Loved the story, combat was fine, didn’t care for diplomacy. Brutal, grindy and random at times. Played the main campaign and the two stretch goal campaigns fully solo and sold it after that. No regrets for playing and/or selling it, story was well worth it, but one run per campaign is enough for me.
Fantastic review, totally agree about the odd scoring - objectively, not a great game but when you play it, there's just something about it. Maybe one day we will get a streamlined version
thanks man! It's just that magic of the mystery that keeps us thinking of the game outside of the game! If it was easier to digest overall this could be one of my favorite thematic games ever. -Ashton
Im glad I got the game, the combat system and diplomacy system is something, like you said, was something I've never seen before, really....ever. Took me a little while to figure it out properly and get the flow going proper, but now that I've got it, I can't get enough of it. Looking forward to seeing the difference between the single player and coop campaign. Super good review, you get the sub.
Best review of the game I have seen. Still waiting for my 1Wave language edition. Thank you guys for pointing out all the issues the game has and it's shortcomings. I feel well prepared for homeruling and having fun!
awesome to hear that! The gameplay certainly has some faults, but as Daniel gets close to finishing the game (he's on chapter 14 right now), the story does not disappoint from what he's been telling me. Houserule generously, and just get wrapped in Avalon! -Ashton
I love the energy you bring vs the other guy (your cousin? I seem to remember that being mentioned) who provides a much more reserved and level headed delivery. Great balance..
25:00 I'm not gonna watch over an hour of this, but your analysis is spot-on. (another lesson to be wary of those kickstarter adventure game books with map)
Very thorough and detailed review. I've played this game a bunch and conclude I don't like the writing at all whatsoever. A lot of this review's score is riding on that story, so take this message as a warning...
I mean, early on there's also the learning curve, but I found that the only reason I ever struggled from combat early on was from bad draws, so if you fix your deck through upgrades, you have an answer for everything. That, or pick up a good weapon and/or combat skill card and just start killing everything turn one. I'd imagine combat would remain decently challenging if you don't have any of these things. -Daniel
The way I see it, if I'm playing for the story, I'd rather just read a book or play a video game, instead of paying the physical component overhead that just serves to gatekeep me from the stuff I actually find interesting.
Played the tutorial. Realised that I had no idea how to play after completing this!? Haven't got around to actually starting the campaign because I don't know what I am doing?!
@@Shelfside fair enough. Query for you if you had enough money to buy tainted grail: fall of avalon 2.0 or similar campaign game which one would you go for. I am getting kings of ruin, oathsworn already
Great review! Please do Etherfields as well, im curious to see what you think about that =) it was really obvious that you had to just figure things out in etherfields and it has been my most frustrating experiences ever to play. thats why I decided to drop out on Aweken realms "point-and-click adventure simulators" which id rather just play as a video game... which I never do anyways :) Btw are you excited for Unfathomable???? =D
I think you may have ovirgrinded the first few scenarios. When I first played I only focused on the story and surviving. I didn't spend much time grinding anything other. It's fair to say that I went the 3A and 4A route that is arguably much shorter. When at the end of scenario 5 or 6 I fought THE level 4 encounter I struggled so hard, I ended up cheating a bit since I wanted to know what happened if I won. And don't get me wrong, I am no casual player. I spent at least 3 hours on each chapter trying to maximally optimise every encounter.
Wow this is a big long review. You outdid yourselves. This game was always on my sights, and I'm sad to hear that the gameplay of it needs to be "homebrewed" for it to be able to be played as intended: for the story behind it. I think I will just await for a co-op pc version or just forget it exists. The cost of the game (as of now due to not being out) is a very big no. I also got my image of King Arthur tainted by Monthy Python as well as the anime of Fate, but no regrets there. Maybe once its out with new rules and better priced. Until then, I'll stick to the games I own. Thanks again for the amazing lengthy in-detail review with no spoilers!
I kept hearing coconuts in my head for the first couple hours playing this no kidding :) But glad you appreciated it! We certainly enjoy the game with the homebrewing, but that is more work for an already expensive game! Our eyes are peeled for the next great story campaign, I heard great things about Sleeping Gods -Ashton
@@Shelfside If I ever play it I'll make sure to have some coconuts ready for the first traveling sounds. Although this time locations are really just a model. I'm sure the story is great, since its the thing I've heard appreciated the most so I'll make sure to try to read it if anything as dark fantasy when done well is really good. Thank you again at Shelfside for bringing such high quality content to us. I was a bit skeptical when I heard the praise this game got and I can see that was the right way to think of the game, as usual you never know with Kickstarter games. You either get a gem, something that is alright, a laughing stock or a bit of all 3 in one box.
Lmao yea the Arthur in Tainted Grail is super far removed from waifu Fate Arthur, he's described as being a massive hulk of metal and death hahaha -Daniel
ROTFL! I've lost count of the number of rave reviews of games lately that are so similar. This is one of the best games I've ever played, after I threw out the rule book, made my own rules for this section (or ignored it completely) and threw out half of these cards.
@@Shelfside Tainted Grail and Etherfields reviews are more of a "create your own game from these totally unrelated modules that were supposed to work together, but no one (including the designers) could figure out how to do it", system. LOL
Great review! Like the story, but I’ve made it about half way through the Last Knight expansion and grew so tired of the grind and encounters all the time, that I haven’t played in a few months
Dang I've heard the grind in the expansions aren't as bad grind-wise because they aren't as focused on menhirs story wise so that sucks to hear -Daniel
@@Shelfside it’s not as bad, but the story feels much slower to start and some other changes I don’t want to spoil. I’ve heard Age of Legends is fantastic though, so there’s hope!
This is awesome rofl. They better do iss vanguard right. Seems after the first couple Scenarios just roll a dice pick a outcome and go through the story lol.
glad you liked it! Daniel actually picked up Bloodborne: TBG the other day, but unlikely we'll make a review on it. We have covered Bloodborne: The Card Game on the channel though! We've been playing Cthluhu death may die lately, and its been a blast. I've had my eye on Arkham 3E, but never quite pulled the trigger. Wouldn't mind giving it a go one day! -Ashton
@@Shelfside ahhhhh bummer, woulda liked to see your guys's thoughts on it Nice! My bro and I finished the first 2 seasons over the last year, review coming on that? 👀
Thank you! I live in Brazil and I was thinking abou buying TG here, the price in the local currency is something about US$ 300,00. Your explanation made me decide not to buy it and save a lot of money :)
Good thing you didn't buy because 2nd edition is coming soon lmao, let's see how much was fixed! But their gamefound page also said some fixes can't be done because they're too inherent to the design, so more drastic changes like proper double sided map cards will be part of the sequel/prequel Kings of Ruin! -Daniel
So just to set the pace - I'm currently midway through the 3rd campaign. I have completed Fall of Avalon and Last Knight entirely. I am... doubtful of a lot of points. First and foremost being difficulty. On Chapter 6, beating encounter lvl4 solo ? Diplomatic encounter too easy ? You have to be doing something wrong. An encounter lvl4 can still beat my ass at the very end of the game if I'm not careful. Are you sure you're paying the right cost for exp ? Did you add yourself some random xp for some reasons ? Are you ignoring some monster keywords ? Or did you just took a full 5 hour session grinding away in a not-so-punishing chapter !? The section about cube around 44-45min seems to push around this. And if not, well, I'll also inform you that the other campaigns are in fact harder. And there *are* lvl5/epic encounters. Also, redundancy of random encounters surprises me. While there are a lot of random encounters, I've went through a full campaign and I haven't seen half the decks. Grinding is also a lot less than other similar games (namely 7th Continent) and feels very right to me. I do 100% agree on the rulebook and menhirs usability tho. And yes, guardian minis are kinda useless.
Very sure on rules here, I've spent way too long checking on rules due to the nature of the rulebook. Exp comes easy from tier 3's, and so when I plan routes I walk through as many random encounter locations as possible, which is massive efficiency. Say on a turn I move move move explore, end up doing two fights and a successful exploration, that can be a turn that made 3 exp. On top of that sometimes you have to spend a day or two grinding food, and those grocery trips usually net 2-3 exp as well. I've never personally done the grind cheese where you camp certain areas to infinite exp, but noted that they exist. Tier 4's aren't common yet for me, they usually do damage to me, but if I spend consumable items they're trivial. At chapter 4 I had Now or Never, 2 courage, 1 practicality, clansword, ornamental armor, and a handful of combat deck upgrades for Maggot. My opening hands typically did at least 10 damage upfront based on what I draw, which can definitely oneshot most enemies and even higher 10's if I'm lucky. Say I open with heroic strike into overhead smash into final blow, which is 13 damage already, 15 if i use the sword. If I open with card draw like from Glimpse of the future, a one shot is all but guaranteed through sheer card spam. I've achieved similar results when I later got runic sword as well, and I tend to interchange between the two weapons based on how I'm feeling (I'll probably eventually get the dual wield skill). Also, even if I don't get the one shot, I can end on cards like defend or thick barkskin and still get the safe two shot. The only keywords I'm actually threatened by are fast (unless im using runic sword) and ambush. Everything else doesn't really matter that much. Diplomacy is a complete joke, if you open art of deduction into rhetoric that alone auto wins most encounters. There's too many good basic cards that do everything from negating enemy response like Staunch Defense or cards that are overstatted like heroic presence and holy verse . But yeah, needless to say now that it's ch 6, I'm way more stacked than from ch4, and this positive feedback loop is never going to end unless I go out of my way to avoid fights, but if it's more energy efficient to walk through locations that start fights, why wouldn't I? Events and Menhirs are on a clock after all, and despite having a lot of reputation, food, wealth, and magic, they're always being drained (not rep) so it's not like it's wise to blast ahead and use up all the supply. I want to be as far away from a death spiral as possible, because like Pandemic, you're always on a clock and falling behind makes it easier to keep on falling, but vice versa if you're ahead. Hope this answers your questions! -Daniel
@@Shelfside It kinda does. Made me open my box to double check stuff! But yes, it all seems legit. It seems you managed to find some slightly broken stuff. Like you said, on which I agree; skills aren't exactly balanced. First for the weapon as there are only one in the massive item deck. Then for the cards, and then for having both 2 aggression and 2 courage early on ! But it does seems like you found a little "loop" and are able to get through it and "abuse" it, in the kind of a reverse death spiral. Or as you said yourself, "positive feedback loop". But mostly, you got that loop VERY EARLY. Chapter 6 is insanely fast to have all this stuff. May be it's partly due to starting coop and continuing solo ? I had a good time with Arev in Fall of Avalon and even managed to win the toughest encounter in the whole campaign (won't spoil, but it's beefy and I'm not even sure you can win without "the" weapon). Not as a breeze as you seems to be doing right now, but I wouldn't call my run of Fall of Avalon especially hard by any mean. Last Knight absolutely boop'ed my ass around and I was running from most encounter for basically the whole game. EXP also gains other uses that can be quite... essential. Age of Legends outright killed me in the first chapter, which never really happened before. I had the "you are dying" status solo, but I never outright died. It was... a very brutal start. I restarted and did okay, but it was still clutch even knowing my way around. But thanks for taking the time to answer and clear it up. It does seems like you're doing everything right, just have all the pieces together early. Side note, the "whole lot of reputation" thing also probably comes for the ability to easily get through diplomatic encounter. Because avoiding/failing those usually cost (a lot of) rep, which I definitely did A LOT, especially in Last Knight ! Hope you're still having fun through everything ! Tainted Grail is definitely my favorite board gaming experience. The moment where you import your choices from Fall of Avalon into Last Knight is also quite memorable. Can't help but wonder a whole lot about the "what if"' ! As a final note; Don't get disheartened by Chapter 7, it's a... weird one. It gets better :)
@@Amuny666 No worries, I'm having a lot of fun with the game still, but at this point I'm house ruling a ton of combat and menhir rules so I can progress the story faster. Again, I don't find the game mechanically sound, but so far the story has been phenomenal! I realize I may have been lucky with my early items, but I don't think it's too much of a stretch for min-maxers like myself to quickly realize just how strong certain skills, cards, and items are once we understand the combat. When I saw that leveling aggression for maggot was dirt cheap since he has no empathy, and how crazy good aggression skills were for fighting I focused hard on that after my first point in practicality. I also thought I was breaking the rules or doing something wrong until I went to bgg and found a skill guide that ended up confirming my suspicions that the game is trivial if you optimize right. I suppose it just comes with the territory since we review games and also play games with a competitive group. Tryharding a game like Gloomhaven makes much more sense than doing that to Tainted Grail lol -Daniel
Good and interesting review, but it was a little bit too long. I enjoy shorter mor focused content. I was really interested in the game, but would not have watched a video that long about a game I never heard of.
This is pure speculation based on nothing but your review of the game, but it gives me the impression of a project that was designed, but not developed.
So story is cool, but it is a little hard to get to it. Heard it gets slower as you go as "encounters" are more frequent. Ill pass, thanks for the help. Y'all might want to look into Forgotten Waters. Awesome storys, quick decisions and mechanics.
Anyone else sick o grey minis in boardgames? I have no interest in painting them and even if I did I wouldn't want to pain every game. Colour plastics are not *that* expensive now and even if there were there must be options other than grey minis
if you're a solo player, I think that is 100% the way to go. In person though, we found it very fun to bounce of ideas while looking at the map, but of course at the cost of downtime when you're not included in a fight. -Ashton
yep! As another comment said really well: It's objectively just not a highly scored game, there's a lot of jankiness and frustration overall. But there's that magic to the story that keeps us immersed despite the long-winded cons! It does definitely help that we both like our dark fantasy, highly thematic games. Hope this helped clear up any confusion :D -Ashton
True! Though it's a much bigger problem here because it's so much easier to do, and if anything you're incentivized to do so to counter the grind. In our playthrough, we weren't even trying to minmax at first, we were just playing to try and stay ahead and not fall behind (we're very used to Pandemic as an example), so we were taking every opportunity we could find to get exp and otherwise strengthen ourselves. As we got used to the game and picked up skills that we saw as strong, it caused a domino effect as we started to get even stronger faster as well as better recognize what was powerful. Meanwhile in DnD, there can still be fun to had with min maxing if you're doing a certain kind of campaign, plus the DM can always just tweak whatever they want to their liking to fix balance. -Daniel
@@Shelfside your review and pointers all seem very logical and made sense. If you figure out a sweet spot in house rules. Love to hear it. I was told to do menhirs with +1 range and thats it.
It sounds like the developed a game and stopped before it finished (or too aggressive deadline) and/or never playtested it. And big uff with the female character. like... why?? also u could have done a part (or other video) with a spoiler review where u can talk about it. seems fair.
I can never decide if I wanna do full spoiler videos because follow up videos already do worse than the main one and most people who engage with these games are only dipping their toes in anyways. Maybe it's worth it for the people who don't care and never were gonna play in the first place? I've entertained the idea of doing a full spoiler story discussion if I ever beat the full 3 stories since I can't justify it for Fall of Avalon ending on a cliffhanger -Daniel
@@Shelfside that makes sense and i understand it. you could find terms in literacy critic to describe some good values of a narration to entice without spoiling. but just spitballing. i know the problem when i find a good story in any medium and u cant spoil it aahhh. xD
Guys, don't fall into the trap. The reason why I preferred your reviews than the others was because yours were to-the-point and there were less unnecessary stories. But now you're just copying the formula from other review channels and make it too damn long, which is even worse.
It’s entertaining. I genuinely enjoy this. They even specify the pros and cons in the video tags. So...how long the video is or how to the point you want it is up to you bud. If you don’t have time to watch it, don’t fucking watch it
![ISS Vanguard Review - What’s Beyond Earth? [NO SPOILERS!]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/GwJ9qe3jxds/mqdefault.jpg)
75 minute Tainted Grail review. You bloody legends/madmen. ♥️
The production and hard work put into this video is incredible. Well done.
thank you! More stuff coming :) -Ashton
Loved the story, combat was fine, didn’t care for diplomacy. Brutal, grindy and random at times. Played the main campaign and the two stretch goal campaigns fully solo and sold it after that. No regrets for playing and/or selling it, story was well worth it, but one run per campaign is enough for me.
This is the way.
-Daniel
Incredible achievement. I love that you actually spoke in detail about the pros and cons and you humor is truly something else. Loved it
the most detailed and honest review ive seen. excellent work guys
Much appreciated!
Loved the video guys! Can see the time and effort you put in to this.
It's awesome to see you guys together again, in the same room! Awesome review, by the way!
So stoked to finally be working on vids together too! More big stuff coming out for ya guys :D -Ashton
Fantastic review, totally agree about the odd scoring - objectively, not a great game but when you play it, there's just something about it. Maybe one day we will get a streamlined version
thanks man! It's just that magic of the mystery that keeps us thinking of the game outside of the game! If it was easier to digest overall this could be one of my favorite thematic games ever. -Ashton
@Simon G Well boy do I have news for you! Did you take a look at the new campaign? :)
@@Maspital oh yes! And update packs for the previous is very interesting 🤔
Wow an hour review, this is serious! Thanks guys!
Im glad I got the game, the combat system and diplomacy system is something, like you said, was something I've never seen before, really....ever.
Took me a little while to figure it out properly and get the flow going proper, but now that I've got it, I can't get enough of it. Looking forward to seeing the difference between the single player and coop campaign.
Super good review, you get the sub.
That intro gave me chills for real(O_O)
Also awesome vid guys this game looks pretty cool and nice dark souls references :)
wait its all ds3
And now we wait for the Kingdom Death: Monster review.
bahahaha. When we can get our hands on it of course, Daniel has had his eye on it for years -Ashton
Great vid! Great energy throughout!
Appreciate it!
Best review of the game I have seen. Still waiting for my 1Wave language edition. Thank you guys for pointing out all the issues the game has and it's shortcomings. I feel well prepared for homeruling and having fun!
awesome to hear that! The gameplay certainly has some faults, but as Daniel gets close to finishing the game (he's on chapter 14 right now), the story does not disappoint from what he's been telling me. Houserule generously, and just get wrapped in Avalon! -Ashton
Lord Daniel and one of my most anticipated games? Yes please
I love the energy you bring vs the other guy (your cousin? I seem to remember that being mentioned) who provides a much more reserved and level headed delivery. Great balance..
ahaha, not blood related, but thanks for this feedback! -Ashton
@@Shelfside huh. I thought there was a mention of that. Ah well. Cheers.
Me: "A one hour 15 min review? Heh, I'll just catch 5 or 10 mins now and check out the rest later"
*watches entire video in one sitting*
Tbh that happens to me all the time with long video essay/analysis youtube videos lol
-Daniel
Each time I hear Dark Souls, I'm like "What ? Where ?". I need that game.
Sad that i missed the kickstarter for this :(
don't worry, there's gonna be a second edition later on when they launch Kings of Ruin
-Daniel
25:00 I'm not gonna watch over an hour of this, but your analysis is spot-on.
(another lesson to be wary of those kickstarter adventure game books with map)
17:21 freak out was awesome!!!
Very thorough and detailed review. I've played this game a bunch and conclude I don't like the writing at all whatsoever. A lot of this review's score is riding on that story, so take this message as a warning...
Great review!
i love your lengthy reviews! awesome work!
I got to chapter 3 and I got scared because all the battles were so tough. I'm glad to hear that it does get easier
I mean, early on there's also the learning curve, but I found that the only reason I ever struggled from combat early on was from bad draws, so if you fix your deck through upgrades, you have an answer for everything.
That, or pick up a good weapon and/or combat skill card and just start killing everything turn one. I'd imagine combat would remain decently challenging if you don't have any of these things.
-Daniel
Just escape from combat.
Great review guys!
Thanks so much!
The way I see it, if I'm playing for the story, I'd rather just read a book or play a video game, instead of paying the physical component overhead that just serves to gatekeep me from the stuff I actually find interesting.
Played the tutorial. Realised that I had no idea how to play after completing this!? Haven't got around to actually starting the campaign because I don't know what I am doing?!
yeah I don't think the tutorial teaches you nearly enough! Need to read the rulebook still -Ashton
Do you guys think you’ll do Oathsworn?
no plans to cover anytime soon, we'll see! -Ashton
With 2.0 changes would you change your ratings now?
I'd imagine so, but I havn't played it yet so who knows how much the score would go up
-Daniel
@@Shelfside fair enough. Query for you if you had enough money to buy tainted grail: fall of avalon 2.0 or similar campaign game which one would you go for.
I am getting kings of ruin, oathsworn already
Great review! Please do Etherfields as well, im curious to see what you think about that =) it was really obvious that you had to just figure things out in etherfields and it has been my most frustrating experiences ever to play. thats why I decided to drop out on Aweken realms "point-and-click adventure simulators" which id rather just play as a video game... which I never do anyways :)
Btw are you excited for Unfathomable???? =D
Unfathomable!!!?? YEEESSSSS I'm so hyped :) -Ashton
Not sure if we'll get around to etherfields though, perhaps ISS vanguard will be more likely
I love the humour you add into your reviews 👍🏻
I really liked playing TG, maybe I should again? Now?
I think you may have ovirgrinded the first few scenarios. When I first played I only focused on the story and surviving. I didn't spend much time grinding anything other. It's fair to say that I went the 3A and 4A route that is arguably much shorter. When at the end of scenario 5 or 6 I fought THE level 4 encounter I struggled so hard, I ended up cheating a bit since I wanted to know what happened if I won. And don't get me wrong, I am no casual player. I spent at least 3 hours on each chapter trying to maximally optimise every encounter.
Wow this is a big long review. You outdid yourselves. This game was always on my sights, and I'm sad to hear that the gameplay of it needs to be "homebrewed" for it to be able to be played as intended: for the story behind it.
I think I will just await for a co-op pc version or just forget it exists. The cost of the game (as of now due to not being out) is a very big no. I also got my image of King Arthur tainted by Monthy Python as well as the anime of Fate, but no regrets there. Maybe once its out with new rules and better priced. Until then, I'll stick to the games I own. Thanks again for the amazing lengthy in-detail review with no spoilers!
I kept hearing coconuts in my head for the first couple hours playing this no kidding :)
But glad you appreciated it! We certainly enjoy the game with the homebrewing, but that is more work for an already expensive game! Our eyes are peeled for the next great story campaign, I heard great things about Sleeping Gods -Ashton
@@Shelfside If I ever play it I'll make sure to have some coconuts ready for the first traveling sounds. Although this time locations are really just a model.
I'm sure the story is great, since its the thing I've heard appreciated the most so I'll make sure to try to read it if anything as dark fantasy when done well is really good.
Thank you again at Shelfside for bringing such high quality content to us. I was a bit skeptical when I heard the praise this game got and I can see that was the right way to think of the game, as usual you never know with Kickstarter games. You either get a gem, something that is alright, a laughing stock or a bit of all 3 in one box.
Lmao yea the Arthur in Tainted Grail is super far removed from waifu Fate Arthur, he's described as being a massive hulk of metal and death hahaha
-Daniel
ROTFL! I've lost count of the number of rave reviews of games lately that are so similar. This is one of the best games I've ever played, after I threw out the rule book, made my own rules for this section (or ignored it completely) and threw out half of these cards.
Yaass hahaha
-Daniel
@@Shelfside Tainted Grail and Etherfields reviews are more of a "create your own game from these totally unrelated modules that were supposed to work together, but no one (including the designers) could figure out how to do it", system. LOL
Great video!! Your voice is awesome for audio.
Oh thank you!
-Daniel
Great review! Like the story, but I’ve made it about half way through the Last Knight expansion and grew so tired of the grind and encounters all the time, that I haven’t played in a few months
Dang I've heard the grind in the expansions aren't as bad grind-wise because they aren't as focused on menhirs story wise so that sucks to hear
-Daniel
@@Shelfside it’s not as bad, but the story feels much slower to start and some other changes I don’t want to spoil. I’ve heard Age of Legends is fantastic though, so there’s hope!
It isn't watch and play and it's longer than an hour! Good Lord!!!
@57:08 and that's how I succeeded at the encounter of the Weeping Orphan :|
........well he stopped crying, now didn't he? :|
"Unless you have the most wrinkled brain on the planet." 😂
Epic review!
Haaaa try etherfield haaaa you gonna go coucoubananaz... no more awakenrealm on my table...
Wait... There's 2 separate people!?
missed opportunity not to get an old lady narrator like the one in the Souls games for the intro lol
This is awesome rofl. They better do iss vanguard right. Seems after the first couple
Scenarios just roll a dice pick a outcome and go through the story lol.
Did you try space base
I'm glad to see more team members... more reviews for Disney Villainous 😏
ahaha I see ya with the villainous! It's definitely a little high on the review list right now -Ashton
wonder how the rules 2.0 'fix' your CONS
Can't say I'll get the game, but loved the review!
Any chance you guys would do a Bloodborne:TBG review? Or Arkham Horror 3E? Great channel 😃
glad you liked it! Daniel actually picked up Bloodborne: TBG the other day, but unlikely we'll make a review on it. We have covered Bloodborne: The Card Game on the channel though! We've been playing Cthluhu death may die lately, and its been a blast.
I've had my eye on Arkham 3E, but never quite pulled the trigger. Wouldn't mind giving it a go one day! -Ashton
@@Shelfside ahhhhh bummer, woulda liked to see your guys's thoughts on it
Nice! My bro and I finished the first 2 seasons over the last year, review coming on that? 👀
Lol. 1 hour review. Love it. Let me grab some popcorn and a some coke.
Please please please update this when you finish the game!
We have plans to! Daniel has brought the game home to hopefully finish the campaign -Ashton
7:33 what was that?
what like the late cut or the words being said?
-Daniel
Thank you! I live in Brazil and I was thinking abou buying TG here, the price in the local currency is something about US$ 300,00. Your explanation made me decide not to buy it and save a lot of money :)
Awesome! There's also a new version in the works that might be up your alley! We may have something to say about it in the future :) -Ashton
Good thing you didn't buy because 2nd edition is coming soon lmao, let's see how much was fixed! But their gamefound page also said some fixes can't be done because they're too inherent to the design, so more drastic changes like proper double sided map cards will be part of the sequel/prequel Kings of Ruin!
-Daniel
Will you eventually review everdell
absolutely, not sure when im gonna get around to it tho
-Daniel
@@Shelfside ok
So just to set the pace - I'm currently midway through the 3rd campaign. I have completed Fall of Avalon and Last Knight entirely.
I am... doubtful of a lot of points.
First and foremost being difficulty. On Chapter 6, beating encounter lvl4 solo ? Diplomatic encounter too easy ?
You have to be doing something wrong. An encounter lvl4 can still beat my ass at the very end of the game if I'm not careful. Are you sure you're paying the right cost for exp ? Did you add yourself some random xp for some reasons ? Are you ignoring some monster keywords ? Or did you just took a full 5 hour session grinding away in a not-so-punishing chapter !? The section about cube around 44-45min seems to push around this.
And if not, well, I'll also inform you that the other campaigns are in fact harder. And there *are* lvl5/epic encounters.
Also, redundancy of random encounters surprises me. While there are a lot of random encounters, I've went through a full campaign and I haven't seen half the decks.
Grinding is also a lot less than other similar games (namely 7th Continent) and feels very right to me.
I do 100% agree on the rulebook and menhirs usability tho. And yes, guardian minis are kinda useless.
Very sure on rules here, I've spent way too long checking on rules due to the nature of the rulebook.
Exp comes easy from tier 3's, and so when I plan routes I walk through as many random encounter locations as possible, which is massive efficiency. Say on a turn I move move move explore, end up doing two fights and a successful exploration, that can be a turn that made 3 exp. On top of that sometimes you have to spend a day or two grinding food, and those grocery trips usually net 2-3 exp as well. I've never personally done the grind cheese where you camp certain areas to infinite exp, but noted that they exist.
Tier 4's aren't common yet for me, they usually do damage to me, but if I spend consumable items they're trivial.
At chapter 4 I had Now or Never, 2 courage, 1 practicality, clansword, ornamental armor, and a handful of combat deck upgrades for Maggot. My opening hands typically did at least 10 damage upfront based on what I draw, which can definitely oneshot most enemies and even higher 10's if I'm lucky. Say I open with heroic strike into overhead smash into final blow, which is 13 damage already, 15 if i use the sword. If I open with card draw like from Glimpse of the future, a one shot is all but guaranteed through sheer card spam. I've achieved similar results when I later got runic sword as well, and I tend to interchange between the two weapons based on how I'm feeling (I'll probably eventually get the dual wield skill). Also, even if I don't get the one shot, I can end on cards like defend or thick barkskin and still get the safe two shot. The only keywords I'm actually threatened by are fast (unless im using runic sword) and ambush. Everything else doesn't really matter that much.
Diplomacy is a complete joke, if you open art of deduction into rhetoric that alone auto wins most encounters. There's too many good basic cards that do everything from negating enemy response like Staunch Defense or cards that are overstatted like heroic presence and holy verse .
But yeah, needless to say now that it's ch 6, I'm way more stacked than from ch4, and this positive feedback loop is never going to end unless I go out of my way to avoid fights, but if it's more energy efficient to walk through locations that start fights, why wouldn't I? Events and Menhirs are on a clock after all, and despite having a lot of reputation, food, wealth, and magic, they're always being drained (not rep) so it's not like it's wise to blast ahead and use up all the supply. I want to be as far away from a death spiral as possible, because like Pandemic, you're always on a clock and falling behind makes it easier to keep on falling, but vice versa if you're ahead.
Hope this answers your questions!
-Daniel
@@Shelfside It kinda does. Made me open my box to double check stuff!
But yes, it all seems legit. It seems you managed to find some slightly broken stuff. Like you said, on which I agree; skills aren't exactly balanced.
First for the weapon as there are only one in the massive item deck. Then for the cards, and then for having both 2 aggression and 2 courage early on !
But it does seems like you found a little "loop" and are able to get through it and "abuse" it, in the kind of a reverse death spiral. Or as you said yourself, "positive feedback loop". But mostly, you got that loop VERY EARLY. Chapter 6 is insanely fast to have all this stuff. May be it's partly due to starting coop and continuing solo ?
I had a good time with Arev in Fall of Avalon and even managed to win the toughest encounter in the whole campaign (won't spoil, but it's beefy and I'm not even sure you can win without "the" weapon). Not as a breeze as you seems to be doing right now, but I wouldn't call my run of Fall of Avalon especially hard by any mean.
Last Knight absolutely boop'ed my ass around and I was running from most encounter for basically the whole game. EXP also gains other uses that can be quite... essential.
Age of Legends outright killed me in the first chapter, which never really happened before. I had the "you are dying" status solo, but I never outright died. It was... a very brutal start. I restarted and did okay, but it was still clutch even knowing my way around.
But thanks for taking the time to answer and clear it up. It does seems like you're doing everything right, just have all the pieces together early.
Side note, the "whole lot of reputation" thing also probably comes for the ability to easily get through diplomatic encounter. Because avoiding/failing those usually cost (a lot of) rep, which I definitely did A LOT, especially in Last Knight !
Hope you're still having fun through everything ! Tainted Grail is definitely my favorite board gaming experience. The moment where you import your choices from Fall of Avalon into Last Knight is also quite memorable. Can't help but wonder a whole lot about the "what if"' !
As a final note; Don't get disheartened by Chapter 7, it's a... weird one. It gets better :)
@@Amuny666 No worries, I'm having a lot of fun with the game still, but at this point I'm house ruling a ton of combat and menhir rules so I can progress the story faster. Again, I don't find the game mechanically sound, but so far the story has been phenomenal!
I realize I may have been lucky with my early items, but I don't think it's too much of a stretch for min-maxers like myself to quickly realize just how strong certain skills, cards, and items are once we understand the combat. When I saw that leveling aggression for maggot was dirt cheap since he has no empathy, and how crazy good aggression skills were for fighting I focused hard on that after my first point in practicality.
I also thought I was breaking the rules or doing something wrong until I went to bgg and found a skill guide that ended up confirming my suspicions that the game is trivial if you optimize right.
I suppose it just comes with the territory since we review games and also play games with a competitive group. Tryharding a game like Gloomhaven makes much more sense than doing that to Tainted Grail lol
-Daniel
Hey Daniel, if you haven't played Kingdom Death Monster yet and ever happen to be in Georgia, hit me up.
Bruh I cant wait for when I get around to that game, I do know a guy here with it lol
-Daniel
Ugh now I just wanna play Dark Souls 1 again.
Cool review. Only downside oof the game is that combat feels dull after chapter 10. Its very repeyative
Good and interesting review, but it was a little bit too long. I enjoy shorter mor focused content.
I was really interested in the game, but would not have watched a video that long about a game I never heard of.
Thanks
Man, be carefoul with the Hatchet, it seems that you have the favorite on your chest
I ran out of black shirts to wear across the multiple days it took to film this lmao
-Daniel
This is pure speculation based on nothing but your review of the game, but it gives me the impression of a project that was designed, but not developed.
So story is cool, but it is a little hard to get to it. Heard it gets slower as you go as "encounters" are more frequent. Ill pass, thanks for the help.
Y'all might want to look into Forgotten Waters. Awesome storys, quick decisions and mechanics.
Plus, I'm colorblind. You know two now.
Best review so far on TG, including NPI! Thanks!
cheers man! Glad you liked it, Daniel here is having a blast going through the campaign still :) -Ashton
hahaha, I love when Daniel loses his shit :-D
Man don't make me feel like playing Elden RIng with that intro.....
THE HYPE
Dark Ring Tainted Souls Elden Grail Edgy Extravaganza bless Miyazaki
Anyone else sick o grey minis in boardgames? I have no interest in painting them and even if I did I wouldn't want to pain every game. Colour plastics are not *that* expensive now and even if there were there must be options other than grey minis
So what you're saying is just play the video game then?
if you're a solo player, I think that is 100% the way to go. In person though, we found it very fun to bounce of ideas while looking at the map, but of course at the cost of downtime when you're not included in a fight. -Ashton
More is not always better, nobody got time for this.
Exactly how I feel about the game lol
-Daniel
So you have 40 minutes of big cons and the game is a 7/10 and 8/10? What's up with that?
yep! As another comment said really well: It's objectively just not a highly scored game, there's a lot of jankiness and frustration overall. But there's that magic to the story that keeps us immersed despite the long-winded cons! It does definitely help that we both like our dark fantasy, highly thematic games. Hope this helped clear up any confusion :D -Ashton
I want it to be known that if the story and aesthetics sucked this game would easily be somewhere in the 2-4 range.
-Daniel
Min maxers can break D&D too. Thanks for this review. Play the game for thematic choices and not min max. As it will break the game.
True! Though it's a much bigger problem here because it's so much easier to do, and if anything you're incentivized to do so to counter the grind. In our playthrough, we weren't even trying to minmax at first, we were just playing to try and stay ahead and not fall behind (we're very used to Pandemic as an example), so we were taking every opportunity we could find to get exp and otherwise strengthen ourselves. As we got used to the game and picked up skills that we saw as strong, it caused a domino effect as we started to get even stronger faster as well as better recognize what was powerful.
Meanwhile in DnD, there can still be fun to had with min maxing if you're doing a certain kind of campaign, plus the DM can always just tweak whatever they want to their liking to fix balance.
-Daniel
@@Shelfside your review and pointers all seem very logical and made sense. If you figure out a sweet spot in house rules. Love to hear it. I was told to do menhirs with +1 range and thats it.
It sounds like the developed a game and stopped before it finished (or too aggressive deadline) and/or never playtested it.
And big uff with the female character. like... why??
also u could have done a part (or other video) with a spoiler review where u can talk about it. seems fair.
I can never decide if I wanna do full spoiler videos because follow up videos already do worse than the main one and most people who engage with these games are only dipping their toes in anyways. Maybe it's worth it for the people who don't care and never were gonna play in the first place? I've entertained the idea of doing a full spoiler story discussion if I ever beat the full 3 stories since I can't justify it for Fall of Avalon ending on a cliffhanger
-Daniel
@@Shelfside that makes sense and i understand it.
you could find terms in literacy critic to describe some good values of a narration to entice without spoiling. but just spitballing.
i know the problem when i find a good story in any medium and u cant spoil it aahhh. xD
Dude ya I thot so whatever ok
😂Review instead of playing more😂
Yall should really play Sleeping Gods! It Also focuses on story, but it dosent have a needlessly grindy game on the side. Really good :)
We've heard great things! Hopefully we get around to playing it one day -Ashton
this game has too many issues. I feel that Legacy of Dragonholt is be better.
So can you buy tainted grail yet? Signs point to no.
Unfortunately not in America, apparently there's distributors in other languages
-Daniel
Do you smoke weed by any chance? Like do you guy just get stoned and play board games?
How many hours for editing this monstrosity
the wyrdness really started setting upon my brain near the end honestly -Ashton
😂but I do know a guy
Guys, don't fall into the trap. The reason why I preferred your reviews than the others was because yours were to-the-point and there were less unnecessary stories. But now you're just copying the formula from other review channels and make it too damn long, which is even worse.
It’s entertaining. I genuinely enjoy this. They even specify the pros and cons in the video tags. So...how long the video is or how to the point you want it is up to you bud. If you don’t have time to watch it, don’t fucking watch it
I really enjoyed this longer review format. I think a mix of different lengths works really well together.