Talisman Reaper Expansion Review
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If you have heard of the game talisman, it might be accompanied by it’s many many expansions. One of our favorite and a common favorite to the community as a whole is the Talisman Reaper Expansion. today we will look at everything you get with the Reaper expansion and if it’s an addition worth adding to your game.
The reaper expansion is for the 4th Edition Revised Talisman base set and centers around the control of a non player character called the Reaper. This character threatens death or other bad effects when forced to come to face to face.
Everything That Comes with the Reaper Expansion for Talisman
4 new character cards and plastic figures (Dark Cultist, Sage, Knight and Merchant
Grim Reaper monster that players manipulate against each other
90 new Adventure Cards, 26 new Spell Cards, 12 Warlock Quest Cards
This expansion is regarded as a regular size expansion with no extra board editions but still character editions.
Characters is the Talisman Reaper Expansion
The characters in the Reaper expansion for Talisman are pretty powerful and feel like a good first step into the expansions that the game has to offer. They are not overly complex but still have their own unique flair to them.
If you are looking for a guide on how to paint these characters you can check out our Talisman Miniature Painting Guide. This guide goes through all the paints used in painting my own sets on miniatures to match the character cards.
The Merchant
The Merchant character starts with 5 gold, he is also able to evade dragons by spending a gold. the Merchants main ability is to trade with players for their items and give them gold. Finally, the Merchant is able to sell items at a profit at the market, the village, or market days for gold. So if you like gold slinging, the Merchant is awesome to play.
The merchant has 4 fate, 4 life, 4 craft, 2 strength
Dark Cultist
The Dark Cultist in the Talisman Reaper Expansion has the ability to attack players using craft. This is something that most characters in the game are unable to do. This however does not work when being attacked by another player.
The main ability for the Dark Cultist is upon defeating an enemy, they roll the six sided die and are able to gain, fate, life, craft, strength, a spell, or a gold.
This character is always evil, so any effecting alignment change does not impact the Dark Cultist.
The Dark Cultist has 3 strength, 3 craft, 1 fate and 4 life.
Knight
The Knight character in Talisman starts with the sword from the purchase deck. Any location on the board that denotes praying will allow 2 to be added to the result of the role. Examples of spaces like this would be the church. This character does have limitations though. The character will always be alignment of good regardless of any effects that may change the character alignment. In addition to this, the Knight is not allowed to attack other good characters until at the Crown of Command.
The Knight has 1 fate, 4 life, 4 strength and 3 craft making him a relatively strong character in the beginning of the game along with his sword.
Sage
The Sage starts the game with 1 spell. At the start of a your turn, if your character does not have a spell, draw a spell. The coolest part of playing the sage is that this character always gets to know the top card of the spell deck and the adventure deck. The Sage character has 3 fate, 4 life, 2 strength and 2 craft. All in all, this character is one of my favorites to play when I get the chance.
The Reaper in Talisman
No longer will you be only encountering the reaper in the center of the board, but across the entire world at any given time. The reaper is the main mechanic of this expansion and is simple to understand while adding a greater sense of morality.
So here is how the reaper works. When a player roles to move on their turn and they role a 1. They will then move the reaper at the end of their turn. The reaper can move to any space in any direction.
After the player finish their turn in which they rolled a 1 to move. They will then role to move the reaper as well. If the reaper lands on another player(s), those players must encounter the reaper.
Encountering the reaper requires the player to role the 6 sided die and accept the result of what is role. The effects are located on the reaper card that comes with expansions.
Some of the effects can be as serious a immediate death, or be as beneficial as gifting a craft, or strength.
Talisman Warlock Quest Cards
The Warlock quest cards are used as an alternative to the base board quests at the Warlocks cove place in the middle region of the Talisman base set board. Instead of picking a quest from the board, a player may also draw from the warlock quest. These quests are nothing special but make for a more interesting option to receive a Talisman.
Warlock quests in Talisman are used for receiving a Talisman. The Talisman is an object needed in order to enter the portal of power. This is the door at the center of the board to get to the crown of command.
There are several other expansions that contain warlock quests as well so this is a deck that has potential to grow substantially. If you are looking for a expansion that contains many more warlock quests, I would recommend the Frostmarch expansion which contains 24 warlock quests.
If you are looking for better rewards on warlock quests, the Sacred pool expansion comes with alternatives to receiving Talismans when completing a Warlock quest.
Talisman Spell Cards
The spell cards that come with the Reaper expansion offer some new and unique spells that are slightly stronger than what was released with the base set. These cards can be added into the base game spell deck and share the same backs.
Talisman Adventure Cards
The adventure cards are additional cards that are added to the base game adventure deck. They have different encounters with monsters, items, and events. There is a good amount of cards that come with this set that when using just the Reaper expansion with the base game results in a healthy mix.
The Adventure cards have a Skill mark on each card that denotes that it belongs to the Reaper expansion so it’s easy to separate the cards out if you want to remove the expansion from your adventure deck.
Should I Buy Talisman Reaper Expansion?
If there is one expansion that is worth purchasing for your Talisman 4th Edition revised game. I recommend this one. It’s easily one of the most simple expansions to set up and learn as well as compliment the base game. This expansion adds stakes to the game like no other with the idea of instant death. It also adds a lot of hilarity to the game when everyone sends the reaper to one player.
That is probably why the Reaper expansion also sits at the top of our Talisman Expansions ranked article.
So if you found this article helpful and want to see a review on other expansions comment below and share this article around. You can also support us by picking this expansion up for yourself using our Amazon affiliate link here.
