Did ya' like Dominion? Try Thunderstone.

[John Crichton]

A difference from Dominion which I'm now perceiving, which others might say isn't a difference is deck building. You are building your deck to win, yes, but more immediately you are building to kill the monsters in the dungeon. If you go to town, you aren't killing monsters, but you can't kill monsters without better equipment.

It's worth noting that each of the level 3 heroes in each pile (2/pile) is worth 2 VPs. That's 16 VPs up for grabs if you level up a character twice. I've even had games where they could be purchased straight up.

I picked up on the symbols pretty quickly, and I think everyone else did too.

Same here. We played our third game tonight and had no trouble with them.

I still wish they'd used tokens instead of cards for xp, though--and I wish they'd gone with a box design more like dominion's.

The box certainly sucks and you don't have to use the XP cards, you could use anything you like if you prefer tokens.

Another thing that annoys me is that all the backs are the same, even for the XP and quick ref cards. And the dividers. I may buy a CCG 500 count box and just put everything in there.

 

[Wycen]

Played another game this week, this time with a random setup. I still think the dungeon portion could use something, like why limit the types of monsters there to just 3? It was funner this time since I had a handle on more of the rules.

Ended the game again with unspent XP. Two of us did I think. That part is frustrating. I chose to kill a humanoid monster since he was worth 3 gold, but no Victory points. I guess I should have spent the XP one my hero instead, but those are the choices this game entails.

I think I suffered from a mini-bout of analysis paralysis about 3/4ths of the way thru once all the useful 5 or 6 cost cards were gone, leaving crap spells, torches, daggers and things I could not afford.

 

[arscott]

Each monster group has a theme. By including only three groups, the game lets careful players build towards that theme. Doomknights? Better bring extra light. Undead? Stock up on clerics. Dragons? Be able to dish out attack.

Also, I'm very surprised that you ran out of so many cards. In the games I've played, The only (non-hero) stack that ever runs out is Fireball.

 

[Wycen]

Each monster group has a theme. By including only three groups, the game lets careful players build towards that theme. Doomknights? Better bring extra light. Undead? Stock up on clerics. Dragons? Be able to dish out attack.

Also, I'm very surprised that you ran out of so many cards. In the games I've played, The only (non-hero) stack that ever runs out is Fireball.

You touched on a few points left unsaid. We played with 5 players, so all the Militia cards were dealt from the beginning. All the Iron Rations were gone and the Feast as well. The Barkeep was gone and we were down to the last of another town card.

We had undead monsters, but no Cleric hero card. We had the expensive "Selucid Archmage" (I don't remember the actual name, but that was what I called him reading the cards upside down). All the cheap and most of the mid-range hero cards were gone.

The dungeon setup sucked, which we should have fixed, but didn't think about it at the time. The very first monster was a 7 strength and the next deeper monster was a 9. At this point it didn't matter what the 3rd monster was, but needless to say we spent a few turns building our decks in order to actually kill something in the dungeon. We should have just redealt the dungeon deck.

 

[John Crichton]

The dungeon setup sucked, which we should have fixed, but didn't think about it at the time. The very first monster was a 7 strength and the next deeper monster was a 9. At this point it didn't matter what the 3rd monster was, but needless to say we spent a few turns building our decks in order to actually kill something in the dungeon. We should have just redealt the dungeon deck.

In that case, someone can run in and just lose to a monster so it goes to the bottom of the deck. If someone doesn't want to do that then getting stuck at the start is just part of the game. I have no problem when that happens. Just gives me more time to develop my deck while I know my opponent is just as stuck.

 

[Wycen]

What happens to you when you lose?

 

[John Crichton]

What happens to you when you lose?

Whatever it says on the monster card under BATTLE. Lots of times, nothing. It just wastes a turn essentially.