New Spirits Gush Thread

Games Spirit Island
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Hi everyone! Long time, no see!

I just got my copy of Jagged Earth the other day, and just finished sleeving it and assembling the Broken Token insert last night.

I'm really excited to play it (unfortunately, game nights are a premium right now, so it will probably be a while before I am able to) but in the meantime, I figured we might as well make a thread where we can just kind of talk about the new stuff and how cool it is.

For instance, I am really excited to play as Tricky Dick (Grinning Trickster) and Shifting Memory of Ages, but almost all of them have something really appealing about them.

I also have funny names for most of them, but I'll spare you those. Until I decide not to.

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Good idea! I'm going to try to remember the order I played the new spirits in.

I printed out Shifting Memory and played with it, but I ironically don't remember anything specific about the experience.

The first spirit I played with after getting the game was Volcano Looming. I thought it had a really cool shtick that was almost like a land version of Ocean's Hungry Grasp, and I started thinking of it as the Spirit Island equivalent of Absolute Zero. Sadly, I blew myself up *too* much right before the Trickster accidentally blighted the island and triggered a downward spiral, forcing me to destroy my remaining presence. Whoops!

The Shroud of Silent Mist is, I think, the best of all the fear-generating spirits. I really like the way it cares about and affects the board state *in order to* generate fear. This spoke to me in a way that BoDaN - which I feel almost doesn't care about the board at all, and just moves fear tokens around - really never did. The mechanic of leaving Invaders damaged in your lands is a really interesting resource-generating mechanic.

I thought Many Minds was kind of a better version of Sharp Fangs, partly because it had a much easier time getting Beasts on the board.

I really enjoyed the Downpour! Unlike Lightning, the other many-card-play Spirit, this one went the interesting route of playing one power. Again. And again. You can really chain up some crazy abilities with this one! I ended up getting the threshold for Cast Down into the Briny Deep, too, but one turn too late before we won anyway.

Shattered Days was the most complex spirit I've ever played. I had a really hard time gaming out the most advantageous ways to use its powers, and unfortunately ran into a ton of analysis paralysis. Next time I try that spirit, I think I'm just going to go for things without thinking too hard. I suspect the way to start thinking about this spirit is really, "I'm doubling invader actions on one board? Oh well, I'm sure it'll even out in the end." Rather than, "I'd better use this card only when doubling invader actions somewhere is advantageous to me."

Unyielding Defiance really blunts ravages. It fits right in with Vital Strength or Rampant Green in that way. It starts off with super-powered defense. Once I started hitting its thresholds it was even more so, plus offense. Unlike the Branch and Claw tokens, I don't think Badlands is a big addition to the game. It certainly changes some specific calculations, but it's not a dominant factor.

I'm trepidatiously curious about Finder but haven't tried it yet.

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"Let's See What Happens" is probably my favorite innate power in the game. It's really solid thematically, too. He pulls a random card, explores every option that it can make, and then either goes "eh, that was fun once" and discards it, or "let's do that again!" and keeps it. But if he does keep it, it will never be as fun or memorable as that first time he tried it.

 

Hufflepuff (they make excellent finders!) looks really fun too. I can already think of fun ways of shunting invaders all accross the island. If done right, you can use the "combine two lands" power to merge an Inlandland with a coastal one, and use Ocean's Hungry Grasp to swallow buildings from the middle of the map.

I really like Silent Hill for the way it personifies just this looming, creeping dread. It just seems CRUEL, in a way no other spirit is really.

Rock of Ages is neat in that it has a lot of potential as a jack-of-all-trades. He can predict fear cards, grab as many major powers as he wants, and uses Thresholds whenever he wants.

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I got to play last Friday, and sure enough the new spirits are really cool.

First game was Shroud of Silent Mist, Shifting Memory of Ages, and Lightning's Swift Strike.

We were accidentally playing on easy mode because we set up for two players, and then the third joined, but we didn't add the extra Fear tokens until about halfway through the game. Still, Shroud's ability to passively generate fear and slowly choke out invaders was a lot of fun. Ages took a little while to get going, but I managed some cool stuff with his Major Powers, including getting Dream of the Untouched Land to trigger.

Second game was Starlight Seeks its Form, Spread of Rampant Green, and Grinning Trickster Stirs Up Trouble.

As I thought, "Let's See What Happens" is a lot of fun, even if it was almost never useful. I got to use it basically every turn, though, so it was free, if nothing else. The real star was his ability to Cascade Strife tokens. It was VERY effective in de-clawing the invaders' ravages. David made excellent use of Starlight, and turned it into an offensive powerhouse to compensate for the otherwise detrimental lack of offense between the other spirits.

All in all, I can't wait to play again, and the new expansion is super cool.