Encase me in a (Descent) Tomb of Ice!

Bow down before me nerds! I'm getting a copy of Descent: Tomb of Ice EARLY! My bro called me from the FFG booth at Gen Con to inform me that they have copies of Battlestar Galactica, Descent: Tomb of Ice, Red November and Moto Grand Prix for sale! I couldn't resist having him pick me up the coldest Descent expansion ever.

Also of note, he said they were demoing Age of Conan and there were rumors of A Game of Thrones adventure game similar to the World of Warcraft: Adventure Game.

I can't wait to get my cold, greedy hands on Tomb of Ice to see what's inside.

Forget this whole wife and family business--I should be at GenCon!

I know! So should I!

I'm going to open an ice cream parlor and call it Tomb of Ice. None of this mix-in shit, good old fashioned 31 flavors style pre-set ice cream flavors. I bet Baskin Robbins rolled over in his grave when he heard about mashing up a ball of ice cream into a pile of gummy worms.

I've actually got a Hooters inspired ice cream shop idea called "Mamaries" and the slogan will be "Colder than a witch's tit!"

GAME OF THRONES adventure game? Drool.

Where is DOOM: Mars Polar Cap Expansion? *sighs*

I bought my copy at GenCon this morning. Here's what the back of the box says:

An icy doom descends from the north...

Far north of Terrinoth, past the Spires of Thunder, lies the icy realm of Isheim. Here, unquiet apparitions of a lost people are the harbinger of an age of frost that threatens to swallow the world. Day by day, this arctic blight encroaches further south.

Mighty heroes must enter Isheim's frozen caverns to defeat this supernatural menace before the south is trapped in endless winter. In this glacial underground, treacherous ice chasms crumble underfoot. Ghostly creatures, immune to the touch of sword and axe, haunt derelict ruins. The growls of ferocious beasts - capable of swallowing a man whole - can be heard from the cold blue darkness.

The Tomb of Ice is the fourth expansion for the best-selling board game Descent: Journeys in the Dark. Included are more than two dozen new plastic figures representing spectral shades, volcanic lava beetles, petrifying medusas, stealthy wendigos, and gigantic ice wyrms - not to mention six new heroes. Along with new treasure and a new potion type, The Tomb of Ice provides its heroes with the power of Feat cards. No longer will the element of surprise lie with the overlord alone.

This product also introduces new features for The Road to Legend campaign games in the form of outdoor terrain and new Dungeon, Rumor, Location, and Incident cards.

The path before your heroes is frozen and deadly. Can they survive the Tomb of Ice?

GAME CONTENTS

Rulebook with Quest Guide, 6 hero sheets, 6 plastic heroes, 21 plastic monsters, 110 cards, 43 double-sided map pieces, 26 prop markers, 1 stomach tile, 1 transparent stealth die, and 10 treasure markers.

Whoa a stomach tile! Radical. Hmmm ... great more tokens ... probably going to need another token tray

I'm so Jealous.

Do you think we'll actually be able to get our grubby hands on this in September?

I hope not! Otherwise I would've paid full retail price plus for my brother to ship it for me for nothing!

Didn't you get the bonus man?

Well, yeah I'll be getting the bonus dude. But I had already placed my order with my bro before I knew about the bonus figure. I just wanted it as early as possible. But if Tomb of Ice gets released in say, two weeks, I'd have rather waited. I'm not sure the bonus figure is worth an extra $30 to me. But if he's worth $30 to other people ...

OK, I am now officially frozen. My copy of Tomb of Ice arrived today fresh from Gen Con and still frosty I may add. In case you haven't read elsewhere, I'll run down the basics of what is in the expansion (sorry I'm not going to transcribe all of the cards, heroes, treasure, etc.) with some of my impressions. But be warned, I haven't actually PLAYED yet, just oogled everything.

Monsters: Like every good Descent expansion, Ice has a set of new monsters. And an interesting bunch they are. There doesn't really look to be any new cannon fodder (such as beastmen, skeletons, kobolds, etc) in this expansion. They all look to be some pretty heavy hitters. Or at least middleweights. The art design of some of the monsters is a little interesting, you can check out pictures of them on BGG for yourself. The lava beetles don't look like beetles, they look more like praying mantises. The wendigos have the look more along the lines of a sheep dog but with lots of sharp, pointy teeth. FFG also offers a unique look on Medusa. They are not woman on top and snake on the bottom. They have four arms and their entire bodies are made up of writhing snakes. Pretty freaky. The wyrms and shades look pretty cool though.

Heroes: I think the real meat of this expansion are the heroes. They are pretty cool and each one is very unique. Kevin Wilson has broken the mold on the number of power dice and skill cards with these heroes. Oh and one of the heroes is a YETI! That's right, you can finally roam through dungeons bashing monsters and acquiring treasures as a friggin Sasquatch. That dude gets to roll all 5 power dice on melee attacks but he only gets 2 melee skills. Another hero is a what looks like a halfling riding a wolf and he gets 6 movement. The mage shiver gets Aura 4 during the Overlord's turn. Another hero gets to use two-handed weapons as though they were one-handed. Another hero has only 1 die in melee and 1 in ranged but gets to has a total of 4 skill cards. So stuff like that. These heroes are really different and stand out amongst the rest of the pack. And on that note ...

Bonus hero: I got the hero's figure, but have to send away for his stat card, so no clue if he's any good or not.

Feat cards: This is the next big thing. Now the Overlord isn't the only player with a few surprises. There are three types of feat cards - Melee, Ranged/Subterfuge and Magic - just like skill cards. Heroes can play them at any time as long as the conditions for the feat have been met. Most of the time it's at the start of the turn, or when the overlord attacks or before the hero attacks. At setup each hero draws the number of feat cards equal to the number of skill card rank. Each time the heroes activate a glyph each hero can draw a new feat card. Heroes have a hand limit of 4 feat cards. Except one of the heroes gets to draw 2 cards and has a hand limit of 6.

Some examples of feat cards: Get +8 range for one attack, gain 4 Aura for the turn, make an extra attack, get extra movement, get the dice results of your choice, but you can't change the red die, etc.

The feat cards sound pretty cool and should help out heroes in tougher dungeons or in the early stages of a Road to Legend campaign.

Stealth: The next big addition is the stealth skill and stealth die. The stealth die is a clear plastic die with Xs on two sides. If a figure has the stealth ability the attack must roll the stealth die in addition to its attack dice. If an X comes up on any die, the attack misses.

Ice: Tomb of Ice only adds one new terrain type and no new traps. The new terrain is ice. If you've played the dungeon floor in RTL called "Fire and Ice" or something ice tiles work exactly the same. If you end your movement on an ice tile, you roll the red die (or something, I don't remember well) and you go the number of spaces as indicated by the range on the red die in the direction you were heading. There's a new "tread ice" ability that means the figure that has it can ignore ice.

The other ability: The other new ability is called ghost. It's like the opposite of shadowcloak. figures with ghost can't be hit by melee attacks originating from the square next to them. Interestingly, there is a hero that has ghost and fly. Wacky.

Invisibility potion: The new potion around is the invisibility potion. And you guessed it, it gives you stealth for a limited time only.

Monster eggs: There's a new tile called monster eggs. It's a square where the OL can spawn monsters regardless of line of sight. I don't think there's any way to include these into random RTL dungeons. They are strictly for Ice scenarios.

Dungeon tiles: There are a few new dungeon tiles complete with outdoor tiles on the back for outdoor encounters in RTL.

Store items/treasure: There are two new store items, and only one of each. The hammer and the morning star. The hammer is two-handed, rolls red and green, has knockback and does +1 damage for two surge. The morning star is one-handed, rolls red and 2 yellows. It's offhand bonus is +1 damage and surge.

As for treasure, well there are a few new treasures. The interesting things about the new treasures are some of them let you reroll dice. Others are really powerful, but require you to roll the stealth die on every attack.

Treachery: There are only a handful of new OL treachery cards. Most of them are spawn cards for the new monsters. But there are two others. One lets you put some ice out on the map and the other stuns heroes.

Scenarios: I think there's six new standard Descent scenarios.

RTL stuff: In addition to all of the above, Ice adds a couple of dungeons for RTL, some outdoor encounters and maps, and one rumor. Plus all of the copper/silver/gold/platinum star cards for the monsters.

So all in all, how do I feel? Cold, bitterly cold. Nah, I'm not bitter for buying it. Tomb of Ice doesn't really present anything radically new like Well of Darkness or Road to Legend did. Instead it offers a smattering of stuff. Sure the feat cards are big, but there's only 3-5 different cards per skill. There's the new monsters and heroes and then a little bit of RTL stuff. Other than that, not a lot of new rules.

Granted I usually play as the Overlord, but what has me most interested are the new heroes, they sound like a blast to play. C'mon! It's an abominable snowman!

What I'm left wondering is, why hasn't FFG started doing smaller expansions, ala Runebound? Like a treasure expansion or treachery expansion, or just new monsters or just RTL dungeons or something? I kind of feel like Tomb of Ice could've been divided up into 2-3 smaller expansions.

Here are the Tomb of Ice heroes:

Name: Arvel Worldwalker (elf or halfling)
Health: 12
Fatigue: 4
Armor: 1
Movement: 4
Melee: 1
Ranged 1
Magic: 0
Skills: 2 melee, 2 subterfuge, 0 magic
Special ability: When a glyph has been activated Arvel may draw 2 feat cards instead of just 1. Arvel's maximum feat hand size is increased to 6.
Conquest tokens: 3

Name: Karnon (Yeti!)
Health: 16
Fatigue: 4
Armor: 1
Movement: 4
Melee: 5
Ranged 0
Magic: 0
Skills: 2 melee, 0 subterfuge, 0 magic
Special ability: Karnon has the Tread Ice ability and is immune to Frost and Fear.
Conquest tokens: 4

Name: Laughin Buldar (big human)
Health: 16
Fatigue: 3
Armor: 1
Movement: 4
Melee: 3
Ranged 0
Magic: 0
Skills: 3 melee, 0 subterfuge, 0 magic
Special ability: Laughin Buldar may use a single two-handed melee weapon as if it were a one-handed weapon.
Conquest tokens: 4

Name: Okaluk and Rakash (halfline riding a wolf)
Health: 16
Fatigue: 2
Armor: 0
Movement: 6
Melee: 2
Ranged 1
Magic: 0
Skills: 2 melee, 1 subterfuge, 0 magic
Special ability: Okaluk and Rakash have the Stealth ability.
Conquest tokens: 3

Name: Shiver (looks like a Nosferatu styled vampire elf or something)
Health: 12
Fatigue: 4
Armor: 0
Movement: 4
Melee: 0
Ranged 0
Magic: 3
Skills: 0 melee, 0 subterfuge, 3 magic
Special ability: During the Overlord's turn, shiver has the Aura 4 ability.
Conquest tokens: 3

Name: Zyla (looks like an elf or halfing)
Health: 8
Fatigue: 5
Armor: 0
Movement: 4
Melee: 1
Ranged 1
Magic: 1
Skills: 1 melee, 1 subterfuge, 1 magic
Special ability: Zyla has the Fly and Ghost abilities. Enemey fgures can move through Zyla, but cannot end their movement in the space she occupies.
Conquest tokens: 1