Talisman Tuesday

Lately all my gaming titles and days of the week have been rhyming or alliterative so I might as well continue the trend.

After recent addictions to Arkham Horror and Wrath of Ashardalon/Legend of Drizzt I took a break Tuesday to head to the Wandering Dragon and get some casual gameplay of Talisman in. I was off Wednesday and figured Tuesday night would be the best time. Forgot however that the local town the store is in hosts a Cruise Nights there but luckily parking was ample. Every suburban town across the country now some sort of old car theme night downtown and it just so happens that Plainfield's falls on a Tuesday. In Lemont it is on a Wednesday.

I haven't played Talisman in well over 8 years so I had to read the rulebook and get familiar with everything again. A lot of people criticize it for being too random. I do have a lot of expansions for the game (The Highlands, Frost March and Dungeon) but this was to be a straight out regular base game.

I picked the Elf for his ability to move around the board quickly (woods to woods etc etc) and my friend picked the Thief.

They say Talisman is more fun with at least 3 people but I really didn't mind it too much. I can see however that with one person getting behind it can be tough to catch up thus forcing you to really hope for bad luck on the opponent. Unfortunately in this game the bad luck came my way for the most part which is no surprise.

Right off the bat  in about turn three the Thief landed on my space and took the only item I had managed to loot which was a +1STR/+1Craft ring. Basically in Talisman Strength is for hand to hand combat and Craft is for magic and mental combat. In Talisman you MUST move each turn so I was unable to attack him that turn.

We managed to get a few nasty monsters out on the board (TWO Ogres at one point) and a Witch that caused me all sorts of problems.

The Thief jumped out to a really big head start in terms of gear, money and getting to the middle region of the board. Even when drawing a Strength 10 Demon in the middle area, he had an invisibility potion to easily evade the combat.

As for myself, I landed on the Witch and rolled a 1, which of course turned me into a Toad putting me turns behind the Thief. When a Toad you move 1 and drop all your things in the square where you were turned into a toad.

After three turns I turned back into my Elf self and moved to get my things. I landed on the Witch and again ROLLED A ONE. After being the Toad again for another 3 turns I was way behind. If this had been with more players I am sure someone would have landed on my spot and taken my things. The Thief had a Talisman and was working his way toward the Crown of Command, in the center, the object of victory.

The next turn I simply decided to use the Destruction Spell I was saving and I blasted that damn Witch off the board.

Even though the Wandering Dragon stayed open late for us, we just did not have enough time to finish the game. The very random nature of the movement and the fact that you can be set back to the outer region makes a game of Talisman very long unless you have characters that can move around the board in a non die rolling manner.

The Thief was well ahead and so we simply declared him the winner. This is an early photo but later on he had a Strength well up over 6 and was working toward the inner area:

Next up will be Talisman with the Dungeon Expansion added onto the gameboard:

Players can enter the Dungeon through the Ruins on the board, and then specific Dungeon encounter cards are used while they are in there. There is a Dungeon boss that can award a Talisman as well as many other cool things in there.

Overall this is a very relaxing game and good for players when they want to take a break from the strategies and brain melting concentration of the deeper games. With all the expansions comes a wealth of characters as well so the options are going to last for months.

Now if only my luck would change.