Opinion Thus far *Spoilers*

[Tyrantvirus999]

So after about 40 games of RE since Mercs came out I have come to form some opinions on it. (Very few of the games have actually been merc mode so this is a story mode opinion)

As far as sets go I feel this is probably my second favorite under Nightmare for first. The cards (With the exception of Barry but this is all my opinion) are all extremely balanced with the exception of some that just seem like oversights (Pistol Master Rank 1 costs 4 xp and makes all your pistols cost 10 less ammo. Weapon Master Rank 1 costs 3 xp and you name any weapon and makes all weapons of that type cost 10 less... Making Pistol Master obsolete if you see both) But nothing that we've played with thus far seems to be so good that someone wants it in every game (Gathering Forces, Ominous Battle, Escape From The Dead City in their respective sets) Each character has a nice effect and none of them are unplayable in Story mode.

The mansions lack items or events so each explore you know you'll get an infected (or a Chicken) and for the most part the infected have less health making you feel as if you're safer with lower numbers (Which is a lie) where the mansions shine are the effects. They are broken down into 3 mansions each with a specific focus and difficulty. Easy starts out weak but the more you explore the stronger the infected get. Medium attacks the resource piles and then pulls out a nasty 50 hp infected the gives every -20 max health if you don't defeat it. Hard by far beats the others in annoyance though by forcing you to add "10 Ammo" Cards to your deck in large numbers. All in all the "Safe" explore number has been lowered, but the effects for the most part make up for that fact. Not to mention the fact that the most annoying effects have a chance to be taken out from under your character and put back to the mansion Via the boss.

Skills are an interesting addition to the game and manage to make each game feel different regardless of whether or not you get a different character. They come in a nice mix better cards that are good on their own/Cards that get really good when mixed with other skills/Cards that get really good when mixed with certain characters. Personally I have used almost every skill and can't say that a single one of them I regretted selecting, sometimes they weren't the best for that situation but you can't fully control the skills you get so almost every player gets Sub-optimal skills.

Rambling on. Most strategies were improved with this set allowing decks that love having billions of cards to do even more damage and decks that liked getting down to a predictable 5-10 cards have a much more reliable trash card and faster early game.

And lastly the PvP element of the game was increased dramatically. Where in other sets there would be 1-2 cards that affected another player (Mind Control/The Gathering Darkness/Master of Unlocking) This set introduced a good number for the resource area and Plenty more in each mansion. From "gifting" a play a card from you hand/discard pile to redirecting a pesky infected's effect to one of your opponents the game has more competitive feel to it.

I think I rambled on enough

Tl;dr

The set is good. Cards seem the most balanced of any set so far. Bigger pvp element. Skills are fun

As the title says, these are my opinions of the set you are welcome to agree/disagree on any point.

Final Note: This was done in a rush so no spell/grammar check was done. So if anything looks tacky I apologize and I hope you can read through that to the points I try to get across.

[Khrest]

^Thats great news to hear. I live in NZ and it will be a long time before me and my friend group will be able to get our hands on this game. What exactly does Barry's Effect do? i have heard so much about its brokenness.

[Gibb]

40 games? Did you actually have people play with you that many times over the weekend or were a lot of those games solo?

I wasn't able to get my friends together to play it a single time, tho I'm crossing my fingers to get in a game tonight.

I did run into some problems tho, as the pack of sleeves I bought for my mansion cards were made too small and they're bending my mansion cards. They're the same size and brand as what I'm using on all other 4 sets of mansion cards, so changing them all out would be frustrating, and I'm afraid to drop $3 on another pack of sleeves only to have them be too short as well.

[Tyrantvirus999]

Had people over, we play a lot. 0 of those games were solo though now that it's not the weekend I will be solo testing more.

And Barry:

Barry Burton (110 Hp)

Level 1 (7 Decorations) When Barry defeats an intected with 70 or less health, look at the top card of the mansion. If that card is an infected that has less health than the infected that Barry defeated before it this turn, automatically defeat that infected.

[Gibb]

OK I played a game last night using the "Neophyte" resources as listed in Rulebook 5. I didn't do a good job making a mansion deck tho, as I just grabbed a big pile of the cards and threw the Executioner into it. It ended up being way too big, with too man 10-15 health enemies.

It was a 2 player game, and my friend and I were exploring for a ton of damage almost every turn, going in with an average of 60 damage, killing 10-15 health enemies most every turn. I had Chris and my friend had Hunk. I forgot to use Chris' trash ability for the entire game cause I was trying to remember to use my Skills.

The skills are really cool, but it adds a lot of extra work to each turn. Ok I name a weapon type and that type gets -10 ammo per weapon, and each weapon I have gets 5 extra damage, and I have a skill that duplicates another skill, so that's.... etc. Mix that with cards like Tear Gas and Bountiful Battlefield and you have a pretty complicated turn.

Overall I did like the new cards quite a bit, and I look forward to playing more games with a better balanced mansion deck.