So me and a few friends decided to pick up this game and we've fallen in love. We noticed that there are expansions and have debated picking them up. By "we" I mean "me" of course. Money is an issue for me so I can probably only get 1 at a time. I'm not actually sure what comes with the expansions though. Does it add on to the campaign or is it a separate campaign entirely? Are there new heroes? Are there any buffs for old heroes? Basically what I want to know is; What am I getting when I get an expansion? Also, what's the best expansion to buy?

The small box expansion, Lair of the Wyrm, includes 2 new hero characters and decks, along with adding in rumor cards for the OL and a short expanded campaign option. Labyrinth of Ruin adds 4 new heros and decks, a new OL basic 2 deck, a whole new campaign to play and other options. Each expansion also comes with new monsters to use as well that can be placed into the Shadow Rune campaign or anywhere else.

Addendum: I think the Labyrinth of Ruin would be a good purchase if you just want a bigger campaign setting, but I bought both and love them.

The so-called "small box" expansions (the first of which is Lair of the Wyrm, the second is the upcoming Trollfens) contain two new heroes and two new classes each. They include two new monsters and a set of "rumour cards" which can be added in to any campaign, or played alone as a 'mini-campaign" in their own right.

The new classes each belong to one of the four archetypes (Warrior, Mage, Scout, Healer) and can therefore be used with any hero of the matching archetype, new or old. Likewise the new heroes can be played with any existing class of matching archetype. Like the core game, the new heroes are each designed to be the quintessential example of the classes that come in the same expansion, but it's not by any means required that they be played as such.

The "big box" expansions (of which there is only one so far; Labyrinth of Ruin) comes with four new heroes - one of each archetype - and four new classes to match. They also come with more monsters. Each big box has its own campaign, which is stand-alone, but you can presumably mix in any rumour quest set from a small box.

As always, any individual quest can be played "one-shot" just like with the core box.

If you just want more stuff, Labyrinth of Ruin gives you the most material. Monsters and heroes (and hero classes) are all mix-and-match between expansions and core set. If you want quests that can be added to the Shadow Rune campaign to make it longer, then you want the small boxes.

In addition to these expansions, there is the Conversion Kit that provides 2E hero cards and monster cards for all of the heroes and monsters that were released for the first edition of Descent. That's 40-odd heroes and probably about 20 different monster types. Of course, if you don't own 1E you'll have to find proxy figures because the CK only has cards. That may or may not be a deal-breaker for you. The CK is not by any means necessary, especially as the number of proper 2E expansions grows, but some people like it for the added variety. Even if they don't have the real figures to use with it.

There are also the upcoming Lieutenant figures - plastic models of each LT from the core set, along with a new system of rules allowing the OL to summon one of them into ANY quest he happens to be playing. One assumes LT figures for all the LTs introduced in expansions will follow in due time.

These are all the options. If money is tight, you'll have to pick and choose carefully. I would expect FFG will keep cranking out new expansions at the rate they have been - one big box and one small box each year - for as long as they can keep coming up with ideas for material. That also means 2-3 new LT figures per year, too.

What our group did was buy one new thing every new campaign. That might be how we acquire all the LT.

I would suggest getting Labyrinth or Ruin next, for story sake. Also, there are more things for the heroes and the OL to work with. As the OL, I really like the Basic II card set better then the first Basic set. Some things aren't as powerful, but others are off the wall good. It feels more balanced for me and the flavor of each card seems to fit better.

This box also gives the heroes more choices to work with. The "small box" sets can be added at any time to enhance any game, just the the LT figure boxes that will be coming out soon.

What I really appreciate, about expansions, is that they all can be used with just the base game.

That allows one to build his collection in full freedom.

There are also 2 new green power dice and some new terrain (shrubbery?) in Labyrinth of Ruin. The power dice correspond to the new class powers, items, and artifacts from that set and presumably will be used with future expansions. I started with the Lair of the Wrym since I REALLY wanted to play as the GeoMancer next who uses Runestones like familiars and as he gets deeper into his class skills can summon up to three of them and attatck from their postition, bottle neck monsters and all kinds of tricky stuff. The Valor mechanic of the Champion class is also outstanding and uses valor tokens to add to your own attack or help your teammates. There is also a secret room that replaces the "you find Jack." search card with challenge tokens that you turn over to maybe find a challenge to defeat for more treasure by testing an attribute or maybe just an annoying monster. Each secret room card also has a set reward for completing it. There are new cards to use during the travel phase as well and a new rumor mechanic and cards that lead to the new quests in the expansion and the artifacts are a couple of the best I've seen in the game. Um, I guess what I'm tryihg to say is that I'm very pleased with Lair of the Wyrm for what I paid for it. Labyrinth of Ruin is next on my list but to find out more about either of these the products section has full descriptions and sometimes even helpful articles and previews. Hope this helps.

If you like playing overlord then you will find the small box expansion incredibly underwhelming as it is vastly in favor of the heroes.

Aren't the Hybrids of LoW quite powerfull?

I haven't experimented them yet, but I have seen posts where OLs love to use those nasty guys.

I also have heard that the Harpies of Trollfens will be quite a nuisance against heroes (with something like a "swarm" capacity).

It also seems that some quests of LoW are quite a challenge for both sides.

The secret rooms are a double-edged thing: heroes can get benefit from them, but they risk to lose time and miss the tactical objective of the encounter...

I am not sure that the small expansions are so much in favour of the heroes.

IMO, I would advise to "grab all you can".

If some choices seem bad with hindersight, resell the expansions in excess in a couple of years, when they are OOP, and you make bucks to buy better additions to the game.

You need them all, just without looking at !

Aren't the Hybrids of LoW quite powerfull?

I haven't experimented them yet, but I have seen posts where OLs love to use those nasty guys.

I also have heard that the Harpies of Trollfens will be quite a nuisance against heroes (with something like a "swarm" capacity).

It also seems that some quests of LoW are quite a challenge for both sides.

The secret rooms are a double-edged thing: heroes can get benefit from them, but they risk to lose time and miss the tactical objective of the encounter...

I am not sure that the small expansions are so much in favour of the heroes.

IMO, I would advise to "grab all you can".

If some choices seem bad with hindersight, resell the expansions in excess in a couple of years, when they are OOP, and you make bucks to buy better additions to the game.

He really isn't kidding about that either! A while ago the friend that I gave my Descent 1.0 stuff to was going through some tough financial breaks and it only took him two days to e-bay it for many many times more than it cost me to buy it. Buying Descent games today is like buying stock. As for the hybrids my viewpoint is kinda' biased since we are playing a two player campaign where every quest feels like Darth Vader's birthday so it's a little tough to make a comparison. Currently they are just a new flavor of doom. We're going to start again with three players but we really want to see how this all plays out since the most important mission is the finale and we're not there yet. That's a great point about secret rooms too. My Priest sees them and knows they need to remain focussed to win while the Ranger finds one and is all "Ooooh shiny!" (which is really just me wanting to use the new stuff and to hell with logic which is never a good thing.) So it all just adds to the fun!

Aren't the Hybrids of LoW quite powerfull?

I haven't experimented them yet, but I have seen posts where OLs love to use those nasty guys.

I also have heard that the Harpies of Trollfens will be quite a nuisance against heroes (with something like a "swarm" capacity).

It also seems that some quests of LoW are quite a challenge for both sides.

The secret rooms are a double-edged thing: heroes can get benefit from them, but they risk to lose time and miss the tactical objective of the encounter...

I am not sure that the small expansions are so much in favour of the heroes.

IMO, I would advise to "grab all you can".

If some choices seem bad with hindersight, resell the expansions in excess in a couple of years, when they are OOP, and you make bucks to buy better additions to the game.

He really isn't kidding about that either! A while ago the friend that I gave my Descent 1.0 stuff to was going through some tough financial breaks and it only took him two days to e-bay it for many many times more than it cost me to buy it. Buying Descent games today is like buying stock. As for the hybrids my viewpoint is kinda' biased since we are playing a two player campaign where every quest feels like Darth Vader's birthday so it's a little tough to make a comparison. Currently they are just a new flavor of doom. We're going to start again with three players but we really want to see how this all plays out since the most important mission is the finale and we're not there yet. That's a great point about secret rooms too. My Priest sees them and knows they need to remain focussed to win while the Ranger finds one and is all "Ooooh shiny!" (which is really just me wanting to use the new stuff and to hell with logic which is never a good thing.) So it all just adds to the fun!

That guy/gal plays like a true scout! Shiny!

One of the quests that I won was due to a treasure room. Well, kind of. I had kobolds EVERYWHERE and the heroes had to kill all of them and Splig to win. Heroes would kill a master Kobold for them to split. Splig would then promote a minion... It was messy. So, treasure it was!

After they caught up with a mimic box that ran away and then killed it, they found a treasure room... in it's belly. That treasure room had two beasts and two treasures, one being a the treasure box. It yelled them awesome. They cleared the remainder of the treasures. The following map they got two or three more treasures before I ran away with the win. Losing encounter one was detriment. In the end, I think the heroes had 400ish gold, if not more. I had the rumor card for that quest that was to spoil their shop phase. The cards they turned up where good, and they took what they wanted. With the extra gold, they brought all of the face down cards and reviled ALL shop items they where looking into. It was an amazing stroke of luck for the heroes! They wouldn't have done that had they not got so much gold in the quest.

the quest was "Let the Truth be Buried" btw.