DESCENT + EXPANSIONS

[gravaillon]

Some photos of my DESCENT's painted miniatures







See more later

[HeroQuestFrance]

So high time to present the game to drathe as I have promised :

Descent and the 4 first expansions :

Big boxes since 2006.
Let's open it to undertsand why there is so much weight :

Full of things !
Watch out ! It's the second french edition with a lot of corrections and adding the "leveling" between quest.
The original box was awful and didn't allow us to keep our character between 2 quests.
This one includes training to get more dices to fight.
Rule book + quest book :



The modular dunjeon. A ugly white grid is on the background.
Definitively horrible they could make a effort here since old games released before never done a such error !

The 20 character sheets :

Why a such choice to begin ?? ... most of them are clones and since there are only 4 heroes into a adventure it's stupid.
They kept this from the original rule in which you had to start with a new hero...

Let's take a look on the character sheet :

Nice illustration, life points (zelda's hearts ...) etc

The 20 figurines of the heroes :

Closer : there are details :


The doors (3 are sealed with magic runes on the right)

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The figurines of the monsters :

In red colour, the alternative mobs, harder than the white ones. (as for Doom gameboard his big brother)

The cards ... ouep incredible deck !!


- artefacts
- monsters (on the other side the alternative mob)
- GM cards(he takes some each turn and play some to bring new mobs, traps etc. He can play it by paying the needed points)
- treasure (gold silver, bronze (you can buy it or find it in chests)
- gear to buy
- 3 kinds of abilities for your hero. (each one is starting with 3 cards and can gain more later with training)

The 36 000 tokens :

Life points, money, chests, items etc

The combat dices :

Black dices are there to add power (range, damages & special effects)
A cross = you attack in vain
Very good system

Descent is just a competetive game between the heroes and the GM.
Not a real dunjeon boardgame based on the exploration.
Heroes gain powers and GM too.
You just have to run fastly and no matter if you die against the final boss : you comeback to life with magic rune stones you activate in the dunjeon. It are also teleporters so you can go back in front of the final boss to kill him.
Each turn the GM takes his tokens and waste it to play cards against you.
We regret here HeroQuest or Advanced HeroQuest.
No dead bodies to search, no secret door to find...
There is no dunjeon atmosphear, this is ... a poor mathematical & strategical mecanic.
There's just this lack to make it perfect.

First expansion : LE PUITS DES TENEBRES


Rule & quest book + new floor tiles :


New tokens :


Ne character sheets + figurines of the heroes (why so much again ??)


The new monsters (only 3 new races) :


The new cards :



To play again to Descent once you have finished the quest book.
Some new monsters and a lot of cards to add more.
You also have new & additional rules.


Second expansion : L'AUTEL DU DESESPOIR


New quest & rule book + new tokens.


New floor tiles : more variety here (finally !) + new traps !


New monsters : 5 new races !


New heroes + character sheets ..... why why why so much ... ?


New cards .... mamamia !

Note this time the GM has some omen to deliver on you...
Better than the first one, this expansion is very good.




Third expansion : HEROS DE LEGENDE

No need to search for it : no figurine inside and same price ...
At this time, FFG take the customers & fans as cow. You have to pay extra figurine 10 12 15€ each to represent the boss and his minions of the quests ...

However it's interesting since it introduces a "role play" side.


A world map on which heroes will travel and try to find the final boss to kill, the new rule/quest book, new super power dices & boxes to put your hero between 2 parties.

New floor tiles inside & outisde : printed on the 2 sides !




The avatar sheets (the GM chooses one to represent himself, he can lvl up too get powers etc) and a bloc note to save exp etc


The wheel of the tokens


The traditional pyramid of cards :



If you are fat, this expansion is made for you as GM : you will lose so much weight !
The GM has a incredible maount of things to do, first to prepare the party it's a truely hell and same when the party is over you waste 1 or 2 hours to putevery thing on the shelves...
There is a nice introduction to the roleplaygame but it becomes impossible to play.
Too much tokens too much things too much.
I understand why people step by step started to stop playing Descent at this point or play with homemade rules or use it with other boardgames like HQ.


4 th expansion : LE TOMBEAU DE GLACE

Ok it's my favourite !
A kind of copy of the frozen horror (hq) for the theme or the eternal winter (d&d)
The figurines are very charismatic.

A rule & quest book + new cards and many tokens


Those new monsters I really like :



New heroes ... you know what I am thinking about them !
A transparent dice.


New floor tile 2 sided.
It are the new ones since the original couldn't match with the other expansions or the main boardgame.
A error into the chinese fabric. I received the good ones yesterday ! 9 months after the release ....
to get it and start to play ...

I recommand you this expansion for the figurines and the challenge it brings with the new rules.

Done... nope I didn't buy the 5th expansion SEA OF BLOOD :
MER DE SANG

Because the price is just for cards and cardboard : no figurine inside and all monsters are tokens ... you have to pay around 300€ to get all figurines seperately ... what a shame !
What Descent was at his begining fall into the abyss of the economic profit for this oceanic adventure expansion.
Just notice the fact plz that a Descent expansion is the half of the price of a DWARVEN FORGE SET so for a such price no plastic figurines inside is what we call in french "de l'abus".

[darthjason]

There are aspects of Decent that i think are cool. But over all, i'd say save your money for HeroQuest or other games. One game by FFG that i do realy like is Talisman (4th ed). Unfortuneatly, Talisman can take 3-4 hours to play, but unlike other games that take that long, it's actualy pretty fast passed sence each player's turn doesn't take long.

[darthjason]

ps--nice work on those minis, i really like the dragon