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Doorways Into Darkness and Cynder
08-29-2015, 06:00 PM
Post: #1
Doorways Into Darkness and Cynder
I stopped by PAX briefly yesterday to do the Kickstarter pickup, getting Cynder and Doorways Into Darkness. I've had a chance to look through them, paint them up, etc. I figured I'd give my thoughts.

Doorways Into Darkness:

The doorways have no gameplay effect; they just look cool (and, around my table, it'll help people at the table see which doorways still need to be explored). But they come with some great cards, too.

There's some great gear, including an Explorer's Lantern that lets you take some horror hits in exchange for changing out the Exploration Token that was just revealed, or Gunpowder Kegs that work like super-dynamite. Traveling boots and Outlaw armor round out the gear.

Darkness cards include Swarm of Rats (which deal corruption hits and steal stuff from your sidebag), Savage Attack (for the next or current fight, monsters are down defense but up combat dice), and the Edge of Forever (all unexplored doorways become portals).

Encounters include the Dark Below (draw a Darkness card), Branching Paths (you need to look down all unexplored doorways in this room before you explore further), and Flickering Lantern (the lantern goes out for a round). All told, it's 15 new cards (some are duplicates). I didn't think I'd need the doorways during the Kickstarter, but man, I think I'm glad I've got them now. The doorways will add some nice flavor to the board, and the cards are a great addition.

Cynder:

Wow. Great, great expansion. I'm not going to go into the specific cards here -- there are a lot. Plus, with Doorways, I can see where people might want to see exactly what cards they're getting before deciding on the purchase. For Cynder, I doubt the specific card makeup will be the deciding factor.

The flavor text is very immersive, and really gives a feel for what this world is like. The new Mine tiles add a bunch of new options to the mine (and, even better, the cards are now marked with a symbol in the corner so you know which expansion this Map Tile can be found among -- a big problem with the first two sets).

The Lava Men, the only new enemy, aren't to be found in the mines normally, which I can see might cause some to be disappointed. Their threat cards make up about half the Cynder deck. Otherwise, threats include Spirits of the Damned (ghostly variants on the Hungry Dead), Cynder Bats (tougher Hell Bats that knock people into lava), and wandering threats. On the plus side, the mine threat deck now gets "wandering threats" from Otherworlds, too, so you can find Otherworld threats in the mines, too. So in that way, you can find Lava Men in the mines, but it's not a likely result.

The rules for Cynder make it probably the most dynamic of the Otherworlds to date. Lava pits are deadly and can affect how you choose to move, and there's even an encounter that can make the ground crack under your feet as you step, creating more and more lava pools. Burning markers mean you can spend quite a bit of time on fire. But with certain new artifacts, you can also give burning markers to enemies now, too.

If you're playing with the advanced Encounter rules, there are a couple of new Mine Encounter cards that aren't connected to a single map tile, so your Encounter deck is getting larger. (There are also the cards connected to specific map tiles, so if you aren't playing with those advanced rules, there are plenty of new cards for that Encounters deck.) The Cynder Encounter deck is about the same size as the other Otherworlds' Encounter decks, and really give the world a strong mood. You can smell the sulfur, feel the heat, and hear the screams of the damned.

Cynder has no new Darkness, Gear, or Growing Dread cards. There are no Gear cards here, but there are a few Cynder-themed Mine artifacts in addition to the actual Cynder artifacts. I personally really like the new artifacts; they're a lot of fun. They're going to add a lot to the game.

So those are my thoughts. Feel free to ask questions if you have any!
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09-02-2015, 08:11 PM
Post: #2
RE: Doorways Into Darkness and Cynder
I'm pretty pumped to play it myself. While I was playing it regularly we never even got to the Swamps of Jargano though, because we all found the Targa Plateau soooo engaging and wanted to finish all the missions there and in the mines first. I think when we get our campaign rolling again, it'll be time to just merge everything. 3 Otherworlds somehow makes the feeling of falling into another dimension a little more random than just 2.
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