Really solid review. For anyone who has played all (or at least a few of) the expansions, which would you recommend? I currently have Elder Sign + Unseen Forces which I am really enjoying, but tempting to pick up another expansion.. so far Gates of Arkham is the one i'm leaning towards, but perhaps one of the Omens expansions could be a better idea.
Hi! Gates of arkham. The core and the unseen forces are together a base game, so we should call gates of Arkham the first real expansion. And the one that you must buy if you liked the core set. It's hard, but it's so different and amazing, like the basic game. Mostly Recommended.
Seems to be the general consensus from what i've read online on reddit, bgg, etc so i'll probably pick up a copy of that next time I come across one for a good price. Thanks for your input!
I don’t think there are any Elder Sign expansions to avoid, but the order in which you get them will vary with what you want out of the game. The first expansion, Unseen Forces, adds a lot of content for the base game and pretty much plugs the holes as Zee said. It’s basically more of the same with more items, spells, monsters, investigators, mythos cards, and locations (museum and other worlds). The only new addition is the blessing and curse mechanics (with the white and black dice). Pretty neat, made the game a bit harder, but still the same game that you love or hate. Gates of Arkham is where things started to change. You are now out of the museum and use completely different decks for locations and mythos. That means that a large part of the first expansion won’t be used, but you still get to use the extra items, spells, investigators, and also the black and white dice. This is the expansion that turned Elder Sign from nifty little dice rolling game into a very good challenging cooperative game with focus on resource management. After that come the Omens series: Ice, Deep, and lastly Pharaoh. They are similar to Gates in that they add new stuff that you can use across the different versions, but each uses its own location and mythos decks. They have more of a story as well with the game being divided into two stages. Which one you prefer is up to you but I recommend you get the expansions in the order in which they were published. Unseen Forces may not be the big revolution that Gates of Arkham was, but it does make the base game more enjoyable and you’ll get stuff that you’ll be able to use in the next adventures when you get them-the blessing/curse mechanic can be a game changer! After that, Gates of Arkham is a great introduction to the new system (it is also my favourite theme of all). From there, I should say you can move on to the Omens when you feel that you need a change, either in release order or preference of theme. Oh, there is one last expansion: Grave Consequences. That one is a very small set of cards that works with all variants but only comes into play under certain conditions, i.e., when an investigator is devoured, when an investigator becomes insane, or when the Ancient One attacks. It adds more things but it is very situational and won’t impact the game that much.
The base game Is dead to me, the game truly got good with gates of Arkham and the omen games continue with the superior gameplay that gates introduced. The base hardly had any theme, which is a sin to do to a Arkham files game.
The first game app I ever bought was the Elder Sign game app. I have found it to look great, but the gameplay to me is boring and feels like almost pure luck. I am sure I could be doing something to mitigate the luck (which is probably what a lot of the strategy is) but it still feels like just rolling dice. I have had a hard time wanting to have anything to do with the Elder Sign game since.
The physical game IMO is better then the app. Especially with Gates, or one of the Omens expansions. It's a bit weird but the app is different in many ways from the actual physical game. I do not really enjoy the app at all.
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I also really enjoy it solo, it's somewhat similar to something like One Deck Dungeon, but there's more going on, and it's more interesting to me.
I would love to see a pros/cons showdown between Elder Sign and Arkham Horror LCG. :)
GREAT review Zee. One of the best I've ever seen on this channel. Keep it up!
Really like the review Zee...Very thorough.Thank you..
Zee's the best :D
My else sign and 5 expansions coming in tomorrow me and my buddies gonna play the heck out of it
I'm distracted by the dinosaurs in the back.
That was not a complaint.
Those dinosaurs are actually dice towers. Tom did a review on them - back a month or two I think.
Excellent review! Thanks and congratulations!! :-)
Really solid review. For anyone who has played all (or at least a few of) the expansions, which would you recommend? I currently have Elder Sign + Unseen Forces which I am really enjoying, but tempting to pick up another expansion.. so far Gates of Arkham is the one i'm leaning towards, but perhaps one of the Omens expansions could be a better idea.
Hi! Gates of arkham. The core and the unseen forces are together a base game, so we should call gates of Arkham the first real expansion. And the one that you must buy if you liked the core set. It's hard, but it's so different and amazing, like the basic game. Mostly Recommended.
Seems to be the general consensus from what i've read online on reddit, bgg, etc so i'll probably pick up a copy of that next time I come across one for a good price. Thanks for your input!
What's the method of solo play? Do you do like the app version and control multiple characters, or just 1?
Whatever you like, I played it solo with up to 4 characters, easy to manage , more than 4 characters in any situation indeed makes it kind of slow
Two or more characters is preferable, so that you can utilize the "help/support" mechanic.
But also playing with just one character gives you the chance to hoard trophies and spend them to get lots of good stuff.
I have the base game. Besides this one, is there another expansion that I should get/avoid?
I don’t think there are any Elder Sign expansions to avoid, but the order in which you get them will vary with what you want out of the game.
The first expansion, Unseen Forces, adds a lot of content for the base game and pretty much plugs the holes as Zee said. It’s basically more of the same with more items, spells, monsters, investigators, mythos cards, and locations (museum and other worlds). The only new addition is the blessing and curse mechanics (with the white and black dice). Pretty neat, made the game a bit harder, but still the same game that you love or hate.
Gates of Arkham is where things started to change. You are now out of the museum and use completely different decks for locations and mythos. That means that a large part of the first expansion won’t be used, but you still get to use the extra items, spells, investigators, and also the black and white dice. This is the expansion that turned Elder Sign from nifty little dice rolling game into a very good challenging cooperative game with focus on resource management.
After that come the Omens series: Ice, Deep, and lastly Pharaoh. They are similar to Gates in that they add new stuff that you can use across the different versions, but each uses its own location and mythos decks. They have more of a story as well with the game being divided into two stages.
Which one you prefer is up to you but I recommend you get the expansions in the order in which they were published. Unseen Forces may not be the big revolution that Gates of Arkham was, but it does make the base game more enjoyable and you’ll get stuff that you’ll be able to use in the next adventures when you get them-the blessing/curse mechanic can be a game changer! After that, Gates of Arkham is a great introduction to the new system (it is also my favourite theme of all). From there, I should say you can move on to the Omens when you feel that you need a change, either in release order or preference of theme.
Oh, there is one last expansion: Grave Consequences. That one is a very small set of cards that works with all variants but only comes into play under certain conditions, i.e., when an investigator is devoured, when an investigator becomes insane, or when the Ancient One attacks. It adds more things but it is very situational and won’t impact the game that much.
The base game Is dead to me, the game truly got good with gates of Arkham and the omen games continue with the superior gameplay that gates introduced. The base hardly had any theme, which is a sin to do to a Arkham files game.
Damn, can't mix the new common item cards?
For me it's: Gates > Pharaoh > Deep > Ice
No love for Unseen Forces? ;)
I like Unseen Forces but it's essentially Base with extra stuff as is the Grave pack so I didn't count them.
The first game app I ever bought was the Elder Sign game app. I have found it to look great, but the gameplay to me is boring and feels like almost pure luck. I am sure I could be doing something to mitigate the luck (which is probably what a lot of the strategy is) but it still feels like just rolling dice. I have had a hard time wanting to have anything to do with the Elder Sign game since.
The physical game IMO is better then the app. Especially with Gates, or one of the Omens expansions. It's a bit weird but the app is different in many ways from the actual physical game. I do not really enjoy the app at all.