The Coast / Hero Pack 2 report:

[gavindowning]

Alright. We did a three-person cooperative game (we generally play co-op around here) against the Ghost Ship. We didn't use any of the new characters -- Anne Marie, Valeria, and Katarina defended Shadowbrook against the Ghost Ship, on all three boards. And holy crap, we nearly died in the first six turns. We were absolutely brutalized at first, as a long turn of bad luck kept us from being particularly mobile (2-move was quite common), and we were rolling twice on the co-op Mystery Phase chart every round, and there was a 50/50 chance of a second Mystery card every Mystery Phase due to the Order's influence on Lord Hanbrook. Things turned around when Katarina found a new artifact at the Old Keep: the Loveless Pendant, which allowed her to take a wound to put a Mystery card on the Pendant, holding it at bay until the Loveless Pendant is discarded (at which point ALL the Mystery cards on the Pendant come into play at once). This allowed us to turn things around, FINALLY, though we had to make sure Katarina didn't lose the pendant.

The Ghost Ship grinds through decks, removing cards from the game right and left. By the end of the game, when Valeria and her flail, Katarina and her dueling pistol (now purchaseable from Coastwater), and Anne Marie and her library destroyed the Ghost Ship, the stack of cards removed from the game was larger than the Event deck. There were also 13 Mystery cards on the Loveless Pendant, waiting to go off should Katarina have lost the pendant. (Also, incidentally, Reverend Harding was the amazing resurrecting man -- twice he appeared to die (one when Choices were To Be Made, and once to prove that No One Is Safe), and both times he later stumbled back into town. It turns out that his secret was that he had once served on a naval vessel, and had abandoned it (a little secret)... and he also had a second life. We thought both were appropriate, though really, he was on his third life by the time we were done. He would have died in the final showdown, but he Escaped, too.

New board:

We didn't get a chance to explore the lighthouse or the shipwreck much -- we were on the defensive from the beginning, so that limited us somewhat. We did explore Smuggler's Cove quite a bit because of the shortcut between the Cove and the Keep, and we wandered the town a bit, too. The town of Tidewater is interesting: instead of an Event deck for exploring the town, there's a small deck without a discard pile -- you just grab one card at random each time (so in theory you could get the same card every turn). Some of them are nice, some are not-so-nice, and some are rather brutal -- and there are a few cards which let you get an Event card, so there are ways to get Events over there, but they're not as reliable as Shadowbrook. The Lost Ship appeared and vanished a couple times during the game, but we never had a chance to encounter it. Tidewater has some very nice locations, though: discard a corner-location item for 1D6 Investigation or take a corner-item card from a discard pile for 2D6 Investigation; pay Investigation to place a Militia marker; get healed for 1 or have a 50/50 shot at being cured of a Curse; or purchase Tidewater items (which count towards your three Town items).

New Features:

I love love LOVE the Haunting cards. Complete with a gruesome legend in the rulebook, these seven vengeful ghosts haunt Tidewater and the surrounding lands. There are cards which make you draw a Haunting card -- one of seven brutal spirits (and this deck of seven cards, like the Tidewater encounter deck, is just reshuffled every time it's used, so you can never fully defeat the seven ghosts; they can just show up again later after they've been defeated). The payout for defeating such a ghost is pretty significant, though. The appearing and disappearing Lost Ship is a neat feature, as is the Kraken, though we never encountered either one. (There were four Hauntings fights, though -- and Anne Marie was lucky to escape from the child-ghost with her life.) The new items to purchase in Tidewater are rather nice, and I have a new focus for Katarina (my favorite character to play): get her the Dueling Pistol is Tidewater (instead of normally trying to find it in the Manor), then the Silver Shot.

New Villains:

All the new villains (including the Reaper from the Character Pack) appear brutal, and seem to stage up for cooperative play quite well (which is an important factor for us -- in the original set, the only one which seemed to stage well was the werewolf; they've been steadily improving since that first set in that regard). In addition, they did include a token for the Shadow Witch from online, so the only official one without a token is the Nutcracker (though that one has a downloadable token -- it's just not printed on the same material, most-likely). And I'm okay with that -- the Nutcracker should be used only during the Christmas season, I think. Battling the Sunken Seven will lead to a lot of fights with that Haunting deck, and a final fight where the attribute you're forced to use shifts constantly. (Also, the wording on the Sunken Seven hints that there may eventually be more Haunting cards... which I'm definitely okay with. I love the Haunting feature.) The Siren will pull any Militia or wandering Elders towards the Icy Waters to kill them. The Dreamweaver has a fun feature involving avoiding sleep, but when you do sleep, you fight her for a little bit. The Reaper is just brutal.

New Heroes:

While we didn't use the new heroes, all of them look like a lot of fun. Abigail Sturn becomes a Book collector like Anne Marie; Jack Fellows makes a wonderful combatant with his ability (and it's nice to have an African-American hero in there finally); Sara the Bright Witch has some fascinating game-effects; Frederic Leon has some fun options including dragging Militia with him wherever he goes; Liliana seems better-geared for competitive games than co-op (she can't trade items or allies) but has some very fun effects; Argot Blackwell is a great minion-hunter; Maria De La Rosa is fabulously mobile; and Doctor Edwards finally gives us a healer. All of them also have a fun write-up in the book, giving them some great flavor (and I find Argot, Liliana, and Frederic's particularly inspired).

New Cards:

We would have been destroyed without the lucky find in the Keep. Other new cards seem a lot of fun, including new books in each of the decks (which makes my wife happy -- she adores playing Anne Marie). The "Lightning Strikes" Mystery card in the Hero Pack remind me a little of Murder without actually being the Murder card. "Take Cover" and "Duck and Roll" Event cards are really nice cards, too, as is a Remains In Play Event card (whose name escapes me) which you give to a hero to allow them to reroll one of their fight dice every game turn or showdown fight round. While there were more cards for the four original corner locations, there were none for the three locations by Echo Lake, which was understandable if a little disappointing. I'm hoping there's a card expansion soon which remedies that: I'd love for more corner locations for the expansions (including the Coast now). While it didn't come into play, the Manor has a card which can remove someone from play for several turns as they step into a shimmering void, each turn giving them either a buff, or damage, or a chance to return (or they return when they're KOed). The Windmill now has a chest which allows you to keep three items in it: pretty useful! There were no cards which I felt were problematic; they all were appropriately balanced and add a fun flavor to the game. There was a minor typo on all the cards with this word, though: any time the phrase "including yourself" appeared, it was "inlcuding yourself".

Overall:

SO. MUCH. FUN. I'm so pleased with this purchase.

[Old Dwarf]

gd-nice Report,1 question If your knocked out on the Coast Board do you still have to go to the AToE Board to recover?

OD

[gavindowning]

(08-23-2012 06:30 PM)Old Dwarf Wrote:  gd-nice Report,1 question If your knocked out on the Coast Board do you still have to go to the AToE Board to recover?

OD

Nope. There's a town center square in Tidewater that counts as the Town Hall for purposes of being KOed, etc.

[Old Dwarf]

(08-23-2012 07:14 PM)gavindowning Wrote:  

(08-23-2012 06:30 PM)Old Dwarf Wrote:  gd-nice Report,1 question If your knocked out on the Coast Board do you still have to go to the AToE Board to recover?

OD

Nope. There's a town center square in Tidewater that counts as the Town Hall for purposes of being KOed, etc.

YES!!!!!!!

OD

[MoonSylver]

Sooo cooool. Thank you for the overview. This is the most excited I've been about a new release in a LONG time.
---MS

[SovTech]

Thank you so much for a detailed review. Now I want a game report!

...please? Anyone? OD?