Cruan said:

I can not imagine, that she can stay alive in the middle region.

It is far too dangerous for her, and staying evil is a great risk.

I think it;s better if she can find some dragons in the outer region or maybe in the highlands, and using her ability to pray.

5 fate is nice, but i would choose to heal my lives at the chapel, or pray there for a spell. then i can use it vs a dragon

everyone can use they own tactics of course

Man, how did I overlook the Priestess starting on the Middle Region? Crap, first Warlock, now her. I disagree with Velhart on the Middle Region. It's not really that much more difficult than the Outer Region, but little risks offer many, many more rewards with a bit of luck. Spamming Temple should never be discounted.

Well, you can always try to stay there as long as possible, but those desert and runes spaces, can make it difficult for her, especially if she has only 2 starting strength..

The bad thing with her is, that she must find some followers first before she can add the first +1 to a die roll

i think that i will choose the other way around..

I am curious how fast the dragons will show up on the board

Then the Dragon Priestess can try to trigger her fourth ability, by sacrificing useless objects and spells to pray before the dragon

What is better? Killing a dragon and getting +1 strenght from a trophy? or maybe losing 1 card and praying at the temple (while another character may kill the dragon and get strenght)? My point is, her ability to pray in front of the dragon is not so great. Getting +x bonus to pray, is on the other hand very nice.

Warlock can stay in middle region and usually there are no problems for him in this area. From time to time, he finds some issues but those are not frequent.

guciomir said:

But if you encounter some dragons early in the game, her ability to sacrifice a spell etc.. and pray.. will be very useful. Instead of fighting the dragon and lose 1 life, she can get str, craft. lives and so on by praying instead. And with 5 fate, she could boost her stats pretty quick.

Regards

I agree with the Wizard.

You can better pray before the dragon in the beginning of the game, if you are very weak, so that the dragon will not attack you.

And if you are strong enough to beat him, then you cash it in as a trophy.

The dragon Priestess will hunt dragons to pray..

Agree with Dam

Its her high fate and starting location that allow spamming the Temple, thats what counts. Trust me, I tried her, she grows powerful really fast.

Dam said:

And don't forget the Chivalric Knight.

Talismaniac said:

Well, in my defense, still no Sacred Pool for me .

Cruan said:

You need some luck with drawing cards and rolling die's too.

I have once played the warlock, and he was almost close to death. after that, i could heal my lives in the village,, and i have travel back to the middle region.

Anyway, you can always try to land on some safe spaces there, and see what you will draw.

If it turn out pretty bad, then escape to the outer region.

Sure it requires a bit of luck, you just have to make sure not to land on the Black Knight or one of the Desert spaces, well or Chasm, but theres still the Castle to heal your lives.

Cruan said:

i agree, but you still need some gold if you want to heal at the castle..

I think that she is a lot better if she is good, and has some followers.

I am also curious how many dragons i will see in a game..

If they show up a lot, then this can be a very interesting character to play

Alignment doesn't really matter at all on the Middle Region, there are no restricted spaces there. As for Chasm, you should never land on it barring Misdirection Spell, sticking to the other half of the Middle Region is where you want to be, bouncing between Portal-Temple-Oasis, with a stop at Hidden Valley-Hills occasionally. Gold really isn't an issue in majority of games, there are plenty of Gold bags to be drawn around.

Dam said:

It's not about the alignment problem, but it's about keeping yourself alive.

And it can be pretty dangerous there. desert+ runes spaces, and chasm or black knight, are already spaces where you don't want to land.

sadly, her abilities depends on praying, and the temple is the best place for that, except if enough dragons will hit the mainboard.

Chasm shouldn't even come into play. As for Desert, only rolling a 1 at Oasis (or drawing Poltergeist there ) does that, even then she can use Fate. Black Knight, toss a gold at him and be done if you have to land on him. Rolling a 1 at Portal, hop to the Castle if you don't have gold. Yes, it is effectively a lost turn, but with Temple within her reach, she'll be getting stat boosts in no time. There is only one Runes space within where she should be hanging out (between Woods and Castle) and with Spells she could very easily beat an Enemy there. If she were to draw a Dragon at said Runes, look out, she'd be really, really effective. Only thing more effective is getting Dragon at Woods next to Temple while she has Poltergeist on her . To boot, she can use the Poltergeist to boost her pray rolls and spam praying each turn.

I thought everyone would like to read this post at BGG:

http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/683121/talisman-dragon-expansion-in-hand

Couple more weeks and it will be on the shelves for full retail pleasure!

Those are the new characters from the link provided above:

Characters:

Minotaur: Str: 4 Cra: 2 Fa: 2 Lf: 5 Start: Crags Alignment: Evil

* Special Abilities: Whenever you are about to engage in battle during your turn, you may stampede and add the result of your movement die to your Strength until the end of the battle.

* You mat not use Armour.

Dragon Rider: Str: 3 Cra: 4 Fa: 3 Lf: 4 Start: Forest Alignment: Good

* Whenever you engage a Dragon in battle or psychic combat, add 3 to your attack roll.

* If you defeat a Dragon, you may capture it and take it as a Follower instead of a trophy. You may only have one captured Dragon at a time. While you have a captured Dragon, you gain the following benefits:
After you roll the die for you move, you may add up to 3 to the score.
You may roll two dice in battle and psychic combat and use the higher attack roll to determine your attack score.

Fire Wizard: Str: Cra: 4 Fa: 3 Lf: 4 Start: Sentinel Alignment: Neutral

* At the start of the turn, you may gain 1 spell, if you Craft allows.

* You may hurl a pyroblast whenever you are about to engage in battle with a character or creature. Roll one die and add your Craft. If the score is higher than the character's Strength, he must lose one life. If the score is higher that the creature's Strength, it is killed. Enemies killed may not be taken as trophies. If the score is equal to or lower than the character or creature's Strength, the pyroblast has no effect and the battle is resolved normally except you may not roll a die for you attack roll.

* You are not affected by a Dragon's breath attack.

Conjurer: Str: 2 Cra: 4 Fa: 1 Lf: 4 Start: City Alignment: Good

* You begin the game with 1 Spell.

* During the game, you always have at least 1 Spell. (Gain a Spell each time you cast your last Spell)

* You may conjure whenever you encounter a space with instructions to draw one or more Adventure Cards. If the space does not already have any Adventure Cards, you may move a faceup Adventure Card in the same Region to your space. You may only do this once per round.

Your thoughts?

You think Minotaur can use a Riding Horse and receive bonus up to 12 during his next battle? That would be pretty much imbalanced, hes still good even so, from the start, before he gets stronger, hes got Str from 5 to 10 in almost every battle, not bad, not bad.

And the Fire Wizard is a craft assassin, hes got the Wand of Dragonfire from the start, even if he cant take enemies killed this way as trophies, he doesnt have to complain much, considering he wont be interested in getting Str trophies.. Powerful indeed.

Conjurer loves those Magic Stream/Fountain of Wisdom type encounters, never having to land on them.

Agreed.

Overally theyre all really powerful characters, apart from the Dragon Rider, whos usable only while playing with the Dragon expansion. The others are playable at any time.

I can tell from Dragon Rider description, that we will encounter both strenght and CRAFT dragons in the game.

I don't think I'm going to be a big fan of the Fire Wizard. I don't really care to have the ability to kill things without being able to take them as a trophy. I guess it's ok if you are really outmatched, I'm not really into avoiding things. My group usually avoids playing the assassin.

I disagree about the Dragon Rider being useful only when playing the Dragon Expansion. There are quite a few dragons in the decks if you have all of the expansions. I think that he'll be pretty powerful.

I love the ability of the Conjurer...I can't tell you how many times I've spent turn after turn trying to land on a particular card....and what about those cards buried under a craft of 10. The ability will be very useful.

I definitely think there will be a house rule in effect for the minotaur with a riding horse...thats just crazy.

I like the Dragon Rider, Minotaur and Conjurer.

The Dragon Rider is very good if he enslave a dragon as his follower.

And with the Dragon expansion, he can find them easily i suppose

Minotaur has a nice ability, and the Conjurer is very good with bringing adventure cards to her own space. pool of strenght and other cards will be a powerful combo with her ability

_________

The fire wizard is only good at destroying creatures if he can't win from them.

His spell gaining ability makes him a bit better, but i am not a real fan of this.

Cruan said:

No, because the horse is not his movement.

He can only use his own movement. otherwise it would be weird.

On top of that, if that would be the case, then he can't use his ability if he use the horse..

Cruan said:

The Minotaur could be a favorite out of the entire bunch, as he can basically use the stampede every single battle without any penalty or disadvantage to it whatsoever. It's more or less a free attack roll. I was hoping the Minotaur would have a strength 5 though, same as with other "big guys" such as the Ogre Chieftain or the Troll, but with his stampede ability he may not need to.

Dragon Rider seems to be an overall nice, fairly balanced character. Nothing more, nothing less.

I'm guessing the Fire Wizard has a strength of 2, since the description doesn't say. I picture him as a 2 strength/4 craft kind of guy. Other than that, his abilities are "so-so", depending on what the Dragon's Breath is.

Conjurer, really like her conjuring ability. Have a feeling I'm going to be trying her out on more than one occasion. She could turn out to be a potent spellcaster.

Wow, expansion full of Assasins! We knew Dragon Hunter resembles Assasin quite a lot, but now we have another very similar character.

Minotaur is almost an Assasin.

He has 1d6 advantage in battles just like Assasin.

He can't stampede when another character is attacking, just like Assasin.

He has 4 str and 2 craft (assasin has 3 and 3)

He has 5 life, 2 fate (assasin has 4 life, 3 fate)

Both can't use their ability on Crown of Command.

He can't use armour but this is very small difference.

In the end I think Minotaur is slighly more powerful (1 extra strenght), but much more vulnerable (1 less craft and 1 less fate)