Summary of SOB Buying Guide - to spend around $500 1. Start with two Core Sets - I recommend Swamps of Death and Forbidden Fortress 2. Next get Frontier Town OR wait for the Feudal Village town expansion 3. Then get one deluxe Otherworld expansion - avoid Caverns of Cynder 4. Then get a couple deluxe enemy expansions 5. Next get a couple normal enemy expansions 6. Then One Boss / XXL encounter 7. Next get one Themed Mission pack 8. Offset any of the above sets / expansions with card packs from the FFP webstore 9. Remember to check the FFP webstore periodically throughout the year for sales

Solid video. I’ve been all in since my original minecart. That being said I have to commend you on the content, thought put in, and information given. Hit that nail right on the head. I’ve shown this game to a few friends and they all have shared some slight hesitation about adding it into their own stable of games. I’ll be directing them to your channel post haste.

Just started to play this game last week and I'm already in love with it.

This is a system I've been thinking of jumping in to, looking forward to the next episode.

Just got today the swamp core set, i am a bit overwhelmed regarding the amount of expansions, i love them, thank God i am a painter, so i can manage the assembly task.

Wow what an INCREDIBLE series of videos. Thank you very much, you have singlehandedly rekindled my passion for this game. Hope you and your family are safe and well during these difficult times.

Ah, my favorite game and can't wait to watch. This is my Covid game. Have been played it since from March 2020. Very much turned into a hobby. This game introduced me to build models, game organization systems, painting models ( 6 done so far!), not worrying about the rules, getting injured is fun, and mostly realized the game is about creating your own adventures and story lines. On my 3rd party group, still have about 40 missions left between now and Adventures KS arrives. I also really enjoy Flying Frogs, the number of fan Zoom calls they held during the year for Q & A was awesome. Yes lots of $$ spent, but fun.

I have about 20 dungeon crawlers at the moment and this is my favourite. Keep the SOB vids coming!

Collecting this game has become an obsession. Working on getting both core sets painted up so that we can finally begin. We played a practice run pre-COVID but this game has been on the back burner for a few years because my group has way too many games and I am itching to play. Also backed both Forbidden Fortress and the new Norse campaign on KS. Definitely need to look into a storage solution for all of this stuff. Great vid!!!

This series of videos was so incredibly helpful as someone who just discovered the game. Really enjoying all of the other videos I've seen so far on your channel. I would love to see a video of your dipping techniques for your miniatures as well. Thanks for the great content!

Insanely good video! Had to stumble through this on my own but you've really nailed the break down. Thanks

Thank you for the great series!! I am was planning to expanding my SoB collection and your information was really useful. After playing Forbidden Fortress I can’t get enough. Looks like I’m going to be grabbing the Swamps of Death! I really want to get the Forbidden Fortress town expansion as soon as I can. I respect Your knowledge and experience in this genre. This is the place to go to learn about all these amazing games. Thank you for all your hard work and thanks for the great content 😃😃👍

I have to thank you for this from what may be the "other side" of the aisle. It's helped me realize that SoB maybe isn't for me even tho the subject matter is neat. Thank you!

Going through and watching this to see if it would help newer players in one of my groups. @6:50 - an update that FFP have since begun releasing the hero expansions to retail (Plastic minis), with the exception of the Darkstone Shaman who is still to come out (hopefully soon). there are KS exclusive heroes and you'll need to back a KS to get those (old ones via the PM). There is currently a new KS running from 13th July 2023 for two weeks. Egypt and Hell Train theme (Hell Train was an unmet stretch goal from the first KS)

This was really helpful. Thanks so much. This was awesome! Keep up the good work. Loving it!

This was a great help. I just went to Flying Frog convention, Dicefest in the Seattle area. It was so much fun! Great recommendations. Specially with the card supplemental packs. Sometimes people think you need to buy the extra expansions which are fantastic however the supplemental packs really can help flush out the flavor of your existing game. I understand you are not far from them, wish we could meet at Mox to do of some FFP gaming.

Great idea for a video. SoB is my favorite overall dungeon crawling experience. When I saw the title, I mentally made a list for my own recommendations and they matched yours, point by point. One extra advantage of the deluxe enemy packs listed is that they expand the pool of ranged enemies, thus avoiding too many "stand two abreast in the doorway" melee fights. I would LOVE to see you do a video on how you handle the inventory of your heroes when they get to levels 3 or 4. This to me in the biggest negative, as there is SO much stuff it's hard to manage. I end up forgetting a certain bonus, or am off on my current health/sanity by several points. Keep up the good work. Ps - gotta plug my favorite themed mission pack, The Lost Army. Undead remnants of Santa Ana's columns, roaming the southwest, complete with a Hell Cannon!

Even thought I am already thinking my sob adventures warlord pledge will take very long time to assemble once it arrives I must say that the ffp kickstarters are great value compared to retail pricing. That's especially true if you live outside northern america. Of course you will have to deposit your money for a few years before you get the stuff, but great way to add new stuff to existing collection.

Will be interested to hear your house rules Daniel. I built up my collection by snaffling up second hand copy’s when possible. Collected everything over a 12mth and then spent a good couple of weeks gluing and organising. Now just getting settled in playing solo.

Daniel, MarcoOmnigamer finally persuaded me to play this game. I love this buying guide! I feel it enables me to jump in, make some purchases, and have a lovely pile of cards to enjoy. -Toby

I Have Last Night on Earth a game i really enjoyed from Flying Frog but i would love to get both Shadows of Brimestone & Forbidden Fortress

Plastic hero sets are available on the FFP store. Some of them are out now but more on the way. You can get alt gender sets in plastic at retail now. Just picked up the CotA alt gender set at my shop a couple months ago. The alt gender s3ts come with the upgrade charts, hero specific chits, mstarting upgrade/gear cards. I would say the best way to get a soft buy in with lots of hero choices for a group is one core and the alt gender pack of another. Getting 2 cores out the gate is a big investment and then you have lots of places to go but they arent very diversely populated. If you go FoFo then ToS really fleshes it out with 4 more characters and a bunch of fortress enemies but it is a pretty expensive box.

You might be able to find some Hero proxies in the Wild West Exodus product line. Many miniatures are hard plastic and are wonderfully detailed weird-west types (but in LOTS of pieces) though some are in resin so you have to check the descriptions.

FYI, all separate heroes for the western theme are now available (except dark stone shaman which will be later) in plastic, as opposed to resin, on flying frogs site. They'll also be available through normal retail channels eventually.

Good Guide. I started with CotA and SoD. Added the card packs then frontier town and some monster expansion. I love that in this system you can just start small(ish) and then pick the expansions one by on to your taste. My play buddy and I try to keep to the western theme. So we stayed away from forbidden fortress. But the Last KS got me to excited and I got all in (sigh). When it arrives I want to shelf most of it (maybe sell some stuff that does not interess me) and than intergrate it one by one into my existing playset. I like that thes KS-Expansions flesh out City of the ancienst and Swamps of death. Don't think we are ever going to play a viking- or conquistador-team (I may sell those of - along with the tredarra team and tank).

I just recently bought SoB, this was my shopping list: SoB city of ancient reviset Frontier town expansion Hero pack from swamp of death Blasted wasted deluxe expansion Trederra riders enemy pack Undead outlaw deluxe enemy pack Terralisk XL enemy pack Targa Guardian XL enemy pack

Just started looking at this game and I thought 'WHAT' -where do you begin ! This is brilliant and thanks.

Great advice and really good overview of the integral stuff to buy. I first was surprised to hear you say Forbidden Fortress and Swamps of Death as the core sets but totally makes sense if you are looking for the greatest variety. I’d maybe suggest holding off on “Cults of Crimson Hand” and suggesting the allies expansion in this core pack. It makes the game much more solo friendly in my experience without having to focus so much in handling multiple heros. My $300 shadows of brimstone purchase package for those looking for a bit more budget (ha) entry into the world of sob would be focusing on either western or Easter themed world. For western: Two revised core sets - $180 Frontier town - $40 Allies - $30 Then wait for the 3 for 2 card pack sale and for $40 get - the two mine encounter packs, trait deck #1 (turns the two base bosses into ten different bosses and gives SO much variety to the core sets for the bosses), trait decks 2-3 (again really fleshes out and gives tons of variety to core set monsters, and swamps of death encounters (more interesting of the other worlds in core boxes). This all gives you a ton of content that you could play indefinitely and would be a good core experience IMO. You can also combine it with Hexcrawl (looking forward to daniel’s coverage of it) which makes this an incredible game overall. I’d also download the fan made ‘Hexslinger” character that is a good second spell character and is good to have if you want a character with more choices available per round. For the eastern theme, it’s a cheaper buy in. You could pick up the core set, temple of shadows and forest of the dead for a bit over $200. Buy a three for two for the encounters of frontier fortress and belly of the beast along with artifacts for the fortress. You get two other worlds, tons of enemies, bosses. Jesus there is so much stuff in this game... Looking forward to the series!

Great review and guide 😊

I am a collector of SOB, I can imagine the overwhelming feeling newcomers would get when confronted with not only the sheer ammount of stuff available but also the unusual distribution and availability waves. This will be a great resource now that the revised core sets came out.

Thanks for the info👍 because of your specific explanation, I’m really interested in getting Shadows of Brimstone series. As I saw the kickstarter page, there were so many valuable and collectible items for the KS exclusive😭 I’m about to find those on Ebay. the only problem is that money matters😞

This was really useful! I was interested in SoB but everytime I see the original being played it just didnt grab me (I think the tiles are too boring maybe) but I had no idea there was so much other styles and different core sets

I'm gonna try to jump into this series. I'm gonna try to start with city if ancients , I like the wild west theme. I sorta wish there was a KS for me to back and make it easier to pick and choose lol.

Awesome, this is my all time favorite game!

Outside of promo's I have almost everything for this game (including most web exclusive stuff). I've also got a Shogun Warlord pledge for the Adventures KS (which is everything for SoB: Adventures and also a Shogun pledge from the FF KS). Outside of that.... much like you I had to buy most of my stuff from retail as well. I've still got tons of mini's to assemble. It's essentially my KDM (I picked SoB over KDM because they are similar in price in the grand scheme of it all).

I have City of the Ancients Caverns of Cinder Forest of the Dead & Flesh Stalker expansion. I really want to get both Swamps of Death, & Derelic Ship Expansion

I am thinking of buying the game thanks for the advice.

As a result of this series, I've purchased Swamps of Death (revised edition) and ordered a laminating kit (complete with corner trimmer!). I think it's a bit poor that you get nothing at all to help organise the box content - at least , as you say, the minis look as if they will be robust when assembled.

My buying guide: Both holiday starter bundles from their web store ($150 each).

I see the gamebooks on your shelf. I'd love it if you did a gamebook video

Think is, Caverns of Cinder is a ton cheaper then the deluxe other world boxes and it comes with all the poker tokens which are very useful to track xp and gold etc.

Looking forward to playing. I just purchased forbidden Fortress bundle that came with forest of the dead and temple of shadows for 200$. They were all delivered today at the house.

Of all the dungeon crawls available at retail, SOB is the best all-around game to get. I agree with every recommendation you said in this video, except I don't own the werewolf set so I can't comment on that one. You didn't mention the Vampire set; but I think it's phenomenal, as well, and any fans or newcomers to SOB, who like or even have a passing interest in vampires (the creepy kind) should go out and pick it up - extremely thematic!

Very helpful for someone totally clueless.

I love SoB - my wife and I KS the Old West set, and have gotten years of playing out of it. I skipped FoFo but just this year gave in and bought the FoFo core set, Temple of Shadows, and Forest of the Dead. And...I may love FoFo even better the original set! I think the heroes right off the bat are a bit more developed, with excellent starting skill sets that are a bit deeper than the sold West starting heroes. But...I love it all, best DC game for me since the original WHQ!

I’ve actually watched several of your videos now and thank you by the way for all the content, extremely helpful. But I just had a quick question what kind of card sleeves do you use? 😅

You’ll laugh, but your guide actually saved me money. While I really want to get into this game, I do not have the time or patience to construct minis. I’ll stick to TTS for it. New subscriber though, so cheers!

Thanks for the Informative series of videos. I was resigned to having to dive into other dungeon crawlers due to no SofB stock in UK retailers. That however has changed in the last week for some reason and I have managed to get hold of CofA and SofD - which required cancellation of my Everdell all in KS pledge! Expansions are still scarce though so I have set up stock alerts based on your recommendations. How about a scenario play through to round the series off?

I'm glad I ran across this video of yours. Very good information in it that's still relevant even now. I will say prices have gone up a little bit. I compared buying with the President's sale going on now on some items on Flying Frog's store versus Amazon and found after you factor in the $100+ for shipping on FFP and Amazon putting Sales tax on some items, the prices were very close with Amazon squeezing under FFP slightly. (It was about 10% difference on $500 worth of items.) I haven't clicked the purchase button though. I keep asking myself if I really need this stuff... LOL. Anyway, my question is: Do you think the KS exclusive heroes are worth trying to pick up the KS versions? Especially since the Viking version may now hit soon. (I didn't know about it, so never backed it or any prior versions.) But backing others, I know how overwhelming things feel. And I'm sure having to glue all the minis together made things feel even worse!

Wow you might have more SOB stuff than I have!

Having gotten feed up with Games Workshop's business models and lackluster execution of rules, I stumbled upon Shadows of Brimestone system. Not being completely sold on the wyld west motif, I came across Forbidden Fortress. Japanese fantasy is something that I loved ever since the Bushido RPG. I'm starting with the Forbidden Fortress core set, and the Feudal Village as initial purchases. For other worlds, I thought the Forest of the Dead seemed to fit the Japanese fantasy theme best. I'm not sure on which to get first, the Temple of Shadows for the extra characters and some enemies or the Forest of the Dead. For enemies, I looking at the Temple Dogs, Ninja's, Thunder Warriors, and the Dragon King. Of course the alternate gender figures might be necessary depending on what characters she wants to use.

City of Ancients is great actually with expansions, very thematic…

Amazing video. You really convinced me to buy into this world. Do you have any thoughts on the upcoming SoB Adventures?

Just looking at starting my collection, really appreciate you explaining it all as a buyers guide. Can I just ask - Is the City of Ancients not worth getting at all?

I have the City of Ancients core set. Sad to hear it isn't what you recommended to get, but I think I'll be ok 😆. I just painted the minis and about to get into the gameplay soon. $500 seems reasonable if I like how it goes. I'll get all all three of I like it.

I'm sincerely hoping they do another kickstarter

Great video, are you going to teach us how to paint like that? :) Really love to do like you did it. For a non painter... Is there a guide?

Hi Daniel, tks to your amazing channel and series, I just received my order for SB Swamps of Death Revised, and Valley of Serpent King. Quick question though... do you know if the game allows to jump right in Valley of Serpent K., or does it need to be played with the core set..? Speaking of feeling overwhelmed 😀...

Just want to add for the audience, in addition to what people can afford, much of the time it's more about value. $500 for a camera, in example, vs $500 for a 'board game.' Depending on individual tastes and experience these things can be wildly different. I imagine asking a Monopoly player to spend $500 vs like a GW player, lol.

I enjoy watching your SOB segment. It’s very informative about what to expect from this game. Just wondering what would be an appropriate brand of car sleeves that is thick enough that I can buy from Amazon or some other website. If you can show me a link, it will be much appreciated. I am wary of any standard sleeves as they may be too flimsy similar to penny sleeves.

Hi, that's an amazing video! Could you talk about how to organize the game? What do we need, what do you recommended? Greetings from Mexico!

I just got into this game with Forbidden Fortress, Feudal Village and Temple of Shadows. I am really loving it. Do I need Frontier Town if I would get Swamps of Death and already have Feudal Village? I really don't know where to start expanding this wonderful game 😅

As an alternative buying one core set and one alt gender pack of swamp or city. Guess as a start this is solid. Unfortunatelly the really interesting heroes are in the frog's store, f.e. shaman or wandering samurai.

Hi, i am French sorry for my poor English Much appreciate all your vidéos onTHIS Game i discover recently and i watch end a core set Serpents of Kings to begin What Do you think about this core set please ? Cheers

Nice video. Can You tell me what can i buy next i have city of ancient core set (old edition) and Forbidden Fortress Shogun pledge.

Damn you've got a pair of rabbit holes and wallet eaters with SoB and KDM... I've got both games and my word I baulk at the amount I've spent, which for SoB is hardly all in, I've got a Shogun (the big pledge) for FoFo, Feudal Village Preordered, I picked up Trederra, Deralict Ship, Caverns, and some dulux enemy packs at retail. Been trying to get revised Swamps of Death, Frontieer Town and the undead outlaws at retail but they haven't come to the UK yet (revised edition), I also want Hellfire witches and Belali (or however its spelt) but they are out of stock in the UK. Finally I have a Warlord Pledge and will be getting some extras for it from adventures. I think as someone in the UK it becomes more critical to back the KS, the FFP store shipping rates are crazy high for international purchases, like far higher than is normal even for non business shipping, and it can take 12+ months for new retail releases to hit our shelves after they go up in the US while things like the card packs simply aren't available at retail ever. Also stock is very difficult, some items go out of stock as soon as they come back in, SoB over here tends to sell very quickly or some items do anyway, so getting some otherworlds (took me 6 months to get a copy of Deralict ship, went out of stock on four occasions within 24 hours) and dulux enemy packs is extremely difficult. My Feudal Village was pre-ordered via mini market before they stopped shipping to the UK, due to the difficulties of getting stock over here. Its definately worth considering, its not just the big savings from retail, its the availability... The scary thing is even with all that I've got far more tied up in KDM....

Thanks for this SoB buyer's guide. One question though. What about the upgrade set you mentioned earlier not worth buying (and which is already sold out). Just curious. :)

I just aquired Shadows of Brimstone Forbidden Fortress with feudal villaige and other smaller expansions for it. Although I heard you saying all the material in the different core boxes are compatable with each other but I don't see how since the settings and themes are very different?

I'm really intrigued by the weird west theme and thought about jumping int Shadows of Brimstone for a year or so. Still I cant stop thinking about the fact that I cant find a set with amy black hero characters. It bothers me a bit.

I know expansions are supposed to be interchangeable - but which ones really work best with SOB: Swamps of Death?

If only you could open and play Shadows of Brimstone, I have a few boxes but never played as I don't have time for assembly. I have 15 other games that need to be assembled before this series even gets looked at unfortunately. Hopefully one day I get to this series, but will most likely sell.

Thanks for the video. Was trying to get into it, but have been unable to find the core sets anywhere for about a year now (I'm in Europe). Are they still in production?

So if you are a solo player only and are deciding between FoFo and the upcoming secrets of the lost tomb reprint, which do you think would give the most mileage?

Very good stuff. I really appreciate the time and effort you put in on this as well as the wealth of info. Awesome knowledge for those who are new to the scene. One question, as ive had alot of issues in the past concerning this, do the expansions, card packs, whatever with cards, match the existing colors on the base sets (if there are some cards that come with said expansions that add to base set cards)? Ive alot of coloring issues with other Flying Frog games (ToE inparticular) and am concerned about that.

Hey Daniel how are you, Im a follower from Brazil, Im going to USA and want to buy some shadows of brimstone content to play with Hexcrawl, but I cant carry too much weight, what tip you give to me? I love the items and guns from the game put that in mind

What do you use to laminate your large cards and sheets? Lamination pockets? Something else? Corner punches? I am just getting started with my collection, and I typically do sleeve cards, in fact I think Sleeve Kings has a sleeve for the large enemy cards, however the laminated assets in your videos are very nice looking, and probably are more effective cheetos guards than sleeving alone. Do tell.

Good luck man, shadows of brimstone has like dozens and dozens of expansions

I haven't played SoB but I've always wanted to give it a go. Sounds like there's a metric ton of stuff. Is it the biggest game going? Does anything else have more content?

Have you curated a list of films to watch that are in the style/setting of SoB? Weird West, East meets West, Feudal Japan, etc. Stuff to get the juices flowing and help immerse ourselves into the setting?

Thanks, I have a ton of this and need to organize it. What are your thoughts on Zombicide Dead or Alive with a western theme.

Plastic heroes released in January here in Canada @ boardgamebliss; including Alternate gender heroes. So I think FFP is working their way into releasing the original resin stuff in plastic retail repackaging. I even got the threat tracker from boardgamebliss.

18:11 - I was waiting for the warning about the required assembly of the miniatures, as it's definitely worth mentioning. Sadly, I have a bad history with this game series. And I'm not even one of those unfortunate Kickstarter backers that had to wait for years until they got their game, I bought one core set in retail. I had high expectations in this game, as it's a dungeon crawler with randomly-generated maps, it has a Weird West/Lovecraftian theme, there are roleplaying elements, the art is nice, ... all elements that should make me love this game, and I certainly tried to like it, but sadly I couldn't. One reason is that the game design feels in many places quite outdated and clunky, as if it's from the 80s or 90s, like the standard rule for character movement being "roll and move". They thankfully added an optional rules variant that fixes this, but that this is the game's standard rule for movement should have been a warning sign to me. The game also frustrated me with a too high variance when it comes to randomly generated numbers. I don't mind randomness in games, even appreciate and expect them in games like these, but when I'm supposed to take a number of hits determined by a 6-sided die and my character has a maximum of 8 health, meaning that I could end up with potential span 2-7 remaining health by one effect, then we have a problem, as the game becomes too unfair and random. Another huge problem is how the enemies behave, which is predictable and boring. I always used the same strategy: Fall back to the bottle neck that is connecting 2 map tiles to minimise the attack surface for enemies, let them come and line up, then fight them one by one until the wave was gone. I'm not saying all this to rain on anyone's parade, I know the game has a lot of fans and that's great, I don't want to take anyone's fun away, but still wanted to provide a counterpoint opinion.

I was making a list(Pen and Paper) of Shadows of Brimstone to seperate in various types of my choice (Heroes, Hero Uprgades and RPG Elements, Other worlds, etc ,and had to stop before I finished because my thumb cramped up.

What is the difference between Swamps of Death first edition and revised edition? I have been looking into this but it seems it is hard to find the revised edition. Thank you.

I can get the 1st edition KS versions cheaper than the 2nd edition core sets and it includes extras from the KS. Is that worth doing or are there major changes with the 2nd edition that are worth getting?

After finally obtaining this game and a couple of attempts to get it to the table I can't help but think how it's not included in your Master Class Series, at least yet. If you do add it at some point might I suggest the title, "A Master Class in Inefficiency." That's all I have been able to think of. It's a wreck. Trying to get it to the table is so tedious and I imagine it will only get worse as I have to start flipping tiles to their opposite sides. So many inefficiencies and so much is superfluous. Too many tokens and cards and bits. By the time I get it set up I'm wiped. After playing things like Silver Tower and I even find WHQ95 to run smoother than this. This all being said, for me, the first game is going to be spending the next several days coming up with a system to manage and distribute components.. the game before the game. Hopefully after that I can actually get it up and running quickly. I find all the components to be larger than necessary as well, it takes a huge amount of space, the cards are huge, the tokens are huge, the tiles are huge. But these are just my first impressions. I've really hit a road bump in my anticipation. Feeling bogged down before the game has even started is a shame. Oh, and I only have one core set here, so I know it gets way worse from here.

Would love to get into this, but the sets are impossible to get in the UK without spending a fortune on Ebay. Pretty much given up on it now sadly

Does anyone happen to know if the heroes in City of Ancients and Swamps of Death the same heroes?

Wish these games were more available in the UK

Forgive my ignorance but what is the problem with resin miniatures? TIA.

Amount of SOB boxes in the background - PANIK Not breaking the bank... - KALM ...which is 500$ - PANIK

HOW DO YOU EAT AN ELEPHANT? One bite at a time.

Hahahaha. I just got to the part of the video where you say $500. Lol. I must be watching the wrong chanel.😂

Any Weird West/ Cowboy/ Western miniatures work in this game.

FYI Resin is a superior modeling medium especially in regards to hard plastic.

Does HexCrawl work with Forbidden Fortress' Eastern setting?

Hi ,I really appreciate this video. I am getting very excited and want to take the plunge into BOS. This will be my first ever board game like this. Another commenter recommended a Holiday Bundle for this game saying there are two. Would you agree this is good to get? I can't find them on their website anymore, so hopefully they will return...

Just got all core sets expansions and mission packs, never played before and super lost, how do you possibly organize this stuff? I have legit like 3 thousand chits rn

You can tell how long it’s been since he purchased GW minis by how he compliments them.

I like the idea of the Ancient city setting (and the derelict ship) but I feel like they don't actually flesh out the setting very much. I am uninterested in the Swamp though I have it (I just don't go there). I just wish the city actually came through in the game. I'm not fond that you can die in town just with a couple of bad rolls (my entire party would have dies in town from a void twister if I hadn't just decided to ignore those rolls -- dead -- end of gameplay -- period). The threat is too uncontrolled. But with the right house rules you aren't as likely to die on the first tile or see no monsters during the mission except for the boss (both of which have happened to me). I like the frontier town, but I tend to make sure every town includes certain key locations regardless of the die rolls. I like the cover fire rules. I stopped buying additional expansions because each one seemed to be more and more brutally hard (to win). In effect, the new packs of monsters were all harder than the original monsters as time went on. I still like the game on balance but I tend not to add too much to the base game and even there I play with house rules for holding back the darkness to try to give SOME level of control and balance. I bought my original stuff assembled and mostly painted (to a semi decent level) so I lucked out there. I had to assemble and paint later stuff. Not as hard to assemble as some of the games based on the Alien/Aliens movies though!