Claustrophobia: De Profundis

For those of you just joining us, it's the expansion to Claustrophobia which is due late this month (or early next month), if CROC manages to retrieve the copies from the South Pacific.

A few weeks back, I shared an unboxing video for Claustrophobia de Profundis.

A few days after that, Asmodee posted a video they shot at GenCon of me, talking briefly about the game.

So what's left to say?
A fair amount - the video doesn't show off just how well-put-together the pieces are. Seriously: Check these beauties out:

Now, because this is the internet and people on the internet seem to need to complain, allow me to complain about these figures for you. Or more accurately, allow me to list the complaints I've seen about these figures:

1) The Sicaria need eyes.
2) The clothing the Sicaria are wearing is too bright.
3) The Hellhounds don't seem to be as detailed as the Troglodytes from the base game were. 

Sounds like ... really minor complaints, honestly.  Would the Sicaria look better with eyes?  Probably. But I don't know that I'd have been satisfied with poorly-done eyes, either. My Redeemer has slightly crazy-looking eyes - it's appropriate, mind you. The Redeemer always comes across (to me, at least) as a bit unhinged.

The clothing for the Sicaria isn't actually bright.  They're armored. So the Sicaria (Angela and Ruth, according to CROC) are the only characters in the game (other than the Redeemer) wearing any sort of armor.  In fact, these are not cheesecake figures by any stretch of the imagination, which is nice.

So what's in the box?

Sphere covered this. What he didn't mention is that there are TWELVE scenarios in there - that's double what was in the base game.

I've played a few of the scenarios, too - it's good. Really good.

A few months ago, Asmodee posted something on their websitesite that caused my wife to comment. They basically said, "If you dislike Claustrophobia, you're going to hate the expansion." She thought it was bad marketing. But it's true.

What this set does is take the base game and turn it up a few notches. Everything I liked about the base game is enhanced with the expansion.  The Demon player has difficult decisions to make with their dice every turn - do they need to get more TP? What's a better choice: 2 TP to buy a Demon or an extra die next turn? Will a card help? What's more important in this situation: A Demon or a Troglodyte?

With the addition of the expansion, the Demon player has to keep track of their Hellhounds, too. They only cost 3 TP to summon, and get a free die in the turn in which they're summoned. But in later turns, they use of one of the Demon player's dice.

The Humans previously had to decide where to put their dice to do the most good during initiative - the Sicaria don't make that decision any easier, as their skills make them different both from one another and from the rest of the team.  Not only that, but the question of attacking the Demon or the Trogs is harder, because it's possible to attack Demons, Troglodytes, and Hellhounds.

All in all, it's a very strong expansion that doesn't detract from the base game at all. It maintains its strong theme and continues to be a joy and a delight.