Personal Opinions of this set so far

[TRash]

So I finally got my copy of the set and have played a few games with some friends. So far I am very impressed with this set. It has solved a lot of issues I had, a lot of cards I felt where needed for the game where put into this set. The biggest being new Basic Resources and cards that actually create an obstacle for holding onto the lead once you get it. I had started making a custom set to add these cards but I feel this set covered the need for most of those cards.

Barry: Not as powerful I originally thought he would be. I expected to see his ability net multiple kills every turn, but at most I have seen him net 3 kills a turn and that was dumb luck. Flipped Chicken (5HP) after a Town Majini (10HP).

Claire and Jill: We referred to these two as the Internet Fight, I was playing Claire and no longer needed any cards from the resource pile at this point in the game, but the Jill Player kept targeting me with Jill's ability. Basically just negating each others ability. We made a few jokes about how we might as well have been playing Excella.

Chris + Custom Shot Guns is great: One game saw Chris with a five card inventory by the end of it all, those five cards where the Hunting Bows thanks to how fast Chris (alone even) + Shotguns slim your inventory down fast.

Rebecca: By the Actions that give you additional Buys, then buy actions that give you more actions to play more actions that give more buys, put on your troll face and buy Knives and +10 Ammo and drink delicious tears. I love this card!

Krauser: I'm not sure how to feel about him, his ability is there to pull him out of last place but I feel for an ability that requires you to be losing, +10 Damage isn't anything I fell like getting hyped for.

Wesker: Falls into the same area as Krauser as far as how I feel about it. Its 7 decorations for an ability that 9 times out of 10 when it gets used I have no cards in my hand when its based on the number of cards in hand.

HUNK: At first I wasn't all that impressed but he can reduce any damage not just infected damage and that is something I like. Him with cards like Flamethrower or Lonewolf are a good combination. My opinion of him changed the most since my initial look at the card.

Reversal Lvl. 1: I saw people discussing this card before I even got the set so I drafted it first to see what the fuss was about and I got a few games to play with it since no one caught onto how useful it was for me. I do feel it is the best skill I have seen in action so far but I don't feel it equals win. Unless maybe you are Nightmare Ada. In games when you are using the easy Mansion this skill made things a bit to easy but the Los Illuminados (Bow) can be scary if you do use Reversal Lvl: 1 to much, I played dangerous at one point and put myself at 20 Health and LI (Bow) got flipped and killed but the person who flipped it didn't chose me for some reason. Role reversal, I would have, I was in the lead. On the Medium difficulty Mansion Giant Majini aka Nightmare Hunter V2.0 creates the issue of having your health capped reducing your usage of Reversal. I don't feel Backstab threatens Reversal at all since I just started waiting till I wanted to use Reversal to put any XP on the card. Reversal has managed to avoid being dealt out during a game using the Hard Mansion.

The Giant Killing skills: I like these cards a lot, they calm the nerves when the Mansion starts getting thin and you know the big baddy is still in there but you cant reliably net the damage to kill it yet. We have one player in our group who has the worst luck ever in this game who wants to give all the staff that worked on this set a hug. (We are talking his first explore of the game will flip the boss, Mansion shuffles and will proceed to hit the boss again on the next time they explore. Record was first 3 explores of the game hit Oroboros Aheri as Sheva)

Medic skills: Have lead to people who are normally overly cautious play dangerously. Its good to see normally predictable play styles get shaken up. Have not mixed skills with older characters yet but Medic Lvl: 3 is something I look forward to combining with Cindy or Nightmare Josh Stone.

Toughness skills: I have wanted something to protect people from abilities such as the Zombie Female or Zombie Butcher since day one and we finally have it. I feel if you have a hatred for Nightmare Hunter than you should never pass this card up if the Mansion has it or Giant Majini in it. Also the idea of playing an Outbreak game and using Toughness Lvl: 3 to redirect the Tyrants effect is very sexy.

Smart Reload Lvl 1: Is Inventory Management for +10 Ammo on a stick, love at first sight.

Handgun Technique skills: Again I have not mixed skills with older characters yet but Leon seems like a given thought, though not sure if he even needs them or if this would push him to Hulk Hogan level stats. No one else is ready brother dude jack!

Weapons in General: Are all very solid. Least favorite is the IBEX Standard, I like the new starting gun better and that just feels wrong. Favorite is the Custom Pump-Action Shotgun, its a shot gun that trashes, whats not to love. None of the weapons give extra explores but if that's what you want you can just run the old Pump Action Shot gun over the new one, or hell run them both. The Bow feels balanced out now. Even with a 5 card inventory consisting only of these there are a lot of ways for a player to sabotage that in this set. The new Machine Gun farms XP while the new Magnum sees to it that any extra XP still has a use.

Backstab: Its the action that can sabotage a players XP, but it only nails XP on a skill and its the target players choice what skill loses an XP. The first though people tend to have with this card is that its the answer to Reversal Lvl:1 but the solution to that was just don't put XP on Reversal till you where ready to use it, it is good hand sabotage though.

Mercenaries: This cards is great, its a damage pump (possibly a huge one) and hand sabotage. This cards biggest purpose so far for my group has been to sabotage combo piles by discarding weapons.

Boundless Battle Field: A balanced Ominous Battle, that is all.

Anticipation: My thoughts on this card are that its a much better Shattered Memories, though this card dosnt say "I love you" on it so I don't like it as much. Much better card, just no love.

Resuscitate: A card that allows people who are scared of being killed to relax, while you do need it in your hand to use it at least gives you hope when you are in the danger zone. Buy it with Rebecca, it gives +1 Buy.

Tear Gas: A fun damage pump card, its like RPD but it increases damage as it overturns cards rather than gives you a weapon, but if there is no weapon in your inventory than you get no bonus.

Battle Hardened: Injection V2.0

Melee: It cost 20 Gold, and gives +10 Damage, +1 Card and +20 Ammo. Also in Mercenaries Mode removes itself from the game to increase the turn count. A new thing to aim for when trashing +10 Ammo and Knives with Parting Ways. Still have to give Base Set Chris Submission in the custom inventory though (Sad face).

Basic Resources: They really speed up the game, something that is very welcome if you ask me. I will say though I'd prefer it if the new Knife said "get +10 ammo" rather than "gain +10 Ammo" but its not a anything I'm upset about. I guess with a gun that trashes itself in the starting inventory having a knife that did that would be a bit much.

Mansion in general: Lost of good abilities on the infected, trash cards from other players discard piles, everyone gains the cheapest resource in play, everyone removes a card from a resource pile from the game, chose someone and deal them damage, and the Mad Hatter CHANGE PLACES effect that makes everyone pass a card in hand to the player to the left, among others is a great addition. Also the best Boss effect yet if you ask me. This Mansion, split into three or as one massive pot is my favorite so far.

In the end this set is awesome.
I am little disappointed there where no XP counters but I have a reason to put out those old Poke'mon damage counters from back when Wizards owned the game now.
Be nice if in the next set we got suport for Outbreak Mode though, my group has kind of lost interest in that mode. Need new cards that shake thigs up in that mode.

[vesshusban]

i got mine today and played 3 games i love it they only thing i would like the next ne to have will be some how have it that you fight all 5 mutations

[Spadeace]

I like everything besides Krauser's effect is an under-powered joke. Also found it odd that the Mercenary set didn't have Time Bonus or Combo Bonus cards included.

[WailingJennings]

Finally got mine today. I probably won't get any games in until the next 2 days but figured I would throw out my initial impressions.

This might actually be the first set where I don't immediately find a card that will be a massive npe! So kudos to that! There has already been some discussion about the card draw skill and Barry, and while both are powerful I don't think they will pick at player's rage control like gatling gun, hunter, flamethrower, great ambition, adas, etc.

I have been a big supporter of the introduction of the skill system when it was announced. So already that element alone brings this set into high esteem with me. It brought a trading card game element to the re dbg world that will make building your strategies much more satisfying than the sink or swim strategy that existed from just getting set characters up until this point.

If anything the one card I initially find annoying is the giant killer skill that saves you from all damage from infected with a certain health or over. But it's no less game breaking than immortal Ada was, which was not that bad.

Things I love:

Most of the player interaction resulting from the infected game text dealing with the supply and moving around coppers.

"Masquerade Majini", I have been waiting for REBG to steal Masquerade from Dominion for a while lol.

The Skill that saves you from infected text.

Melee, Tear Gas, J.J., Crocodiles

The card "Mercenaries" rocks. I love it's brutality. (yes I am one of the people who loves Mind Control) The overall increase of "attack your opponent" cards was also something the game needed to pull it out of the creeping solitaire state that these games sometimes lean towards.

While the actions/infected and introduction of skills all are stellar, I am underwhelmed with the characters and weapons. They aren't bad, but none of the weapons particularly wow me. I enjoy a handful of the characters like Barry, Jill, Chris, Hunk, and in rare cases Wesker. There is one instance where I'm just completely disappointed. Krauser is just useless. This isn't a dealbreaker though since our playgroup will be focused very heavily on skill building games. So it's not like he is even close to being the worst character you could get lol.

Overall I like so far. It didn't have hunters in it, just giants who dish out the mayhem equally. lol

Nice job Tylar.

[TRash]

I'd really like to know if at one point Krauser's ability was different and to good. I wonder this with at least one character in each set. Seems like each set has a character I look at and think "this card seems useless" and it turns out it is. I always wonder if during play testing the card was overpowered and we see the nerfed version.
Then again with the exception of Chris and Barry all the characters seem to have weaker abilities that the Skills are there to make up for. I mean Claire in this set (not counting the health buff) is a weaker version of set one Claire.

[The Enforcer]

Yay, game in hand / sleeved and put away, so now I have infoz to speak of. Really want to play it, but friends are all busy at the moment.

Initial impressions, so far so good. Good job, Tylar & co. Haven't played it yet, but for the time being things look solid, fun, and nothing seems to be skewed too far toward a particular mode or condition. A couple of the more word cards seemed liked they could have been phrased better, but that the only minor thing at present.

[Evincar2001]

Finally got to play a bit more yesterday. Through 6 games, I was only able to discover one new insane interaction: Toughness Level 2 with Vengeful Intention. The way the cards are worded, it essentially lets you play any number of actions on your turn with no penalty. In other words, draw away!

[ShakeZoola]

Finally got to play a bit more yesterday. Through 6 games, I was only able to discover one new insane interaction: Toughness Level 2 with Vengeful Intention. The way the cards are worded, it essentially lets you play any number of actions on your turn with no penalty. In other words, draw away!

Until someone back stabs you anyway!

[Evincar2001]

Until someone back stabs you anyway!

Sure, but that's like saying Reversal Lv1 is weaker for the same reason.

Here's another observation: Does it seem like 70/80 health characters are at more of a disadvantage now due to not being able to blindly explore just to build XP? A lot of our games have seen not-uncommon plays of "Go in for 0/5/10" and eat damage just to level up Skills. Realistically, this can only occur with high health characters, such as the 8 characters in the new set. Of course, Giant Killing Lv1 somewhat negates that, but that's also situational.

[TRash]

After about 20 games I feel the new Mansions are actually easier. Even the Hard mansion feels like its easier to wreck than the other sets Mansions. With cards like the Giant Killer and Toughness skills the big infected don't even seem like a threat, hell each time I have lost to a JJ the effect has even worked in my favor. Or maybe that's just how helpful the new resources are. Chris with the new shotgun strategy is my new favorite deck to build to. Get the Weapon master skill that makes a weapon type -10 ammo and duplicate it with the Luck lvl 3 and then burn your deck down to 2x +30 Ammo and 3x Custom Pump Shotguns and sit. Its very hard for people to fill up your inventory when you can Trash/Pass 4 cards a turn and Masquerade is only in the easy deck. Its also not that hard to build up a deck that has Custom Lighting Hawk with the ammo, use Chris to trash the other cards and just save XP for the Custom Lightning Hawks ability (Though I need to ask in the FAQ exactly about this cards effect) and knowing only 5 cards in the hard mansion surpass 40 health.