The one problem I have with the Firelands Rulesheet, is that if there are no Terrain Cards left of a certain type, a player has to move a Terrain Card of that type that is already on the board to the space. This is contrary to the Limited Resource rule from the core rulebook. Therefore I have amended the rule as follows:

"If an effect causes a player to place a Terrain Card on a space and there are no cards of the required type left in the Terrain deck, the effect of placing the Terrain Card is ignored."

This is now in accordance with the Limited Resource rule!

Ell.

My problem right now is I am not seeing any of the Firelands cards coming into play. I have all the expansions in play and I am seriously considering buying another copy to mix in some of the cards from the set. I don't need the whole set but having some of the cards that add fire tokens or change land might be nice.

I only play with 1 or 2 small-box expansions at a time.

My problem right now is I am not seeing any of the Firelands cards coming into play. I have all the expansions in play and I am seriously considering buying another copy to mix in some of the cards from the set. I don't need the whole set but having some of the cards that add fire tokens or change land might be nice.

I only play with 1 or 2 small-box expansions at a time.

Exactly.

Buying one more set because you want to see more cards from Firelands? That's an option, but it surprises me that the first idea that comes to contrast dilution is to ADD cards.

Remove some of the older expansions you should be familiar with. Play with only 2-3 sets at a time. Try different combinations. The sooner you'll start doing this, the sooner your complaints will cease and the sooner you'll be enjoying this game more than you ever did before.

The_Warlock is right that ADDING cards is a bit of an odd way to combat dilution, but can see the thinking behind it. I know of some people that have added "doubles" of Enemies and Spells etc to help spice the game up a bit more.

I think separating sets is the way to go when playing with an expansion that introduces a certain theme. I'd probably suggest keeping the Reaper Adventure cards in with the base set, but sans Grim.

The_Warlock is right that ADDING cards is a bit of an odd way to combat dilution, but can see the thinking behind it. I know of some people that have added "doubles" of Enemies and Spells etc to help spice the game up a bit more.

I think separating sets is the way to go when playing with an expansion that introduces a certain theme. I'd probably suggest keeping the Reaper Adventure cards in with the base set, but sans Grim.

Many years ago I used to play with 3 additional Dragons, one additional Giant and 8 extra Bags of Gold, because I thought the base game + Reaper lacked gold and big Strength Enemies. However, those were times when a 4+ player game often required to shuffle the discard pile and form a new Adventure deck at a certain point.

I stopped doing this as soon as the Adventure deck became so big that you cannot hope to run through it in a single game. Some time later I stopped playing with all sets, because I realised the setup was taking too long, if compared to how much the different components were exploited. Reducing the number of Adventure cards also brought out the flavour and theme of each expansion. Now I cannot play with all sets, unless it is a day-long 6-player game planned to be "Talisman all-in"; it seems a waste of time and theme, if compared with what I get when playing with only certain sets at a time.

I can certainly see the logic in limiting sets from a thematic point of view, but for me, the joy of Talisman is the "everything including the kitchen sick approach". I love the chaos!

Also, the symbols depicting the various sets are so tiny, I'd go blind trying to separate the cards after each game.

A friend of mine has duplicates of a few expansions! And he adds them to his deck.

If I find the Firelands to be awesome and too hard to find in my deck I would consider an other expansion to add to the deck.

I love a large deck and don't mind missing a strong theme. I have become so satisfied with 4th Revised it has finally surpassed 2nd edition in over all game play and fun. Tho I still think 2nd Edition City is my favorite all time expansion. But if there is a certain game play that is just awesome and don't want it diluted, I would prefer another set of it added rather than thin out other stuff.

So far this has not been the case, as I said Talisman 4th revised is awesome. And I have no duplicates. But I have only played 1 game with Firelands.

I am a huge fan of a huge deck. Always have been and probably always will be.

However, since The Firelands came out I have been a little more open to playing thematic games and after a few try outs can safely say it's worth playing with some expansions removed once in a while. This may be because The Firelands is so well done that one just yearns to dive right into into an "Arabian Knights" adventure (I know I do) and once you do so you are almost left feeling let down if you don't get enough of it....it's a drug!

I must say, I have never felt that way until this new expansion was released - The Firelands has burned itself indelibly onto my psyche

For myself and our group we like the humungous deck. The way I see it, the Firelands has added a whole bunch of mechanics and things that get diluted in the humungous deck though because these ideas are only now being implemented after 7 expansions. The reaper and blood moon expansions added a mechanic that is seen on the board and there is always a chance of it occurring; a chance every turn. The only cards we are looking to add from Firelands are some of the terrain changers, burn/fireproof cards and cards that utilize fire tokens. Our group plays with all expansions(including timescape now) every time, and we use a D10 system that introduces all mechanics into the game frequently so we think it is reasonable to add some fire land cards to the deck to increase the odds of encountering these. It is obvious each expansion is thought up as an after-thought with game altering mechanics that are completely new and not integrated but merely added to the fray. This after-thought construction is one reason why there are so many loopholes and nightmares for rules lawyer types IMO.

Theme really doesn't mean a whole lot to me. I don't care if it is a strength 3 Ice Girl, Pumpkin Head or Djinn; it is just a Strength 3 enemy. Let me kill it so I can move on. This is Talisman and theme is not to be expected. I play other games for Theme, this is the everything-fantasy stirred into a pot and simmered for 6 hours game.

Separating the cards would take a fair bit of work, and I agree with Warlock that this game does take a long time to set up....and even longer to put away. I don't have the patience to separate out each expansion and would probably find those cards get lumped together since they would be separated all the time.

When it comes to theme, my fantasy and 40K armies are very much theme based. My blood bowl teams are themed around a central idea and my War machine faction is themed. I have themed Mordheim war bands, Necromunda war bands and Lord of the Rings (army). My roleplaying characters are usually themed, not always. The other 200 or so board games I have are themed for the most part....Talisman is the one game that really isn't and it sees the most play in our group and at my table.

Like a large deck, with all expansions used. Check.

Would go blind separating the deck by the tiny expansion symbols. Check.

Its a no-brainer to me, but on the serious side, what I did upon acquiring the Firelands was:

take the 81 cards and lay them out in a 9 X 9 grid. Then I shuffled the rest of the large deck (no small task, obviously) and laid them out in the grid, over the previous 81 cards. I think thats about 480 some cards, right?

The 81 "small decks" are taken as is, and restacked into the new one huge, large deck. Still with me?

Thus the approximate 560 some cards will have a Firelands card about 1 every 7 cards.

Obviously cumbersome and long, at least on the first time you implement. I won't be doing this every time I play, but now the cards are about equally distributed in the deck. Even in a 2 player game, such as I only play, you will still encounter fireland cards fairly steadily.

We played a 4 player game yesterday.

Reaper+firelands.
Spells and characters from dungeon and city as well.
Hidden endings from firelands and city, but no extra regions.

We made our way over halfway trough the adventure deck, and the guy drawing the swashbuckler dominated as always. It was a fun game, ppl got Toaded, bearly survived and the likes. Temple, graveyard and Castle was soon gone.

The firecards showed up a bunch in other words, and an enchanted map+lot's of ruins made for interesting tactics, and a swashbuckler that usually drew 2-4 cards all game long(orb of fire). But henche lot's of fireproof cards got into play.

In the end my Dervish that had been doing poor all game climbed up the throne, and the game ended with him looking at the rich swashbuckler that won the theifs guild ending.


So play with reaper+firelands and it's fine

Got my copy this morning, hoping to play it tomorrow or Saturday.

I also shuffle all my expansions really well into the deck, separating them into stacks, and dismantling them and reshuffling each time would be horrendous, but I am not even tempted to do it, and the thought of doing that isn't what stops me either, I really really like the mixed expansions.

What do you all think about the Magic Lamp?

What about it? A powerful card. You spend a fate from the lamp and choose your result. One of the hang-ups is the use of the word "fate" for the tokens. I don't know whether this was intentional or not. And what I mean by intentional is, are the fate tokens just used as markers, or are they actually used as fate for the game? I think they are just used as tokens so you know how many wishes you have left. But I could be wrong.

Technically, you can not reroll a fate roll, but nothing says that you can't change the die roll. But, I believe that is the intent. You probably would have been better off to use the Magic lamp in the first place. Honestly, this is how I would personally play it. I would house-rule it for your group until and FAQ is released.

Powerful card but fortunately exchangeable between players. I think it is a very good idea and some other powerful cards like Scribe from the City should be issued in this way. B ut it's a step forward as Conjuter had the Scribe ability permanently in the 2nd edition...