i want to buy this game but i want to ask about it,

the game really deserve it?

What is the best expansion?

Thank you

bruce_wayne said:

Hi there,

Yes, the game deserve it. It's a awesome game.

The best expansion is the Sacred Pool.

The Reaper comes second:)

All expansions for Talisman are great.

I don't have the Blood Moon expansion yet:)

what about dragon expansion, is it good?

Thank you for all your answers.

bruce_wayne said:

My personal opinion: NO!

We don't like the Dragon expansion, there is a big influence on the normal process of the game. We love the classic game mechanism with some alternative endings. We always play with Talisman 4th revised edition, Promo & Download Cards, Dungeon, Highland, Reaper, Frostmarch, Sacred Pool, and hopefully soon Blood Moon. In addition we use unofficial Expansions like Timescape, Dragonland, Darkland, Adventure and Alternative Endings.

bruce_wayne said:

Hi Bruce,

The Dragon expansion is a good expansion.

It has the Dragon Tower board, which makes it the ultimate ending for me, and a Dragon Realm board which is similar to the normal inner region.

Most people don't like this expansion because of the dragon tokens, which is a new mechanic in the talisman world.

But i have the expansion myself, and i have no problems with it.

If you like to buy this game, then you can better choose a other expansion first.

The Highland and the Dungeon adds more freedom for your characters.

The small expansions will increase your adventure deck for the mainboard.

Greetings,

Velhart

I too think the Dragon is a worthy expansion; some of the object cards you can receive from the Dragon Lord decks are awesome and game changers or great assists.

I think the scale mechanic can be tedious, at times, but once you can use scales to add strength and battle-encounters it seems as useful as the trinkets and treasures you can find elsewhere.

-Oberon

Hey there! I own all of the expansions and just ordered Bloodmoon. I mainly play Talisman 2-player and rarely 3-player so my opinion is based on this playstyle.

All small boxes expansions (Reaper, Sacred Pool, Frostmarch and Bloodmoon), simply put, add more variety in ways of cards, alternate endings and characters. They are great expansions that add a lot to the base game.

My personal favorites in order are: Reaper, Bloodmoon, Sacred Pool and Frostmarch.

The Big boxes expansions add the same thing as the small boxes but also add a new board expansion that allow you to explore new areas. They are great but cost a little more.

Favorites in order: The Highlands and Dungeon come close but Dungeon as the edge, The Dragon.

When we play a 2-player game we choose which big box to add between Highlands and Dungeon…rarely use both. We could, but we feel it just add too much clutter and stretch the game. The Dragon can be added in any games you play no problems and we do add it everytime. It's a really cool expansion that alter the fields in cool ways.

If I had to start over with Talisman, i'd buy those and play them for awhile before buying anything else:

1- Base game 4th revised edition (obviously)

2- Reaper AND Bloodmoon (for the cool mechanics and added gameplay stuff)

3- Dungeon (harder then Highlands but more rewarding)

4- Sacred Pool

From there, i'd play the hell out of this game and probably won't buy anything new for many months. You will have lots of variety and replay value.

Talisman is a great game,in spite of the number of players. It's really enjoyable if you like random stuff and don't mind bad rolls

Treat yourself a bit and get this game, you won't regret it!

Thank you everybody.

SolennelBern said:

I have the exact same ranking even thought we prefer 3-5 players but I'd recommend buying base game and reaper together. Then exp in same order whenever you feel like the game needs it.

Highlands imo adds 1-2 really unbalanced characters (Alchemist and Vampire) and the board is much less fun than Dungeon. (The only thing I actually really appreciated was the Hand of Doom ending)

Dragon changes the game into something else, whenever we play with it the other expansions could just as well be discarded. Quite often someone becomes overpowered really fast and the game stops being a challenge (the only threat remaining is the other players and I really don't like it this way, the board should pose a threat as well). Characters in this exp are (again, imo) unbalanced.

…still if you or someone else reading this get that far I would still buy them without hesitation (from my pov today) because they still brought a whole lot of fun despite the flaws

Nioreh said:

Whaaa? I'll give you the Alchemist, absolutely no argument against his OP, but Vampiress? From my experience, she tied for the second worst Highlands character along with Highlander, Sprite currently being the worst character, not just from Highlands, but out of the characters I have (no Sacred Pool or Dragon). Until her previous game, Rogue from Highlands was undefeated and with her recent victory, even the Valkyrie ranks way above the Vampiress. Around here, Vampiress will soon be joining the bottom-feeder class of characters, reserved for the crappiest of the crap, which has such illustrious characters as: Ghoul, Minstrel, Priest, with the Druid and Sorceress not far off (not counting those from Highland already named).

The Sprite has 10 wins to only 1 loss with us! Very experienced Spell casters playing her though.

Ell.

She was close to a win in her last game, despite coming in as a mid-game replacement. Sadly, first run into the Inner Region, Shatter on her Talisman at the Pits. Second run, Acquisition on her Talisman at the Pits. Plus she failed Mines 3-4 times even with Craft 11, then Craft 13. Spells are nice, but Str 1 tends to put her too far back in the early going. And like other spell-cyclers, if you get stuck with certain spells, no more cycling.

Dam said:

Yeah, thats why I wrote 1-2. We haven't removed her from game (like w alchemist and enchantress) but nice amount of fate, 5 (!) lives that she can heal for free (even though shes evil so the normal good=life/evil=fate is put aside), ridding herself of bad followers and gaining (not even healing..) 1 life AND the awesome ability to take followers. This is not at all a bad char imo, she hasn't been played loads around here but im pretty sure she has a positive win/loss ratio.

ps. Druid in bottom? I really like that char, think Im nearly undefeated with that guy..

I just bought this game last week. I always passed it by before because the roll, move, encounter space seemed overly simplistic. I recently read some positive reviews, started researching a bit more and decided to buy it. To make a long story short, I love it. It is simple and random, but we have a blast playing it. My regular group had a great time, my kids love it. My wife even played, (and won) and she almost never plays board games. I highly recommend Talisman and will be looking for some expansions soon.

Hi,

When my group plays we only use all the smaller expansions (minus the bloodmoon) and the main game. we play with a 4-6 people and it makes the game much more exciting. we have the highland expansion and dont really enjoy it that much.

We also have the dragon expansion and we HATE IT. We never use it and probably never will again. its really changes the game for the worse. but i would definatly reccomend the smaller expansions for more enjoyable gaming.

Smairn

I guess I don't agree about the Dragon expansion, but I only play with one other person, my wife. Even so, after a while the board does have a lot of scales placed EVERYwhere. When she finally figured out that having scales in her area granted her immunity to Dragon's Rage, she "got it".

I like the fact that the instructions are fairly certain on how to or "not to" use expansions with the main game. So, we don't always use the new inner realm, though mostly we do. For a very long time, during most of the expansions big or small, we did not use alternate endings. We've only used alt endings recently about 3 times.

We really don't play very often. Once we've played a new expansion set 3 or 4 times, we end up playing about once a month, or less. We're pretty busy elsewhere, but its a great fun for me to play when we can.

Don't know what my absolute favorite character is, but I lean towards characters that can easily gain followers or charm/enslave creatures to fight or not fight. The Minstrel is great, but other characters have similar benefits.

I'm already very anxious over the next set. Who knows what and when?

-Oberon

Smairn said:

… we also HATE IT. We never use the Dragon Expansion and probably never will again …

azoic said:

The Dragon Cards are lots of fun, but the mechanic of drawing tokens every turn was a very poor idea indeed!

Ell.

We use the dragon expansion about 90% of the time, but only pull a scale on a movement roll of a 1/6. this means that the scales aren't everywhere and dragons aren't all over the board. If i'm trying to play a quicker game I leave out the dragon all together. There are quite a few awesome cards in the dragon decks!!

Quite a lot of controversy here about the Dragon expansion.

I don't have it yet, so I'll ask those who don't like it: would you recommend not getting it at all , or are there some 'must-have' characters in there? I wouldn't mind buying it just for some exiting new characters, but if the whole box is a bust, I'll pass. What's good about the Dragon expansion? I'm asking the people who don't like it, because people who do like it will certainly say, "it's great, get it." I want to hear if the people who don't like it feel it has any saving graces…

Now that is a tough question.

I'm not a huge fan of the Dragon Expansion. While I appreciate the attempt to give us something different, it changed gameplay a bit too much and didn't feel like "my" Talisman any more. And I really didn't like the "draw a token every turn" dynamic. That said, there are some nifty cards to be found in the 3 Dragon Decks, and I'll never turn away new characters.

You'll find that a lot of players (myself included) use a variety of House Rules to make the game more acceptable to their taste. Many of these have been posted on this forum already, and I'd certainly be happy to share my House Rules if you're interested. Using our House Rules, we include Dragon Cards, Dragon Tokens, and Draconic Lords in every game.

So my answer is - yes - go buy it. It may not be a perfect expansion, and it might require a little (or more) tinkering to make it work for you, but there's certainly some good stuff here that can enhance your Talisman game.

Yes it is definitely worth buying, but you really need to house rule when Dragon tokens are drawn. Apart from this issue, the only thing that might also need changing is how often a new Draconic Lord is crowned!

Ell.

If you dont have all the other ones I'd get them first. Sure you can house rule the game but i found us going a bit overboard on the dragon expansion. some interesting cards but not worth it in my opinion,

The characters in the Dragon are all very good in my opinion, new ending are always good, and dragon cards can be awesome!

Thanks for the opinions, you guys.

The Dragon is definitely last-to-buy on my list (I still need it and Frostmarch, Highlands, and Blood Moon), but it's nice to know there's good to be had, in there. And I love the game overall, so I want to support it.

I guess I should download the rules and have a look!