Dim Reaper

A late show by Martin meant the planned Anglo-Dutch Naval game was a no go. So Talisman once more came out but this time with the full Reaper expansion including 'old grass cutter' himself.

The Reaper mechanism is quite subtle and doesn't over dominate the game. I actually took a risk in an attempt to get rid of an Hag that was preventing me getting any more followers and voluntarily moved the Reaper onto myself. I got lucky and he removed the hag from me! (lose a follower result). Graeme tried the same trick to get a boost, as there are a couple of good results available, but rolled a one and got scythed down! One thing we should of checked was if fate worked on Reaper rolls (both for movement and results)

The game never got completed as whenever someone got near the center, firstly Colin and then Dave, some bastard (Me!) used a spell to destroy their Talismans. I also used the alchemist to turn my own collection to gold to stop thieves. Colin and Dave had a brief scrap to prove who was the hardest (they both had ridiculous amounts of strength) and the game came to an indecisive close.

Tonight also marked the return of Geordie Paul, famous for his campaigns and scratch build models, who is back in town on contract.
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More Bling...

Another game of Talisman at the club, but this time with five players (Graeme, Baldy, Dave S, Colin, and me) and also parts of the Reaper expansion, leading to more mayhem and a lot of spilt blood as characters managed to die left, right, and center.

The expansion only played a minor role, as we did not include the grim reaper but only the new character types and the warlock quest cards (which were not much different from the original random table). I still think that the 'play chess' result on the Reaper card should be converted to 'play twister' (How do you think Neo learnt to dodge all those bullets! Excellent!)



The board got jammed up with powerful creatures early on, slowing down the characters advancement, and most people lost a character before even the first Talisman appeared.



During the game a number of people got turned into Toads, and we even had some Toad on Toad action (if you pardon the expression). The left behind resources becoming nice little hordes, but none as big as that gathered by the Hunter who kept knocking out characters and building a bigger stock pile of treasure, including a couple of carts. Baldy ended up getting this mother lode of resources, but fortunately a tornado came along and robbed him of a good portion of it.

This tipped things in favour of Colin who was first to get into the inner ring. Baldy bravely died trying to follow, when the Vampires sucked his life away, but no one else was anywhere near attempting the inner circle. We stood in the outer track as Colin seized the Crown of Command, and could not (and would not, it was getting late at this point) stop the inevitable life drain.

Colin had finally managed to win a game (any game!)

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Plenty of other games were on the go including a game of DBA as some one tried to convert some young GW fans with an invasion scenario.

40K was on the loose as normal.



And the Great War variant of General Quarters 3 was in action. A fleet engagement in the Baltic, where the Russians came out on top for once.


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Crowned

Graeme brought along a copy of 4th edition Talisman after Colin badgered him about it. Originally a Games Workshop production it is now released under license by Fantasy Flight. I can remember playing this a lot when it was the old 2nd edition.

All three of us randomly drew characters and we all started evil, Graeme the Ghoul, Colin the Assassin and Tel the Sorceress! Colin's assassination ability lead to him being avoided like the plague, but I did manage to use my beguile ability on him a couple of times. The ghouls ability to zombify defeated monsters did seem pretty weak in comparison to ours.

It had to happen to someone eventually and the Ghoul finally got turned into a toad. I took advantage of his new state and managed to grab all the stuff he was forced to drop before he could reach it again when back in Ghoul form.

The inner circle seemed easier than I can remember it, there is the one section where bad die rolling can send you back outside, but most of the rest are either roadblocks or minor loss of life tokens, which since I managed to grab the Runesword was not a problem for me. It was a good job I got to the Crown of Command when I did as Colin soon managed to get into the inner ring (but got kicked out by failing a strength test) and Graeme's new character, the Monk, was cleaning up all the good stuff left on the outer ring, and had rapidly built up his strength. But not his lives and with the Crown in my possession they both fell to its life draining ability, and at the same time so no one was left hanging about.

The game has generally good production values and all the counters stack baring the rather cheap looking gold coins of which there did not seem to be enough; some 5gp coins might of been handy. I think the writing on the board has shrunk a bit as it was quite hard to read some of the more verbose instructions, maybe the background is different? They also obviously think that toad turning is a major thing as they have included no less than four toad figures in the set.

With the later editions of the game the expansions started to get a bit silly and even included spacemen. Hopefully with future development being in the hands of FF, with their experience of expanding games such as Runebound, will hopefully keep the excesses in check. From what I can tell of the first expansion, 'Reaper', they seem to be keeping to this philosophy.
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