Really liked this review, great honesty and balanced view of some of the issues. Some reviewers say the base game is a bit boring, you say play at least with the monster expansion to enjoy the game in your view which is a positive spin on this outlook.
If you are the FIRST to upload a GOOD solo video with an overhead view of the board then you will corner the market. There is just another person but his accent is hard to get through so the field is open right now
My all-in came 2 weeks ago and we've got a 4 player game going in my vault game table - didnt quite finish it after 3 hours so looking to resume soon. We added the Monster Trail expansion from the get-go and tweaked the monster deck; otherwise, the Level 1 monsters are a cake-walk. It was also easy to incorporate the mutagens, advanced deck, and bombs. I do think this game would play best at 3 players though I look forward to the solo mode. The base dice are a little hard to read but I did sell my extra dice set because individual sets are just overkill; I can replace the base with some regular D6s. Heard the Mages and Skellige expansion with Dagon needs some tweaking for better gameplay. The playmat looks great compared to the muted gameboard. The game has one of the best PvP implementations I've seen in any tabletop game. The defender doesn't have much to lose even if they lose; they actually gain a card. As a defender, I'm incentivized to win to prevent the attacker from getting a trophy and cause them to forego a successful event phase but if I lose, I'm not punished. Imo, the attacker has more to gain but also more to lose than the defender.
Appreciate the overview. I’m a solo player and prefer narrative adventures with objectives that don’t necessarily require killing everything on the board (eg, Assassins Creed or Roll Player Adventure). This may be a “pass” for me… THANK YOU for saving me $$!
I mean you could just explore the side quests , in a very Witcher vibe getting distracted by side quests and ignoring the main mission is super on theme 🤣
Absolutely agree about the dice, the double take on the 5 & 6 kinda spoils the excitement of hitting a good hand as you have to stop and squint if there's a pentagon face.
The game length will keep this from being a legendary game. Great deckbuilding, fun exploration, TERRIBLE game length. My first playthrough with an AP player took 3 hours and we were only half way thru. Only play this with 2-3. I would NEVER play this with 5.
One way to speed up the game is to give an extra one or two ability points at the beginning of the game to each player. This way, you will be able to fight monsters and obtain trophies earlier and speed up a lot the gameplay
I don't really enjoy how it's a decision on either having a fulfilling next turn or getting the card you want for your deck. Also it's irritating how few options the game has to punish you out of combat. Usually just ends up getting rid of potions.
Hmmm...I struggled to find the essence of The Witcher in this game, it's basically Runebound second edition. The combat system is good and it is original. We found the game a grind and fighting against other Witchers just seemed wrong. It looks good but I hope the expansions add some depth.
Well, witchers do occasionally cross swords. Bear School witchers pretty commonly kill other witchers on the Trail, and Geralt was threatened by a Cat School witcher named Brehen once over a contract. Plus, in The Witcher 3 you have three chances to fight other witchers, though one has retired and all three are Cat School. Come to think of it, Geralt and the Cat School really don't get along, do they?
The only problem with that is during the move phase players can move to fight monsters or each other only at the same location. So let's say you move to go level up before fighting a monster but someone else moves to the monster as well both players can't fight the monster. Same with Witcher vs Witcher if your plan was to fight a Witcher and they move on your turn it doesn't work out. Hope that kinda makes sense. However with the wild Hunt expansion players can be taking the turns at the same time because it doesn't matter as much cuz that's more cooperative.
I love them. They honestly don’t change the game much. Some of them I had questions about, but the text on the cards are pretty clear what they do. I feel you can easily add them in, and no one will really know they’re part of the expansion
@@JustAGeekyDad Got it. I'm just saying that if you play enough three-four player romps, the quest deck is going to eventually become redundant. In our group, a game that gains approval from everyone is likely to hit the table often.
Idk man, losing witcher fights doesn't feel too bad to me. You get a free card, which means free health. With how many cards you have trashed by the end of the game, we felt like every card counted.
Being able to end the game only with a fight trophy is just the designer forcing the players to fight when they realized that players will take the path of least resistance, which is meditating the stats. The game becomes a slog at 4+ players. So a 3- player experience is completely different. The combat is nothing special. It's not the first game using the deck as health pool and means of dealing damage. There is no real consequence to losing fights. If a regular Joe can't pick up just a retail version (which I'm sure it will be stripped to bare bones), and needs a lot of expansion stuff to improve on the fun, the game is doing something wrong.
Played the solo base game just yesterday and it was a ton of fun. This won't be an issue. Obviously expansions add more but certainly not required to have a great time.
We just played a 3 player game against the golem from legendary hunt. Only complaint is that he was way too easy for us to kill. Maybe we let the game drag on too much or maybe there should be a difficulty ranking of the bosses. Also the lack of a discard ability on the boss compared to the other monsters is a huge miss imo.
We're you working together to fight him, or racing him as intended? I've found if players actually race each other it can force you into fight before you fully prepare, making them more interesting. If players kind of work together or don't interfere with each other than monsters become very easy.
Sorry good sir your wrong.. check page 29 on the rule book. The only trophy that can’t make you win the game is from meditation. It just says if you reach the last spot on the trophy track, you immediately win the game. Meditate exception.
Your first criticism is invalid IMO. It's a game where you create your own adventure and other players create their adventures. If you want a quick game then you absolutely should not play this game. To me, it's fun to create my adventure and see where the road takes me and other players. At no point, I was thinking that "I don't care, just get your round done so I could get my round done and get to the end of the game". I have enjoyed every adventure, whether it was mine or someone else. Last time I played it, at one point I had 2 quests going where I had forgotten how the first one even started. But as soon as I got to the quest location it all came back to me. The game length isn't a problem, the problem might be you play with the wrong people. Yes, this game isn't for everyone, but that can not be counted against it. Also, you said that the Monster's Trail expansion is a must in your opinion. While I have not played this expansion it seems to make the game even longer when you hunt down monster weaknesses as well. On the dice thing, this is so "first-world problem". If you don't like the dice, I will bet you whatever you want that you have at least 10 normal dice in your home. Just use normal dice if looking at the witcher dice is so hard that having to take a "double-take" is ruining your game experience. But judging by the comments here I'm the only one here who doesn't have a problem with the dice.
dice poker? .. why isn't it gwent? Why not win cards that have triple use of traveling, combat, and playing gwent which is how you acquire more cards. Plus copying the Witcher power tech tree from Witcher 3 seems a no brainer to me.
@@erickenneycreative There's more to the series than just the 3rd game. Dice poker comes from the first game; it's basically Gwent's granddaddy. It sounds like you are more interested in being a professional gwent player than a witcher
@@derricgreene 1. Before we had cars, we had carriges and buggies. The "granddaddy" of something doesn't make it better. 2. Much of the Witcher's current success is built off the Witcher 3. Witcher 1 and 2 audience is fringe at best. So .. to a person like myself who hadn't heard of Witcher before Witcher 3 .. yes, dice poker is a letdown and a downgrade. 3. You and I both know the major complaint of this game is its length. The game design of Old world is terribly clunky and the combat takes waaaaay to long for the type of game it is. So much could have been abstracted out to create a smoother, streamlined experience. Game design has improved by leaps and bounds over the last 5-10 years. Dice poker and the combat system feel amateurish in design. Tossing dice poker, no pun intended, and instead including a deckbuilding gwent aspect making the cards triple use thus everything being tied to gather and because they are triple use actually making the gameplay choices even harder. The combat needs abstracting. This isn't a dungeon crawler. Modern games hybrid Euro games have shown that there is a number of ways to successfully and thematically do this. 4. Yes .. i really enjoyed Gwent ... Hmmmm .. I wonder why it replaced Dice poker? I'm not trying to tear the game down .. I want it to simply be a better, more fun experience. todays games have taught me to expect more from game design and mechanics. I just wish this game would have been the Witcher game we deserve. I feel they dumbed it down for laymen instead of trusting its audience which in my opinion .. is self-defeating because this game could have really been something.
great review, can't you just have a house rule that there is no player vs player-allowed battle? My group is not really into player vs player thing either
I'm still waiting on my KS to arrive.. should get it within a couple weeks. Happy to hear you're liking it! Especially solo mode too! I'm waiting to play it but I'll get the legendary hunt at retail, maybe the mages expansion too, but I'll probably wait a few months and make sure it hits the table enough.
5 месяцев назад
thx for the video but im a little confused now. i thought wild hunt expansion is for real solo. In the bgg description it is written that Wild Hunt is for solo and co-op but you recommend legendary hunt for solo experience. What exactly is the difference between them?
3 hours is nothing when I playing with my friends. A "30 min" star wars the cardgame can take 2-4 h for us,😂 but we love every moment. And Mansion of Madness, runebound, fallout, zombicide take ×2 ×3 the time on the box dont think its even close. A game should be fun and without stress
OMG, I totally agree with the dice. I have played only the dice poker for like 50 times in a row and I still mixed up the 5 and 6 as they looks so similar. It's not convenient to judge which combination the opponent has as the dice a further from me and I can't judge just by looking at them. I believe, any regular dice set would be better than what's in the game.
I’m planning on getting this game. Should I get the Deluxe version or the Standard one? I expect not to play it all too often and shelf space is low, and will not get all expansions, but maybe one or two later on. But the miniatures do look good and I think all the expansions come with miniatures too?
"Deluxe version or the Standard one?" Depends on how wealthy or patient you are (to save up). On Amazon Canada the deluxe version is $194 and the standard game $87. The good thing is Amazons no interest monthly payment plan. My impatience says I want the standard game (yesterday). but I want the best deluxe version. For $194 I could almost get 2 expansions + the standard game. If no one wants to play the game with me then I need the solo game play improving expansion - Legendary Hunts. Also it will get super expensive when the must have "The Witcher: Old World - Adventure Pack", "The Witcher: Old World - Monster Trail", "The Witcher: Old World - Wild Hunt" expansions are released latter this year in Canada.
Thanks for sharing. I have my copy and have played the base game a few times solo and The Wild Hunt a couple of times solo. I like The Wild Hunt version the most so far, but we'll see. Positives. A lot of positives. I agree that it is very thematic. For a board game you few like a Witcher in the video game or book. I like the card stock, the art, and building up a character. I like the dual layer player boards and unique Witchers. I also enjoy the battles a lot. Negative. I would like a glossary and index and a page with all the iconography in the rule book. I would like more variety in the potions. I would like a bit more variety in the monsters, meaning a few specific battle cards for each one. A small complaint, but I wish some of the huge monsters were a bit smaller. I agree about the dice. Would like more variety in tokens for missions and monster trails.
