Talisman - The Ancient Beasts Expansion

The first time I played this I thought it was simply annoying and wondered why I'd bothered buying it ... however ... having now played it about half a dozen times as the only expansion and then another dozen or so times will multiple combinations of expansions I feel it is, on balance, one of the better ones. There are only four expansions I ALWAYS use in a game (when I'm not testing a new one out) and this is only of them (the other three being Nether Realms, The Reaper [or whatever the one with Death is called] and Sacred Pool). It makes quite a bit of difference to how you approach the game and whilst is isn't uncommon to simply lose the game if the 'wrong' beast turns up and you can't get rid of it in time - and being run over by a t-rex is also a fair enough way to lose a game in any event. Overall I'd give it 8.5/10

This expansion pack adds super hard monsters and more challenges to the game. The monsters don't just sit there, they come after you and eat other monsters on the board, among other things. Very cool, recommend for a challenge.

Most found this expansion overwhelming and whatever. and i can agree with that when you first start using this expansion. but once you have died a few times and lost a few games with it, then the magic starts to happen. Because you begin to learn how to take out all the beast. But i'll tell you something once you learn how to win these amazing creatures, all the beast rewards you get are so much fun! i love killing beast and getting there powers and rewards, makes your game experience down the line a blast cause you feel so powerful. i always have this expansion active. Of course if you start with the wrong beast, you can have a tough game and lose ( but just laugh it off and start again, its more than worth it) there is only two beast that if you start with them, you can get screwed. the rest of them are more then capable of being defeated. this was one of my first expansions and so glad i bought it. cheers an as always enjoy Talisman! muahahaha ..

Mate these beasts pop up all the time and roam the map cooking your crew pretty quick, makes an unforgiving game more unforgiving. No chance to take them out cos they're massive. The idea is good though, on an actual board you'd make house rules to chill this expansion out a bit

Terrible expansion. The variety in the power level of the Ancient Beasts is just too wide - some will just be a nuisance of sorts, others will put your game on a clock you can't control and fuck over whatever strategy or narrative you had going.

It's not the best expansion but it grew on me. There are some impressively hard beasts and it definitely adds some challenge. As with all of the expansion DLCs, you can try before you buy - there's one that can be played for free every week, and it changes every Monday. Or, you can keep setting your computer clock ahead a week until you find the one you want to play.

The ancient beasts expansion is pretty ordinary and underwhelming in my opinion, probably my least favourite of the expansions so far. The idea behind the ancient beasts is interesting, but it's just the endings and the mechanics I think that are disappointing. Luckily it's cheap on steam, but I wouldn't pay for a physical copy of this expansion.

Might be my favourite Talisman expansion. The Beasts have a huge impact on play without slowing it down, great variety and strong flavour.

I REALLY enjoy this DLC, however after playing just few games I found 2 beasts that are quite unbalanced. Unfortunately I cannot tell you their exact names, because there's no bestiary of sorts anywhere, however i will describe what are their abilities and why i think it breaks the game a lil bit. First is a monster that looks like nighmarish hydra. It picks up all monster cards from ground up to 20. Each monster gives it a bonus 1 to damage. It's base stats are 1 hp, 8 str, 8 int. It also has INFINITE movement range per turn. If it collects all 20 monsters, it then moves to ravine and destroys everything, aka wins. This one is an absolute... monster. It has 3 problems with design. 1. It scales EXTREMALY QUICKLY. If anyone in any zone fails to kill a monster, this beast gets 1 bonus damage. Sounds manageable if you can cheese it very early, however even with cheese heroes it outscales them very fast. You simply have to win BEFORE it collects 20 'trophies'. 2. Each time you fail to kill a monster, the beast stampedes at you (even from the corner of farthest zone) And you lose 1 HP without any way of defending yourself. So not only you lose 1 HP to monster, you also lose 1 HP to the beast. 3. To kill this beast when it stacked trophies, you have to battle it THAT MANY TIMES as it has throphies.. IN A ROW. You are rewarded for each head, but when it has 25 + dice damage, there's not that many folks that can cover the damage gap with their hero-gimmicks EACH TURN. You simply have to rush at breakneck speed to finish the game if this monster spawned early and you don't have enough power to destroy it fast. Second monster is almost a non-issue compared to the first, however it is still kind of infuriating. This one hops between outer and middle zones (river) while leaving terrain card that heals heroes and lets them pick up an adventure card. It's extremaly mild effect... Untill one player is casting the final, command spell. You see, those zones can heal players quickly. Quicker than you can dish out damage. That is a big time-waster. The first beast SERIOUSLY needs some redesign. Maybe have it movement range limited to 3 dies (or dices?), or/and definitely remove that awful mechanic of players losing HP when beast jumps at their position. You simply cannot fight it. It's double loss. It's AWFUL. Second, healing, needs to simply be disabled when someone casts spell of command. There's also tiny problem with survivability of beasts. Some of them are literally made to be as close to unkillable as they can get without having "can't die lol" in their description. Beyond that I really enjoyed this DLC. I definitely havent seen all beasts and didnt grasp all of their mechanics. I kinda recommend this DLC... with a table spoon of salt, cause as much fun it is, it might screw you really really really hard.

Annoying expansion which ends the game abruptly or too quickly. I've played with this one numerous times but never enjoy the games when it's enabled. I now uncheck this one as there are much better DLCs to play with that don't cause so many issues.

Complicated but fun. Recommend limiting the number of beasts that can be on the board in the options. Otherwise it gets insanely chaotic. Fun characters.

This expansion is more frustrating than fun. In my current game, I've got 9 Beasts running around. I can't level up because one of the monsters has sucked up all the enemy cards. Another monster keeps sucking up all the objects. Another monster kills anybody it runs across, which it does often. Another monster sucked up every weapon from every character in the game (and gets bonuses from all of them). Which would be okay, if I had some enemies to kill and trophies to trade in. But I don't, because of the monster already mentioned that sucks up all the enemy cards. And the AI basically ignores the Beasts, so if you want them off the board, you have to kill them yourself. Might be more fun with multiplayer, but for single player vs. AI, it's pretty bad.

This, amongst the expansions, is probably the worst. How much play testing was done on this expansion prior to release ? It's utterly unbalanced, especially if you play with the AI who will generally ignore the Ancient Beasts. Most move around the board at various speeds, frequently eating objects or enemy cards they land on before heading slowly (relatively, the boards aren't that big) to their target square at which point the game ends in defeat. Most have very high stats and all are out of touch for most starting characters so your characters have to accumulate significant boosts to their starting stats before turning to face them. By that stage the game may be over. As a dice based game even pursuing the Ancient Beasts is no straightforward matter. And since many have multiple lives it's not even in the short term worth getting into these tough fights. Talisman is a very good game that I'll review at some point but this is a lousy expansion and the only one I'm going to switch off when playing the game although extra characters and game cards are still usable (I hope). The devs should really be ashamed of this one. S.x.

Buying this expansion appears to have caused all my progress to reset! About the expansion itself- could be one of the best by introducing interesting elements into the play in the form of roaming monsters, but my experience so far has been that some are way over powered. Since you have a limited time to kill them before they end the game, just become too powerful to ever kill, or the number of monsters multiply out of control, you're pretty much stuffed unless you get very lucky with the monster selection and adventure card draws. Can't recommend, regret buying. (Accidentally left running at one point so can't refund or I would :(

MAJOR GLITCH! Game keeps crashing! Get the bugs out and it'll be awesome. Too expensive if it doesn't work.

You have not played talisman until you've been road-killed by a giant dinosaur who has a touch of the tisms, and a klepto-maniac crab.

New DLC is always good news! Lot's of fun, still some bugs to fix.

Fun and original content