Edition, and I must say I thoroughly enjoyed what we played. Characters drawn were the Assassin, Warrior, Sorceress, Thief and Wizard.

Pros:

• No errors on the boards!
• Cards and board of are excellent build quality.
• As are the minis.
• Fate is not as powerful as I imagined.
• New Strength/Craft/Life tokens.
  

Cons:

• Fate tokens being cardboard does not fit in with the plastic of the rest of the tokens, and looks very cheap.
• Coin quality is worse than the previous version. Pictured in the manual is the nice brushed used look of the old coins, instead we get a vibrant gold coloured coin which I think looks cheap and nasty. I’ve already switched coins from my old board.
• Assassin is WAY, overpowered. His “special ability” of Assassination is barely that anymore, you just used it all the time, INSTEAD of attacking. I think a better way of doing it is to remove the Assassins ability to receive trophy points off any Enemies he kills.
  

As you can tell, the assassin won this game, and it was amazingly brutal. The assassinate ability allowed him to buff his character up at a greatly increased rate than any of the other characters.

As for the rest of the new revised edition, I enjoy the increased craft characters immensely as I do the improved graveyard. One thing I didn’t like at first is the nerf of the raiders card, but now I have played Reaper, I can somewhat understand why they did it, as reaper and I assume future expansions will include many more powerful or similar cards.

Now onto Reaper! **** the new adventure and spell decks are much bigger than before! It gives a nice new variety to the game, and also the removed expectation that you would see every card come into play. Character drawn were the Minstrel, Druid, Wizard, Dark Cultist and Dwarf.

Pros:

• Same excellent build quality as the revised edition.
• Reaper not as powerful as I imagined.
• A lot more Adventure and Spell cards!
  

Cons:

• I think the new characters are imbalanced with the older characters. They are just more powerful, and you will always hope you get one of the newer ones over the old ones.
• Vagueness of the Transference spell. It’s been brought up on the forums, and Elliot has raised his view of that it cannot in fact be used in the inner region. It just seemed so glaringly obvious to me as soon as I read it? I think anything that can undermine that basic concept of the game, which is obtaining a Talisman to reach the crown, should defiantly be changed. Official FAQ a go-go!
  

So, I was the only one to get a new character this game as I played the Dark Cultist. I have to see she was pretty meh in the first part of the game, mostly because I just didn’t land on many enemies so I couldn’t fully utilise that dice roll special ability. Once I was on the Crown of Command though, I was unstoppable. I fought off two foes (Minstrel and Dwarf) at the same time, as both were attacking me. Unlike them, when I took a life off them I was still levelling my character with the special dice roll ability; getting more powerful as I drained lives off them.

Now the reaper, much less powerful than I expected! Didn’t get to land on a character many times, but the most amazing moment was when my friend sent him my way. I proceeded to roll a 5 and send him back, where he then rolled a 1, used a fate, and rolled 1 again. Very bad luck, but defiantly the highlight of the game.

Which brings up another point, Fate. I know that this was just one of those statistical anomalies, but that game Fate turned out to be the world’s biggest false hope. I can’t count on my hands and feet how many times fate was used and the played rolled the same roll again.

Thats all I can really think about for the time being, I am writing this at just past midnight local time, so my mind is a little frayed. If anyone has any questions about my game, or my opinion about something, please feel free to ask, or to simply comment on my thoughts.

Regards,

Subby-E

Thanks for the breakdown and observations. It's helpful to hear different experiences, since we can't all play the massive count of games required to see all possible scenarios.

Heck, I'm "ignoring" the interpretation on Assassin being able to "wipe them out, all of them" regardless whether he lands on them or just draws them and still the assassin won the only game (out of 4 so far with Reaper) where he was drawn. As soon as I saw the crazy discussion and conclusion regarding Assassin, I knew it was one of those things you need to go back to the old way with.

Agreed, Dam. It was one of the worst "patches" FFG did in the 4th edition.

In that one game where the Assassin was drawn he also drew Fate Stealer and for a while had Magic Carpet, so he was pretty much hovering around 8-9 Fate most the game (actually the 1st game with Upgrade + Reaper, checking things out, only using the Village board erratas, so no Fate replenishes). Magic Carpet was also in the hands of the Thief in one game. I can see that Object creating a lot of PvP action in games.

SubElement said:

Dido on the assassin, ignoring the new rules. *Snap* I think I heard something break...

I personally didn't like the new smaller cards as well, I think the BI edition was better in that regard as well. Better artwork and bigger to match the new board.

I think the tweaking of the all the characters was off, the weakest character in the game, the priest, didn;t get much (got hindered with weapons!) while the stronger characters barely got any hinderence at all.

The Knight is just stuffed without being able to attack good characters, and the sage and dark cultist are are powerful. The merchant is nicely balanced like 2nd edition.

I'll eliminate Fate out of the discussion, its a personal preference thing.

So, your verdict, is the Reaper expansion worth a purchase?

haslo said:

Oh most definatly! It add's a great new spark to the game.

I think the Raper is a bit lame, but the extra cards are great, worth the purchase.

One thing I really miss from the BI edition cards was the clear colour schemes. You had distinct colours and on the back also text "Adventure" instead of symbols. Only 4 games done, but already have to fish out Purchase cards from the Adventure deck after the game because they are very similar in colour.

Dam said:

Agreed. Double that! The same goes for other games as well. Trying to keep track of and identify a dozen decks in Arkham Horror that are this way was too much for me.

RiCHiE said:

Are they really? I hope so. From what I've been hearing, that pack's Adv-cards are random selections (some altered) from old 2nd edition expanions. More rules problems are popping up. Makes me wonder what thought was put into Reaper for creating a balanced addition to the 4th edition Adventure deck.

JCHendee said:

They might add issue with interpretation, but so far (5 games done), haven't exhausted the Adventure deck yet. Exhausting with just the base deck happened pretty much every game, but adding those 90 cards from Reaper, the closest is just under 20 cards left when game ended. And even that was due to Prophetess, Orb of Knowledge, Fiend Slayer and Prophecy all involved in the game, making for some serious extra drawing.

JCHendee said:

Yes it is mainly cards from the Adventrue and Expansion, but for the most part they have been balanced out. They have added too many beasties and items vs Strangers, events and places, but it is a good mix overall.

The dissappointing part is that with apparent aim of this release to fix up rule incosistancies, Reaper seems to introduce new ones. How the alignment problems with the Knight could have been missed is surprising. The fireball spell is not so clear, and conflicting movement type cards seem to be apparent. For such a small edition of characters, 2 are very powerful, 1 stuffed and one balanced.

I didn't like 4.5 when I first bought it, but with the Reaper its improved. I think for the life to remain in the game they really need to add more characters in future exapnsions though - 4 is just not enough.

Absolutely, more characters are sorely needed...

after 3 games ( the last one with six players ) i think that the Craft Characters are a bit underpowered.

1. Game Winner: Warrior

2. Game Winner: Troll

3. Game Winner: Troll

i think you can do more with much strength, than with much craft (encountering other players for example)

somebody have the same thoughts?

i don't own the Reaper Expansion jet, are the cards in there eventually more Craft-based?

(more craft-monsters or something like that?)

O.K.

I've played two games with 4.5 Edition plus the Reaper Expansion, both games with three players, so here are my views.

Firstly, I should point out that I was one of the vocal contributors to the "Assassin is overpowered" thread. I argued strongly that the Assassin's new abilities were overpowered. With that in mind we decided to use the Assassin, randomly determining who should play it, using the new rules so as to test him out. The other characters were chosen randomly. We also decided to houserule that the Reaper would move on a roll of a 1 or 2 just to get him out and about more.

First game, Assassin, Prophetess, Ghoul.

It was probably bad luck (or lack of fate!). First adventure card encountered by the Assassin, a craft 5 Wraith. No assassination allowed there, can't do it with craft. Assassin lost. Second Adventure card encountered by the Assassin, a Strength 7 Dragon. Here, the Assassin used his ability but still couldn't beat 7 even with his dice roll and re-roll due to Fate. Another life lost. Several other encounters followed, the Assassin picking up a couple of followers. We managed to get the Reaper to land on the Assassin who had no fate counters at that point. Reaper rolled a 1! Assassin died!

The Assassin didn't last too long in that game so we couldn't get a clear idea of how overpowered or not the character was. The Prophetess won that game after a hard time dealing with the Ghoul who entered the Crown of Command first. She used the Transference spell instead of moving from the Plain of Peril and switched spaces with the Ghoul, managing to Crown of Command him to death in combination with the Ghoul losing lives to the Vampire.

I like the Transference spell, I don't think it's overpowered at all. It just adds another strategy to the game especially as it doesn't say anywhere in the rules that you can't cast spells in the Inner region. Of course you can!

In the Dungeon expansion for 2nd Edition it was possible to move straight to the Crown of Command by reaching the centre of the Dungeon and rolling a 6 on the teleporter, I don't recall anyone complaining about that and it was a **** sight easier to do than hoping you get the Transference spell before you head off to the Inner Region. Plus there's only one Transference spell. One spell in 50. Good luck on counting on that to win you the game.

Second game, Assassin, The Thief, The Wizard

The Assassin lasted the whole game this time. Have to say, I didn't actually find it broken at all. Yes, he killed strength enemies fairly regularly and his strength built up fairly steadily. Against Craft enemies he was screwed and a combo of having the Thief land on him all the time nicking his gear and the Wizard casting spells at him kept him in check. In play, I found the ability to assassinate board space creatures such as the Sentinel to be fairly non-important. In fact, I found the new "overpowered" abilities to actually keep the Assassin on a par with other characters. I have to retract my arguments against the Assassin after having seen him in play.

Mind you, that was just one game. More play may show him to be broken but assassination is his schtick and I think it works out O.K.

The Thief won this game, he managed to nick all the gold and objects in sight, not to mention robbing the Blacksmith in the Village blind.

The Reaper turned out to be a boon to the Wizard in this game. He landed on the Wizard twice, both times the Wizard rolled a 6, gaining craft both times!

Nice

I've noticed a nice tactical element with the Reaper. Players tend to keep their characters well away from him so it's actually possible to keep people away from certain areas of the board.

All in all, I enjoyed those games a lot. Fate does have a role to play, it managed to alleviate the problems of capricious randomness that some people complain of, myself included, and gives you a small measure of control without overdoing it. My views on the Assassin changed towards being more positive, the Prophetess is still fun to play without being overpowered, the new adventure and spell cards from the Reaper expansion are fantastic. The Reaper himself does add something extra to the game, he can influence the game without having to land on anyone.

One thing I still can't decide on is whether nerfing some of the Adventure cards is a help or hindrance to the game e.g. Raiders only stealing gold and the Staff of Mastery now being discarded after one use. It seems that the peaks and troughs of random fate in the game have been levelled off. The Raiders are no longer capable of crippling your character and the Staff of Mastery no longer turns you into the most likely person to win the game. I guess it all balances out but since we never encountered those cards it's hard to say.

Roosta said:

I think Lesser Demon (Craft 7) is from Reaper. There are other Craft enemies as well. It also has a couple of enemies that have both Strength and Craft. Sadly, the player gets to choose which one to fight with. Anyone remember Chinese Dragon that attacked your lower ability?

Should note that of the 7 games so far with Upgrade + Reaper, in only twice has a char taken the Strength path (Crypt, DwD, WW). Craft still seems easier to collect, somehow. Maiden + Solomon's Crown are both +2 Craft and have no equal in the Str side. Having more Craft enemies also balances/helps getting Craft up. And then there is the killer Craft card, Gnome (or if you drew Dwarf as char).