Hola all. Massawyrm here.
DESCENT: JOURNEYS IN THE DARK – TOMB OF ICE EXPANSION
Okay, as regular readers know, when I’m not watching movies, I’m playing Dungeons & Dragons. When I’m not Playing D&D, I’m playing Warhammer 40,000. But what am I playing when I’m not playing either of those? Right now? DESCENT: JOURNEYS IN THE DARK. I love the hell out of this game. It’s a board game, and being a board game, there isn’t much that comes out for it – roughly two expansions a year. Which is why I haven’t been afforded the opportunity to talk about it until now. But those that have played it know why I’m so excited to write about it. You can tell instantly if someone else has played it by the way their eyes light up when you mention the name.
Essentially Descent is Dungeons & Dragons without the role playing or the long term record keeping. You select a character (or randomly draw one), randomly draw ability cards, buy some gear and then take your character down into a dungeon with all the other players. Well, all of the other players but one. The other player is, for all intents and purposes, the dungeon master. With one, small, tiny, insignificant difference. He’s called the OVERLORD and he wants to kill you. And every member of your party. Before you accomplish whatever mission you’re on.
The experience is kind of like doing an Instance in World of Warcraft, if only another player were controlling all the monsters and was trying desperately to prevent you from reaching the end boss. The result is an incredibly strategic tactical board game in which every round you spend being careful, nabbing loot or leveling up in town is one round stronger the Overlord will be. The longer you take, the more power the overlord has to surprise you with traps, lay down power cards that make his dungeon stronger or summon more monsters to weaken and destroy you. An entirely cooperative board game, it turns from a pretty calmly paced dungeon raid into a frenetic strategy session between the players who have tough decisions like opening that treasure chest or kicking down the door before the overlord can do something nasty.
The overlord chooses the scenario, sets up the board and runs everything inside. But he’s still limited by rules of his own. In fact, the game is stacked against the Overlord, so in order to win, he actually has to play the hardest. A great challenge for groups who tend to have one player that dominates most games most of the time, as one person battles the collective.
The game comes in a basic set called DESCENT: JOURNEYS IN THE DARK which comes with everything you need to play. But once you’ve gotten into it, you’ll no doubt want to pick up one or more of the four expansions, each adding new characters, treasures and abilities – and for the overlord new monsters (complete with new figures) new traps and new kinds of threats. Some even come with new dungeon tiles.
TOMB OF ICE
Which brings me to the reason for this post, Fantasy Flight’s newest expansion The Tomb of Ice. This time around, the expansion’s theme is monsters of ice and snow, ghosts and, of all things, invisibility. This set comes with a number of game changing additions that aren’t for the feint at heart. Aside from the general assortment of new critters, tiles and threat cards – there are whole new concepts introduced that will reinvigorate the game for those who feel that it’s gotten a bit stale and makes things even crazier for those just getting into it.
The single biggest change is the introduction of the feat card. These cards work similarly to the Overlords cards – except that they don’t require any threat and you don’t draw them every turn. This allows the heroes to have something up their sleeves that the Overlord can’t take into account. The cards range from allowing them to gain bonuses on their actions and attacks all the way to destroying cards in the Overlord’s hand. The cards are split between the three skills and you get them based upon your characters own starting skills. This simple addition really changes the strategy of the Overlord, who can no longer always count on exactly what the players are capable of.
In turn, the Overlord gets a whole new batch of treachery cards, some of them involving very sinister new combinations. One of the new cards allows you to lay down a patch of ice underfoot of a moving adventurer. When dropped in a combat that pits the players against flyers or ranged fighters (like skeletons or sorcerers) it can create a nightmare for melee speced parties. Also added to the Overlord’s repertoire of evil is a new monster ability SWALLOW. This comes along with a disgusting stomach tile to place heroes that find themselves on the unfortunate end of that attack. You can fight your way out – but you die quick in there, and there are some drawbacks to fighting inside the belly of the beast.
In addition to all of this comes a slew of new abilities and mechanics. Ghost is a cool new ability that makes creatures immune to adjacent melee attacks – and Tread Ice allows for the use of terrain against foes. But the most interesting new mechanic is the STEALTH die, which adds the notion of invisibility and stealthy characters to the game. It’s an incredibly simple device, just a clear die with two X sides and four blank ones. The X’s work just like the X on the attack dice. Any attack made against a target with STEALTH requires that you add the Stealth die to the attack roll. Invisible? Stealthy? You’re getting hit 1/3 less of the time. It’s a neat, simple solution to a problem that often comes with sticky mechanics. And as an overlord I can say that there’s nothing more demoralizing than watching a pesky adventurer blow an important roll with 2 X’s showing instead of just one.
And finally, the bulk of the six new characters rock pretty hard and make for a very interesting set of adversaries (or protagonists, depending on which side of the board you’re playing on.) Two characters particularly stand out: Shiver, the magic wielder with the disgusting innate AURA 4 ability, practically annihilating certain threats; and Karnon, the yeti. Yes, the Yeti. He’s a nasty piece of work with only two skill points (while most characters have 3) but a maxed out five dice in his Melee trait. Yeah…he’s kind of gross. But there’s also a Halfling on wolf-back, a cool barbarian who can wield 2 handed weapons in one hand, a ghostly flyer who is soft and squishy but has neat abilities, and a ranger who is built more around the new feat card mechanic than anything else – but gets an extra skill card for the trouble.
All in all, TOMB OF ICE is a full bodied expansion - not just a few new pieces to play around with, but fundamentally different tools to freshen up the look and feel of the game. If you’re a fan of DESCENT, than this expansion is a must own and comes highly, highly recommended. To highlight how much I love this expansion, I’d like to note that my ToI box is currently completely empty, all of the tiles, figures and cards having been permanently absorbed into the main box. Once you’ve played with it, you’re not going to want to go back to playing with just the standard box set. It’s a game changer.
Until next time friends, smoke ‘em if ya got ‘em.
Massawyrm
Got something for the Wyrm? Mail it here.
TOMB OF ICE
Which brings me to the reason for this post, Fantasy Flight’s newest expansion The Tomb of Ice. This time around, the expansion’s theme is monsters of ice and snow, ghosts and, of all things, invisibility. This set comes with a number of game changing additions that aren’t for the feint at heart. Aside from the general assortment of new critters, tiles and threat cards – there are whole new concepts introduced that will reinvigorate the game for those who feel that it’s gotten a bit stale and makes things even crazier for those just getting into it.
The single biggest change is the introduction of the feat card. These cards work similarly to the Overlords cards – except that they don’t require any threat and you don’t draw them every turn. This allows the heroes to have something up their sleeves that the Overlord can’t take into account. The cards range from allowing them to gain bonuses on their actions and attacks all the way to destroying cards in the Overlord’s hand. The cards are split between the three skills and you get them based upon your characters own starting skills. This simple addition really changes the strategy of the Overlord, who can no longer always count on exactly what the players are capable of.
In turn, the Overlord gets a whole new batch of treachery cards, some of them involving very sinister new combinations. One of the new cards allows you to lay down a patch of ice underfoot of a moving adventurer. When dropped in a combat that pits the players against flyers or ranged fighters (like skeletons or sorcerers) it can create a nightmare for melee speced parties. Also added to the Overlord’s repertoire of evil is a new monster ability SWALLOW. This comes along with a disgusting stomach tile to place heroes that find themselves on the unfortunate end of that attack. You can fight your way out – but you die quick in there, and there are some drawbacks to fighting inside the belly of the beast.
In addition to all of this comes a slew of new abilities and mechanics. Ghost is a cool new ability that makes creatures immune to adjacent melee attacks – and Tread Ice allows for the use of terrain against foes. But the most interesting new mechanic is the STEALTH die, which adds the notion of invisibility and stealthy characters to the game. It’s an incredibly simple device, just a clear die with two X sides and four blank ones. The X’s work just like the X on the attack dice. Any attack made against a target with STEALTH requires that you add the Stealth die to the attack roll. Invisible? Stealthy? You’re getting hit 1/3 less of the time. It’s a neat, simple solution to a problem that often comes with sticky mechanics. And as an overlord I can say that there’s nothing more demoralizing than watching a pesky adventurer blow an important roll with 2 X’s showing instead of just one.
And finally, the bulk of the six new characters rock pretty hard and make for a very interesting set of adversaries (or protagonists, depending on which side of the board you’re playing on.) Two characters particularly stand out: Shiver, the magic wielder with the disgusting innate AURA 4 ability, practically annihilating certain threats; and Karnon, the yeti. Yes, the Yeti. He’s a nasty piece of work with only two skill points (while most characters have 3) but a maxed out five dice in his Melee trait. Yeah…he’s kind of gross. But there’s also a Halfling on wolf-back, a cool barbarian who can wield 2 handed weapons in one hand, a ghostly flyer who is soft and squishy but has neat abilities, and a ranger who is built more around the new feat card mechanic than anything else – but gets an extra skill card for the trouble.
All in all, TOMB OF ICE is a full bodied expansion - not just a few new pieces to play around with, but fundamentally different tools to freshen up the look and feel of the game. If you’re a fan of DESCENT, than this expansion is a must own and comes highly, highly recommended. To highlight how much I love this expansion, I’d like to note that my ToI box is currently completely empty, all of the tiles, figures and cards having been permanently absorbed into the main box. Once you’ve played with it, you’re not going to want to go back to playing with just the standard box set. It’s a game changer.
Until next time friends, smoke ‘em if ya got ‘em.
Massawyrm
Got something for the Wyrm? Mail it here.
