I give my two cents for the statistics. Here's the same table of Dam's, which I find interesting and clear, that depicts my first 5 games with Reaper Expansion.

Notes:

- All 3-Player or 4-Player games; one started as a six-player game but two players left early in the game and their Characters were put in the box and possessions discarded.

- Comprehensive use of Fate rule (FFG Board)

- No house rules applied (i.e. Assassin can assassinate Creatures he's just drawn), except some additional cards added to the deck (only one of 5 games)

These cards are: 8 Bags of Gold, 3 Two Bags of Gold, 1 Raiders, 1 Market Day, 1 Giant, 2 Dragons, 1 Book of Spells

The stats:

Name #/W/L/D/R
Assassin 1 0 1 0 0
Dark Cultist 0 0 0 0 0
Druid 1 0 1 0 0
Dwarf 3 0 3 0 1
Elf 0 0 0 0 0
Ghoul 0 0 0 0 0
Knight 0 0 0 0 0
Merchant 2 0 2 0 0
Minstrel 1 1 0 0 0
Monk 0 0 0 0 0
Priest 1 0 1 1 0
Prophetess 0 0 0 0 0
Sage 1 0 1 0 0
Sorceress 2 0 2 0 1
Thief 1 0 1 1 0
Troll 2 2 0 0 0
Warrior 3 1 2 0 0
Wizard 1 1 0 0 0

Comments: Dam plays with the same persons every time; I played with different people almost every time and what the newbies lacked in game knowledge, they made up for luck.

All victories were pretty sound, except the Wizard's that defeated the Druid in an incredible final confrontation. Druid had 11 Strength/15 Craft, no Fate, 4 Lives left; Wizard had 8 Strength/14 Craft, no Fate to Spend, 3 Lives left. Nobody had useful Items such as Armour and Runesword; Wizard won a couple of battles too.

The most dreadful Character so far is the Troll; I'd like to see the Troll against Sorceress, Wizard and Dark Cultist all at once. Dwarf could have won many times, but Luck or bad play toned him down (especially yesterday, a player wasted an easy victory to reach a ridiculous 23 Strength, Objects included, and die before reaching the Crown).

Dam said:

That's right.

The Elf has not reach the inner region and the pvp battle took place in the outer region earlier of the game.

Ah, my misunderstanding.

Although it raises an interesting question about when to take a Talisman. The Solomon's crown is a pretty useful artifact

and there are many ways to acquire a Talisman. If it was early in a game I would take the crown also. Especially from a spell cycling character

like the prophetess.

Very early on not a problem, but if you have a full 4 objects and no mule etc and way too weak to get to CoC then it is an option worth considering

to ditch it, pref turn to gold.

It also depends on the number of players, 2 players this is an easier descision than 4+

Now that you are speaking about turning talisman objects in gold,.. I think it was not bad to keep it with me.

What would happen if they are no talisman cards anymore and someone complete the quest of the warlock hahahha

Bad luck for him.

This idea is very nasty hahaha

The_Warlock said:

Troll dreadful, as in too dominant? He was 2 wins in 2 games if I read that right. As to Dwarf, good do know, was really wondering what the hell was going on there . Also, 23 Strength, that's just wasted time (unless everyone is all about getting 20+ stats).

Dam said:

I should have said terrific, not dreadful, but to me it's dreadful because I've always lost to the Troll. I'm never good with Strength based Characters: give me Troll, Warrior or Assassin and you'll see how many Spirits I can draw in a row. As the Warrior, I came up to the nonsense of having 5 Strength/7 Craft when a much more lucky Minstrel reached the Crown.

The Dwarf first apparition was a late game replacement and he couldn't do anything good. The second Dwarf was played by a newbie that did really good: had a good rush and was first to the Crown with remarkable stats (can't remember exactly), but finally lost to... the Troll of course! Troll had 12 Strength (Dwarf 10) and 7 Lives + St.Josephine. Dwarf fought hard and brought the Troll to 2 Lives (Josephine included!), then his Armour betrayed him an he lost. He definitely deserved a victory that time, but Troll is vicious. Last game went as I told you: it was a wasted victory. I told that player that he could have won at least 1 h 30 minutes before he died by the Command Spell, but certain people like the Diablo-like progression and don't understand the meaning of "strong enough".

His death left a lot of goods for my Merchant to grab in the Crypt, I reached the Crown and faced the Warrior as I told in another thread. I could have won; I should have, in fact, but I had 3 lives and lasted 3 Turns. With Armour and exactly the same Strength as the Warrior, Runesword by my side. Still he's advantaged, but you could see how lucky I am with the dice.

Well, in the end it's luck that governs Talisman. I should be the more experienced player but I'm usually the weaker, who knows why. I won one Talisman game out of 30...

Dam said:

It looks like the trol is not so bad as i think, because of his low craft,

I think i was only unlucky when i drew 3 craft spirits in the middle region.

Velhart said:

6 Lives makes up for low Craft, you can survive longer if you run into many Craft enemy draws. In most games here, Troll never gets above 3 Craft. 17 Str, 2 Craft is the beefiest Troll thus far. There was one game however where Troll got up to 4 or 5 Craft and had Wand. Behold the spell-slinging Troll !

Dam said:

Yeah, you have a point. He has enough lives to survive. Maybe i must try him out again. He can easily punch some dragons to the ground, to get a level up for strength.

A spell slinging troll sounds a rare occasion, and sounds funny indeed

Dam said:

I love the Minstrel.

I always random select.

The Dark Cultist is our biggest winner here.

i just picked this game up a couple of days ago ive only played a couple of games but wizard is my favorite.

and when me and my opponet play i deal out 3 cards to each of us and then we choose 1

I always random select!Surprise effect is very exciting for the game .My favourite character is Dark Cultist,despite the Troll won very offen.

After a short break, back to Talisman (LotR + 2 expansions consumed me a lot of late). Nothing changed on the Sorceress front though. Another char drew Pestilence, Druid attacked her twice and then she drew Gathering which moved a Wraith to her location, scratch the Sorceress (3rd death in 7 appearances, now 0-7, only char without a win so far). And this happened early, like in the first 1/10 of the Adventure deck . So when she was reborn as the Troll, he didn't have a lot of catching up to do. And Troll seemed to inherit some of the Craft from his previous life as he ended the game with 8 Craft (10 vs Spirits due to Bane Sword). Troll capable of taking on a Demon in an even psychic combat, who woulda thunk? But, despite Str 12, he failed 4 times at Crypt , leaving the Sage to collect an easy win. Sage currently the only char with a positive win record, 4-3. Early days so far, only 5 characters have had their 7th game though. Somehow the Sage remains dominant. He ended today with Str 10 (with Mercenary for battle) and 11 Craft (with Gnome Mines were a joke).

bump

Well, as promised, new stats. 41 games done with Upgrade + Reaper. 2 2-player, rest 3-player. Might be a while before next games are played, starting a new gig on Monday, so less free time available.

Name G/W/L/D/R

Assassin 8/2/6/1/1
Dark Cultist 8/3/5/1/2
Druid 8/2/6/0/3
Dwarf 8/3/5/2/0
Elf 8/1/7/2/1
Ghoul 8/1/7/2/2
Knight 8/3/5/0/0
Merchant 8/2/6/1/0
Minstrel 8/1/7/3/1
Monk 8/2/6/1/0
Priest 8/1/7/2/2
Prophetess 8/3/5/1/0
Sage 8/5/3/0/1*
Sorceress 8/0/8/3/2
Thief 9/3/6/0/1
Troll 8/4/4/1/3*
Warrior 8/2/6/1/4*
Wizard 8/3/5/3/1

Reaper kills: 5 (Elf, Prophetess, Troll, Warrior, Wizard)

Toad: 4 (Dwarf, Priest, Sage, Thief)

G: # of games character has been in

W: won game, last char standing, naturally

L: involved in a game, lost

D: mid-game death, so died before anyone reached the Crown of Command

R: mid-game replacement, drawn because a mid-game death occurred

*: character won as mid-game replacement

Seems like I could categorize the chars into following sections:

Top Dog (big cheese):

5-3 Sage

Remains the consistently best character

Pretender :

4-4 Troll

Strategy is easy, bash, bash, bash, strength, strength, strength.

(note, both of the top-2 have won as a mid-game replacement, solidifying their reputations)

Upper Mid-level :

3-5 Dark Cultist, Dwarf, Knight, Prophetess, Thief (3-6), Wizard

These are all solid characters, who don't require a lot of luck to win.

Lower Mid-level :

2-6 Assassin, Druid, Merchant, Monk, Warrior

Solid as well, but require more luck to win. Assassin suffers from him being houseruled back to "normal" Assassin, not the über-death-machine he is RAW. Warrior has been a mid-game replacement in half the games his been in, leading to bit poorer stats than one would expect. He's managed a win as replacement though.

Bottom of the barrel :

1-7 Elf, Ghoul, Minstrel, Priest

You got your work cut out for you, if you're wanting a win. Of course, if ever char in the current game is from this level or the Sorceress, things should be fairly even-steven.

SOL :

Sorceress

Almost got to 1-7, but Prophetess managed Transference + Temporal Warp.

Today, the 6th battle has been fought !

I have chose for the troll again, and my opponent for the dwarf. But somewhere earlier in the game.. the dwarf has only one life left and drew by bad luck the devil ! So his life has ended and the devil has a meal for the evening

Somewhat later, my troll stand together with the reaper on a space and i rolled a six. In my opponent's turn who has a new character called the elf, rolled a 1.. ( so he rolled at the end of his turn for the reaper and that was a six ! So the reaper came on my space. I rolled again( i have encountered the reaper already before and ended with dices with death) But this time i rolled a 1 !!

So the troll was also death. What a awesome game... ( 2 death characters earlier in the game)

My second character became the Philosopher.

Everything goes good until i made a big mistake at the crown when we where fighting each other !

My Philosopher has also a wand but i forgot to use my twist of fate spell otherwise i could draw another spell card because it was my last spell.

Anyway... i could have won if i use the twist of fate and after that i could have drawn weakness etc. but i keep battling him and stole his armor again and again and he takes it back etc

It ended when both of us have only one life left. I completely forgot the meaning of the twist of fate, so i use one fate to re-roll the die in battle. bad luck. Then i use my last fate token for my armour after irolled a 3 etc. And it could not help me and i died at the crown.

Victory for the elf

The statisctics are as follows:

1: Assassin/ Wizard: 2 W/ 0 lose

2 Prophetess: 1 W / 0 lose

3 Elf: 1 W/ 1 lose

4 Philosopher: 0 W 1 Lose ( 1 x mid game character)

5 Troll/ Dwarf 0 W / 2 Lose ( both 1 midgame death)

6 Dark Cultist 0 W/ 2 Lose

Today the 7th battle has been fought..

It was the swashbuckler vs the wizard !

I have played the swashbuckler and i have won the game in 2 1/2 hours !

It was the fastest game ever..( with a 7 trophy limit off course..)

The wizard died in the game, because the player did nog like him because of his bad luck... Mmm oke, he draws the warrior then.

But i have level up so fast in the dungeon. Unbelievable ! I have defeat a battle hulk and the goblin marouders with strength 5 together ( that is a total of strength 15 !

I have find so many objects in the dungeon, that my power grows to 13 strength ! there you go !

At the end, i defeated the Lord of darkness with strength 24 !!!

The lord of darkness has was 15 so i was teleported directly to the crown of command. It has take some turns to defeat the warrior with my command spell, but after all.. I won the game !

That's being said...

Here are the statistics again...

1 Assassin 2 W

2 Wizard 2 W 1 lose

3 Swashbuckler/ Prophetess 1 W

4 Elf 1W 1 Lose

5 Philosopher/ Warrior 1Lose

6 Dark Cultist/ Dwarf/ Troll 2 Lose

Maybe not so fair for the Wizard, but the player have give up with him and wanted him dead...)but he is the one who won twice with him in earlier battles..) ( more chances for the swashbuckler then.

This conclude my statistics for today

Four games since I purchased the core game, here are the win/loss stats:

Assassin: 2/0

Ghoul: 0/2

Priest: 0/2

Warrior: 1/2

Dwarf: 0/2

Monk: 0/1

Wizard: 1/1

Sorceress: 0/2

Druid: 0/2

Troll: 0/1

Elf: 0/1

After today's game I must say my favourite Character is definitely the Swashbuckler. I had so much fun playing with this Character that it compensated the obscene bad luck that made me lose also this game, which should have been mine because I finally played with no mistakes and recovered well from a visit of Mephistopheles in the Oasis, that made me lose both Holy Grail and Holy Lance.

Swashbuckler has so many options if you like to play bravely, drawing lots of cards in Field spaces. I also had the Fiend Slayer with me and Prophesy active... draw 4 cards in the Fields... Magic Stream, Druid Staff, Holy Grail and a Burrow Worm that made me gain a new Turn... exciting, this is one of the most entertaining Characters I've played so far and with FFG edition is simply a pleasure to wander around, even if you lose to a widely imbalanced Assassin killing machine.

I rather like the knight to be honest. Think it's because of the rather handy up to +2 preying bonus.

The_Warlock said:

wait a minute..

Prophesy and fiendslayer do not stack..

They have the same text..

vandimar77 said:

Yeah, i think i will also like that.

Praying at chapel to get spell cards, and at temple to get the strength or craft counters:)

Good balance and starting with armour too.

I still want to try him out..

Velhart said:

I did like playing the Knight. Plus, he won against the Assassin, which is a VERY good thing indeed- vengeance was mine!

Today,. the 8th battle has been fought.

It was my Elf vs the Druid..

We where equal at the beginning of the game, when we have gain some level ups. I drew poltergeist, but i have get rid of him fast.

I have tried to enter the dungeon, but the elf has lost many lives everytime, and when i have only 2 lives left, i was running away to the chapel to try to heal my lives...

I have repeat this some times, but my elf have not get his chance to stay in the dungeon for long...( so his level ups did not go so fast..

I have take Warlock card in the middle region to try to get a Talisman.. ( i wish i never did..( i drew a card to discard a follower, and the Elf did not have any followers ! ( he have not draw, or buy any mules in the game !, due because he has no money or the opponent drew them..

Finally i drew the Princess, who i have give to the Warlock ( discard) to gain that Talisman... ( but when i did that, i have drew already a Talisman on the main board **** ! What a bad choice i have made to go to the Warlock !

After that, the Druid use his horse to run through the dungeon with a lot a strength and craft and defeated the LOD with strength 24 !!

So he landed on the Crown, and i could do nothing about him because i was not strong enough to face him..

I have not give up so easily, and it has take him more than 10 turns to get me down, when he was on the crown.( even if he has 6 fate !!!

But i stood no chance against him, when i was on the outer region, between the chapel and city, to get many lives there ( i drew a pool of live too !)

So the Druid won the game, and he has earn it will all respect !

The statistics are as follows:

1 Assassin 2W

2 Wizard 2W 1 Lose

3 Swashbuckler/ Prophetess/Druid 1 W

4 Elf 1W 2 Lose

5 Philosopher/ Warrior 1 Lose

6 Dark Cultist/ Dwarf/ Troll 2 Lose

This concluded my statistics for today

ilgoga said:

I totally agree, its not as much fun when all players choose prophetess, assasin and dwarf everytime. After all, the game depends more of tactics, lucky dices and which adv.cards you draw... We get three character cards and must choose one of them - without knowing which the other players have chosed!

I am a big fan of warrior and draogon rider!!