Gertz

Talisman Fourth Edition…finally! I have played and loved this game for a long time now but by the time I started building my collection everything was out of print and copies were pretty expensive. I had been out of the boardgame community for some time and when I came back about two months ago I decided that the reprint of this game was something I had to get.

So lets talk components…lots of them…

The Box itself is another large box and once you break everything down you notice that you don’t really need all that space…maybe with expansions but for the core game there is a lot of empty space…looking at it it seems like cards should go there but they don’t really need to as they all fit in the larger card slots just fine.

Also, the plastic insert has a large slot for the character sheets. This slot is another waste of space…look how big it is for fitting a dozen or so thin character sheets…that’s another thing that seems pretty ******.

The Character Sheet cards are flimsy stock compared to the other chits I had to punch out. I would have much rather seen these with some added bulk to them since it seems like I will be handling them a little bit.

In contrast, the miniatures are great! A good amount of detail and emotion to them.

Best of all is that they are not pre-painted! I am a former miniatures gamer and while I do not play miniatures games very often anymore I still do love to paint miniatures. I will be getting down with these sometime in the future.

They will look great on the big old game board that it some with…look at my hand next to this monstrosity! My one complaint is that it was a little awkward to unfold at first and I got worried for a second that I would rip the binding on some of it.

Again though, in contrast…look at the size of the cards

These things are small…where the **** am I supposed to find sleeves for these things?

Going back to all the empty space in the box why not provide us with some full sized cards? I mean they would fit in the box just fine and I wouldn’t have to try and find some specialized card sleeves for them.

The dice and other components are nice, good card stock and die-cut on them. The Dice are really nice, at least the color anyway…who knows, they could be cursed for all I know but they look good.

Overview

This games has over exaggerated features; monster board and small micro cards. Some components are very well built and very nice; Miniatures, Dice and Chits. While the character sheet cards are flimsy.

I would have liked them to use the space in the box and make larger cards…they would have fit just fine and I would have been able to sleeve them at some point. I would also like to see thicker stock used for the Character Sheets…I hope my 15 month old never get a hold of these things.

You may say they could save space by using a smaller box but they would have to shrink the board to do that and the board is beautiful…it shouldn’t be touched

Ahhh Betrayal at House on the Hill, you are now part of my collection.

Years ago one of the regulars of my boardgame group picked this up at a convention for an inflated amount of coins. I would say it was well worth the amount he paid because aside from Arkham Horror, this got the most play of any of the games…but thats for a different submission. This is about components.

So lets start with the game board tiles. They seem pretty durable in the small square tiles that make up 95% of the tiles. The starting tile though reveals that it is a pretty weak piece of chip board, out of the box it is already a little warped and disfigured. Not a huge deal but it should be noted.

Next up are the cool little penta cards that have your character stats on them. These look pretty good and the pre-painted miniatures are not that bad either. They are even color coded so you know who is who by the color of the shirt and the color of the character card.

Now the game comes with a bunch of little plastic pointer pieces that attach to your card to indicate your current stats. My issue is that the slot that should fit a bit snugly against the character sheet in fact just falls off of it…every **** one of them does not stay put. Now the card should be on the table anyway but it could get knocked off, my cat could jump on the table, any number of things could happen that would result the plastic pieces falling off of them easily.

So now the cards…why? Why are the cards this shape? Please tell me? Why are they this long when they don’t have to be? I mean take a look at how much space there is…

Another sleeve dilemma…arghhhhh…Just make them normal size please. They do have a nice texture and quality to them though. They just require another strange plastic sleeve shape that I am not even sure is available.

Lastly, we have the chits.

Lots of them, they represent everything else in the game…yup the scary monsters are small cardboard chits that try to attack your cool character miniatures.

not that impressed to be honest, in comparison most of the other bits and pieces seem to be of pretty good quality and then 50% of the items you interact with on the board are flat…literally.

Overview

The game does a lot well. Sturdy small board tile cards…except the beginning room that’s a bit warped…good minis that are color coded to the great character sheets and a good card stock for the cards.

Why do you make cards that are an odd shape from every other cards out there? And, why put so much cool into a game with a theme and then ruin the theme by using small little cardboard circles for monsters and items. Totally pulls you out of the experience. I hope the next version of the game includes some miniatures for the other components as well.

An important part of tracking character progression through the game is ruined by little plastic pieces that easily fall off the character cards. They should have been a bit tighter.

7 Wonders was a game that I played at work and liked so I decided to pick it up in my July purchases…it came heavily suggested as well.

There isn’t a whole lot to the components to the game. A few decks of cards, seven wonders cards and some chits.

Again, as in some of my other component reviews, these boxes could be much smaller than what they are. I mean 7 Wonders just about fits in my Munchkin game box…a few too many cards to close all the way but its close.

The art is phenomenal on the cards and wonder cards, I think the theme is conveyed really well across everything. The components seem very well put together and the cardboard is a thick stock for durability.

Overview

Overall there isn’t too much to the game in terms of components.

The cards are of a good thickness and the thickness of the wonders cards and chits is great. The art is great across all of the components and keeps the theme throughout.

Again though…why are these games packaged in such large boxes for what they contain?

This is my initial review of the components after breaking the box open and going through everything in the box.

Everything was packed very well, nothing damaged at all and nothing missing from the inventory list.

The first thing I noticed was that the plastic insert not only held everything in place during shipping but also sorted all of the individual stacks of cards once opened. This is great because this probably saves about 5 minutes of set up time if you were going to play it.

There was also a small insert for the middle of the box that labels everything so you can grab whatever you want quickly. The opposite side is blank so you can sort them the way you would like to.

I have heard that previous additions didn’t have this feature and it was introduced in one of the expansions and then ported over for new printings of the core game. Kudos for seeing a problem, or a way to improve the game storage real estate, and implementing it.

That said…this box is rather large for basically a stack of cards. I think they could have made the box the same size as a normal card storage box and provided dividers for the cards to separate them.

The cards themselves are pretty durable but I now have to find some Euro sized plastic sleeves because they do have a black border and the wear will likely show pretty quickly. This was the case when I started playing Magic the Gathering back in Beta and with the expansions.

With the amount of shuffling you will do from playing the game going with White Borders for the cards would have probably been a better bet for “hiding” the wear of the cards for those that do not use sleeves.

That’s really all there is to the game…a lot of cards and a box.

Overview

While the individual slots are nice in the big box, using a smaller box and dividers could have been a better solution. Possibly cutting down the manufacturing costs and reducing the games foot print on a retail shelf, thus more copies fitting in the same space.

The cards seem durable but the game mechanics do require a lot of shuffling, you should pick up enough sleeves to cover all the cards. Since the cards have black borders the continuous shuffling will show the wear quicker but likely not ruin the cards and make them unplayable.