Beast: Ashfall Review - New Creatures To Hunt...And New Hunters To Help
Transcript
Hey, I'm Alex Radcliffe from Board Game Co. And today I'm reviewing the newest and I believe the final expansion for Beast, Beast: Ashfall. Before we dive into it, this is a prototype. All rules and components subject to change. And I'll have a link to the crowdfunding campaign down below. Now, I'll give you a short overview of what Beast is, how it works, general idea in 30-60 seconds, before diving into what the expansion adds. And then speaking of which, I probably should call this a first impressions rather than a review, because while I have played with everything in the prototype, the prototype specifically, the rulebook for the prototype specifically says there's more stuff and not everything is included in here. So, this this is whatever I have access to, not whatever might be. For example, we have Oma, Butcher of the Mists, which I really realize now I really hope I'm allowed to show you this because they put this in the in the game box. There's There's something coming that hopefully you're allowed to see.
Anyways, let's go ahead and dive into it. What is Beast? Beast is a hidden movement game in which players are going to be playing as the hunters hunting down the beast. You're going to be playing utilizing contracts as your kind of your scenario, so to speak. The things that give you the general idea, which board you're playing on, specific rules, uh rewards you get at the end of each night, how the beast actually wins because the beast wins based on the contract. Whatever the contract says to do, the beast wins. For example, in this contract, the beast would win if it killed two of these three guys over here. The hunters, on the other hand, they win when they kill the beast. When the hunters take down the beast, regardless of the contract, uh they take down the beast and then they win. Now, the reverse is not true. If the beast kills the hunters, the hunters will come back to life and respawn, which is actually a specific uh aspect of one of these hunters more so than usual. So, the general idea, hidden movement game, you're playing out these rounds. You get to start with drafting cards. You have this pool of shared action cards, as well as each hunter having their own specific set of ability cards. And you're going to each hunter and beast have their own ability cards. And then from these shared action cards, you're going to be drafting them with the mindfulness that when the beast drafts a card, there's two sections on each card, the hunter's action and the beast action. So, you're not just going for what do you want as the beast? You're also going for what can you deny the hunters? And the reverse is true as well. When the hunters are looking at their hand, they're like, "Oh my gosh, this card is not great for me, but it's devastating if the beast gets it. I need to take it." There is definitely a component of hate drafting in this game as you try to pass the action cards and choose what's going to work well to complement your own ability cards, the current board state, and the other action cards you already have, and the strategy you're going to use to take down the beast and/or accomplish your
goals as the beast. So, you're drafting these action cards. That's the pre-phase of each round. And then from there, you take turns playing action cards. It's all printed on the board handily handily over here, giving you exactly the breakdown. You can play one red and one blue card, or you can flee, or you can pass. There's small things you can do, but generally you're trying to figure out how to, if you are the beast, accomplish your objectives without being seen too early. You'll be using a movement track on the side as the beast, in which when you move, you're not actually going to move your figure. This is a hidden movement game after all. But, you'll be placing cards down indicating whether you didn't move at all, whether you moved west, east, north, etc. Except, you're placing them face down as a tracker, but the hunters have to figure out, "Okay, your last known location was here. Where have you moved if you've moved three?" You could have gone one, two, three. You could have gone forward and then double back. You could have sat there and did no movement cards in a row. You have all these options as the beast as far as how you're going to play mind games with the hunter, but you also have a timer on you. Because the other way that the hunters win is if time runs out. If it all the nights of the contract expire, and if you as the hunters have not if the you as the beast have not accomplished your goal, then the hunters win by default. So, you can't just play you can't find me the whole entire game.
Can't find me will result in you not being found, it will also result in you losing the game. And that's where each hunter has their own unique board over here as far as their own set of abilities and action cards. The beast have their own board as well with their specific summons, their abilities. And each night, there's also a level up phase where players are going to be spending the grudge they've earned, the hunters primarily through the use of action cards, and the beast primarily through hunting various innocent creatures on the board and killing them, which will result in the beast popping up, so to speak, but will also result in the beast gaining the grudge that they can spend on the abilities. And that's a good segue to talk about the new things that we see in this expansion, which are going to be, or at least, again, the things I have so far, which so far are going to be three new hunters, Brom, Drogg, and Nora. We have two beasts, although again, we have that tease of things to come. I don't know what else is to come, but we have Ragnar and Liden and Yelter. And then we have two small new mechanical updates. The mechanical updates is we have boats. We have boats for the hunters, which the hunters can discard any card to go ahead and use a boat to move to any other named settlement on the board. That allows for quick access when things are in a tight spot. One of the downsides of the original game is that sometimes when you sit there and make plans as far as what you think the beast did, and the beast is all the way on the other side of the board, sometimes it can be difficult to go ahead and traverse where you need to get, and it can be a frustrating experience. Congratulations, you outwitted us, but now we have to spend basically all our cards just to move as much as we possibly can across the board. It can be a little frustrating when you commit to something and have to spend the entire everything to go ahead and fix that thing. So, shortening the
distance, or giving players, hunters specifically in this case, the ability to shorten that distance is a good little update over there. You also have these kind of tunnel tokens. Tunnel tokens that can go in the board, connecting various zones. Those do have a restriction that you have to, in order to use a tunnel entrance, it has to be your preferred terrain in order to utilize it, which means the beast has a little bit more flexibility on those as the game begins. The hunters possibly can uh manipulate the terrain to go ahead and utilize those a bit more, but again, both cases, both the terrain those both those little tunnels and the boats are kind of ways of crossing larger distance with less effort, allowing players to do more of the stuff that's cool on their cards, as opposed to focusing more on the movement you need on those cards. Those are going to be the small little mechanical changes before we get into the new characters and all that. As far as the new characters, we have Ragnar over here, a god of fire, I mean, herald of the abyss, but basically fire. Ragnar over here is going to be utilizing grudge tokens to power up his cards, slotting grudge tokens onto his board, which is going to make his cards more powerful.
When he plays a card, it has an ability, but it has a stronger ability if he's powered up his little player board over here. Although, when players deal wounds to Ragnar, they can actually take away those grudges over there, weakening him as he goes. So, he's basically spouting fire everywhere, and his cards are getting stronger, but then possibly players can weaken him. Lilit and Ylgr, Ylgr comes into play with a stronger summons than usual. As opposed to a bunch of weak summons, uh summons are little characters that the beasts can control and utilize to accomplish their goals. Although, they don't get grudge when it kills things, so you still have to pop up and show your face here and there. But, Lilit and Ylgr has a stronger summons, a summons that will actually, when dealing damage to the various characters, will actually utilize that damage as a resource that they can spend on their action cards. Basically, you deal damage, you gain that as a resource, and then you can spend it to power up your action cards in the game. And then from there, it's also a stronger one. It's like a three health, has a lot more tools as far as how it can move and do things. But, also when you kill the summons, you do deal one damage to Lilit. There is a soul bond between them. I'm just saying a soul bond. There's some sort of bond between them, uh and that's going to make it a stronger summons, but possibly with a bit of a downside. That's going to be the two new beasts that I played with. And then we have for the new characters, we have Nora the Wild Huntress. Nora primarily operates more with the animals on the board, utilizing them for a variety of purposes to search locations, to find trails, and even to attack at times. Drogg is that hunter I mentioned, that deathbound hunter. He actually powers up as he dies. Normally, when a hunter dies, they'll just respawn. It's not great, it's not convenient, but you do you are still in the game. Whereas, Drogg over here, he actively wants to die. Some of his cards will help him take wounds when he dies.
It also means he can take advantage of the cards in the action deck. Some of the cards in the action deck allow you to basically spend health. Those are even stronger for Drogg, and the beast needs to take that into account. Because as Drogg dies, he'll slowly level up, getting stronger, until eventually at the top of the track, in which case at that point, he just dies. There's only so many times you can cheat death before you are not stronger so much as dead. That's basically Drogg's little device over here, getting stronger as he dies. And then Bram's going to be placing additional barriers, not these kind of tunnels over here. Little barriers will be going on the board, allowing him to control more of the board and having more control over the possible options the beast had at their disposal. Those are going to be the various new things we have in the game, which brings me to my thought on those new things. I already mentioned a little bit I already I already teased this or gave my a my opinion of these away, but when it comes to both the boats and the tunnels, I like how it adds additional movement systems to the board. Now, on the beast side, it does mean that sometimes you're looking at something you're like, "Oh, the beast just go ahead and put a summon down the board." So, if the summon is over here, the beast is here, which means it has to be moving this way unless of course it moved up here and then across over here. There are additional ways the beast can move that hunters need to take into account. So, yes, the hunters have more movement, too, because that boat opens up a lot of possibilities, but the beast can also move in different ways. So, it's both a pro for the hunters and the beast, which is good, keeps things balanced. But overall, I would say I am a fan of those new things with the mindfulness that it certainly can allow the beast to have more tools at their disposal. And if your boat's in the wrong place at the wrong time, in theory, you just gave the beast more of an edge than the hunters. As far as the new characters in the game, so far I I've enjoyed both of the Ragnar and
Lidna Yeltar are both solid additions to the to the roster of beasts. I think I prefer Lidna and Yeltar overall, having a very powerful summon on the board kind of changes up the way you operate as the beast because you can put a lot more focus on the benefits you get by basically utilizing Yeltar in order to accomplish your goals. You still won't get grudge, you still need to pop up, but it is an interesting new dynamic. Ragnar as well has that dynamic. Both of them have this aspect of gaining something and spending it as a resource to power up their cards or in the case of Yeltar, spending it. In the case of Ragnar, powering up their board and therefore their action cards. But both are fun additional beasts that tie nicely into the roster of beasts we already have. As far as the characters, Ram is fun overall. Putting down barriers is definitely a fun thing to do. I would say my least favorite from the new characters because it's more it's more about the control of the board state as opposed to feeling cool, and I like feeling cool in games. But it definitely is very useful as a character. I just find it a less cool as far as the feelings I get. Yeah, I put out a a barrier. I block thing I block the path. It is essential and it is helpful. But more importantly for me, I enjoyed Nora and Drogg more. Nora's a lot an interesting aspect to be able to utilize all of the animals on the board in different ways. That's something new I haven't seen with the other hunters at least I don't recall with other hunters utilizing. And so the amount that she controls and can even ride boars across the across the the the realm, utilizing a sheep to move and attack if the beast ends revealed in the end state which often can happen, you are risk of basically any sheep on the board. You need to be mindful of which sheep you kill and therefore whether it's worth popping up your head, but that could be the thing that allows a sheep to kill you. So it's definitely a nice little edge over there. I enjoyed thematically and mechanically what Nora's doing. And
then Drogg, I love dying and getting more powerful in games. Cathulu Death May Die is one of my favorite games of all time and that has the aspect of, you know, just getting more powerful as you get closer to death. And that kind of has what Drogg has. Drogg leans into that death. Though the beast still can get corruption if it's the one killing you, so you need to be mindful of that. But as you die, you can power up and you can even die when the beast might have killed you to deny the beast that corruption and I enjoy that mechanical a lot. So overall, that's the new content or the new content I have access to. As far as final thoughts and rating on the expansion, I generally rate expansions based on what I feel they added to the game, not based on what the original game is for me. And so far, I would give Beast Ashfall a tentative cuz again, more content coming, a tentative a four out of five. It's fun. There's more characters, there's more beasts. It seamlessly integrates with your game. There's not a ton of new rules to add.
It's a very easy to incorporate game. You can go ahead and just grab a character and utilize it or you can read the one page of rules as far as how these things get added. So it's a very low overhead to add it. It just gives you more characters both on the beast side and the hunter side with a few small rule tweaks. And overall, it's a nice quality of life change. And in any case, until next time, I'm Alex Radcliffe from BoardGameCo. Hope you enjoyed this video and as always, I hope you have a good one.