Adventure Tactics: Adventures in Alchemy is live (Expand your Adventure Tactics)
Update: Adventure Tactics: Adventures in Alchemy is live on Kickstarter and the campaign will run for 23 days. You may back just the expansion, or also order the base game. The all-in includes all previously released material plus neoprene mats.
Our preview post below was published on May 30.
Adventure Tactics: Adventures in Alchemy is an expansion for the 1-5 players cooperative game Adventure Tactics: Domianne’s Tower. It introduces a new hero class - the Alchemist -, new enemies, a new initiative system, and a new campaign that can be swapped with the first Act of the original game (divided in two Acts, where Act II has you exploring the title’s tower). It will launch on Kickstarter on June 1.
In the base game, you start by forming a party of 3 to 5 heroes. Each hero participates in each encounter. The game is played through a campaign, with a campaign book that describes each scenario separately. A scenario consists of a grid-based skirmish and is set up by choosing the corresponding boards, gathering all listed enemies, and preparing the boss deck. Depending on the outcome of the encounter (success, success with bonus objective fulfilled, or failure) you will follow different branches of the narrative and receive different rewards. The campaign book also features a variety of events besides these skirmishes: the party can stumble on a merchant to purchase new loot or face micro-events that offer them a choice among an array of options.
An encounter is played in a series of rounds unless either victory or defeat is triggered. Each round, you draw random order tokens for the activation of the heroes and the boss. This initiative system will be revised with the expansion. On their turn, a hero has two actions: they can play action cards to move, attack, etc., or activate a card on their board. They can also prepare by putting one of the “class features” cards (explanation below) on their board for future activation, and equip a new weapon, armor, or item. On a boss turn, a card from the boss deck is revealed. It can activate the boss itself, or minions, that will move towards the closest hero and attack as soon as they are in range.
The crux of the game lies in the involved leveling up of the characters and the class customization it offers. The base game features five core classes and eighteen elite classes that are hybrids of the existing classes. Therefore, the addition of a new core class in the expansion will allow for a larger span of customization. Each class comes with its own action cards, specific dice used by these actions, passive abilities, and “class features” that are powerful abilities that can be used once “charged” on the player board. When you level up, you gain new cards related to a specific class (not necessarily your own). All these cards are stored in a tuck box that also holds your character-specific equipment which tracks how your character grows as you dive further into the campaign.