Vindication: Chronicles - Discussion

0:07 thank you some viewers may find the following video disturbing viewer discretion is advised hey everyone welcome back to board games unlocked and Brian are doing a no run through review on the newest expansion to Vindication Chronicles uh which we had done a run through and review over just base Vindication I think we had a few minor expansions in that yeah so go check that out end our discussion but I think over the years we have always said well Vindication needed was story because they have this awesome World orange nebula has like two games out uh their newest one being unsettled has really good writing so it's like okay so they have good Riders um this game begs for a uh like some story element to kind of give you Rhyme or Reason or events that are happening and then I think shortly after that they announced Chronicles right which is basically that like 100 it adds pretty much everything I was asking for in this game uh and so we just got done playing a game with just the Chronicles expansion basically isolated it out and I guess I guess a few minor with the pet the pets have to be included um and the loots have to be included but those are just decks of cards in a tile you're not adding in like the the massive like all right here's your new board or anything so with that being said uh we just looked up where these

1:37 games were in our top 100 it was 74 for me so with the Chronicles expansion first what are your thoughts on it and second because we just finished our top 100 uh would this expansion move it up like would it shift it uh in any way within your top 100. um it's it's kind of it's It's a tricky one because I like I like the story elements that got put into it but it almost comes with a cost to me and and the cost is it almost Waters the game down in a weird way okay because like I don't I didn't feel like and I mean I know I wasn't doing as much with this certain playthrough you did a lot of the events right and I did more of that right but it felt like there wasn't as much like in a base game of indication there's a lot of control there's a lot of stuff going on the board it's like it's almost like it's taken away from the board okay with and I'm not saying that's a bad thing it's just it I think it changes the base game of vindication a little bit because you're doing more of the events and stuff and not focusing on the tiles if you know what I'm saying sure because like because like I have three controls you have one control like the last time we played this full through I mean we had control everywhere and it was battling for control and everything it's like like

3:08 this you know you never went to a place that I had control of no and I so it's like it almost and like I said it kind of watered the base game down a little bit while adding story you know it's like yeah you know so I mean it's uh we didn't filter through these decks a ton we didn't well that I enjoy no no no I I I do too but I mean this is like yeah I don't know it's kind of a weird it's it's weird yeah so it kind of for me is because this is not an ameritrage game you're not constantly uh in you know in flavor text and and lore like this isn't like text like sleeping Gods it's not telling a story it's just like it's kind of like if you're playing Elder chore which I know you haven't played but it's kind of like every time you draw a deck and you're reading an event it's like okay well this isn't connected this right sequence of stuff that's happening so I I do see where you're coming from uh basically all the stuff that Chronicles adds is kind of like well that's what you're doing now you're you're going after the events because you want to fill out your sheet um you want to fill out your sheet because it's going to get you a bunch of points in these legendary powers um but at the same time it's like because I never I like I don't play Vindication really for control anyway to me control is like yeah you're gonna get two points it kind of gives you points if people are gonna use it um like I never went that route I always

4:40 kind of went for oh what kind of character do I want to be I wanted to be the you know magicians smart guy right uh so I went High relics and then eventually had some strong people to go fight Monsters uh well also so I because I do like Elder chore and stuff like that the story worked really well for me because it was kind of like instead of just being this guy who shows up you're a big piece of [ __ ] and you're like I think I'll go change I'm gonna go kill some monsters okay we'll go do that it turned it still a euro and it's basically a Euro with a slight storytelling element now um so it I I do see where you're coming from is that you no longer have a drive to try and take control from people um but I don't know like I I mean I have a bunch of well no but we only visited half the tiles too that was another thing it's like like we didn't even touch half the tiles and use their abilities either and I don't know if it was just the way the game was being played this time or yeah but but it's like I mean I visited a few times I mean you know it's like we weren't using some of the tiles didn't get touched well yeah yeah so it's it's just kind of a weird like I said it's not a bad thing necessarily it's just kind of like I don't know it there was a lot got added when we added the Chronicles so it kind of when I say watered down I mean I know that sounds negative maybe bloats it yeah maybe a little bit something something like that because that's like

6:10 I only work two things off of this yeah I wasn't even worried about this like because it was just like I'm just gonna worry about vindicating myself I'm just kind of doing stuff you know it was just kind of a weird a weird thing you know like I I found myself trying to play regular Vindication yeah instead of the story you know because I you know and stuff which I went all in on the story because I'm like okay well this is what I want so and you almost slapped me so I mean yeah that was something I was gonna say and I feel like it's almost kind of like a lot of expansions it's like if you add in the expansion it's kind of like well if you don't touch that you're not gonna do well I was doing this but these didn't really do a whole lot no the the events are kind of they're they're ways for you to get renowned which are these new tokens that were added and Renown is basically used in a couple ways it's other ways for you to kind of just get a few more piddly honor points at the end but also if you fill out one of the six attributes three times you get a check mark on them you get access to the legendary ability which is seven points in and of itself now Renown is used to do the special ability which is three points each time you use it so if you fill out the the legendary card it's a total of 16 points if you fill it out but then uh thematically it's like hey you're now abusing your power you can keep doing it but then you lose honor each time you do it uh but that's really what they're for is

7:41 like the events get you the Renown which then you can use to uh use the legendary billion just get check marks um also renowned is used for the fire wind Festival which I used once in this last game I found it to be a bit much honestly it the fireman Festival to me was the one thing that I'm like that's an afterthought like Renown should be like worth two points for each one not used at the end or something but it's like they're not worth anything on their own uh so it's kind of like they were like ah [ __ ] okay where do we put them correct like so they have the firewood Festival where it's like okay you can get these tokens over here and they could be useful I mean when you go there like I spend uh I spend the knowledge and I can get this token for three on or I can go there and I can get this loot card I can go here and I can get this wild so there it's kind of like one thing that it's like if you have nothing else to do your movements to and you need to get all the way over there you're like okay well I'll just hug the coast join the festival and maybe get something out of it that was the one thing I didn't really care for but with that being said um it could have been and I think the the point spread was mainly just because I just happen to have a really good balance I'm gonna bounce and stuff around constantly bouncing influence around popping it spending those to move stuff around to then use it so I was just generating a bunch of trait tokens that I didn't have to go out of my way

9:13 for um so it uh I don't really attribute that to the Chronicles expansion oh no I and like I said this is it's not going to change my score the second part of your question the Chronicles is going to keep Vindication the same score gotcha I'd have given it back in the back because I I want to explore it yeah more like I mean we made we touched there's cards cards yes and and I have I wanna I wanna try this because you can do this Chronicles solo so I want to try it that way as well yeah I don't know how without the whole competitive aspect just to see what right what it is like yeah I feel like especially because we we've played the Chronicles at two um the area control aspect I found to be obviously more heavy involved in more players right uh so if one person isn't doing it then it's like okay well that leaves up to you the run around you need conviction you need to control start doing it just to make sure like honestly like I've never really found this game to cons I never considered it an area control game uh even though it's just one little part of it yeah I mean honestly like I thought you were gonna end the game super early because you just needed to have five things controlled at one point because I only had one for ahead it wasn't going to make a difference well at the time you had three to my one so you just need to be like okay I'm gonna go here control go here and control and I'm like well uh because then I wouldn't have been ahead at that point but the great thing

10:45 about the storytelling is the events are there I like that they're there they're kind of just like board present stuff hey this uh and they're humorous as well right like thank God this game looks like it'd be the most serious game on the planet but no orange nebula has found a really good balance of injecting humor into certain elements like hey here's some serious one like the one of the events we had was you were going to the Menagerie and there was a menagerie event that came out that was like Hey this really shitty uh new hire is abusing the animals and a squirrel has led a revolt against him so you couldn't even go there you had to go help with the Revolt uh and and then you've got the once you did that you've got the new hire as a prisoner but prisoner was marked out and so it's as a companion and it ended up being The Beastmaster yeah the Beast mistress which I was like how appropriate like because it was just so Random and because I I enjoy the fact that you go to a location and you're like I'm gonna get this companion just whatever companion and you just draw a card from the end deck and you're like it tells you kind of what happened and how they joined you you gonna fight the monster or defeat the monster you kind of give you something about him one of mine was you find out that one of the monster used to be human it can either still kill him or you can try and help him but it doesn't

12:17 go any further than that right it almost has kind of a above and below story no yeah you're right it doesn't really talk about the outcome a whole lot it just does the decision at that time and then yes that's it that's a good way of putting it because yeah it's like oh well did I did I help him turn to human none of that no yeah there's there's no long uh like storytelling you don't flip through cards and be like okay since you chose that option you're gonna go look for this card there's none of that it's kind of like one-off events but still gives it some Rhyme or Reason like at the end of the day it's kind of like Caldo Adventure just good um where I can look at my character and kind of be like and and kind of tell a story of how I I mean I never Vindicated myself um I did you did yeah I I theoretically couldn't or would have been very hard for me to because my um secret Quest was the prize Cracker Jack and I needed to have at least five of my potential at the end of the game so you're right I could have moved them all out and then Vindicated and move them all back but I'm like that just seems like way more work than than just leaving five in there um but I like that you can just kind of tell your own story and just have a humorous or a fun time with the events so I mean yeah that's that's pretty much that's pretty much it this would

13:47 probably raise my score of indication uh like 74 was after not playing it for quite some time uh so I'm like sitting here and I'm like man yeah this game is really good like the the one major complaint it's actually not even a game complaint it's more of a production complaint and it's like why'd you give us the biggest tiles for the tiniest bag yeah that did not change and I forgot about that it was whenever like I put them in here and I'm like oh yeah this is useless like why like my band can barely fit in here it's so stupid um but yeah I mean the the Chronicles expansion is exactly what I thought it was going to be maybe not with the fire wind I was like what the [ __ ] is that yeah no I I enjoyed what it added to the game like I said I think just with and maybe like you had said you know having more people play in this style more people would be more cards getting drawn more events happening because in a four I think it's in a four or five player game uh this third tile comes out so there's more events so more things are being affected right but I wanna I wanna see what solo brings to it as well yeah it adds uh there's like a sleeve those sleeves right that you kind of put these maybe these cards in it now I don't know if that's those sleeve work right with sleeved cards yeah but it's

15:17 not even half sleeved cards [ __ ] loser you know I need to buy them but yeah so uh I think this would stake and just write where it's at yeah just because I mean it adds that stuff to it but this game's been slipping a little bit the last couple of years anyway because this was a top ten game right three years ago so I mean this probably keeps it yeah it's at instead of it slipping more yeah sure yeah no I mean that's a good point I think what they did really well with this is all of their expansions have been small like I mean little mini modules here and there hey throw a pet throw this tile in here you know but then they have this one the God I'm dying over here apparently um The Villages and hamlets and the leaders and alliances and they've all been I mean this is the biggest box in terms of width yeah and I like that I like that they didn't lose focus I definitely see kind of where you're coming from where it does kind of pull Focus away where it's like insta instead of me being like Oh I should go get more companions for the end it's like well there's no events at the end right so like no main store so it's like oh I'm gonna go to the Menagerie instead just to do that well and that's another thing I want to uh like in in a normal Bland base game version of this one of the most important things you want to try to do is increase your mount yeah you have more moving you didn't increase your amount at all I almost never do I know but but I always do it just so I can have more options and stuff around and

16:48 it was just like I mean you were able to do everything you wanted to do just without even touching your yeah I think there were a couple times that's why that's why I put that out there right off the bat because I know because that's one of the things that people go to to get around all the time yeah and then nobody ever to me the mountains are increasing after multiple plays of just Vindication the mount is kind of like it depends on how the board's laid out and the board happened to be like okay well I was at the curio shop that was an event the Arcane Tower was right there and then everything else has happened to be nearby each other that I'm like okay I don't need to but increasing your amount could be really good for those events because it's like the monastery and the Menagerie are on complete opposite sides so if the events are if you just want to to go help out over there and then come all the way back then it's helpful where I'm like you're riding right and I'm still going in One Direction you're going back what's he doing because there was like because if you get your mouth fully pumped up to five yeah and then if you had this pet it actually makes it actually adds two spaces basically teleport yeah yeah I mean that's overall three four so seven that's 12 points um by upgrading your Mount and then obviously the pets which I was actually going and all those that happened to come out attached to a companion right um no this game just has so many options like and I actually think with the storytelling added because like that the

18:21 biggest deck is obviously the in deck right uh yeah one two three four five so seven cards were drawn three were for Monsters two relics one in and one loot so I drew from everywhere except the pets uh I did three events you did three events out of this massive stack of events uh what's also great is each card has basically two options on it two decisions the district decisions don't really like it's not like like it's not like now or never where you're gonna get a keyword or something and there's no negatives you're you're gonna what however you chooses you're gonna cross off a box on this attribute or the Saturday exactly yeah so it's not like super in-depth but at the end of the day um there is a lot of content there and I lost my journey I thought where I was going with that um but essentially I think the storytelling does enough to to Warrant getting this if you want that extra flavor text really oh yeah but don't go don't get this expansion and think it's going to make Vindication sleeping gods or D and D or whatever like it's it's not that type of game it's basically the best example I have is actually eldratore where you just have a bunch of hey here's something that happens and then what do you do and that's it it's

19:51 adding as much story to our Euro as you really can exactly without making it and what's great here's the best thing about it's not a campaign yeah and then be like hey here's the storytelling campaign expansion it's like oh God never mind right so for people who want storytelling but not have to commit to a 30-hour campaign yeah I mean Vindication is great I don't think this is warranted like going out and buying Vindication right like I would say still at the end of the day Vindication is a euro game that has theme to it and this decides more theme but it's not like oh man yeah you this is a must I don't think the Chronicles expansion is a must oh no no um not at all I mean it was a top 100 game without that exactly before so yeah and I mean honestly I think like some people might like the ambiguity they might like to be a little bit more free-forming in who their character is versus kind of being told what you're doing you know where it's like if you're reading a story and it's like oh man here's what happens convenient indigestion do you do this or this it's like well I don't want to do any of those based off the character I have in mind right so but it's not that like super clear cut I also like the fact that you tuck the card underneath to show kind of like to remind yourself what story you did um well I like it I like it I think it's a good expansion and the uh the was the world Odyssey box is that what it was

21:21 called I can't remember no that's because that's the Odyssey thing over there this was just the oh it was called the world box yeah okay like what that massive that massive boxes yeah this uh this thing I gave cat the sticker see I didn't get I don't have that you didn't get this there was an add-on thing was it oh I didn't I didn't add it on well it's interesting I have 15 more cards as a promo and whatever the [ __ ] this is I didn't the Odyssey board thing I didn't want to I didn't feel like adding no idea what this is anyway yeah um but it also came with a sticker and what's also kind of neat is the story patch which is this just says Let the dead past bury it's dead and it has like this big Psalm like that's actually written really well I enjoyed it quite a bit um yeah I don't know what the the I guess it is a rule the Odyssey module rules and setup but what do you think of the uh the world Odyssey box right it was a little confusing at the beginning when I first started setting it up but it all fits in there fine yeah I know it all sits in there nice and and everything all the game trays yeah uh inserts and stuff they actually made it where everything fits in there very nice yeah everything like from every expansion um which I would assume they're done with this game considering that that box is full yeah but knowing orange nebula and how they did unsettled it's like oh nope they're gonna make a [ __ ] expansion and it's gonna be like oh they

22:53 said it right on top yeah because unsettled was like here's the big game box it fits two planets in it here's six others yeah okay oh I think it was I mean we we'd been clamoring for that box for a long time yeah and and I think they'd wait you know obviously they were waiting until they had their content out exactly they had the um they had the the game trays insert for the base game and then they did the leaders and alliances and you're like that's annoying yeah uh because there's nothing worse than having like an ins a designed insert because it's like if it's Fantasy Flight and they do their trench thing and they have expansions you're not expecting anything quality um but yeah with this the the world Odyssey box is awesome I also I the one thing I will say is I hate the design of the Box though because the other the black box was full art on it and this is like some little snippet of that and it's just a white box yeah well that kind of looks lame but yeah it works extremely well uh it fits everything uh awesome and yeah I mean this is still a table this is a massive table hog now like the Chronicles expansion was after setting it up I was like oh no like imagine if you had like every expansion you were playing with that and it's just like well I don't have a roommate I can only play that too because my table doesn't fit anymore um but yeah that's uh that's the Chronicles

24:23 expansion on a scale of one to ten what would you give it well I was trying to remember I don't remember what I gave indication it's 34 so it's like a six for you it's basically I can't remember if I did it in an 8.5 or a nine yeah it's been quite a few years I'm just gonna say it's the same it's gonna be the same you know now as it was so okay 8.5 yeah I think that's maybe what I put yeah but I mean it's it's great it's good awesome game yeah I want to explore this solo war and it may even go up more I just want to you know yeah I think it would cause the indication to go up um mainly not it's weird because I don't think the chronological expansion by itself is the reason it's because I've now replayed I'm like oh this is good right uh and I love the fact that because there's a lot of games that come and you could have like a new thing and you run through it all immediately there's still so much so many cards to that were not touched um I do enjoy this game at two uh quite a bit but uh I think the Chronicles expansion by itself would be an eight and it would probably keep Vindication at about an eight yeah it's kind of where where I'm at well that works because I have a 35. that's true so that point five really jumps it up 40 spots that's the real difference there yeah yeah now you understand the real process of why can't fall real basically that's that point

25:54 five higher than this one so uh so many good games though that's very true so yeah definitely check out Chronicles if you just want more story to Vindication uh otherwise honestly if you like Vindication by itself it's not adding new content it's adding just story so it's not like if you don't want story in this at all you're like you like the pure Euro then do not touch it but yeah that's our thoughts on the Chronicles expansion for Vindication let us know what you think of the game and the expansion in the comments below other than that like comment share and subscribe and have a wonderful with everyone hey everyone thank you for watching and I really hope that you enjoyed the video if you would like to see more of my content go ahead and click that subscribe button and the bell to be notified whenever I upload any new content if you feel like supporting the channel you can go ahead and click that patreon link to be taken to my patreon and any help is truly appreciated other than that stick around for any any other run throughs or reviews or cool top tens or whatever I feel like putting on other than that like comment share and subscribe and have a wonderful whatever time of day it is for you