Personal Opinions of this set so far

[Dirjel]

New basic resources (knife/handgun/ammo 10-20-30) are AMAZING. It speeds up the gameplay sooooo much. I dropped the new Sprays in favor of the old red/green herbs, and the new weapons and actions are all pretty standard fare. Nothing overwhelmingly exciting there really, and it really annoys me that they are all reused weapons with "Custom" in front of the name. Super lame. I know for a fact that there are more weapon models available in the various RE games, and the ones that are used are available as fully-rendered 3D models, and therefore could be at least rotated. Finally, there just aren't very many new weapons/actions available. I'd rather have just one 40-card mansion deck and a bunch of weapons and actions next time around, tyvm.

As for the mansion cards themselves, I'm not a real big fan of any of the new mansions (too easy, even the hard one). I'm also really disappointed the new mansion doesn't have any of the "Events" or "Items" in it. Those are a lot of fun and really serve to mix things up. I'm going to be making a custom mansion (kind of a "best of" setup) anyway so that part doesn't really matter too much.

Skills are great, but don't work well with infection mode. I'm thinking I'm going to have to reduce the incubation period for the virus pretty dramatically... Mwahahaha! (seriously, though - I'm thinking three infection and you're a zombie, or maybe if you don't explore you GAIN three infection... not sure how to balance that out yet).

Partners + Skills sounds pretty OP, but we haven't tried it yet. Might take away the ability to equip weapons to partners since the available pool of abilities + the double experience thing is kind of overwhelmingly powerful. Historically we have usually played partners mode at my house just because it's more fun, but we'll see. Again, we also play with a pretty heavily customized mansion using the best monsters from all four sets, so it was pretty fair. Might be able to just tweak the mansion to be harder still.

Anyway, this expansion was a pretty great addition overall. Can't wait for the next one, and still really hurting for a GenCon Wesker and corrected reprints of the Lone Wolf and Raccoon City Police Department cards.

[The Archivist]

Rather than repeat my review on BoardGameGeek verbatim here, I'll just let this link do the talking:

http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/8896...hensive-review

In a nutshell, I think this set is fantastic. The new basic resources and skills are the real deal, the mansions and actions are interactive, and the entire package reflects a polished design effort.

[Evincar2001]

New basic resources (knife/handgun/ammo 10-20-30) are AMAZING. It speeds up the gameplay sooooo much. I dropped the new Sprays in favor of the old red/green herbs, and the new weapons and actions are all pretty standard fare. Nothing overwhelmingly exciting there really, and it really annoys me that they are all reused weapons with "Custom" in front of the name. Super lame. I know for a fact that there are more weapon models available in the various RE games, and the ones that are used are available as fully-rendered 3D models, and therefore could be at least rotated. Finally, there just aren't very many new weapons/actions available. I'd rather have just one 40-card mansion deck and a bunch of weapons and actions next time around, tyvm.

I thought the same at first, but I actually find the Custom Pump Action Shotgun to be quite the great weapon, especially for being so unique. No other weapon ever printed can do what it does: thin your Inventory. It's easily one of the best midrange (30-50 cost) weapons ever printed, along with the Stun Rod and original Pump Action Shotgun.

[soundwave187]

my friends(the people that actually own the game) have banned giant killing lvl 1 because they think its OP. i don't agree with it, but i'm definitely the black sheep in all this. none of the weapons give extra explores, but i'm kinda ok with that. i can use older cards and skills to make up for it. its a good set and a lot of fun

[The Archivist]

my friends(the people that actually own the game) have banned giant killing lvl 1 because they think its OP. i don't agree with it, but i'm definitely the black sheep in all this. none of the weapons give extra explores, but i'm kinda ok with that. i can use older cards and skills to make up for it. its a good set and a lot of fun

Yeah, Giant Killing LV. 1 is purely defensive, so it's not nearly as problematic as skills that give card or damage bonuses. But it's certainly boring and takes away a lot of the suspense from the mansion. Same with Luck LV. 1.

[winonavampire]

Our initial impression is quite positive.

Characters: We have played 4 games and the Player of Barry (different every time) has won 3 of the 4 games. And after reading the FAQ, we realized we were playing him incorrectly. We would only "peak" once after the first kill... not keep going. So, Barry has been put into the naughty corner with Ominous Battle and Gathering Forces. Krauser is pretty bad, but his custom deck is pretty interesting... Krauser is pretty easy to get ahead early, but that pretty much makes his ability terrible. Really not sure what to do with him. If it was, "if you don't have the most decos" vs "you must have the lowest" he might have been a bit more playable. Honestly, I'm looking forward to games sans Barry... so we can see some of the other characters/interactions. Up until now... Barry has been an auto take.

Skills: Medic 3 and Reversal 1 seem to be auto takes as well. Giant Killing 1 did well the one time we saw it and makes dieing practically impossible. With the lack of extra explores, Medic 3 is a house (and on Barry is just stupid donkey dumb). All the skills are pretty interesting and fun and have some good utility that are lacking in the actions (Good trashing, draw etc.)

Basic Resources: They do exactly what they were intended... Speed up the early game. I originally thought the auto resources were an "easy" mode for the game, but since trashing is so difficult in other ways, it helps the game along with out making it too fast.

Weapons: The weapons are lower powered, and that is a good thing. It is a bit harder to put together 80+ damage with just weapons. You really need skills/actions to sculpt good damage. The effects are pretty fair, nothing ah-mazing... Which makes the one weapon master a little under whelming...

Actions: The actions are all awkward and clumsy. The days of Escape from Dead City and Umbrella Corps are long in the past and you actually have work at building a hand and make choices. This is probably one of my favorite parts of Mercenaries. Trashing with actions only is rather difficult as well. I try to make sure I have a skill that trashes.

Mansion: We haven't played the separated mansion, just the whole **** thing shuffled up (minus Chicken). The weaker infected coupled with the high health characters makes the mansion pretty easy. Characters are always taking damage, and rarely anyone sits on full, but we have yet to see a character killed. I miss Nemesis. Nemesis was one of those monsters that was always worse than the boss. Nothing in the mansion really causes that kinda of... are you kidding me?? feeling. (Although, I guess playing with a small <18 resource pool would help that...) The infected that causes everyone to remove a resource is kinda silly and pointless. Unless everyone wants to turn on the <18 Resource Infected.